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[magtonic]

A Letter to Young People Just Shy of Voting Age

Dear Young People,

I see you. I see you not just as a result of your bravery this week in walking out and standing up for us, for yourselves. But I see you because I was and still am you.

In November of 2000 I was 17 years old, a senior in High School and had to volunteer as a poll worker as part of our government class on election day. We had spent 8 years as a country under the Clinton administration - problematic though it may have been at times - no one that I held close was actually ready for a republican president, let alone a Bush.

But, like most of my class, I wasn’t yet able to vote. So I sat, and watched the results roll in, confused and concerned, not knowing what would come of it all. I had a voice, but could not exercise it the way our country just had. I felt disempowered sitting on the brink of being able to cast a vote - our fundamental right as American Citizens as so many say. I imagine you might feel the same way. I was pissed we weren’t voting a year later. I was pissed I wasn’t born just a few months earlier. If you feel that way, please know I get it.

(San Francisco Youth protesting in front of City Hall after walking out of class 11/10/16)

In high school, I’d seen our state pass a handful of propositions that directly targeted young people. As a junior it was Prop 21, a gang injunction initiative that labeled three or more young people dressed alike and standing or walking together a gang. I’d seen Prop 227 as a freshman end bilingual education - something I was a direct product of. In middle school it was an end to affirmative action with Prop 209 and Prop 187 directly targeting undocumented families. To whatever extent we’ve replicated that for you, please know I really do get it.

I’m almost twice that age now and I wish I could tell you about everything I felt and everything  I did in the months that followed the 2000 election, and say that I felt the fine balance between disenfranchisement and empowerment you do, but I can’t remember that far back. Sadly all of those feelings have been buried by the time that has since past, and to TBH (that’s short for “to be honest” for any of the elders out there who need translation), whatever I felt then was overshadowed when I started college the following fall and September 11th happened during my first week of classes.

You cannot become apathetic. We did not. The class of 2001, much like the hope I have for the class of 2017, made up for the lack of influence we could have had if we had been of age. In the early years of the George W Administration we organized - certainly not by ourselves, but in community with others - we involved ourselves in a lot of social justice causes and took up issues that were under direct political target.

I’ve seen you already, in the days proceeding, take this on. I’ve seen your peers locally and across the nation stand up. Please. Do. Not.Stop.

Keep going. Take care of yourselves in the process, but do not sit and wait until four years from now when you can seek your voter vengeance. Ask questions, demand answers, continue to stand up. Get information, share information, build community.  Do. Not. Stop.

Please know, the adults around you, we’re here to support you. We love you. We will stand for you, and with you. We have to. It’s one of the best ways for us to take action - to invest in you.

You are our future. I may not be that much older, but you are my future. So come to us, for advice, for mentorship, for general support. Hone your voice, many of us are here to listen, to provide critical friendship when needed, keep you grounded. I say that knowing we need to do the same, because you are already doing the same for us in your actions.

I know this may come from a stranger, but I need you to know I see you, I was you, still am you. I, like many of the adults around you and in your lives, want what is best for you and I want you to be successful. I may not know you, but I love you.

XO

N

[magtonic]

Sin Mujeres No Hay Revolución: Being With Her

Woooooooo what a ride it’s been.

I’d love to explain my absence in great detail, but most of you know about it already, and there’s still some bits and pieces that are better off left in the past.

But, to lay some track, I give you two lists.

Things I love:

Smoked Paprika

Icy Hot

Bite Beauty lipsticks

Rose-Gray Colored things (not a metaphor I swear, it might honestly be on it’s way to being a problem how much I love this color…)

Discovering that Sesame Street has an entire curriculum devoted to teaching and supporting children of incarcerated parents while doing research for my new job*

My new job*

* I hesitate to say this, but after 6 years in my previous job - I may be one of the luckiest people you know in that I’m about a month in on a variation of what might be my dream job

Things that happened:

Our Mag Familia mascot and the magical pup that saved all who he came into contact with, Sir Francis Drake passed away (suddenly, quickly, and other applicable adverbs);

My past job and I parted ways after a slightly turbulent breakup;

I had to take an unplanned but mostly appreciated almost 10 day vacation;

During that vacation I spent 3 days being questioned in the jury box and thankfully dismissed from a case where an old Chinese man allegedly assaulted a police officer;

I volunteered at a youth event and got into a yelling match with a 6th grader, she promptly apologized;

I cleansed myself of social media during presidential (and vice presidential) debates;

I missed this orange October run from the Giants on social media;

The Mag Familia got a foster/not foster dog Reggie Jackson aka Lady Regina aka Ms. Regina Jackson, Ms. Jackson if ya nasty (we were destined to be a #fosterfail and ended up keeping her of course

Insert other specifics re: media, pop-culture, election season and there you have it.

Per usual, that was a long lead in to why we’re here today and where I’ve been.

Tomorrow we may be electing our first female president. I’m With Her. This was a difficult conclusion to arrive at. I wasn’t with Her when she ran against Barack. I was with him, as I’ve articulated here before. I wasn’t with Her initially in this race because of crazy shit that was said by Her/Her camp about black and brown folks. I wasn’t with Her initially for all the reasons everyone else has discussed and waxed about for the last year. I was with the old Jewish guy, because he’d stood for brown and black folk more radically than She did, for people more like me than She did. I don’t know, I went to a private liberal arts school in upstate NY - liberal jews were a people I was comfortable with. But now, I can’t not be with Her. I have to be with Her, and that ‘with,’ has gone from a half hearted, “I guess” to a more sincere, authentic, “no, I am.”

There are two parts to this and both have me feeling some kind of way today.

There’s the never, ever, ever the Orange One sentiment. The never, ever, ever a current variations of repubs sentiment. When BSands conceded the nomination, a colleague - a white lady in her 50s who grew up poor a shit, working class from a large family and came to my old office asking if I could believe it, could I believe we were on the brink of maybe having our first female president! I expressed my discomfort with Her.

“Look,” she said to me plainly, “You really think that old guy had a shot? An old white guy amongst a bunch of other not as old white guys? We don’t need any more old white guys! We have someone dynamic, who’s well qualified and could very well be our first female president! Get with the program!”  

I’m going to ask you to reserve any peanut gallery comments for just a moment. Suspend any judgement that might be creeping up.

She wasn’t wrong. She was deeply right, not sure I would have articulated it as succinctly if I tried and knowing there was more to it than that. Since, everyone has articulated why being with Her is so important and why the narratives attached to being with Her require critical consideration.

David Valdes Greenwood summed it up quite clearly in his viral HuffPo piece:

“If you love me and you’re going to vote for Trump, I would like you to look me in the eye and say, “I’m OK with what Trump plans for you.” If you love my daughter, whose growth you have followed with joy, I want you to look her in the eye and say, “I’m OK with how Trump talks about you.”

Maybe dig out our holiday card from last year and, while looking at our smiling faces, practice saying to us: “You are less than me.”

Because that is what your vote for Trump says to my family.”

Being with Her, largely validates me in a way that voting against Her makes me less than. It stirs up some excitement, some pride and some level of Cautious optimism, capital C on Cautious.

A photo posted by Niki Mag (@nikimagtotally) on Nov 7, 2016 at 8:32am PST

It’s kind of a glorious time to be a woman. You might not vibe off of that when you look at the news, or some of mainstream media’s stories, but there seem to be a myriad of ways that women are creating and inventing spaces for expression and experience with relative ease. It’s easy to say that that could be in response to the momentum left over from Her run or as a response to being against the Orange One. Feminism is hot right now.

Yeah, some feminism today is white middle class liberal feminism. When I picture ‘Nasty Women,’ I don’t just picture Her in a pantsuit, or the financially stable career oriented young women I know doing theirs.  I think of young women fighting for reproductive rights, reclaiming handcrafts by needlepointing Beyoncé quotes, wearing fashion of past/present/future but gender fluid, with mixed degrees of body hair and a bold lip. Yes, you’re probably having trouble seeing exactly who I mean, which is fine, because I’m painting a spectrum, but you definitely saw someone independent right? Someone who is both tough and feminine maybe? Someone not taking shit from others, or if she isn’t outwardly speaking out against it, maybe she’s doing something subversive and behind the scenes…. Bet she was white though? First image I came up with was.

For what it’s worth, I do at times, also think of the counter feminisms - the black girls who are from the future/magic, Issa Rae signing to herself in her bathroom, Solange on stage at SNL basically wearing a dreamcatcher on her head singing about the power of her hair - which have clawed their ways out of the internet, and tumblr and onto screen and stage.

Y’all know my hyphen-American ass has some feelings about all of this. I’m deeply proud of my black sistren and their ability to jump out on the scene and be visible. But I’m not sure that visibility = representation = change in a discourse like feminism.

2016 feminism is not an aesthetic, but I wonder if that’s how we’re treating it, or if that’s what it’s become. I certainly described it above in aesthetic terms. As a 30 something hyphen I feel both alienated and empowered by the two feminisms I described above, both of which seem to have gained space because on a national level we’re making space to see and hear more female voices (at least marginally).

I’ve sought out other groups via social media, seeking a place or an hermandad that I could claim. I may have reckoned with a lot of my own hybridity on deeply personal levels, but claiming and belonging still don’t come naturally. So in direct contrast with my idea that feminism is not an aesthetic, it was of course on Instagram that I found a few Latina communities and groups that represent an experience that feels a little closer to home. Maybe it’s the shared language outside of English, or being a proud Chingona, maybe it’s things like the ode to hoop earrings I saw on FB. If I’d found something comparable for our API women by now, I’d be following/trolling/reblogging, bet.

So here I am, November 7th, 2016, marinating on being a woman. Holy hell we’ve been through it this year. Our rights and our persons have been the topic of public conversation in more ways than normal with the election cycle we’ve been subject to. And somehow we’re simultaneously seeing more ways, bolder ones at that, of how femininity/womanhood/feminism is expressed.

I’m nervous, and confused, and excited about the present and the future. I’m disappointed about the past, sure, but if we don’t look ahead… what’s the point? As much as I get frustrated and have been waxing (in personal life) about not being there for eachother, my favorite theme of 2016 being cultivating that black/brown/yellow/white/mocha love, we also have to be here for our selves. Maybe being with Her, is a piece of that and a piece of our necessary revolution.

I’m going to leave you with this clip - full of badasswomanery but also because of the following lyrics:

When it feels like

The world is on your shoulders

And all of the madness

Has got you goin’ crazy

It’s time to get out

Step out into the street

Where all of the action

Is right there at your feet,

Well

I know a place where we can

Dance the whole night away

Underneath the electric stars

….See y’all under the electric stars.

[magtonic]

Sin Mujeres No Hay Revolución: Being With Her

Woooooooo what a ride it’s been.

I’d love to explain my absence in great detail, but most of you know about it already, and there’s still some bits and pieces that are better off left in the past.

But, to lay some track, I give you two lists.

Things I love:

Smoked Paprika

Icy Hot

Bite Beauty lipsticks

Rose-Gray Colored things (not a metaphor I swear, it might honestly be on it’s way to being a problem how much I love this color…)

Discovering that Sesame Street has an entire curriculum devoted to teaching and supporting children of incarcerated parents while doing research for my new job*

My new job*

* I hesitate to say this, but after 6 years in my previous job - I may be one of the luckiest people you know in that I’m about a month in on a variation of what might be my dream job

Things that happened:

Our Mag Familia mascot and the magical pup that saved all who he came into contact with, Sir Francis Drake passed away (suddenly, quickly, and other applicable adverbs);

My past job and I parted ways after a slightly turbulent breakup;

I had to take an unplanned but mostly appreciated almost 10 day vacation;

During that vacation I spent 3 days being questioned in the jury box and thankfully dismissed from a case where an old Chinese man allegedly assaulted a police officer;

I volunteered at a youth event and got into a yelling match with a 6th grader, she promptly apologized;

I cleansed myself of social media during presidential (and vice presidential) debates;

I missed this orange October run from the Giants on social media;

The Mag Familia got a foster/not foster dog Reggie Jackson aka Lady Regina aka Ms. Regina Jackson, Ms. Jackson if ya nasty (we were destined to be a #fosterfail and ended up keeping her of course

Insert other specifics re: media, pop-culture, election season and there you have it.

Per usual, that was a long lead in to why we’re here today and where I’ve been.

Tomorrow we may be electing our first female president. I’m With Her. This was a difficult conclusion to arrive at. I wasn’t with Her when she ran against Barack. I was with him, as I’ve articulated here before. I wasn’t with Her initially in this race because of crazy shit that was said by Her/Her camp about black and brown folks. I wasn’t with Her initially for all the reasons everyone else has discussed and waxed about for the last year. I was with the old Jewish guy, because he’d stood for brown and black folk more radically than She did, for people more like me than She did. I don’t know, I went to a private liberal arts school in upstate NY - liberal jews were a people I was comfortable with. But now, I can’t not be with Her. I have to be with Her, and that ‘with,’ has gone from a half hearted, “I guess” to a more sincere, authentic, “no, I am.”

