kezziablue - Tumblr blog

[kezziablue]

Ways to support Ukraine 🇺🇦

More than 500,000 people have already left Ukraine due to the invasion by the Russian Federation. The European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management estimates that roughly 18 million Ukrainians will be affected by the conflict in humanitarian terms, with 7 million internally displaced and 4 million seeking refuge elsewhere. To help those still in Ukraine, as well as Ukrainian refugees, we’ve compiled this list of resources.

HelpUkraineWin.org has a collection of vetted and trusted resources, charities, and organizations to help Ukraine.

Some additional ways to donate:

Vostok SOS provides immediate evacuation support.

Malteser International provides essentials for Ukrainian refugees.

Ukraine Crisis Media Center provides fundraising links and a list of tips for sharing information.

Misinformation spreads fast on social media. It is more important than ever to share accurate, verifiable news and information. Here are some resources to learn how to identify misinformation:

This video from the nonprofit WITNESS shares tips for identifying authentic sources (available in English, Spanish, Ukranian, Russian, and Arabic).

These visual verification tips, also from WITNESS, provide information on verifying images and videos (available in English and Spanish).

This interview with NPR contains tips for identifying fake TikToks.

[kezziablue]

It occurred to me today that maybe I should slowly start reintegrating myself into society, after i scampered away from the door like a feral goblin when someone approached it, but then i realized I always do this so idk where that leaves me tbh

[kezziablue]

“It is better to be yourself and have no friends than to be like your friends and have no self.”

— Unknown

[kezziablue]

Okay, so this is my first time ever using tumblr! Hopefully I do this right lol So basically, I wrote something for this fourth of July bc I’ve had a lot of conflicting thoughts about it lately, and it helps me a lot when I’m able to get some of my thoughts out of my head. I posted it on my other social medias (which yall are super welcome to check out and follow btw, i’m @kezziablue pretty much everywhere) and honestly very few people saw it from what i can tell. But my sister (god bless her lol) read it and urged me to post it here on my (up until this point) unused tumblr acct. So, here goes. Hopefully none of this goes against any guidelines? Like I said, V NEW HERE lol. Also forewarning, this is super long (I have a lot of thoughts lol). But it is here if you wanna read it and if you’re maybe thinking some of the same things:

I guess I should start by establishing the fact that i am American, since no one here would necessarily know that since I haven’t posted yet. Anyways! That being said, in the past, I’ve always loved July 4th, I think especially once we moved overseas because it was fun that it was a holiday that was distinctly American and reminded me of “home” (or at least one home of many). And to be honest, a lot of my love is probably for the BBQ and other delicious foods (potato salad 🤤) that I associate specifically with July 4th. And it’s in the middle of summer, my favorite season. There’s singing, gathering, and festivity. For me, it was the time of year that usually meant I got to see friends that I normally didn’t because we lived so far away. And fireworks are cool (at least they used to be, sound sensitivity is a B). What’s not to like? Or so I thought?

This year is different. I mean, that much is obvious. It’s different in almost every way imaginable. The amount of time between this month and the last, much less this July 4th and the last, seems unfathomable. So much has happened. So much has changed. So then, it seems reasonable to expect that this July 4th would be different as well. And it is.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been asked what I’m gonna do for the 4th of July. Do I have any plans? And honestly, no, I don’t. The holiday hadn’t even crossed my mind. But with it being brought up, I started to think about it, and found that I was met with total disinterest in observing this holiday this year. It took me about 0.5 seconds to realize why: This year it just feels wrong. And celebration, honestly, is the farthest thing from my mind.

So I was left with the question: “do I celebrate the fourth of July this year?” And if not, what do I do instead? I pondered this, and didn’t come up with much. My brain is often so jumbled these days. So, in true millennial fashion, I did what I always do when I have questions like this that need answers, and I turned to Google, hoping maybe someone else was wondering the same questions I was.

I found several articles that were really helpful to me (and if i figure out how then I can link some if anyone wants to read). And I’m not gonna tell you what to think or feel or do. You decide what’s best and what’s true for you. And if this is something you care about at all, or if you’ve been wondering the same sorts of thoughts that I have, then I do encourage you to do your own research, figure out your own thoughts, decide what’s right for you. There really is a wealth of information out there that is so readily accessible.

So essentially, here’s what I’ve come up with, in deciding what’s right for me: this year I’ve decided that if I really care about America, the best thing I can do is educate myself about it. I can’t rely on school or media to tell me the truth. My twenty-four years on this earth and a lack of so much knowledge regarding both our history and the true current state of things have proven that much. I have to learn on my own. That’s my responsibility.

Even though I am black, I was raised in a white family, and by association and upbringing I also benefitted from white privilege in many ways (and this is something I’ll definitely discuss more as I continue learn and educate myself and process my own thoughts and experiences). I’ve spent almost half of my life living in countries other than the US, which also makes a difference. I’ve spent several years removed from many American realities and from feeling the immediate impact of prevailing issues that would have directly affected me otherwise.

I’ve come to recognize the weird duality of knowing that while I have experienced racism my whole life in many ways, I have also experienced white privilege in many ways. Because of my upbringing there were many times when, even when faced with racism directed towards me, I could turn away and say “it shouldn’t be this way”, thinking that my denial ensured that it wasn’t that way simply because I didn’t want it to be. It took a lot of learning (much of it still ongoing) to realize that the only way to truly eradicate racism is to face it head on.

So I can’t ignore the way things are right now (and have been for hundreds of years). And for me personally, I can’t use my breath to sing about American freedom while a man chokes out “I can’t breathe” as he is murdered by American police.

I can’t celebrate an ideal and ignore the directly opposing reality. Let freedom ring? When there are children being detained? Let us come together? When there are families being separated? “God bless America my home sweet home”? When we’re living on stolen lands? Sweet land of liberty? When the US has the highest rate of incarceration in the world? One nation, indivisible? When human rights and national safety become a political opinion instead of a given? Liberty and justice for all? When people of color are being disproportionately murdered by police who are not held accountable unless there is massive public outcry (sometimes not even then)? When we have laws that state that some people have the right to healthcare while others don’t simply based on who they love?

Maybe some of you have these freedoms and would like to celebrate that. But I don’t believe that any of us are free until all of us are free. So I’m not going to celebrate freedom today, because we don’t have it yet.

This is what I have decided is right for me. This isn’t me saying that you’re wrong if you choose to celebrate July 4th today. But I do ask that you be informed when you do so. Celebrate the freedoms that some of us do have, but don’t be satisfied, thinking that because some are free all are free. Maybe take a little time today to learn about things like:

-our country’s significant racist history

-the history of the peoples from whom this land was stolen

-the epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

-systemic and institutional racism

-police brutality

-state-sanctioned violence against people of color

-trans black women being killed

-the current normalizing of mass death by virus

-massive income inequality

-immigration detention facilities

-the prison industrial complex

-the school to prison pipeline

...and that’s just me naming a few of the things I can think of immediately. There is literally so, so much injustice in this country. So much oppression.

I can still absolutely acknowledge that we are a free nation in a lot ways that many other nations don’t experience. But the honest truth is that we’re a nation fighting for freedom yet built on racism and oppression. The freedoms we do have are guaranteed to some, and conditional to so many others. And so there is still so, so much wrong in this country that prevents us from fully experiencing “liberty and justice for all”. This isn’t me saying “wow. America is the worst”. This isn’t me ignoring the liberties that many of us do have. This is me acknowledging that in a number of ways it is (or is intended to be) good. But it’s not good enough. And it never will be, until we’re all free to fully access and enjoy our rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.