Being a responsible support and steward during birth & death is not cute.

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ya lil doterra text thread

the CRUSTACEANS in these POLITICAL streets

ARE LYING TO YOU.

If you really embody birthwork and/or deathwork, then you know I am not lying, nor exaggerating. And that you do not move in the cute “being there with someone/advocacy” lens being painted….. If you are really in this space, then you know that the fee you bill does not cover the wear and tear on your body, mind, and spirit. For me, the lie of fair compensation is wrapped in the truth of self-hatred. If we loved ourselves truly, we would not lie/hide/shame to charge appropriately. If I had loved myself truly, maybe I’d still have my Mary/Meg/Mrs. Banks level-knees? Maybe, I would have cussed out some folx, reported more folx to their places of employment, sent more mental health resources instead of picking up the phone, asked more of folx’ community, asked more orgs to run me my check.

If you have been deep into birth/death transitions, then you know that you need safe, accessible, AFFORDABLE housing, clean water, and holistic culturally congruent nutrition to your brain, spirit, and body. You need comprehensive healthcare to provide a basic level of healthcare for yourself; You know that you need an acupuncturist/massage therapist/chiropractor/bodyworker because your work will require hours that bleed into days into months into years of time applying pressure, massaging, pulling & pushing limbs, wiping away tears, consoling bodies broken open, holding bodies in positions that make sense for them, holding family members in positions that make them feel secure, washing babies/bodies/bottles/beds, walking pets, caring for siblings, occupying family members, protecting a person’s desires/wishes/legal documents, weighing pros/cons, making meals, deciphering lies for protection and lies for power, etc.

You need a culturally congruent, ethnically affirming therapist for your own mental health, and the observational trauma from being a part of those life transitions. Those collective venting sessions/meetings where observed, experiential, and secondary traumas are disclosed are therapeutic……

BUT, dumping your trauma in unaccountable group settings is NOT A SUBSTITUTE FOR ADEQUATE MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND ACCESS.

even though,

BLACK CHILDREN ARE STILL BURYING PARENTS IN HAYS COUNTY.

bLACK PARENTS ARE STILL grieving CHILDREN lost IN WILLIAMSON COUNTY.

You need a consistent exercise regimen PERSONALIZED TO YOU to keep your body healthy and ready. If not for the physical nature of the role, but for the health of your sympathetic nervous system. Fight/Flight/Freeze/Fawn response being triggered constantly is part of the reason your ass needs to work out. The allostatic stress load wears on the body over time. You need a whole business team, conflict resolution & political training. You need a lawyer on retainer to protect you in a violent policy climate. And you need one if your ass gets caught up in HIPPA violation from running ya mouth in those group settings. Keep forgetting you are in the age of surveillance, if you want to. I do not ever.

BLACK FAMILIES ARE STILL NAVIGATING LOSING LOVED ONES TO A JUDICIAL SYSTEM THAT IS CRIMINAL IN TEXAS.

black bodies are still being criminalized in the midst of being birthing, dying, being born, and after THE soul departS IN TEXAS.

There is only so much bartering you can do in a country that does not fuck with bartering.

Bartering also doesnt pay for rent/mortgage, utilities, transportation costs, etc, etc adult, grown-up, basic living needs shit. Or how about sliding scale? Sliding scale has to be supplemented by full fee, but again….the whole intention is supposed to keep you afloat? But all these training orgs (talm bout y’all favs, local and “international”), swear up and down this is a “labor of love”, “advocacy for dignity”, for “the service of us all”, “you need a backup doula” (more like three or four, bih)…. and all the other marketing bs. But, ch’all loveeeeee listening to some bs. FR FR, I feel like these gentrified streets: “Friends” & “Seinfeld” in racialized, colonized, marginalized spaces. There is so little conversation on the toxic group-think in birth/death work. I cannot help but feel like this space is giving multi-level marketing scheme….GOOGLE IT.

Who is going to train you on how to deal with racist, classist incidents within a system built on sickness and trauma? How to navigate children being taken away from families? How to navigate being denied care? How to hold grief and not quell it? How to navigate violence observed or encountered? How to cope with blame and slander? How to process when the alternative systems fail? What about when a facility is understaffed? All while maintaining dignity and respect all parties’ humanity? And not bring their trauma being triggered unaccountably into your training/work? Apparently in Texas, that community is giving The WB Network. But, Felicity, 7th Heaven, Dawson’s Creek, and Buffy The Vampire Slayer have Black and Othered bodies’ full autonomy to exist with self-determination in mind at all times?

Black bodies are still being lynched in texas.

The photo that defines this post is a plaque of a past that exists in the present.

How much blood saturated the ground before this plaque was placed up in the front of a Historically Black place of worship?

How much harm needs to be witnessed for accountability and justice beyond plaques/posts/thoughts & prayers?

Little known fact:

Your above 90s Programming Nostalgia and pop culture catalogue was brought to you by

The Wayans Bros.

Sister, Sister

The Parent’Hood

The Steve Harvey Show

The Jamie Foxx Show

Respectability Politics & Model Minority Myth aside, Black Art created The WB. And created, your favs’ Gilmore Girls sentimentality. But, we do not hear any of those network executives, producers, writers, actors, etc, etc thanking those productions in their current pay checks. Look at those pay differences, and tell me it is not the same shit, different presentation?

But, wisdom says that my concerns do not matter. The facts do not matter. I am learning more and more, that they do not matter unless there is someone else’s serotonin/dopamine/adrenaline pathways attached. And in that, I do not matter to a population that values reaction, access, exposure over accepting the spectrum of humanity. My truth does not matter, because palatability in regards to the truth I see is must be congruent to control. What matters to people is popularity. What matters to people is narrative. What to people matters is capitalism. Proximity to power is intoxicating.