There are two parts to this and both have me feeling some kind of way today.

There’s the never, ever, ever the Orange One sentiment. The never, ever, ever a current variations of repubs sentiment. When BSands conceded the nomination, a colleague - a white lady in her 50s who grew up poor a shit, working class from a large family and came to my old office asking if I could believe it, could I believe we were on the brink of maybe having our first female president! I expressed my discomfort with Her.

“Look,” she said to me plainly, “You really think that old guy had a shot? An old white guy amongst a bunch of other not as old white guys? We don’t need any more old white guys! We have someone dynamic, who’s well qualified and could very well be our first female president! Get with the program!”  

I’m going to ask you to reserve any peanut gallery comments for just a moment. Suspend any judgement that might be creeping up.

She wasn’t wrong. She was deeply right, not sure I would have articulated it as succinctly if I tried and knowing there was more to it than that. Since, everyone has articulated why being with Her is so important and why the narratives attached to being with Her require critical consideration.

David Valdes Greenwood summed it up quite clearly in his viral HuffPo piece:

“If you love me and you’re going to vote for Trump, I would like you to look me in the eye and say, “I’m OK with what Trump plans for you.” If you love my daughter, whose growth you have followed with joy, I want you to look her in the eye and say, “I’m OK with how Trump talks about you.”

Maybe dig out our holiday card from last year and, while looking at our smiling faces, practice saying to us: “You are less than me.”

Because that is what your vote for Trump says to my family.”

Being with Her, largely validates me in a way that voting against Her makes me less than. It stirs up some excitement, some pride and some level of Cautious optimism, capital C on Cautious.

A photo posted by Niki Mag (@nikimagtotally) on Nov 7, 2016 at 8:32am PST

It’s kind of a glorious time to be a woman. You might not vibe off of that when you look at the news, or some of mainstream media’s stories, but there seem to be a myriad of ways that women are creating and inventing spaces for expression and experience with relative ease. It’s easy to say that that could be in response to the momentum left over from Her run or as a response to being against the Orange One. Feminism is hot right now.

Yeah, some feminism today is white middle class liberal feminism. When I picture ‘Nasty Women,’ I don’t just picture Her in a pantsuit, or the financially stable career oriented young women I know doing theirs.  I think of young women fighting for reproductive rights, reclaiming handcrafts by needlepointing Beyoncé quotes, wearing fashion of past/present/future but gender fluid, with mixed degrees of body hair and a bold lip. Yes, you’re probably having trouble seeing exactly who I mean, which is fine, because I’m painting a spectrum, but you definitely saw someone independent right? Someone who is both tough and feminine maybe? Someone not taking shit from others, or if she isn’t outwardly speaking out against it, maybe she’s doing something subversive and behind the scenes…. Bet she was white though? First image I came up with was.

For what it’s worth, I do at times, also think of the counter feminisms - the black girls who are from the future/magic, Issa Rae signing to herself in her bathroom, Solange on stage at SNL basically wearing a dreamcatcher on her head singing about the power of her hair - which have clawed their ways out of the internet, and tumblr and onto screen and stage.

Y’all know my hyphen-American ass has some feelings about all of this. I’m deeply proud of my black sistren and their ability to jump out on the scene and be visible. But I’m not sure that visibility = representation = change in a discourse like feminism.

2016 feminism is not an aesthetic, but I wonder if that’s how we’re treating it, or if that’s what it’s become. I certainly described it above in aesthetic terms. As a 30 something hyphen I feel both alienated and empowered by the two feminisms I described above, both of which seem to have gained space because on a national level we’re making space to see and hear more female voices (at least marginally).

I’ve sought out other groups via social media, seeking a place or an hermandad that I could claim. I may have reckoned with a lot of my own hybridity on deeply personal levels, but claiming and belonging still don’t come naturally. So in direct contrast with my idea that feminism is not an aesthetic, it was of course on Instagram that I found a few Latina communities and groups that represent an experience that feels a little closer to home. Maybe it’s the shared language outside of English, or being a proud Chingona, maybe it’s things like the ode to hoop earrings I saw on FB. If I’d found something comparable for our API women by now, I’d be following/trolling/reblogging, bet.

So here I am, November 7th, 2016, marinating on being a woman. Holy hell we’ve been through it this year. Our rights and our persons have been the topic of public conversation in more ways than normal with the election cycle we’ve been subject to. And somehow we’re simultaneously seeing more ways, bolder ones at that, of how femininity/womanhood/feminism is expressed.

I’m nervous, and confused, and excited about the present and the future. I’m disappointed about the past, sure, but if we don’t look ahead… what’s the point? As much as I get frustrated and have been waxing (in personal life) about not being there for eachother, my favorite theme of 2016 being cultivating that black/brown/yellow/white/mocha love, we also have to be here for our selves. Maybe being with Her, is a piece of that and a piece of our necessary revolution.

I’m going to leave you with this clip - full of badasswomanery but also because of the following lyrics:

When it feels like

The world is on your shoulders

And all of the madness

Has got you goin’ crazy

It’s time to get out

Step out into the street

Where all of the action

Is right there at your feet,

Well

I know a place where we can

Dance the whole night away

Underneath the electric stars

….See y’all under the electric stars.

[magtonic]

What Meditation has Taught Me: I am not, in fact, a hot mess

There’s still a story here that I can’t tell, but what I’m learning is that maybe it’s just that, a story and not a reality. Someday I’ll tell it, hopefully soon.

In June I joined a meditation group specifically for People of Color. I’ve never been good at meditating, tried over and over but never succeeded. Coincidentally, we meet on Wednesdays. I often look around the room after our 30 minute sit each week and am grateful. We were together the night after news about Alton Sterling. We are together mid week, where stress and frustration is often at it’s precipice and I am so, so thankful, for the space and affinity group, and the fact that I am sitting in a room full of black and brown faces.

10 weeks of this regular practice - with lite private practice at home, it’s been invaluable. I mused on my two month marker:

“I’m deeply grateful that it’s helped me experience a pretty significant paradigm shift in dealing with the daily/lingering/predictable BS that comes at me every day.

As an imperfect being (and recovering Catholic) it’s really helping me when I have to really reach into my spirit in both a spiritual way but also as a survival mechanism.

When we - as people of color, young people with old souls, as women, as intersectional beings et. al. - allow ourselves to be so, we can really be resilient as fuck.”

So here it is, here is what meditation has taught me.

I can sit still for 30 minutes

This spring and summer has worn me down. I feel like a shell of myself sometimes. I’m a weirdo, a stone cold one, I’m goofy and I’m a clown at heart but I’ve felt like a dulled version of who I am. Despite that, the idea of me sitting still for any period of time is like a joke to so many of my kin - blood and otherwise. But I can do it. I need it. For at last 30 minutes a week I can sit and practice mindfulness, or try to, or not at all, but take that 30, brief as it might be and only a fraction of the over 10,000 minutes in a week, for me, and no one else. It’s become a sacred moment that I cannot, and will not give up for anyone else.

A video posted by Niki Mag (@nikimagtotally) on Jul 9, 2016 at 10:06pm PDT

I can get through “this” because everything is impermanent

A lot of what I learned isn’t something I’m necessarily cognizant of in the moment, but as I reflect on things later, it’s clear the tools I’ve developed over the last few weeks have been at play. So much of Buddhist thought is about moments and things passing. At some point, perhaps finally giving in or some form of acceptance, relinquishing control, I heard a favorite teacher and mentor’s voice. It wasn’t just “this too shall pass” as elders often tell us, but a very specific phrase Ms. Furaha used to say to me over and over again. “Let it go Joe.” This might be a little bit of an over simplification, but as desperate as I have been for movement, for change, for the conditions I’d been living through to be different, soon, now, yesterday, I realized that it would change. That though I couldn’t have full control over it all, what I did have was control over how I dealt with it and processed it during those inbetweens.

Breath is everything

I don’t know that I was ever really an indoor, or an outdoor kid to be exact. Y’all know I wasn’t exactly athletic, but there’s one thing that’s critical to me. The Ocean. My people, historically and again on that kin level, are coastal folk. Beach, coastal redwoods, islands, I’ve always fucked with them. So after a spring and summer of the above mentioned and the lather rinse, repeat of my previous posts, I feel serious spring fever. Not during spring. I feel it now, because spring passed, and summer almost gone, and I spent the last few months cooped up inside. My vitamin D levels are probably low, but so was my need for salt water, and air. Meditation and mindfulness, reminds you to breathe. Not just in relationship to concentration during whatever style of practice you do but in grounding yourself, in firing your synapses and bringing them energy. Breath, is also, on a very meta level, what I go to during tough times, not just the act but the fact that it makes one pause, take a beat - ultimately preventing me from doing, or saying something I will regret later. Yes, as we say in group each week, is you can always, come back to your breath.

Loving Kindness and Sympathetic Joy are pretty rad notions

Me, musing on love and kindness and loving kindness can’t be a surprise to you. It’s something I’ve been asking for, trying to bring to my own reality, but also the one we all share and live in together. My hope for it, my need to recreate it and share it as best I can is absolutely tied to the hate being birthed by election season, by current events. So the idea of sending someone, some loving kindness even in the smallest ways should have be a given. The tools of metta meditation specifically, have allowed me in the most heated, hottest moments professionally (because if you haven’t caught on, that’s been the only life I’ve been letting myself live) rather than explode, or say something crazy I’ve caught myself sending loving kindness to the person or thing that triggered it to begin with.

May you learn to love yourself. | May you live with ease. - Simple moments, part of the beat mentioned above, the redirection and paradigm shift I first noticed a few weeks ago.

Sympathetic Joy, or Mudita specifically, has been a different sentiment that I’ve experienced and practiced less. The idea of being genuinely excited and happy for someone and what they are experiencing, with absolutely no self-interest in it all. I hope for it, I look for it and if it arises I feel lucky to have experienced it. As a result I try to celebrate others when and how I can. It’s a necessary component of self care and social responsibility feel I have to my affinity groups, and POCs especially.

I have my shit more together than it feels

Today the discussion that followed our meditation session was about hindrances. Buddha outlined five of them, the one we discussed specifically was aversion - aka, anger, fear, annoyance, etc. etc. etc. The main form we discussed was self-hate. It’s 2016 and I’m a 30 something short, smart, clown and mixed-race woman of color. I know self-hate. Who doesn’t? Childhood, teens, twenties. In college I took all my self-deprecation and hate and flipped it. Turned it into fuel for my ventures in standup and comedy.  There wasn’t a way for me to really understand it then, but that shit fortified me for a lot of future work. My improv skills make navigating crazy shit professionally or operating with a rough template or sketch. But really, it also, getting laughs - which is still in my top priorities in most moments, served as a way that that self-hate dissipated. The last year has been a series of feeling like in word, name, and respect, I am at a peak. Cannot get, be, or do better. But in action, in practice, that’s not the reflection. What could turn into a really deep dark place to head toward, I know I’m the shit, regardless of the outcome of what’s going down. Yeah, vague, still part of the story I can’t tell yet. But for once, there’s a push pull between how I really feel about myself, and the conditions that are keeping me from being rewarded for being so fucking awesome, are out of my control. Tonight I realized, and accept that the days where I feel fat, and crappy and instead of hating my body I’m thinking, this outfit was a bad choice, next time I’ll add a belt, are grown, grown days. Self-hate isn’t a hindrance, it’s not fuel any more either, it just is. Just like stress, just like love, just like happiness.

Meditation has helped me remain resilient, has helped me protect my magic, and hopefully helped how I treat and show care for others during this crazy ass time.

May all beings be peaceful and happy.

May all beings feel safe and protected.

May all beings move through challenges with wisdom and compassion.

May all beings trust and love themselves just as they are.

Also, the Buddha was not just a spiritual teacher and student, but also a scientist, and hella real y’all, so of course I’m fascinated by someone who keeps shit really real.

[magtonic]

Woke Brown Bae Goggles - Some Rose Colored Glasses Shit…

What I’m about to say I’m sure is going to piss people off, but I need to take a minute to talk about something I’ve been marinating on for a while.

I don’t buy it. I can’t always get behind it. I worry we do more damage when this happens than help, but it’s part of the circumstances we have to deal with everyday, particularly as people who occupy black and brown bodies. We have to hold our young folks close, encourage, nurture and help them grow into questioning, thoughtful future citizens. But sometimes, maybe in this, we love too much. We love too hard and we forget to keep it real, we forget to create accountability checks and systems and revel in the love instead. I know I’ve written a lot about love, but this week I’m also wondering about balance.

