Black-lash the everyday experience of terrorism

When we examine the recent bombings and ponder the destined backlash our brown comrades will endure and how to support them through it, do we also reflect on the daily terror that is our lived experiences as Black folks or are we too dark to be worthy?

The Black backlash is everyday, everywhere it is prevalent and persistent. It comes from the dark abyss of white power (in our universities, our workplace, where we volunteer, where our kids go to school), white passing privilege and from people of color who gain access to traditionally white only places of power based on the skin color gradient at the door. Its the social hierarchy of white supremacy that teaches us that the closer you are to whiteness the prettier, smarter, more trustworthy, more qualified, less violent and more reliable you are.

I recently had a well known brown feminist dog me to someone in the nicest, most politically correct way I've heard in a while, by condescendingly commenting on how well my attire fits in/ assimilates (for a Black woman) at a traditionally white only feminist space that she a brown woman holds power in. The compliment it was mean to be was over shadowed by the over sized "but" that followed, then a "...I highly recommend (insert name of white woman) instead."

Sure it hurt, but not as much as the realization that someone who was considered trusted, as an ally is thoroughly infected by the anti-Black racist plague that is so easily visible thus readily diagnosed in white women. Then slowly all the previous feedback received including descriptive words usually used when describing the angry Black Woman trope or the need to sideline Trans women issues all started to make sense. The symptoms where there all along.

As Black women we understand struggle, survival at all cost, we empathize not just for empathy sake but because we have first hand knowledge of a lifetime lived daily as the ultimate kicking stone of our society. Sure we stand in solidarity with the displaced and victimized women around the world, especially in war torn parts of Asia and the Middle East and on unceded land here at home; and firmly oppose to Islamophobia everywhere. We can often be seen supporting if not leading inter-sectional causes with other Black, Indigenous folks and People of Color (BIPOC) everywhere on college campuses, from Blacklives to Plastine, LGBTQ2IA, Sex Worker Rights, Homelessness, AntiPoverty, Fight for $15 and beyond.  

The question are:

• With white supremacy functioning in all our progressive feminist spaces when will Black women be supported on the merits of our characters and body of our work rather than the amount of melanin in our skin? 
• Is feminism only for white women and women who closely resemble them in looks and their ability to keep the doors firmly closed on Black women?

The present past of our forgotten Womyn

Sitting with today's events unable to unpack some that are so heavily steeped in white supremacy, anti-blackness and self hate. The mounting effects of colonialist genocide, patriarchy in all its violent hues, affecting generations of women birthed into slavery; the cycle of violence upon our bodies has been relentlessly consistent and audibly visible on our mother's bodies and her mother before her.

Today I met my 96 year old great grandmother: I saw my daughter in her and heard my mother's voice in her laughter, I felt my grandmothers compassion when she embraced me and for the first time I understood what it meant to be fierce. We sang together, we talked about food and joked about everything including our uncomfortable shared history, but mostly I watched her. I watched her breath with defiant ease, quietly, on purpose and on point, like every breath inhaled is act of war we must not only survive but win.

I have much to unpack, much to learn and share, for now I'll leave you with this: a song that all five generations of Black Xamaycan womyn sang in a small room in East New York one very hot day in August 2015.

Spare the rod: Discipline and our Black children

White supremacy will have us all replicating acts of state sanctioned violence on our own children.

My Dad once yelled at me, told me how disappointed he was in my actions (staying out overnight with my Brother and his friends) 
 His words, tone and the look on his face made me want to dole out lashes on myself in his honor. Even as an adult his words still linger within me.

I've largely been disciplined using words, kind, harsh, truthful, honest words that are forever etched in my psyche.  Once my aunt once tried to physically discipline me, its a moment in our history where she saw me for who I am as an individual with agency; this forever changed our relationship for the better. 

I once threatened to spank my daughter and she put me to my paces, explaining to me how it made her feel in words that made me ashamed, and forced me reflect on: how my own Caribbean upbringing impacted my parenting, the historical significance of how my race, gender and the cultural expectations of how my child should be, act or think based on my parenting.

I've learnt the hard way how to individually parent this child, mostly by fumbling through the dark with her, listening to her and loving myself enough to give her only the best of me. 

Even as a single parent I feel privileged to call her my daughter, to provide a safe place for her to be heard, to be seen, for her to learn, for her to feel loved. 

And when we discuss violence, it's usually within the context of defence of self, community and each other. I am excited to discuss the importance and impact violence had and continues to have within the context of the revolution. 

As for me, I won't shame, shun or applaud the mother seen beating her son who was protesting. He was moved to act for a greater cause and his mother, well she acted out of fear for the life of her son in the only way she knew how. 

But in the vicious never ending cycle of violence on our Black bodies who truly wins when we regurgitate the actions of massa and now sanctioned by a militarized state on our young. 

Race relations Canada vs USA

*backpost from November 2014 - Its a little ranty but thats ok :)

Thinking Canada is any better than the US is just naive.

Thinking that the Special Investigations Unit's (SIU) are any better than the police they investigate is just naive

2012 Ontario ombudsman says its problematic that SIU investigators arrived at the scene with “a whole bunch of preconceived notions of self-defense"

Thinking that if a black man was mercilessly gunned down that you would have answers or the very least know the name of the officer who killed him is just Naive.
Ask the family of Jermaine Carby

Thinking the police would lay charges against one of their own if the police ran over and killed your 5 year old black child while: speeding, running a red light, in an unmarked car without any flashing lights or a siren then you are naive. Ask the family of Nicolas Thorne-Belance, in Montreal

DONT BE NAIVE - Canada is packed filled with racist ideologies, and governed through systemic oppression.

Continues to chant "The system isnt broken it was built this way" #BlackLivesMatter