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I feel like Black, Brown, and poor people knew this already.

Greedflation is manifest.

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I spend so much time feeling like I'm not doing enough, but then it hit me this morning that I could be doing everything, and it still wouldn't be good enough.

Whether it be my size, looks, yogic lifestyle. It's not going to be good enough because I'm still that middle school kid being told no one will ever like me or want me or see me as worthy because I'm too Black, fat, and weird. I'm still that person trying to care for everyone, hoping they will see me as worthy of being taken care of...and that's fucking exhausting!

I reject all that shit... I reject everything I'm supposed to be and everything that I'm not supposed to be. I also reject giving 100% to anyone or anything that wishes to exhaust me into silence.

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I love the book collection of this local yoga studio! I also love the studio because it's the only dedicated studio that is BIPOC owned in my entire city!

That being said, I always wonder what compels some of the students to come? Is it the inner peace, the want of a beautiful and weightless body, the perceived lifestyle, or something else?

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Doing Harm and Growth

I am learning that "hurt people hurt people" is true. However, that isn't an excuse not to apologize, and an apology doesn't mean acceptance of the apology or a return to the relationship being okay. That being said, it is okay for you to show yourself grace while holding yourself accountable, and it is okay for you to hold others accountable while you sit with your guilt, shame, and embarrassment. Doing better for yourself impacts your ability to do better for others.

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Let this be a reminder that Black women have rarely, if ever been afforded femininity, stay at home motherhood or a #soft life. Several states actually made it illegal for Black women to no work as domestics for White families.

It's one of the reasons I understand why cis Black women want to gatekeep womanhood so much because it has only been recently afforded us. However, it's only afforded to us in an effort to other people.

The face eating leopard party is still eating our faces even though they are semi-distracted eating someone elses faces-- Many of those faces look just like our own.

Labor. [African-American] women at work in lumber yards.

Record Group 86: Records of the Women's BureauSeries: General Photographic File

Original caption: Labor. [African-American] women at work in lumber yards. [African-American] women, dressed in men's clothes, lifting heavy pieces of lumber.

This black and white photograph shows two African-American women in overalls lifting long pieces of lumber.  They are posing for the camera.  The woman on the left stands with one hand on her hip and looks away from the camera.  The woman on the right looks right into the camera.

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Let's also remember that many of those being sprayed with hoses were actually children (7-18), not grown men and women. Photos from that era were intentionally taken in black and white to make the subject look older and to make the time period seem further away. Many of these kids are still alive to tale their tales.

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Yes, parents are generally shocked to learn that their students are as clueless as the parents are about computers. Don't even get me started on the lack of basic internet safety!

So this was originally a response to this post:

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Which is about people wanting an AO3 app, but then it became large and way off topic, so here you go.

Nobody under the age of 20 knows how to use a computer or the internet. At all. They only know how to use apps. Their whole lives are in their phones or *maybe* a tablet/iPad if they're an artist. This is becoming a huge concern.

I'm a private tutor for middle- and high-school students, and since 2020 my business has been 100% virtual. Either the student's on a tablet, which comes with its own series of problems for screen-sharing and file access, or they're on mom's or dad's computer, and they have zero understanding of it.

They also don't know what the internet is, or even the absolute basics of how it works. You might not think that's an important thing to know, but stick with me.

Last week I accepted a new student. The first session is always about the tech -- I tell them this in advance, that they'll have to set up a few things, but once we're set up, we'll be good to go. They all say the same thing -- it won't be a problem because they're so "online" that they get technology easily.

I never laugh in their faces, but it's always a close thing. Because they are expecting an app. They are not expecting to be shown how little they actually know about tech.

I must say up front: this story is not an outlier. This is *every* student during their first session with me. Every single one. I go through this with each of them because most of them learn more, and more solidly, via discussion and discovery rather than direct instruction.

Once she logged in, I asked her to click on the icon for screen-sharing. I described the icon, then started with "Okay, move your mouse to the bottom right corner of the screen." She did the thing that those of us who are old enough to remember the beginnings of widespread home computers remember - picked up the mouse and moved it and then put it down. I explained she had to pull the mouse along the surface, and then click on the icon. She found this cumbersome. I asked if she was on a laptop or desktop computer. She didn't know what I meant. I asked if the computer screen was connected to the keyboard as one piece of machinery that you can open and close, or if there was a monitor - like a TV - and the keyboard was connected to another machine either by cord or by Bluetooth. Once we figured it out was a laptop, I asked her if she could use the touchpad, because it's similar (though not equivalent) to a phone screen in terms of touching clicking and dragging.

Once we got her using the touchpad, we tried screen-sharing again. We got it working, to an extent, but she was having trouble with... lots of things. I asked if she could email me a download or a photo of her homework instead, and we could both have a copy, and talk through it rather than put it on the screen, and we'd worry about learning more tech another day. She said she tried, but her email blocked her from sending anything to me.

This is because the only email address she has is for school, and she never uses email for any other purpose. I asked if her mom or dad could email it to me. They weren't home.

(Re: school email that blocks any emails not whitelisted by the school: that's great for kids as are all parental controls for young ones, but 16-year-olds really should be getting used to using an email that belongs to them, not an institution.)

I asked if the homework was on a paper handout, or in a book, or on the computer. She said it was on the computer. Great! I asked her where it was saved. She didn't know. I asked her to search for the name of the file. She said she already did that and now it was on her screen. Then, she said to me: "You can just search for it yourself - it's Chapter 5, page 11."

This is because homework is on the school's website, in her math class's homework section, which is where she searched. For her, that was "searching the internet."

Her concepts of "on my computer" "on the internet" or "on my school's website" are all the same thing. If something is displayed on the monitor, it's "on the internet" and "on my phone/tablet/computer" and "on the school's website."

She doesn't understand "upload" or "download," because she does her homework on the school's website and hits a "submit" button when she's done. I asked her how she shares photos and stuff with friends; she said she posts to Snapchat or TikTok, or she AirDrops. (She said she sometimes uses Insta, though she said Insta is more "for old people"). So in her world, there's a button for "post" or "share," and that's how you put things on "the internet".

She doesn't know how it works. None of it. And she doesn't know how to use it, either.

Also, none of them can type. Not a one. They don't want to learn how, because "everything is on my phone."

And you know, maybe that's where we're headed. Maybe one day, everything will be on "my phone" and computers as we know them will be a thing of the past. But for the time being, they're not. Students need to learn how to use computers. They need to learn how to type. No one is telling them this, because people think teenagers are "digital natives." And to an extent, they are, but the definition of that has changed radically in the last 20-30 years. Today it means "everything is on my phone."

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I was gobsmacked at having never heard of Jacci Gresham until a few weeks ago! I've met Elisheba before, and her work is phenomenal! She gave me a shock when I learned she was the first licensed Black tattoo artist in Middle TN. Like, how does that even happen!

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I love this! Especially since this is where my family hails from.