We create and sustain counter narratives to tell black and brown kids they are special, they are unique, that they have talents, and intelligences all their own. We run with and turn truly extraordinary stories into tall tales to keep the momentum going, almost as a means of providing receipts for when we’ve excelled beyond expectation. But we especially do this with black and brown boys who’ll grow into men. We have to, because the cards are so deeply stacked against them.

Somewhere in this journey I wrote about how my parents have always supported my dreams and aspirations but also kept it real. “It’s great that you love basketball Nik, but you should really reconsider wanting to go pro. You’re a little small and not that good at it.” That may seem harsh but it was true and there was love behind it. I needed to practice, work hard and hone any craft I hoped to be successful at was their ultimate message.

Maybe they weren’t wrong. Maybe I’m not exceptional at one thing, and that’s cool. There are plenty of things that I do well, and I’ll take being a jack of all trades/ master of none over having no marketable skill, no desire or passion and just being a potato otherwise.

But even if that wasn’t the case and I was the best, baddest writer, or best 5’ 1’’ female guard to ever play basketball in middle school, I don’t think my theory would apply. My life is a constant reflection, an internal feedback cycle on how I’m giving to others, supporting my peers and being an ally. Yeah, this shit is a struggle sometimes, otherwise it’s second nature.

I’m worried however, that we do damage, to brown and black men who we find exceptional by telling them they are exceptional without a check or balance system, without holding them to high standards in areas where they aren’t as extraordinary.

You’re probably confused, but that’s okay. Here’s an example. Junot Diaz. He writes well. He can spin some story, and it’s great reading. But if we pause for a minute, and consider his last big work, “This is How You Lose Her,” it is a book about cheating, and greasy grimey dudes, many whose stories come directly from Diaz’s experiences.

It was critically acclaimed, on everyone’s reading lists, and ultimately captured a very raw, human part of our lives in a way that people could accept. I won’t say related to, because for certain it wasn’t everyone’s experience, but it was honest. And we accepted that honesty, and praised him for being so human, and in many ways he banked a credit that could serve as a pass later on.

In the case of Diaz, and I’ll borrow something my friend G brought up, there’s some stuff to unpack about how different periods of history have made us brown folk hate ourselves and hate each other and discussing how brown men treat brown women and vice versa is a consequence of that and definitely some shit we need to work out. But if all we’re doing is acknowledging that shit is still fucked up - it’s also superficial.

Now I’m not saying that this is what I did, or what others did, but it seems like Diaz in admitting he’s flawed, that we as humans, but especially brown men, are flawed  - was supposed to be enough of a statement. He did write about it all beautifully and put words to what I’m sure other brothers of ours have had trouble articulating, but what are we praising him for exactly? We’re certainly not praising him for doing right by women of color. We’re certainly not praising him for changing his behavior or supporting others in doing the same. He isn’t the only one we do this with. There are dozens of others, artists, musicians, scholars. Men of color who are woke, or growing in their wokeness who we accept and applaud for having the courage to admit that they’re working on it.

Admitting you are imperfect is not a pass to not try to be or do better. Speaking on an issue, or acknowledging there’s a problem is worth nothing if it’s not followed by some kind of action.

So here’s the particularly blasphemous shit I planned to say. I’m not sure I’m all about Jesse Williams, in light of his BET Awards acceptance speech.

Look - the man is FINE, the speech was beautiful and the following quote from it, has me feeling some kind of way:

“The burden of the brutalized is not to comfort the bystander… if you have a critique for the resistance, for our resistance, then you better have an established record of critique of our oppression, if you have no interest in equal rights for black people then do not make suggestions to those who do…”

But then I wonder, maybe, if I’m just wearing my “woke brown bae goggles.”

Jesse Williams has all of the components to meet my much requited “brown dude with hella appropriate swag,” criteria. He’s fine, he’s smart, he’s passionate, he’s actually involved in doing the work he asks us all to do, he’s employed and people generally like him. That may seem pretty basic, but it’s definitely the bare minimum for my needs. That said, I’m a little suspect. Maybe because I’ve fallen victim to “woke brown bae goggles” before. The dude I friend broke up with last summer, and other dudes in my proximity. Spellbound and bamboozeled into seeing only their exceptional magical shit and giving them a pass when they slip up, when they don’t meet those already high expectations, and often at the cost of women of color. But that’s an aside, and my own shit - I’m really not trying to get Gary Dourdained, cause I have certainly loved and given passes to greazy grimey dudes who have a special craft and are often also woke.

I also don’t want to undermine the power of what Jesse said. It’s huge to have someone publically bring to light or express things we so badly want to say out loud. Put names to feelings and wonderings we know are circling in barbershops, behind closed doors. And he’s seemingly doing the work, practicing what he preaches, but still I hesitate.

It’s clearly different with men I come into contact with, that I know, whose numbers I have or whom I have less than 6 degrees of separation with, our sheer proximity to one another makes the sour taste left in my mouth by suspicion that much stronger, and the distrust in intentions that much more of a betrayal.

With celebrities, writers, rappers and others who are generally famous/infamous, it’s all trickier. We hold them in higher regard, we praise them more, especially when they venture not only from being talented and good at their craft, but when they stand up and show just how woke they are. Beyonce making a statement with Formation was as much about the timing, her power and her role in our social landscape as it was something that needed to be heard. We praised her too, for finally saying something - key word finally. But we also criticized her and critiqued her in ways we haven’t and won’t the men. Fame is funny that way. In public discourse it’s practically the rule that critique of women (by other women even - the family is cute as shit and I stan for my Warriors but cough Ayesha Curry cough, I’m looking at you) is fair game. It’s often volatile, and uncalled for, and administered by even our own community members. Maybe I’m wrong, but i feel like women of color especially, rarely get passes. Yes, dominant culture has plenty of fucked up things to say about men of color but I feel like in our own communities, we still hold talented, successful and well-spoken men as precious.

My friend L just asked me if I would carry this analogy to the president. He’s a black man that people of color in particular put on a pedestal. I’ve definitely done it, and often. His pass? His pass isn’t so much a pass, but to some extent part of the job. It’s expected and somewhat understood that trickery, lying through omission and general greazyness is part of the president’s daily duties - am I right? As much as he stands to “represent us” however, the president will never speak for us or relate to us the way we rely on and request artistic types to do just that.

Woke brown brothers like Lin-Manuel Miranda, who - although he’s the child of pretty successful parents - was just a Boriquen kid in New York City, doing his thing, going to public school, who liked rap and wore the same clothes, watched the same movies as the rest of us. He literally went to a college like mine and is only a year or two older, what’s not to relate to? Talented as he may be, truly mastering the art of written word and rhyme in a way not many others can, and we commend him for writing a rap musical about history. He’s a genius, he’s this, he’s that.I’ll give him one thing - he’s the first to do this and that makes it special. But y’all, he took a story that already happened, created some rhyming prose about it, embellishing things here and there to add flavor for sure, and then called his music producing friends to make it happen. Forreal, that shit is hard and I definitely couldn’t do it. But honestly, we’re hype about it because it’s safe. Musicals are safe domain for white folks, and as a brown man, he’s exceptional because he broke boundaries doing this. He can - and in many cases should - get praise from all angles and directions. Maybe we’re hype about it simply because no one had done it yet - not to say that Cam’ron was about to write about the Battle of Alamo, or Common was ready to write about Japanese Internment, but someone had to do it, at some point.

I say all of this like I’m laying in wait, like I’m waiting for the bubble to burst. For these men we’ve decided are remarkable, to somehow show us their darker selves, some deeper truth.

I fear a level of disappointment when that happens. Hoping that they will rise to the occasion in light of a potential truthbomb and have to admit their inevitable vulnerability, their humanity, that maybe they fucked up - they’ll act and be and do differently. They won’t do, or say or be shitty toward others and grow, and change. So many times I’ve seen these men, these woke black and brown men, we love, we hold in such high regard, who are my brothers, my uncles, my friends, family and would be lovers - admit and acknowledge their own flaws, transgressions, growth areas, and even though they don’t necessarily ask for forgiveness, we give it to them. We absolve them of their mistakes. Some may call for us all to be and do better in light of what they’ve learned, but it’s often been only a call. Yeah, I have no evidence to suggest that maybe some of these men have actually done, and are better. But that shit has to radiate outward.

In his speech, Jesse also said:

“We’ve been floating this country on credit for centuries yo, and we’re done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us… The thing is though, that just because we’re magic doesn’t mean we’re not real…”

Despite not yet meeting my own woke brown bae with hella appropriate swag, or having to raise an exceptional brown/mocha/ecru colored son, I want to see that shit radiate out of my community, flaws and all, not just men- for women of color have their own type of flaws, false or extreme praise and the like. This isn’t some anti-man shit, pro-man woman shit, anti-woman woman shit, it’s just human. I’ma call upon quite a few other essays here on WNB - this is about some shine theory, protecting and cultivating our love, our magic, and still somehow, keeping it real. To truly be exceptional, is to be outstanding. To be outstanding is to truly be and do better.

[magtonic]

Love Just Is...

Yesterday, on a random, unprovoked email purge and mission to get my inbox full of 4,900 read emails down to 2000 or less, I came across an email from 2010.

It was from my last long term ex. He’d sent it about 6 months after we’d broken up. It was about how sorry he was for our last interactions. About his inability to love - because he didn’t love himself - he had loved me, but didn’t know how to anymore and that he thought I deserved someone who loved themselves enough that they could love someone else.

I’m paraphrasing. That’s all that needs to be said about him - that email and how I felt about our four years together. IT’s been 6 years and truly, that’s all there is to say. We were together, then we weren’t. It wasn’t a clean break, but we both knew it needed to happen.

But it’s funny that I came across it today.

The last time I wrote - at length, because the amount of energy I expelled putting that post together, dealing with everything life has offered us over the last few weeks has left me a bit depleted - was about love. I’ve been musing on love - and cultivating love, since I started this project. In fact, at one point, I took out a notebook and tried to chronicle the themes of my essays and love came up in different forms. Mostly, however, in grandiose, culture shifting, giving to humanity ways.

On the other end there were posts about self care, self love, but still, they were hypothetical and grand.

Since I last wrote anything, I’ve seen and experienced it, I’ve watched it attempt to overcome so much, and also been gifted love in immediate, tangible ways. But before I wax on what this all means, let me give you a little bit of a travelogue.

Mid May: A pretty significant time of transition started for me. It’s one I can’t yet talk about - not that I’m sure I want to, and if you talk to me regularly you can guess what I’m referring to. In any event it’s been rocky, it’s been frustrating and now I’m in a place of neutral acceptance about it. Don’t worry, it’s not related to health, or my physical well being, so I’m aight.

Late May: I walked my 3rd AFSP Overnight walk, here in my city, with a group of diverse women, including my sister, some family friends/pretend sisters and my former officemate and quickly on the rise to bestie status D, all of whom I’m happy to know and have in my life. Real talk: we were diverse and as a means of creating a roll call since there were so many of us and we wanted to try and stay together we came up with the idea to call out ROYGBIV. We were each assigned a color and when whoever was in front yelled out RAINBOW GO, each of us would take our turn to respond with our assigned color in ROYGBIV order. YELLOW! … The AFSP Out of the Darkness Overnight community remains a community that is full of love, bound together by not only loss, but hope. Walking through streets I’ve walked through before, noticing things I’ve never noticed, scattering while standing at a reststop in a cutty park in Chinatown as rats ran out of nearby bushes like true city kids, I felt the love differently. Carrying with me the love generated by the #Frisco5/500/5000 it was a grueling (those hills on Scott near the Marina though…) but beautiful night.

Later May/Memorial Day Weekend: My family and I walked from their home in Upper Noe over to the Carnaval parade in the Mission district. I took a photo and posted the following on Instragram underneath it after we’d watched a few minutes of Sambistas go by on Folsom and 24th streets:

“There are few days a year I feel as in community as I do during Carnaval weekend here in my city. It’s my favorite day of the year and inevitably has moments that annoy the hell out of me, but I still love it. It’s when you run into friends from past, present and in some cases future. Into family, like we did when we ran into so many middle school folk at once, it’s where my version of my city still lives and breathes no matter how many gentrifiers, cops, and tourists walk along side us. Because this is our space, and we are happy to share it with you.”

We walked over the the festival that took place after the parade a few blocks away and roamed for a while. At some point my parents decided they’d had enough and my sister and I picked a spot, mid festival to wait for her boyfriend. We stood on Harrison Street, between 18th and 19th, in front of the mural depicting the parade itself, truly at the center of it all. We watched people, we chatted a little, we felt at home and neutral. After a few minutes a male voice broke our meditation and screamed out “Look at these gangsta girls!”

