HOLY WROUGHT.

i follow people who are amazing writers / talented creators / really fucking good people. i follow people who might not be vocal on the dash, but they’re the first in your ims / dms / askbox. they’re the first to block. they’re the first to reblog and message their friends to stay safe. i follow people who continue to pour support to me even when i do jack shit. even when i’m not here. even when i’m not active. even when it seems like all i post are sad updates or shitposts. 

i follow people who don’t have the skin in the game, but put their skin in the game when it matters. who educate themselves on the struggles of others. who offer a hand. who lift up the voices of the oppressed. who know when it’s time to step back and when it’s time to step up. i follow people who fight for representation for people who don’t look like them. who don’t experience the world like them. i follow people who give voices and respect to characters who might not get it in the real world. 

i follow people who actively make the world a better place by existing and trying and trying again. whether it’s directly related to social justice issues. whether it’s related to grief and pain and loss and hurt. whether it’s being an ally or a friend or an ear or a mutual or a follower who just says ‘i have made space for you. i will always make this space for you.’

just so we’re clear, i think it’s fucking hinky to make a DNI list that features (correct me if i’m wrong) solely women of color in the FF fandom immediately after a racist incident and the line ‘performative allies of color.’ first of all, women of color cannot be performative allies to a struggle that they navigate on a daily basis. they cannot be performative allies of something they have inherited. it’s a fucking blood right at this point, it’s so steeped in the dead bodies of our brothers and sisters and the way that we will be denied personhood by our neighbors and our politicians and our countries.

second of all, it’s super fucking hinky to especially put a black woman on that list. and for what ????? because she’s tired ?????? because when fandoms reveal their racism and pedophilia and phobic mindsets for the umpteenth time, she takes swift action to make sure the offenders and their supporters aren’t on her dash???? because she also decided to curate her dash at that time so that it was a more friends only / intimate space for her so that she can have a fun and safe experience on tumblr.com ???? because she said y’all talk too much sometimes instead of taking action and moving on ????

sometimes you can talk TOO MUCH about an incident. sometimes you can linger TOO LONG on shit that HURTS. and by that i mean, my mother said to me this morning she had to turn the news off again because she was tired of seeing black bodies on the news. she was tired of seeing people that look like us slaughtered with no repercussions. she’s tired of hearing about it. she’s tired of looking at it. she’s tired of their bodies being rehashed for talking points and views and trauma. it’s traumatic to see the same shit again and again. it’s traumatic and exhausting to watch something be dissected when you just want to exist. 

this is not telling people to not talk about issues. this is not telling people not to make callout posts, to reblog those callout posts, to warn the community of individuals who do not have the best interest of others at heart. this is saying that you can turn a hurt over in your hands so much that all it can do is continue to prick you. sometimes the best thing you can do is remove the thorns and surround yourself with flowers. 

because, news alert, when you’re black in america, you don’t get to take a break from the bullshit. you don’t get to take a break from worrying about your life or your cousin’s life or your brother’s life or your mother’s life. when black folks say they’re tired of seeing it on the dash, it doesn’t mean they’re saying the pain is inconvenient. they’re saying they’re in pain. this is supposed to be a safe space. why is it another prison ????

again, let’s be clear here: when i log out of tumblr, i am still a black woman. and i still experience the black experience in america. i have had classmates draw black people hanging from trees while they draw hitler mustaches on their face. i have seen classmates get a teacher fired for wearing a hijab. i have had a kid ask me to homecoming only to let me know that his uncle is in the KKK and that we would have to be careful where we went together. i have been followed in stores. i have been made out to be angry and loud and bitter. i have had friends i thought were my friends tell me they ‘hate black people’ but that i ‘didn’t count.’ i have had my blackness denied and then weaponised against me. i have been told i was too dark. that my hair was too coily. that i was a nigger with the hard r.

i was told by classmates that obama shouldn’t have become president because black people already took sports from white people, they couldn’t take the white house, too. i have seen bricks thrown into the windows of my neighbor’s homes. i have seen children hoard guns to commit racial violence on the school next door to mine. there is a man in my neighborhood who yells about ‘stinky, fucking niggers’ every time we walk by him. i have buried a cousin to gun violence. i have seen an uncle survive six bullets to the chest over possession of weed. i know the men in my family better through bars than in living rooms. i don’t remember what it’s like to see them outside of orange jumpsuits.

