Sabrina

Lil Man was Ready To Fight…😂

The kitten wants to play, but stops because the older cat has their ears back.  Kitten backs down to show a loss of interest— at that point, you can see the older cat blink slowly.  This is one of the ways cats demonstrate trust and understanding.   The kitten turns away, to further cement a lack of interest in playtime at the moment. 

Say hello but be thoughtful 🏮🕯🌿

I greeted him at the door on 4" heels, a high ponytail, and a satin apron.

He pushed me into my apartment with hungry kisses and desperate gropes.

I peeled back the layers of a long day at work: briefcase with a thud by the door and the friction of his belt through each belt loop. The buckle jingling as it fell to the floor.

He bent me over the table and thrust himself against my back and ass before unzipping and revealing his excitement to me. I ran the stiletto heel up his inseam while using the mental map of his body to guide my hands to revisit my treasure.

His mouth and hands raced to discover every spot that would make me gasp or moan. I cocked my head and squirmed in the shadow of his stature. The high ponytail danced against my skin.

He grasped my long brown tresses at the tip and recalled all the photos and videos in his wank bank of arched backs and bent necks.

He yanked so hard that he herniated C5-6. During the surgery for my artificial disc replacement, my surgeon found a bone shard 3mm from my spinal cord.

The man who whispered in my ear of how i was “marriage material” moved to Toronto 2 weeks after he damn near made me into a quadriplegic. He closed on a house the day of my surgery.

To this day, I jump when someone puts their hands near my head. My ears ring constantly. And every time I see one of you all post a photo of someone having their hair pulled, I think about all the pain one dumb, badly-executed move caused me.

1. Get consent. 2. Give warning. 3. Grab slowly and smoothly at the roots 4. Movement comes from the wrist (minimizes chance of injury to directional force) 5. If need be, let the person with the hair being pulled hold on to your wrist to either limit your movement or as a failsafe. 6. Over time develop trust with your partner to dial up neck extension, force, or speed.

Also, the married women are not paid (and therefore can’t qualify for assistance if they should ever divorce, etc). And worth “of course” less than a man.

“ In the Army’s case, the agreement for compensation is that the officer allowance be paid jointly to the husband—the check is written in his name. Officially, the wife is a “worker without expectation of remuneration,” and her husband receives 40 percent more of an allowance as a married man than he would as a single man. “

Laminar Flow occurs when all the water is moving in the exact same direction, eliminating turbulence, and thus, creating a flow of water that looks like glass.

Stop forcing your daughters to hug the family molester. The molester that every adult in the family knows about but swept it under the rug years ago, because we as Black people already have enough issues to deal with, so we HAVE to keep the family together, right? Wrong.  

This idea that we are protecting the family structure is something I like to call “Politics of the Black Family”

So let’s talk about it. I mean really really talk about it. Let’s talk about how 60% of Black women experience sexual abuse from the hands of a Black man by the age of 18. Talk about what messages we are sending.. one that doesn’t uplift the entire family structure, it instead fucks up the minds of black people and the main victim is the black woman. It sends a message to not to break up the family with these “allegations”. It sends a message that her pain is the lesser of the issues. It sends a message that we as Black women have to be more black than we are woman.

This past weekend I attended the Young People For National Summit. As always it poured into my life, and I got a chance to listen to perspectives that I hadn’t heard before. One that stuck with me is the idea that we as americans don’t value personal space, and we actually devalue it  so much that we take it upon ourselves to hug as we see fit and if someone doesn’t embrace us back they are considered rude.

Taking this a step deeper we send that same message to children. I know this is true for the Black family where we grow up hearing “Go give your grandpa a kiss or give your uncle a hug” and if we as a child don’t want to do those things that is followed up with stop acting like that, and we are then forced to do it anyway. Taking the power away from the child who could then internalize a message that they don’t have control of their own body.

So then, if that same uncle, grandpa, family friend, or step dad becomes the perpetrator…if they become this monster what does this child know to do when she has been told she doesn’t have control of her body anyway. She has been told to “Be nice” as if it is mean to not want to give someone access to your body whether it is an innocent hug or not.

Then abuse occurs, pain occurs, silencing occurs and a cycle repeats. So question what we have all grown up in. Question what messages you send, no matter how innocent the intentions. Think deeply about the structures we fall victim to, even within the Black community. & Don’t ever be so black that you forget to be woman. Protect your woman, it is as much you as your melanin.

-Polish&Politics, Regennia Johnson