My sister and I went stone cold, and kept our posted up, stance ignoring the dude, but within seconds he was in her face trying to hug her. He’s lucky he was actually a kid she’d grown up with, friend of her boyfriend truthfully, and not some random dude because I don’t know what I would have done to him - no I take that back - I don’t know what she would have done to him had he been a stranger, she’s the one to be afraid of. He was drunk, and in a good mood and it spilled over and spread a little into us. The three of us joked around and before we knew it he was calling out to someone else who walked by… a crazy teacher who’d taught at our middle school and recently retired. God it was awkward, but it was still full of love.

Less than 5 minutes later, we ran into a few other middle school folks, my folks since I’m older by 4 years, as a woman in the crowd walking by us and I locked eyes. It was my friend C, with her was our other friend M who I recruited to work for my organization recently and begged her to make a cross country move. We hugged, we chatted and M tapped on a guy’s shoulder who was in their crew, it was A.

Though I hadn’t seen C and M in years, I talked to them often on Facebook, and M and I texted regularly. For A, it had been since middle school graduation, nearly 20 years. We weren’t close at the time, though we’d been a little close at one point as I was dealing with some unrequited crush on him in 7th grade. He turned quickly and hugged me.

He hugged me long, and hard. It didn’t mean anything - truly, but something happened. We said very little as we stood there in this embrace, but the hug spoke volumes and was some kind of love. It said you are loved, we are good, so, so good. We as in all of us, not just A and I but C and M and their families with us, and A’s wife who he introduced me to afterward, and my sister. It said this is family, this is love.

First Week of June: My family and I, including my blonde, former college roommate S, for the 2nd AFSP Overnight this year. I opted not to walk, but my parents chose NY over our home here in SF and my sister and S decided to join them even though it would only be 2 weeks since our SF walk together. I got to connect with a handful of friends from in our 6 days there, we got to connect with my sister’s dude’s family, with S’s friends and my sister’s friends. I even got to watch the Warriors whoop the Cavs asses in game 2 of the finals with two friends I consistently texted during this seasons big games.

I loved New York. Though I’d got to college in NY state, I’d spent time in Brooklyn and Queens and so it still held a special place in my heart. But while there, I learned how far New York and I had drifted apart. That learning may have been soured by a pretty shitty Air BnB situation - something we hesitantly did in looking for a place for 6 of us to stay, near the walk opening ceremony and on the fly- when we found out after being confronted by the landlord that it was an illegal listing and that our host hadn’t paid her rent since February. What a fucking douchebag.

I summed up my trip in a reflection that ultimately, for all of the wonderful and beautiful reasons I loved New York, it also caused me equal amounts of anxiety and brought up tensions I couldn’t really jive with. “You can’t take the Bay out of me, or me out of the Bay,” I realized. For all the love I’d felt, our housing situation, and random annoyances I’d felt just by the tempo and energy of the city, I wasn’t really feeling the love. As we left our Air BnB and headed to the airport we ran into the landlord again. She asked us how our trip had been and if we enjoyed our visit. My mother told her yes, and said we’d been in town for a charity walk. As the landlord asked us what charity and my mother uttered the words “the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention,” she softened and apologized for directing her anger at her tenant - whom she’s in the process of evicting - and my mother apologized for causing her any added stress. She said no, we had no way of knowing, commended us for doing the walk and contributing to such an important cause and after a few more minutes of conversation we were on our way.

I could keep going, week by week, but I won’t, but I’ll mention some quick things. The tragedy in Orlando and how communities came together in love, because of love, to cope, process and acknowledge how this kind of thing is simply unacceptable.

Random political acts and actions across the country about the 4 million other things happening nationwide.

Venturing to the Nor Cal Pirate Festival (yes, I know, it’s a thing, it’s kind of like a more rugged Ren Faire, but we go every year) on father’s day and chatting with a young single black dad with a toddler and his family.

Deciding to send a best friend across the country a birthday gift for the first time in years, and picking out exactly the right card(s- it was actually too hard to choose just one) and trinkets for her and feeling the excitement and love through text messages.

Riding with the Warriors through an incredible season, and in true Draymond fashion, feeling some kind of way as he took blame for their loss of the championship, something I undoubtedly would do, and did in reflecting on my own behavior at work.

When a mentor/colleague/friend/older brother figure, during a check in said his life was good, real good. He was in love, the romantic sort, and suggested those of us with him just, you know… try it sometime. His excitement, even his ridiculous suggestion being an act of love toward those of us in his company.

Taking a bit of a jump outside of myself, my normal routine and joining a People of Color meditation group which, while I’m a novice, has proven  in two weeks, to be a good outlet, to at least be still, release some of the frantic energy that’s been building and spend time looking inward.

Being able to listen and support friends and colleagues going through it in unplanned and unexpected ways.

I’m sure there have been others I’ve missed. 

I didn’t watch, and I’m struggling to buy into the whole Hamilton hype, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s TONY acceptance speech (some of y’all know how I feel about the homie Lin, but if you don’t that’s for another post. Let’s just say: suspect as fuck) and the buzz around it got had me curious.

I mean, yeah, it was a sonet, and in response to Orlando, news we had just heard about that morning, but when he says the following, I can’t hate.

“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.

We rise and fall, and light from dying embers

Remembrances that hope and love last longer.

And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love;

Cannot be killed or swept aside.”

Because love is. It just is. As a refrain in light or Orlando, “Love, is…” has penetrated our social world. But if it just is, why has it been so hard to see and feel and touch.

So much love over the last few weeks. Love needed, love given - unconditionally and unsolicited. I’ve lacked the cognizance to make space for it for so long, to realize that I’ve been lacking the ebb and flow of giving and receiving love. I’ve pushed love away for so long, let so many other emotions and feelings take up space.

Now, and quite suddenly, quiet unknowingly, I’m welcoming it. I’m open to it. And need to accept it in as many forms as it will come.

I’m not really sure what I’m asking of you tonight friends, or what exactly I want to tell you here. Yes, we need more love, to give, receive, but we can’t force it either. How and when don’t matter, why- simply because we are human. Love is love is love… it just is.

[magtonic]

The Frisco Five have Fed SFC

There is a stillness in the air. It’s not a calm still, just a quiet. But underneath it is a rumble.

There’s a big one coming. That’s what the news is saying about an earthquake due to hit California any time as the pressure along the San Andreas fault line which runs up and down most of our coast is building.

Berkeley scientists have said that the fault line is “locked and loaded”. But in San Francisco the big one may have already hit.

On Friday, the 6th, a group of 5 people who’d been engaged in a 17 day hunger strike, in response to continued issues with our local police department’s actions toward people of color were taken to the hospital.

For almost 3 weeks, 5 people, all San Francisco natives and longtime residents, sat outside the Mission District police department, in peaceful protest, starving themselves asking that our mayor or chief of police step down.

There’s an echo, throughout the US, around police brutality - we know that right? This isn’t  news to anyone. San Francisco isn’t your Ferguson, but here we’re experiencing the same thing that’s rippled across the nation.

Alex.

Mario.

Amilcar.

Luis.

All men of color, all shot with questionable cause. Our city is raw off of these incidents - so naturally, as our police chief and the force he represents are under ongoing investigation and our mayor too, has had some shady, shady incidents under review - questioning our city’s use of force seems like a natural thing.

Stone strikes stone, makes a spark.

The Frisco Five, as our hunger strikers have come to be known had had enough. It makes sense in our city, full of history, culture, birthplace of ethnic studies, hippies, Ginsberg and Kerouac, black panthers, brown berets and the San Francisco Burrito, (just worth mentioning), that we’d have thinkers and community members willing to make a statement, but this, this felt extreme for 2016.

Sellassie and Equipto, two local rappers.

Ike Pinkston and Maria Cristina Gutierrez, two local educators.

Edwin Lindo, a local education advocate, who was (is still?) running for office.

Edwin admitted it might be political suicide to strike. And y’all give Bay rappers so much shit for being politically oriented, but I don’t see Jay or Kanye or even Kendrick, the most woke one of them all, putting themselves out there (unless you count Killer Mike basically being Bernie’s running mate). Ike and Maria Cristina are known in the community and work directly with kids so you can’t hate on that - and a side note, Maria Cristina is no spring chicken - she’s 66 yo!

In a peaceful, but bold protest the Frisco Five sat, and meditated, and prayed, and read, and entertained a few visitors, awaiting a conversation with the mayor. Mayor Lee would not relent. He showed up at the station on Monday of last week, on his terms, not theirs so no conversation was had. On Tuesday they were wheeled through the streets to city hall, marchers surrounding them and aired their concerns publicly at city hall interrupting a board of supevisor’s meeting.  As the days went by they asked that if anyone wanted to support, they come by with sage smudges and candles as a means of holding vigil and keeping them strong.

Though their bellies may have been empty, their hearts were so, so full. Their love, for our city, for our people, radiated outward, and what we as a community put into supporting them, they reciprocated with their actions. They could not be stopped. Sellassie was taken to the hospital on Wednesday afternoon, but returned to their camp site as soon as possible.

On Friday, it rained. It wasn’t a steady rain, but it was and stayed wet. It was calm, not a storm, just rain. Though the Frisco Five had signed “Do Not Treat” orders, all concerned knew the rain would be nothing but bad for them. Though their love was strong, their bodies and health were clearly compromised and so they packed up, were taken to UCSF and their site cleaned.

But this love, it spread - or maybe that’s the wrong idea. It was always there, and it was ignited in our city, this Black/Brown/Yellow/White/Mocha/Ecru love I’ve talked about… It was set ablaze. And when the Frisco Five could not be there in body, others stepped up.

They took their place at the Mission station.

They marched to city hall, took it over and would not be moved.

The spirit, and love of the Frisco Five would not, could not be moved.

Our people marched, and occupied and called for action. But it didn’t end peacefully, despite all attempts to remain so as City Hall closed at 8 and protesters continued to occupy the space. 33 were arrested, who knows how many were actually hurt. The Frisco Five, was suddenly, potentially becoming the Frisco 50, Frisco 500, Frisco 5000.

On Sunday the Frisco Five ended their hunger strike, but vowed to continue their cause. 20 days without food was enough and they are now under a careful re-feeding plan. In their message to the community their love shined through and certainly makes one pause. I am not that strong. I may suck at eating lately, but even I know how miserable I will be if I don’t eat so tonight I force fed myself a beer and some shitty frozen xiao long bao from Tjs. 20 days without food - that’s when the only thing that will feed you, is strength of the spirit, love of your community.

They called for a general strike on Monday, asking people to demonstrate at city hall, to continue, and not give up, as they wouldn’t, even from behind hospital walls and would back on the street as soon as they were able to.

Resilient as fuck, and determined as hell, we have not stopped, we will not stop.

I can’t and won’t front. I did not march to city hall today, but reported to work, and did my thing in my low level government job. I can make a ton of excuses, remind you of my “destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools” mentality, but that’s bullshit. I just didn’t go, and didn’t have it in me to tell my colleagues and department head that I wouldn’t be in on the first day after my boss transitioned out of our department. But my weak ass non-action today does not speak for where I really stand. It was something that was difficult to pinpoint over the last few weeks, but it became clear after Friday night’s actions.

This weekend, after 20 days of observing, of not having the words to articulate the swirling thoughts I had about not only SFC, but of the human condition, of love, of what it means to be brown in 2016, I finally took to social media with an original thought of my own.

“My spirit is tired. What’s going on in my city and in this world is wearing it out a little. But seeing how our city has decided to mobilize after the ‪#‎FriscoFive‬ were hospitalized has also filled my spirit.

It says we are here.

It says we will be heard.

It says we want justice.

It says we have and will continue to cultivate a black/brown/yellow/mocha/buttermilk love for our people. For our city.

Oro en paz - fierro en guerra.”

(”Take Back SF” by Monica Magtoto) 

Today you could hear the helicopters over city hall from my office. All day you could see police stationed outside, on guard, waiting. I haven’t seen anything on the news about today, though if I’m honest I’ve been watching the Warriors game while working on this post. But there were certainly demonstrators - we are all still here.

We are taking back SF, not by force, but by taking up space. This is not a new concept, by my sister constantly reminds me (probably herself as well) to take up space. To not be silenced, pushed aside. Being pushed aside is not an option, I never let that happen. But often, I do allow myself to fade into the back, this act essentially creating space for someone else.

But I can’t and won’t do that now - we can’t and won’t do that. Our love, something we so desperately need as Americans right now - this multicolored, multi-generational, multi-lingual/faith/sex, cross - red vines vs. twizzers, east-west rivalry love - cannot be held back.

Our love is flexible, and will bend and wiggle, as our buildings must to survive an earthquake. It is strong and unstoppable, it is “Gold in peace, iron in war.” There is an alchemist myth that iron could turn into gold under the right conditions. So perhaps, what the Frisco5000 are doing is performing a little alchemy of our own.