my mother is called slurs as she takes care of people in hospitals, in their homes, as they hurt and they bleed and they need her help. i have been denied housing because of my skin color. i have been fetishized because of my skin color. i have had the talk with everyone in my family about how to keep our heads down / don’t go out at night / only yes sir to cops / don’t stop in these neighborhoods / keep driving / don’t look / don’t make eye contact when they throw stuff out the vehicle because there are more of them than there are of you and the only people who are going to fight for you not to be villainized for your own death are the people who look like you.  

and it isn’t just white folks perpetrating violence on black folks. it’s nonblack poc, too. it is people who should be allies, but aren’t. who know their struggle, but not others. it’s the way white women keep calling the cops on black people for existing, and i don’t mean to trivialize the mass murder that is happening on our streets, but goddamn does it feel some type of way to see someone put a black woman on a list and INSTANTLY make her experience on tumblr increasingly unsafe. when you put someone on a DNI list, they better be a shitty person. they better be a toxic motherfucker. they better be someone who is actively making the community worse, because when you put a name out there, you shine a light on them. 

and not everyone is going to do kind things with that light. not everyone is going to stop at looking, deciding, and moving on. you leave them open for harassment. you leave them open for stalking. you leave them open to be misjudged and mischaracterized and, fuck, misidentified. lumping a black woman in with ‘performative allies of color’ strips her of her skin color and her identity. and it’s so fucking funny that that seems Better and Right than listing, idk, the actual people perpetrating racism / colorism in the fandom. to list a black woman because she didn’t have the reaction you liked instead of the people actively making her time on this site unsafe is so fucking funny and so fucking typical. 

i was vague in my last post, but just so everyone’s clear: i lost a parent to covid-19 a couple of months ago. i lost her before the government even told me i should be worried about something like that. i lost her two hours before i even got to see her again after a quick trip to nyc. i lost her and the details of her death / post death are Not Pretty and They Can Be Triggering, so i won’t go into it, but it haunts me. and it scares me. and i miss her so fucking much. 

i also recently lost an aunt to an ongoing condition she was born with. just like my mom, she has left behind two children (and just like my mom: one of them a minor), and i am grieving her loss as well. i’m grieving the loss of a cousin back in november. i’m grieving my grandma’s cancer diagnosis. i’m struggling with the loss of my job and the fear that my other mother, a healthcare provider, might be next on my list of people to lose. 

i’m trying the best i can to be here and be present, but it’s hard. and i know that some of you know what that’s like. and i know that some of you know intimately what that’s like because you’ve also lost loved ones to a pandemic many countries weren’t prepared for. i am so sorry for your loss, and i thank you for the love you’ve been sending my way.

2) that being said, my next post is not going to be IC, either. it’s going to be personal, angry, and probably rambly, but i won’t feel good until i post it. in case you follow me and don’t know, i am a mixed race woman who primarily identifies as black and latine. i know exactly what i look like to white people and nonblack poc. i know exactly what kind of fear a body like mine has when a cop walks by. i’m also mentally ill. i’m also queer. i have suffered child abuse, domestic violence, and toxic romantic (and platonic) relationships. i have done sex work, and i will do it again. i am a strong ally and a safe space for ALL historically marginalized groups. you will find a safe space in me if we cannot share a struggle because while i might not know your struggle, i know you shouldn’t have to go through it, and you definitely shouldn’t have to go through it alone. 

i am not a safe space for SWERFs, TERFs, anti-SJW, people who think slavery was over “100 years ago” either in america or elsewhere, people who use their identity as a marginalized individual to commit violence toward black people and black bodies, people who say “american is so regressive with their race problems” while talking shit about romani people out the side of their mouth, people who conflate the experience of being east asian in america (or anywhere really bc fuck colorism) with being south or southeast asian and overlook the damning statistics that show we can’t treat brown bodies of any ethnicity with care, people who regularly forget what land they’re standing on -- and no, this isn’t america specific -- because the indigenous populations of so many countries across the globe have seen their land stolen, colonized, and given back to them in piecemeal only to be taken again, etc etc etc.

quarantine: exists

i know duplicate anxiety is real and very valid considering what it's like to rp on tumblr, so i just want to say thank you to the aeriths (active and inactive) on my dash who continue to 1) provide me with really good aerith content, 2) comment on my shitposts, 3) let me comment on their shitposts, 4) love aerith as much as i do, and 5) reach out to me during this tough time despite whatever they're going through.