Popularity, Narrative, and Capitalism…..has made me understand why I am not meant to be in certain spaces. Non-Profits are for-Profits. Just y’all be thinking charity….but the currency ain’t dollars. It is proximity to struggle, it is the ability to say “doing the work”, it is backyard shamans/medicine women, it is “I give away/raise money, because I am amazing.” It is the liberal use of free/discounted labor. It is the hierarchy of power masked in mission statements, organizational values, and “tax-free” budgets. It is y’all calling people “Pick-Mees”, “Ops and “Karen”, while “Becky + 9 Mile” is scamming TF outta ALL OF US us “Assassination of JFK” style. It is internalized and externalized white supremacy on boards/committees/threads. It is mega-churches being considered NPOs, but the sheppards look/act/move like CEOs instead of living amongst their sheep. There is a whole hospital system in the midst of crisis here, and the nurses are being blamed for asking for adequate staffing, pay + benefits. But the system is considered a WHAT? 501(c)(3). They sold compassionate care to the public, but were carefully investing being compassionate to their shareholders.

Most Public Hospital systems are non-profits. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas is a non-profit, along with more than a few other insurers. This is public information. Check out them pandemmy profits y’all.

I cannot wait for the day when folx get intimate their trauma, the exploitation of it, and that ANYTHING THAT REMOVES YOU FROM YOURSELF AIN’T GOOD FOR YOU….NO MATTER WHO CO-SIGNS IT WITH COVERT CLASSISM.

ooooooooo, that day…LIBERATION GONNA TURN UP THE HEAT. And flash polish tolerance ain’t gonna cut it.

My mutual aid sales are not widely pushed and shared because they are not about me. They are about protecting, loving on, and supporting those of us who are “unpopular“ (unless they are being used as a asset in a narrative based on capitalism by ya favs). It’s about giving in exchange for care in a system that does not care. It is about using economy to actually allow for autonomous choice = care for another’s humanity with dignity. Food and toiletries do not pay for prescriptions and other bills. Food and toilettries should not be withheld, but that is the unconscious minimum from which we should operate But, I forget that so many of us did not have the feeling of inadequacy that comes with trying to pay for a bottle of dish detergent with a book of food stamps. Forever grateful for the life lessons, empathy unearthed. Federal Fraud Franco loved getting attention for public displays of charity toward those he considered in a lower class than him. Always was his same ethnic community, as if he was doing them a life changing favor in Eurocentric lessons on assimilation?

Why is there so much currency associated with moving on, not staying and remembering?

Why is there so much resentment/abuse associated with staying and remembering, and not moving on?

If you really about this work, then you are gonna make sure they/them are able to exist, live, expand, and die with DIGNITY AND THEIR FULL HUMANITY. Your existence and liberation IS DIRECTLY TIED TO THEIRS. You scroll, listen, click on, watch for popularity/narrative/capitalism. I see/hear/feel/taste/smell the deceit…..the omission of facts is lying. The guilt is palpable. The exploitation of humanity is rampant. The need for visibility in spaces that do not provide safety and care for the bodies that originally stewarded sacred in the spaces themselves…….is telling. I dearly hope, one day….that out of pure exhaustion….the facts begin to pour out in floods.

What has changed in Travis County 130 years later?

One day maybe, the deluge of facts suffocates the popularity posturing, drowns the narratives, and the pressure vaporizes the “compassionate capitalist” and the network of fascist nationalists that they scream against, but sit next to at work/family reunions, ride with in cybertrucks & teslas to Willie Nelson Picnics…….but again…..the origin of that word ain’t an issue as you “do the work”?

Wakanda was on land, breathing in air. And Tlalocan was on land, breathing in sea. The mediums are the same. Chemical Compositions for respiration only vary in arrangement. Both holding sacred vibranium. On the only known, homo sapien inhabited blue ball in this solar system. Birthwork and deathwork are in the midst of the exact same industrial churning that boils honey to diminish/kills benefits for the guise of “safety”. And then the sterile syrup only delivers the bare minimum…..

But, Apartheid Baby (that’s y’all friend, Elon), Shipping Sugar Daddy (y’all friend Bezos), William Zuckerbaby Hearst (Zuckerberg for this kids in the back), Alfredo Linguini (aka Tim Cook), and MMA (Joe Rogaine) got y’all convinced we gonna live and die somewhere else?

And…..they gonna make sure you can come too?

Oh, and that they are championing and supporting your right to autonomy, physically/mentally/emotionally?

I find it odd when we say we are suffering, but refuse to divest/ignore/rebel against those things that keeps us in that state.

I was told once by someone who was easily swayed that they could not tell if I was a wolf or a lamb. Oddly enough, this same person is a person who was in close contact & community with Omission Odie from the podcast.

The facts are neither predator, nor prey.

The facts are the ground held the lamb and wolf as they arrived to this place. The facts are the sun, water, and wind that cultivated sustenance for their growth. The facts are their mutual need for shelter, food, warmth, self-awareness, and community for their survival. The wolf needs the lamb, and the lamb needs the wolf. And they have co-existed in dynamic balance before we existed.

Yet we attempt to control, kill and wear both the wolf, and the lamb. And the wolf has been made into enemy, but more people are killed by rams?

But if you cannot tell, then you should be asking yourself…..what are the facts?

and let me be kind in sharing…..the facts are rarely ever made public, popular, narrative or capitalist.

You betta call Triple A, baby.

Awareness, Abolition & Accountability.