[magtonic]

“I walk for...” - Mental Health Awareness Month

12 years ago, right after starting my junior year of college I got a phone call that one of my sister’s best friends had passed away. He didn’t just pass away sadly, he had taken his own life.

Matthew, or Frick as he was known, was one of those too smart for his own good kids - a genius, a creative, strange and wonderful in all the best ways. The first time I met him, I remember thinking, “this kid is a lunatic,” because he’d taken a motor from god-knows what, jerryrigged it to basically create a fan, had made fan blades out of packing tape, and was torturing another friend of theirs with it while sitting on my couch. I’d later learn how I’d misjudged him. He was a dancer, a pianist, loved techno and had the biggest heart for someone his age.

Right before I’d left for school that year he’d wished me well and reminded me “not to do anything [he] wouldn’t do”. I’m positive I gave him the same peculiar look that I’d been giving him for years when he did something strange - not bad, just peculiar - smiled and wished him good luck in school.

His passing was devastating. The circumstances surely tragic and oddly wrapped in a sense of beauty only he could capture. I was miles away and couldn’t do anything for my sister, my family, their friends, so I walked around Sunset Lake (yeah, my campus had a glorified pond we called a lake) with my friend T and yelled obscenities and cried. He wasn’t the first person I’d lost, or the last I’d lose to suicide, but the experience was tricky. 

Frick had struggled with mental health issues for some time, as do many teens. He was figuring himself out, he’d been put on different medications to manage all that was going on with him and ultimately it was too much for him. I don’t know that I can fully understand what he was going through, though the idea of things being “too much” as a teen doesn’t seem unfamiliar. As we grow, our brains develop and we start to learn who we are there’s no lack of confusion - we’re steeped with internal and external conflicts, pushed and pulled in different ways. Our individual experiences only complicate or put different spins on where we fall within the spectrum of negotiating our own mental health.

In the years since Frick’s passing my sister and their friend group have all dealt with not only coping and grieving and accepting his passing but their own mental and physical states. Some have been more successful than others of course, but many have grown. My own reflection on that time, on my own challenges at that age, and even where I stand now are peppered with the sheer experience of living, of growing older, of living on both coasts, in Hawaii and in my buttermilk yellow-tan skin. Maybe I’m also impacted by the jaded state that comes with age, when we accept that some shit just is what it is, fake it till you make it mentalities. But I’d lie if I say I don’t think about Frick often. That I don’t think about the impact his passing had on my sister, on her best friend H- our chosen sister - both of whom have grown into powerful, intelligent, beautiful women bound together not just by friendship and chosen family but by this shared tragedy. That my parents lost a son of sorts. That I don’t think about Frick’s parents who’ve attempted to fill his loss with writing and baking and who knows what else. My sister has even created a way of coping with her grief that might help others. 

May is Mental Health Awareness Month.

I say that to you not just because it’s May 2nd.

I say that to you because I’m gearing up for my 3rd American Foundation for Suicide Prevention Out of the Darkness walk later this month and here in my home town.

I say that to you because in all of the writing I’ve been doing here on WNB, in all that is going on in the world, y’all need to be reminded.

We need to remember this as we continue to live in a world that (yes, I’ve said this before and I do not care that I’m repeating myself) tells black and brown kids they ain’t shit, every-fucking-day.

We need to remember this because we continue to live in a world that tells trans and gay kids they ain’t shit. Heaven forbid you’re gay or trans AND a black or brown, cause then you’re a double negative.

It’s 2016 and we’re still giving people shit who can’t speak English, evicting people to make a mint off of the nouveau upper middle class, discriminating against people because of their religious beliefs.

And yet…

We stigmatize those who admit they have mental health issues. WE THE ONES CREATING THE CONDITIONS FOR MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES TO BE  A THING.

Not a single one of us, if we were to reflect on it for a second, can say we don’t know someone who has or have not directly been impacted by compromised mental health. Yet, we are living, breathing proof that our actions or those of our neighbors, directly contribute to having negative impact on others.

Admittedly - we have a lot of work to do, it doesn’t fall on one fragment of our society, it doesn’t belong to one community, but we have to do it.

3 weeks from now I’ll walk from sundown until… whenever I finish… 18 miles, overnight through the streets I’ve grown up on.

Last year I walked through storms in Boston.

The year before I walked through storms in Seattle where my sister was the keynote speaker and shared her journey with Frick’s passing.

So, this year, if it storms again, I’ll still be there, walking for Frick. For our younger selves that didn’t have the language, perspective or support to figured it out. For the black and brown kids who get told daily that they ain’t worth shit. For the trans folks who get told they don’t matter. For girls that get told they can’t. For you, me and everyone in between. This year means something slightly different to me and it means so much to do it here in my city.

To find out more about the AFSP’s Overnight Walk and all the good work they do click here. I could go on and on about the important work they do, what the walk itself does to people and the community it’s built, but perhaps that’s for another time.

I hope you’ll take some time this month to reflect on what you can do - for yourself, for others, for us all.

[magtonic]

A Prince, a Queen & some Rappers - Instead of a Coachella Rant

Christ. It’s festival season. Fucking festival season. That’s what I was going to write about, fucking Coachella and all its awfulness. The costumery, the fuckery, the fact that festivals, when coming from a city like San Francisco, are something I don’t take lightly (I don’t take costumes lightly either, y’all know that).  And as much as I want to go off about how festival season has become an excuse to appropriate other cultures and a cash cow for taking money from millennials, I can’t.

There were a lot of things I could have written about but opted not to, that’s the case every week. This week it was the election, how watching “Black Girls Rock” gave me all the feels. Shootings. Natural Disasters. And an idea I hadn’t yet fully formulated because of all the buzz on social media lately about Selena, “the Queen of Tejano”, not Gomez, but I said nah, I’ll let that one marinate for a while.

And then this week, we lost Prince.

I didn’t feel any kind of way about it. I didn’t feel any kind of way about losing Bowie a few months ago. The world will feel their loss, and it’s certainly sad to see the greats go, but I didn’t feel triggered.

Then I saw a link, that called out someone on Twitter who’s reflection on Prince’s passing left me kind of speechless.

I def wasn’t speechless because Prince was that person for me. I love him, love his music and I’m lucky enough to share a name with one of his big hits - not that it’s ever a song I want folks saying “Oh! You’re name is Niki?! Like DARLING NIKKI?!” but I’ll take it. I also have a different appreciation of him after seeing Maya Rudolph and Princess perform his hits and B-sides also made me appreciate him in a different way.

I don’t stan for celebrities. I mean there are some I’d be really happy to meet. But I never had celebrity crushes that were real and I don’t wait in line for folks or pay a month’s rent for tickets to see them. So losing one, while a sad thing, is never personal.

And for some, as is the case with Selena, it takes a while to mean something. She was killed when I was in middle school and I hadn’t really caught on to her pop stuff, but I was embedded in a hugely Latino school, so it certainly got around. Her tejano hits were FAR from something I could get into. So as above, so below… It was sad news, but she didn’t stand out as any kind of personal icon, and I wasn’t particularly impacted by her passing.

But with the recent anniversary of her death, and birthday oddly enough - seeing the web go hard on creating content about her - not just because of the lipstick MAC is putting out in her honor mind you, which I am excited about - I started feeling something. It was a slow creep up. Tremendously late, I couldn’t help but feel like “Damn, we really lost someone there, didn’t we?”

I wondered who she would have become. I wondered why, as a 33 year old part-Chicana, I suddenly held her as some kind of image of Latina-ness that I don’t necessarily aspire to, but I admire. More so postmortem than when she was alive, I feel some weird connection. Maybe because of some sentiment like the tweet above, maybe because when I think about celebrities that have really told me about myself through their work, it’s not a whole catalogue, an acting real, but super specific moments, lines, lyrics, sounds. They don’t all belong to one person or group, they’re spread across so much of what I’ve consumed. Maybe it’s part of that comedy mind, picking up bits and pieces from all over the place and weaving together whatever story I’m going to tell. Maybe it’s some sort of fear of commitment, who knows.

This recognition of my appreciation for Selena also came about after we did an ice breaker at work recently. The prompt was to think about happy moments in our life and pick one we would want to relive. A handful of coworkers said they would relive moments and change something about them, do something differently. That’s not how I felt. I immediately went to a moment where I wouldn’t change a thing.

I think we were 19? I was home from college for break and we needed something to do, so my best friend Lalo and I were parked up on top of Billy Goat Hill sitting in his car. We were listening to the Roots ‘Do You Want More?!!!??!’ album, not saying a word, or sharing a thought. I got soaked up in the music, wrapped up in the artistry. I want to say it changed my worldview which evokes stronger emotions than it honestly might have, but that’s the closest description to what I felt that I can come up with.

But I can’t name those other moments. I can name songs that evoked particular emotion at a particular time, but not life altering thoughts or feelings, just that one. So when whatever clicked, that made Selena suddenly stand out was remarkably one of those moments. The moment in Lalo’s car led to a journey with The Roots music that lasts today, my appreciation of them something very much a part of who I am. Likewise, whatever clicked in me while reading all of these things about Selena pulled on my Latinidad and brown womanhood, that while I’m never silent about it, hadn’t really been something I was actively thinking about in the context of other brown women. It’s not that suddenly my perception of her was helping me know myself, but she was helping me develop who I still wish to grow into. .

In a world where people look up to celebrities and media personalities aspiration to be like someone can mean a lot of things. Prince, Bowie and the Roots, teach us about ourselves because of our reactions to their art. Other’s teach us about ourselves as reflections, or mirrors or foreshadows into who we might become.

That said, I’m not positive, but if I were to guess it, some day in the future I might have a Prince moment. Of note in all the news about his passing is how unapologetic he was about himself, his interests, his music. And yes, that’s something I’m learning to be, but it’s certainly something I aspire to master. I really need to order a raspberry beret, I’ve been saying this for years.

[magtonic]

On Having No Poker Face

Stop telling women to smile.

It’s a common theme in 2016, that we’re sick of it, that in today’s Taylor Swift girl power Roxann Gay Bad Feminist dichotomy women are harassed - daily in both aggressive and microaggressive ways. One of the most common being when a dude on the street basically says, “Hey baby, why don’t you smile?”

I’m hyper sensitive to it, in that I’m on alert for it, but because of my own makeup, I avoid, ignore, and have so many walls up that I don’t know how often it’s actually said to me. In fact, I’m so hyper aware of it that today while walking with a male coworker when a stranger said hello to us I jerked as we walked past and said to my colleague, “Did he just tell me to smile?!’ He hadn’t, but I’m just trying to say that’s how real it is.

But that’s not what this post is about. This post is actually about the opposite of that. Last week, in my week of old friends, not just the wedding I wrote about, but the following week that was filled with other old friends visiting me, spending time in spaces that belong to, came from and are thriving because of SFC Natives - my people - people were noticing me.

I am a goddamned magnetic person. I have a contagious laugh, I captivate a room, I spin so much story. I’m saying this completely absent of ego because we know, in my true, keeping it real fashion, I am also deeply self-deprecating. I make acquaintances easily, I build relationships like my life depended on it and regrettably, I’m one of those poor unfortunate folks who people open up to and tell too much. Real talk this shit is so unfortunate - I ask someone how they’re doing in that super basic pleasantry we are accustomed to, and they tell me they’re getting a divorce. I am working with a client and somehow I find out she recently lost a pregnancy. This might not be just my issue, it may run in my family, but I’d be happy if it happened less.

This trait has also leant to having so, so many friends spread across the country who I’ve become the glue for. Not because I bind them together in a “Let’s all get on this text chain… college meetup in SF!” way, but because I still keep in touch with so many and that’s how they know everyone is doing aight.

So I get noticed. Yes I speak loudly, I dress loudly, I am not shy about what’s going on. I’m an open person. I’m this way to let you know that this is who I am before you can reject me. But, all that said, I’m still noticed when I’m quiet. When I’m missing. And while I know all of these things, I don’t know why I forget this fact.

I forget it, until I’m called out for something. So last week, with all that grounded love, surrounded by my people - different peoples - in different places - I was showing myself and being seen. Or maybe it wasn’t me, but a part of me that I’ve neglected, that’s been ignored, silenced in some kind of way, that I’d forgotten.

What was clear, as I posted and was tagged in pictures on social media, was that I was fucking happy. I was fucking smiling. And people called me out for it. They didn’t say, “WTF ARE YOU DOING SMILING?!” They didn’t say, “YOU REALLY SHOULD SMILE MORE!” They said, “Did you have fun, it looked like you did?… Oh my god, you looked so happy!”

Fuck. I got caught. I mentioned it before, but I should have known how obvious it was that I haven’t been happy that time my coworker asked me if I was excited about anything in my life. I should have known when my insides were telling me, when I had no appetite. But I really only knew now, because someone had called out how different it was to see me smile.

I should have seen it coming, when, after a night of drunken dancing and laughing, and eating shit tons of bbq with my friends visiting last week, J, called me out as we heard last call after parting ways from our buddy S, my sister and her dude. I should have seen it coming, but there had been a lot of love, a lot of whiskey. J basically said, “it was so good to see you let go. It was so good to see you let loose, have a good time, and you need to stop getting in your own way.”

That’s horrible paraphrasing. But that’s the gist of it, or maybe it was more like, “Don’t be weird with guys… You were having a great time… because you were letting go… because you are awesome… and it was so good to see you let go and have a good time!”

Yeah, that seems more accurate.

He was fucking right. Everyone was fucking right. I know that now, because I talked about it last week, I needed my people. I needed space to do, and be, without pretense, without pressure, low stakes, high reward. And I got that. But it’s clear I need to stay on this track. Keep this shit up.

I’ve harped on a lot of this already. Self-care. Worshiping at the temple of comedy. I need to laugh so hard I pee while being my authentic self and not needing to worry too much about the consequences.

I need to fucking smile.

So I have to try and take it where I can get it. Finishing a cup of coffee before it gets cold and savoring every sip. Laughing harder because I snorted while laughing at a joke. 90’s one hit wonders. Dancing. Stupid group text exchanges where you remember a random sight and someone responds with google links to the light up sneakers you saw a Sheik homie rocking at the club last week. Real talk, he was rocking his turban and these bad boys.

I’m not going to fucking smile because you want me to. I need to do it for me.

(this is stuck in my head and it’s driving me nuts - in the best ways possible… )

[magtonic]

Iron and Gold in Peace and War

(Originally written 3/23/16. Worked late two nights last week, then left town for a 48 hour trip to the east coast. Needless to say, I didn’t get it up given how much was on my mind).

I’m sitting at a table, in an exhibition hall working. I’ve had some technology fails and was kicked out of this space while the hall was closed during some kind of opening ceremony. I sat in the lobby fumbling with two ipads, a bunk hot spot, a laptop and a phone. I think I broke my french press this morning.

I just want to go home. I’m having very first world problems this evening.

There are so, so, many triggers, outside of my first world issues. Or maybe they’re compounded by them

Election season. Entire populations of people in this country living in third world conditions. More killings. More shootings. International terrorist attacks. Our privacy being questioned and Apple being like, ‘Nah’. Dude Phife from A Tribe Called Quest died.

But with those many, many triggers this week there was one thing that added to how heavy I feel and I can’t get over.

This week an article was posted on The Guardian about the death and shooting of Alex Nieto here in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights. (Mural below by some homies at the top of Bernal. It’s in a super cutty spot and may have been buffed already. Sad.)

It shouldn’t be a surprise that in this city, in our rapid narrative around gentrification, that San Francisco’s identity and cultural make up, and quirk is weighing in the balance of this change. Not only are we struggling to keep our city residents here because of our out of control housing market but we’re also sweeping the streets of the homeless - many of whom have experienced displacement because of that very thing.

Our local politicians are calling for a state of emergency on this, which others are noting we have limited power to actually impact given how layered and complicated housing has become. It’s a gross situation and comes down to another theme I’ve spoken about or mentioned - our concern and care for one another. Which we really, really don’t. It’s evidenced in how many bodies we’ve laid to rest. It’s evidenced by the fact that we have a lunatic running for president who even my most conservative friend’s are frightened of.

But it’s more complicated than that of course. San Francisco has been a place that’s always attracted weirdos, misfits, outsiders. I’ve mentioned that too - all are welcome, but please respect what’s here.

So this Guardian article, by Rachel Solnit - calls up ideas that aren’t so foreign to some of us but we haven’t articulated them this strongly. Alex Nieto, was seen, and viewed in a specific way, as a specific character by people who were new to SF and hadn’t taken the time/been given an opportunity to understand our social landscape, our history.

Plainly, and at the beginning of her article Solnit asks:

“Alejandro Nieto was killed by police in the neighbourhood where he spent his whole life. Did he die because a few white newcomers saw him as a menacing outsider?”

What she uncovers and addresses as she writes is that Nieto was a normal dude, wearing Niner gear who was accused of being a Norteño - though it can be assumed that the witnesses (I wrote Whitenesses originally and subconsciously here) didn’t have the language to label him as such and merely called him a banger (again, my language not theirs).  

Though no one can really be clear about what kind of mental state he was in, or what may have triggered him or potentially agitated him that caused people to flag his behavior, he was viewed as a threat.

We spin narratives about the people we cross paths with every day. I’m not sure if I talked about it here, or on one of my other blogs, but when I worked in a high school I wore stupid pointy toed heels because it said “I’m the adult here” to me. It was a stupid way to react to something but I did it. And I still have a tendency to do it - I dress in my best, most professional clothing when things are out of control, when I need to be perceived in a specific way. It’s something I can control, when I feel like there’s not much I can control.

Which is very much how I’m feeling right now but no amount of pressed shirts, polished shoes and statement jewelry could shake the funk, and low and heavy, feeling I’ve had this week. Yeah, yeah, work - whatever, things are still not perfect, but it’s not just that. It’s in the air. There’s a thick layer of fog, not the real kind you expect from us, but the kind that clouds a situation, impairs judgement, confuses people.

So when Solnit’s thesis statement is basically - gentrification killed Alex Nieto, it kind of feels like the moment the fog disappears. Like literally. Everything made more sense. It’s not that this wasn’t such a foreign idea that it didn’t somehow make sense, but yeah. Of course.

I’m not dense. You know that. So we know gentrification isn’t a thing, that can solely commit acts on other people, but it can and does impact everyone here.

Gentrification didn’t just kill Nieto, it’s quickly and seriously changing our city. That we know as well. But if you really, truly, take out the facts and look at what’s left - the spirit, the energy, the ebb and flow of the people.

The narratives spun about the city, google buses, expensive housing, Zucks owning everything, the LGBT community runs rampant converting people. We’re the city of the beats, of large Asian communities where we eat burritos under palm trees, because it’s California afterall. Maybe the narrative is we’re all a bunch of pretentious assholes and native San Franciscans are unicorns.

Yeah, those narratives and the ones like them - are not necessarily all current, but hey you get the point. We’re a city that has always accepted everyone, we’re where people go because we’re crazy. But we’re also a city with a new purpose as a tech hub.

Neither feels authentic. Again, it feels foggy. Maybe it’s the opposite, maybe it’s slicked over and lacquered so you don’t see all the nicks and flaws.

We’re slowed down, weighed down, it is in the air. The city isn’t dying, because natives are not going anywhere, however we’re being brought the hell down.

The question I have, a long with so many others is how or when will we bounce back, or even adapt. Adaptation isn’t just about accepting the new and forgoing the old, but changing together. How or when will this happen?

Our city’s flag, is a Phoenix rising from the Ashes with the motto “Oro en Paz, Fierro in Guerra.” Translated, “Gold in Peace, Iron in War.”

Maybe, then what I’m feeling, or what’s going on in this city, is the smoke. The smoke, before the fire, before the gold becomes iron. I have this shit tattooed on my arm. We need to be more like this, as individuals, as a community. Maybe after it all, that’s when the sky will clear.

[magtonic]

How to Just Be

You’re lying on your bed, on your stomach, trying to type on your laptop that keeps crashing because it gets overheated when you have it on your lap. You just blew out a lavender candle, or the stub that’s left of one, that you lit because this morning someone shared something with you that made your heart race and blood boil. You actually left the building to get air. That doesn’t happen a lot, you normally get mad and then move on, you might stew but you never have that kind of physical reaction. It sat with you all day and you didn’t, and haven’t figured out how to power down.

You vacuumed. Separated the pile of dirty clothes from clean ones that had become your closet floor, after showering and answering a few work emails. Your neck and shoulders hurt. They hurt like they did the last year you were in your last relationship - almost 7 years ago? - the balled up tension that lived there while you spent time trying to figure out what to do next. That pain went away when you two finally broke up, and didn’t come back for a very, very long time. Your stress lived in your feet for a while, your calves, but it’s back, in your shoulders and all too familiar. You should do some yoga.

You ran through some journals, why? Because you really needed something different, needed to find a different you, a different time. You’ve spent all day thinking about that video your friend posted on instagram of the OTown concert this weekend - watching those knucklehead ass dudes look like they’re just doing what they love. They fucking love their jobs - and you want to love your work like that. So you’ve wanted something more today. Something authentic.

You rifled through the journal found the entry after your breakup, the entry after Obama was elected. The you find the entries detailing ways and words used to rationalize through the guy you’ve been confused about for too long, who you don’t talk to anymore. They’re beautiful words and beautiful thoughts - but those complex feelings have changed.

Then you stumble on an entry from early 2008. After a night out with some of your best, best friends, from different walks of life. You went to a club for some reason - had friends in town visiting. You wore some highly stylized dunks, jeans and some weird ethnic tunic with metallic embroidery. You imbibed. You connected with people. What stands out, as your friend’s friend deejayed the final song, and the lights came up,was that you stood with your lifelong bestie singing along at the top of your lungs, smiling so hard it hurt, to Kanye West’s “Good Life,” because that was the good fucking life. You remember the look on his face, he agreed. You were good.

You can’t remember what was so good about it. Your life was no less messy than it is now, just a different sort of messy perhaps. You’re wiser, hotter and don’t live in the 8x10 bedroom in your parents flat.

You want that. You need to find that. Create conditions to have more of those moments. To laugh so hard you cry, or pee, or both. You’ve been too deep in your own way. Too far down the rabbit hole to see those opportunities when they’re in front of you.

And you’re clenching your jaw, and you can feel it in your head, as you think about a handful of other times you can remember just being in a space and being that happy. It’s not that you’re miserable, you laugh every day. You smile often. You’re probably dehydrated. So you consciously relax your face and continue typing. Your blazer for tomorrow’s long day laying on the bed next to you, like it’s holding someone’s place. And you think about how to bring those moments back. Not back, because they’ve passed and you’re not that person any more. But you think about the sneakers in your closet you haven’t worn in months that are a part of that sneaker collection that’s just crying to be let out. You think about the fact that when you were a kid your parents couldn’t get you a Starter jacket, but at 33 you were gifted a Warriors one for your birthday that you can and will wear more often. You think about the playlist of all of your favorites that you should put on your phone which you generally only fill with one or two albums at a time. You think about mix tapes, and getting lost in a book someone lent you and said “you will love this.” And you think about all that you love, and what you’ve always have and always will love.

You spiral backward into a conversation you had on Sunday with one of your dear friends. She always asks about your dating life and when that typically bothers you as a question in conversation, you realize it’s because all she wants is for you to love and be loved.

So you sit, in your room, the smell of the extinguished flame from the candle still in the air. You know you need to refill the glass of water on your nightstand because you’re probably dehydrated but you’re too captivated by the look of the slightly chipped white nail polish on your fingers as you type. You just redid them last night, but that polish is old and should probably be tossed. But you like the way it looks with the ring your sister gifted you that says “Burrito” in script. It makes you laugh. You smile to yourself. You remember those moments again - the ones that stand out because you were happy just being. The ones where you don’t remember what exactly you were thinking, but more what you were feeling, seeing, smelling. And so you resolve to just be.

Your eyes are burning a bit but your breathing has slowed. Your jaw is relaxed again and though your neck and head hurt a little, it’s duller than it was before. You sink into your mattress, and close your eyes for a few minutes. When you open them, you hear the hum of the dryer in your building, take a deep breath and close your laptop for the evening.

(Originally drafted 3/1/16 because I just got home from a work event and knew I *might* be too tired to write something off top). 

[magtonic]

Marshawn, Bey, Cam & MarShawn: When to Step Up/Step Back

This week has been so black. Trust.

Marshawn Lynch, Oakland son and Bay Area fav who’s played 8 seasons in the NFL as a running back, announces his retirement from football and his time as a Seattle Seahawk with a subversive ass tweet, during the Super Bowl no less. His cleats, hanging from some kind of phone or powerline, the only text the black hands emoji throwing up a peace sign. Google that shit all you want, sneakers hanging from a powerline means a number of things in the hood but often, in Oakland and other towns like the one Lynch came from, it means someone has passed. Pay no mind to all of that though, the internet is feeling like he disrespected the two teams playing in the game Sunday.

Beyonce does what she does best and with no pomp or circumstance she secret releases a video that trickles outward through her massive cult of fans for “Formation” a single meant to share her own love of her blackness and empower other black folk to do the same. The imagery, the lyrics have people buzzing like crazy about her acts and intentions.

Bey then performs at the Super Bowl, her dancers rocking militaryesque outfits that nod to the Black Panthers. Some of her dancers pose for a photo honoring a black life we lost here in SF (where, incase you forgot, the Super Bowl was being played) at police hands. Did Bey know about all this, was it intentional? Everyone’s asking and hypothesizing and conspiracy theorizing like their lives depended on it.

In the Super Bowl, we have a black quarterback, Cam Newton of the Carolina Panthers, vying for a title against the American everyman, Peyton Manning. Sad loss for sure, and when he’s not into the postgame press conference we call him out for being a poor sport. Let him be sad, if he don’t wanna talk, fine. You don’t have to love him, I don’t, but I’ma let him be in his feels, you probably would want to be left alone too.

Marshawn.

Beyonce.

Cam.

People will not shut the fuck up about them. Cultural criticism, analysis of identity politics, of their roles in this world as celebrities. My entire social media world has op-eds, think pieces and the like about them on loop, but the one that hit home, was the Huffington Post piece about Beyonce’s video written by Kate Forristall, a white lady that basically said, “White people, this video wasn’t for us, so sit down.” Actually she says:

“It’s time for us to stop singing along  –  to “Formation,” to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” to any song that has the n-word or celebrates blackness in a way we will never understand. Our ancestors signed away that right when they signed their names to contracts that said they owned human beings, or signed tabs in restaurants that didn’t allow “colored people.”

It’s true. Let these three folks and any other black person who wants to feel their blackness and sit in their black bodies as they live in these moments be. Don’t get me wrong, I have feelings about all three things, both good and bad, but it’s not time for that. I took to Facebook after reading this article and basically said “Sometimes, the best way to be an ally is to sit the fuck back and let folks have their moment.”

—–

In my post about interracial dating on TV, I outlined my ethnic breakdown pretty plainly.

“My mother’s mother is half Filipina, half Cape Verdian.

My mother’s father is half Irish, half Mexican.

My mother is ¼ all of those things.

My father is Filipino.”

There’s something not stated so plainly, however, that I was hoping you could conclude on your own. My great grandmother, the Cape Verdian one, had nappy hair and dark skin. Y’all don’t know about Cape Verde tho.

Cabo Verde (if you wanna get right with it) is an island nation that was colonized by the Portuguese, off the coast of Africa. That’s right. Portuguese colony, off the coast of Africa. Depending on who you talk to, they might claim more Portugal, they might claim more Africa, but when one uses deductive reasoning skills it seems like a safe bet that most people from there are probably a mix of the two. When you see pictures of Nannie (as we called my great grandma) it’s hard to question which group most of her relatives came from, remember my great grandmother had nappy hair and dark skin.

But as you may have gathered, even though I claim this heritage, I don’t ride in it with full abandon. I’m so many other things and read Latina or Filipina and have been relatively spared from the more negative parts of a black experience, so I can’t claim it exactly like Bey does.  What I do understand and live in, is being a person of color, with brown skin, textured hair depending on the humidity and battling both Asian model minority and Latina stereotypes. As I mentioned in my letter to Obama, I’m brown before anything else.

So this week, this hella black week, I’ve been thinking a lot about not just my experiences living in brown skin, but those of our young folks, of the hypothetical child I may or may not have, of the students who I work for. I’ve committed myself to a career that makes them the accelerant for my drive. I’ve joined the board of a nonprofit that fights for equity in our schools. This train of thought has enhanced work I’ve done for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, not just because I’ve lost loved ones, but because we still live in a day and age that basically tells black and brown kids they ain’t worth shit.

This May I’ll be doing my third Overnight Out of the Darkness Walk for the AFSP here in my hometown, not just because I’ve lost loved ones and have so many loved ones have struggled with mental health, but because living in black or brown skin, especially black skin, in 2016, is full of not just microaggressions but full on live, no bullshit aggressions that undoubtedly impact people’s mental health.

And then Monday came news of something else that’s hella black. Something we’re not talking about as deeply. Another MarShawn.

I’ve talked about black and brown folks losing their lives at the hands of others. We all know the stories. We speak their names. Oscar. Trayvon. Sean. Eric. Sandra. Tamir. Mario. We even hear stories, albeit with less vehemence, about trans folks of color who’ve passed because of  someone else’s will. But we need to speak the names of people of color who are taking their own lives.

MarShawn McCarrel.

MarShawn was a baby. He was 23. In the 10 years that I’ve been on this earth longer than he - I don’t really feel like I’ve accomplished anything as important as he was able to. An activist in the #BlackLivesMatter movement, founder of two different organizations that serve black kids. And with all that, at 23, he recently won an award for all he was doing, not just in Ohio where he was from obviously, but for the movement, for the cause. I respect this kid’s hustle. I respect the hustle of everyone out there, on the front lines, protesting, organizing. I may not be out there chaining myself to shit but have taken this, “destroy the master’s house with the master’s tools/ I’m not a gatekeeper but the bitch who knows where the holes in the fence are,” mentality, so I respect that fucking hustle!

Hustle aside though. There’s a lot of cost that comes with it. Activism, of whatever sort, can take an emotional toll. It’s backbreaking, heartbreaking work at times. We all know that, in our hearts, in the part of our brains that’s logical and can see a puddle, and a tipped over glass and connect the dots to know that someone must have knocked over a glass of water. But MarShawn is evidence that we block those parts out, for safer, less precarious spaces.

What we know now, is that that hustle wore on that poor baby. It wore him down. He was putting out so much for other black folks, for blackness, that it became too much and he apparently took his own life. It’s a tragedy, we can all agree. But we’re so afraid of being uncomfortable. Of admitting this is a problem, that we avoid these conversations and issues so much that there aren’t even clinical movements or organizational programs that address the unique conditions that lead to suicide among people of color. He literally felt that living in his skin, and working for his own, was too much.

I get it. I bitch about it in my own work. It’s hard to keep trying to fight a broken ass system that ultimately, shows you new leaks and new holes every time you get one fixed. It’s hard to fight being told “you ain’t shit” every day, in every moment you live and breathe. It’s hard, to fight and rail against things that impact you so personally. His story, his life lived and lost, is not one we’ve heard on repeat this year. But I have no doubt, even as someone whose great grandmother had nappy hair and dark skin, that this, act, this experience - was hella black. As black as everything I’ve already mentioned.

So we call out Marshawn (Lynch) and Cam for their disrespect. We call the “boys,” we say they lacked class. We call out Bey and her dancers for taking advantage of a moment in time, of people who’ve already been through enough and maybe even trying to radicalize the B-Hive. But what we don’t do, and what we lack, even organizations as amazing as the AFSP, is the ability to foreshadow the experience of the MarShawn’s (McCarrel) and to identify ways to support black and brown kids sitting in that same seat, looking out with that same despair.

You can go ahead and connect some dots between these opinions might have to do with my great grandmother’s nappy hair and dark skin. But you have other receipts for your reference.

Marshawn. - Beyonce. - Cam. - MarShawn.

I’m just asking, that we let them live their lives.

Let.

Them.

LIVE.

Their.

Lives.

—-

For those of you that were curious (cause I know some of you were waiting with baited breath and shit) I finally got my Draymond Green certificate from my boss today. Meant a lot. 

[magtonic]

“Haaaave you met my friend N?”- Why Online Dating is not my Jam

Y’all remember my Two Truths and a Lie Post? I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t still reeling off of the issues I brought up there. Work remains frustrating and while I’ve managed to hold the line on the boundaries I set with that homie of mine - to say I was “Over It” would be a second lie. I’ve done a damned good job holding it together and trudging forward, but  I’ve oscillated between still caring and not caring at all and tried to find other ways to cope when they weren’t.  Throwing myself into my job has been the main distraction there. As far as the relationships front, it’s been harder. One challenge for sure has been just being open to whatever the universe is going to throw my way when it comes to that BDwHAS (Brown Dude with Hella Appropriate Swag). But I don’t always put myself out there, and there was a trend of feeling like only taken men were into my steeze - probably my own shit about taking risks and only putting out energies that would keep me safe from real rejection.

So when the inevitable debate around online dating came up of course I wasn’t into it. I watched a few friends do it, with mixed results. Some just a parade of meh dudes, nothing lasting very long. Another friend just married a guy she met online that she’d drunkenly told me on our epic night of 4 friends, 10 martinis and 3 old fashions that she didn’t know if she could like him over a year earlier. Match. Tinder. OkCupid. All of em were used with varying success. I still wasn’t sold. Truth be told, I also look at applications all day long for work, so looking and “screening” dates wasn’t really something I wanted to do in my spare time.

Then Adam sent me an article his friend wrote for Buzzfeed about Tinder. Doree Shafrir writes about her on again off again relationship with the App and how ultimately, as a 30 something she ended up feeling empowered by all the choice she had to engage or not engage with the men who she met there. She “got to be in the driver’s seat” of her dating life when previously she’d just been a passive participant.

Fine. I tried it. It was god awful. The guys were god awful. So many dudes saying misogynistic shit about women IN THEIR PROFILES. And other women still go out with them! Men I wasn’t ultimately attracted to to begin with and of course, because I’m from here, a few guys I grew up with. Swiping right never happened and when it did it was rare.  I never got past matching with two people, one who never started a conversation (and in my paralyzing doubt I never did either) and another one who unmatched me quickly thereafter.

Maybe it was my profile. As you may have gathered, I don’t take myself too seriously. I take what I do and what I love seriously but I’m kind of a clown. So my profile pictures were a mix of cute and goofy, and one pensive on the beach shot. Maybe it was the picture you find here on WNB of me wearing a belt around my head with a pack of dudes that was a turn off. Or my profile description where I listed being a Dodgers fan as a deal breaker. What you see is what you get, I am an open friggen book.

I knew one thing was true. I hesitated swiping right often because I didn’t want to deal with the potential douchebaggery that would follow. At the time I couldn’t name why exactly but it dawned on me recently there were a few things at play.

I deleted the app after a few weeks and deleted my account with Coffee Meets Bagel (I know, I got ballsy and tried another app) 2 days after I created it when it offered me a guy that worked on my floor who was possibly the most boring guy I’d ever met. No gracias.

Over the winter I contemplated arranged marriages, how awesome it is to not have to buy a whole second set of gifts for an SO’s family and how awesome it is to have the bed to myself. Maybe companionship was important, but it seemed like what I really wanted was someone to feed me and do my laundry most often.

And then the new year came. And midday while at work I got a text from a friend that was a screenshot from Bumble, something I had no clue about. The screenshot was a colleague. His profile listed where he worked, his title and I screamed. He wasn’t even trying to hide! Not that he should be hiding, but it was the kind of specific I wouldn’t share with strangers on a dating app. Later that night, of course curiosity got me and I downloaded Bumble and started playing around. Curated my profile a little, learned that Bumble was the women’s empowerment version of Tinder, at least that’s how they marketed it. The demographics of the daters were more young professionals than Tinder and in theory it seemed like an interesting place. Then 5 swipes to the left in and I landed on the profile of a life-long best friend. I screamed and threw my phone across the room. Like honestly. Screamed. Phone landed on the floor.

I collected myself at some point and picked the phone back up. A few swipes later another kid from high school. A few swipes after that, the colleague my friend mentioned. There he was. Stuck not being able cope with how small the world was, I deleted the app altogether.

As I fled down the internet rabbit hole that night I came across yet another Buzzfeed article, this time about how the algorithm for Coffee Meets Bagel was only spitting out men of your own race.

The thing I haven’t said, that I’m sure you can guess, is that there was also an underlying race issue for me in my experiences with these apps. They were overwhelmingly white and while I went to a PWI (predominantly white institution), for college those aren’t spaces I’m totally comfortable in. Now, with this new information I decided to play around on all three apps again and do some data collection.

Yup. Still overwhelmingly white.

I double checked all of the races I listed on Coffee Meets Bagel, and it was all of them- every last one of my ethnic backgrounds. But what I was getting were Black and Asian guys. I’m not sure how that worked, but that’s what I got. The other two apps were still porcelain.

Yup. Still swiping nope on most profiles.

When seeing a white dude I might be interested in getting to know more - again a super rare debate about swiping right -  my own insecurities took over. Not about me, I am fucking awesome - troubled sometimes, but awesome. More about how the conversation would go. I joked with my tall blonde roommate about it one day.

“I’m not really ready for a conversation to be started by a guy with ‘What are you?’ or ‘Hey Mamacita’ because I read as Latina in a picture or some other awkward Asian stereotype because I look more Filipina today.”

She laughed and tried to push back a little bit, and then I cut her off and said “Guys don’t start conversations with you by saying ‘Hey Blondie!’ do they?”

At which point she laughed even harder and said “Nope! You’re right. It’s usually like ‘Hey, nice smile.’ You are totally right, they would never say something about my pasty skin.”

It really wasn’t any different than before. I tried to have an open mind - it’s just a stupid dating app, what could be so bad? But I still had a block of some kind.

—-

My dear friend PatLy, the one who gave me a pass a few weeks ago introduced me to the term Demisexual. Woah, woah, I know we’re jumping into the deep here but I truly believe it might be my thing.

The long and short of it is that, as a prerequisite to being sexually attracted to someone, I need to have an emotional connection to someone. Emotional intimacy doesn’t automatically mean I’m into someone, but it’s often required to get there. As an aside: there’s a lot of stuff in this theory about demisexuals being on the asexuality side of the spectrum, I’m not so much there but I can see how for many others that’s the case. That connection, however is so important it makes taking the first steps into dating challenging for me.

The connective thread in my past, suddenly started to fall into place as I played around on these apps. Suddenly all of my previous relationships and crushes start to make sense.

The guy in college I pined after because he was also from the Bay and mixed like me.

The guy I was into because he got my writing.

The guy who got me and loved my intensity and weirdness and is now one of my soulmate level best friends.

My exes made less sense, but in many ways the things we had when we were together represented things I lacked.

My post college ex - we were goofy, and while most of our relationship was a mess we could walk into a pharmacy looking for some bandaids and walk out with a singing greeting card that played the chicken dance because it made us laugh so hard.

My college exes - both guys who embraced my creative side and pushed me to do comedy, and art, and hip-hop stuff.

My high school ex, actually… I have no explanation for that one.

Reflecting on this most recent kerfuffle (I think I just wanted to say kerfuffle, I don’t know that that’s the right word), it made sense. I’d said that my connection to this homie I didn’t talk to was what drove the confusion - we were peers in so many ways, too many to name here - but shit he got me. Like, really, really got me. And while we’re not quite close anymore and I’ve only talked to him once outside of reminding him a few times that we weren’t talking when he asked how I was doing, the reasons why he gets me aren’t changing - I’m still me, he’s still him. What’s changing is our dynamic - a process that’s been made easier with this realization about myself.

Naturally though, this whole demisexual idea, doesn’t lend well to online dating apps like this. I can’t make instant decisions on people. Yes, I can walk into a clothing store and decide within 5 minutes if I’m going to buy anything. Yes, it’s pretty easy to decide what I want to eat, where I want to travel. I’m not totally impulsive. But this, this shit is harder.

I rarely check dudes out or have any kind of animalistic reactions to hotties. There is one particular athlete however who I feel like I’m supposed to procreate with, like in a very “Man look like he hunt good, we have babies?” way. Generally I just don’t have whatever gene that triggers that response.

The threat, or fear of having to play the “what are you?” game or suffer some kind of microaggression in my dating life, and not having an instant response to these pictures and 200 character profiles is a pretty significant barrier I’m not sure I want to, or should have to get over/break down.

Yes, I have some hang ups, we all do. Moving on, forward, or through them however is definitely not an easy task. While not having the ability to be instantly into someone, even on a basic fundamental level, is on me, the race stuff, the douchebaggery, is not. So I’m not going to move on, forward, through or around online dating is me actually walking away from those two issues. Finding that BDwHAS is going to have to happen the old fashion way…. And it may require a few old fashions to get loose enough to do it, but I’m okay with that.

[magtonic]

Hospice Care, Lived-Lives & Football

Last week’s note from home should have said I wasn’t able to complete my weekly post because I was helping my mother and grandmother write the obituary for my grandfather who passed away that Monday. Yeah, that’s probably a deep cut, but that’s what happened.

Nearly 91, he passed in his sleep after spending a week in the hospital and 3 days in hospice care at home. He had prostate issues and his kidneys were giving way. Though his quality of life was dwindling due to glaucoma fully taking his sight over the last few years, ultimately, he lived a full life and age simply took over. Old people shit.

I’d love to tell you all I can about him, James Daniel Mahaffey, a life long learner, collector of all things, man of the sea, who lived in Honduras, a box car and had a pet raccoon named Bobby as a child. His passing has me thinking about other things right now. Not just that I write and tell stories because he was the greatest Mexican-Irish story teller I have ever known, but some things that are a little more removed.

I’ve written about this a little bit here on WNB. What is a life, if we don’t get to live it? What is our purpose here on earth, if we’re not contributing to other’s lived lives? I know these seem like incredibly existential questions, but honestly, they’re very relevant and practical.

When my grandfather, Bop as I called him - because as a child I couldn’t say Pop which is what my mother and uncle called him - was moved into hospice care we were, of course, initially scared and sad. No one wants to hear that the only practical option to a health problem is to wait out the inevitable. I guess in a very pragmatic way, we’re all waiting out death. But we’re not always pragmatic, we’re also emotional as humans so of course it’s sad no matter how much you try to rationalize it. Ultimately however, we were blessed. A nurse came, spoke to my grandmother, mother and father. I avoided the conversation even though I happened to be there, better to stay out of it and try to be the balance to whatever feelings and needs might arise in the aftermath. That’s a role I’ve taken a lot this year, rock- glue- balance. I’ve sucked at it from time to time, and at other moments amazed even myself with my skills.

Hospice for those of you not familiar with it, is the most gentle, supportive way to care for those who are terminally ill. Provided through Medicare - at least for us - you receive support in both functional and emotional ways for those ill and their families. They provide and cover costs of all medical needs during that time, and are honestly the most gentle, sympathetic people, so that those in their care and their families can focus on what’s most important.

I spoke to other people who’d been through this process with their loved ones. including other family members, and discovered all of this was true in their own experiences and then some. One person shared that in the loss of her mother, not only were hospice workers supportive in arrangements, but in supporting her in her loss as well. Once we moved Bop into hospice care at his home, here in San Francisco, we had all the reason to believe the hype. These people are amazing. They made everything so easy. Not that losing a loved one is easy. They are compassionate people. They are patient. They want your loved ones to leave this world comfortably, at their own pace. They want you to have the space to process and deal with this and not have to get too hung up in the details.

We only worked in collaboration with hospice care for a few days, though I know others have had much longer relationships with them. For that, we were fortunate of course, but these people must truly be angels on earth - or some variation thereof.

—

That, was my last week. The week ahead, not the one we’re currently in, but the one yet to begin - that week I’m also dreading already. Maybe the reason I’m dreading it, is because parts of it are already here. In what’s now become expected of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, he’s made an already shitty deal worse for city residents.

We bid to have the Superbowl here a few years ago. When we thought the Niners were something, thought they had the stamina and magic of the Warriors, before we fired Haurbaugh, before Kaep started effing it up royally on and off the field. We bid on having the game here when we knew we were tearing down Candlestick and building a stadium a few towns over… read: 45 minutes south. It seems like a neat idea, in theory. To host the championship game in our city. But, as we often ask when all things Mayor Lee are concerned, at what cost?

The state of transition and change San Francisco is in has left natives, long time residents and those most in need a little raw. It’s hard to know what’s going to be thrown our way and what deal will be made that leaves our voices, concerns and needs out. What deal will literally push us to the side to make way for tech, for money, for some new development. So learning about all that came with the deal to have Superbowl 50 is especially hard - especially since the actual game wouldn’t be taking place in the 7 miles by 7 miles that is SFC.

Before this week, we knew a few things about what would come. Removal of muni power lines, because it “obstructs the view”. We knew it would cost the city a lot, but not much else.

Now we know how much of a nightmare traffic is because of street closures. Half the city is already under construction, so the nightmare of getting from one end to another, of commuting has gotten worse. When we previously had no more room in shelters, there’s suddenly beds opening up for homeless folk and tent cities are being policed as we get closer and closer to the big game. And the cost, the real cost, not just on the city’s residents, but on our budget. Santa Clara, where the game will be paid, will get reimbursed. SFC, where everyone visiting will stay, and spend time, where the above is happening will not and people are not happy.

I’m not stupid. I know other cities have had their struggles when hosting the big game. But unlike other professional sports championships, where games are played in alternating fashion between the two final teams homes, don’t cost the way this does.

I also, shouldn’t complain. We don’t have the catastrophic level of crisis Flint does. We don’t have a natural disaster tearing our town apart. But what we do have, is a lack of respect, or sense of responsibility to the people here.

—-

Here’s where I make the connection to the above. I know you’ve been waiting. In week 4 of my 52 week challenge, mid post about our November elections (where I lightweight hoped Lee wouldn’t be reelected) I said quite plainly:

“Noobs, you’re welcome to come and enjoy our city. You can make a place for yourself here, but please be respectful and honor what was here before you. You don’t have to understand it - we don’t expect you to, but please don’t stomp all over it and shit all over people who have been here…”

How our city’s leaders have dealt with Superbowl 50 is sad. Losing my grandfather, was sad. But what makes me saddest, is that somehow, in 2016, we have a way of treating people better as they exit this world, than we do as they are living their lives.

Lived.

Lives.

We are in the first world, and people don’t even have clean drinking water. We’re shooting people who aren’t shooting at us. We’re temporarily housing the homeless who we’ve told we don’t have homes for, all for aesthetics. I don’t necessarily have a suggestion as to what to do about this, I’m not sure I’m asking for a solution. Though I’ve been impressed that some have reacted and have expressed their dissent about Superbowl 50 (The “Full House” reference is corny as shit tho NFL.)

Yes, I am a little bit raw right now. I’ve dealt with a lot of random loss over the last year. Of people, of passion, of things I can’t fully name, or describe. And my last name shouldn’t only mean MacGuyver as I’ve suggested before, it should also mean emotion, or greatest emoters of all time. Yes, I learned to spin tales, compel people to feel things because of my grandfather Jimmy. I also learned, not just from his death, but also from how he lived, that we really ought to care more about each other as we live and breathe.

Bop/James D/Jimmy/Jaimito, hated football when he could see. As he lost his vision slowly, the little bit of access he had to HD football games gave him something to follow. As he lost it fully he started asking us to put the game on and we’d find he and my grandmother watching games on tv when they would otherwise normally read or watch some cowboy drama. It didn’t make sense, at least not until recently, that his interest in it during his later days may have been because in sports announcers actually describe to you whats happening. You don’t have to see things for it to make sense. In that vein, I wish in many ways that we didn’t have to wait and see what happens to the people who we don’t care for for these things to make sense. 

[magtonic]

A Brief Pause & Thank You

Hey WNB Friends!

It’s been a strange long week (I know, it’s only Wednesday) and there are a few things I could write about but I’ve been focused on a different kind of writing since we last met (more to come about that later). 

I’m 30% of the way through this challenge and while some weeks have been hits, and some misses, this space has been invaluable to me. I’ve been able to remember who I am, what I’m about and take a break from daily annoyances. Your response and attention has allowed me to reconnect with my voice - not that it went anywhere - and feel like I might actually be good at something other than getting back to people quickly, (I am getting much better at writing an ampersand btw, a daily detour I had for a week or so, practicing writing one on a coworker’s whiteboard). But, like Draymond, I might need to sit out this game. (What if I started hashtagging everything #IAMDRAYMOND ? Is it unprofessional to put it in my email signature? I’ve already asked if I can change my title to “Departmental MacGuyver”) 

Thank you for letting me share it with you thus far. Though it seems like I’m laying track here for a hiatus, it’s more of note from home saying “N’s dog ate her homework.” Fresh post will be up soon. 

Thank you for your patience, and reminding me to be patient with myself. See note below from my dear friend Patrick Lyra, AKA PatLy. 

xo

N

[magtonic]

Dear Obama: I’m Not Ready to Break Up

Dear President Obama,

In the line of work that I do, I sadly have to confront the fact that leaders are expected to be all things, to all people. So I recognize, to whatever extent possible, the pressure that falls on your shoulders as the leader of our nation. Asking you to be perfect - is not fair, but sadly an expectation many hold for you in your job. You have endured a lot of criticism - some of it unwarranted- and praise - often complicated -  over the last 7 years. Your hair is more gray, your face more charactered. What you’ve had to represent, as the first black president, a two term democrat, former senator, former community organizer, lawyer, father, husband, man born unto an African father with a white mother with a half Indonesian sister - has been immense. And though you deserve some rest and though I have opinions about how you could have improved some things, I’m also sad to see you go, and will miss you dearly.

(He had his receipts y’all)

—-

In 2004 I started working on my undergraduate senior thesis. As a Hella-Mixed-American, I opted to explore what it would look like to develop mixed-race communities and question whether or not we needed them. My dear friend and fellow HMA, Adam Serwer, suggested I reach out and try and interview this mixed-race senator from Chicago. I told him he was stupid, why would some politician allow some random private liberal arts school student to interview him and moved on. God I’m an idiot and regret the fact that I dismissed him so quickly and probably went back to tagging on a notebook while doing my work study job.

—-

When you were running for your first term, and folks were splitting real fast during the primaries, “Hillary or Barack!” I got a lot of pushback for firmly standing in your camp. I had to negotiate the conversations around identity politics that I’d been dealing with my entire life, but at a larger scale.

“How can you NOT vote for Hillary?! You’re a woman!”

“Duh you’re voting for Barack, you’re a person of color!”

While both these things are true, one thing that I know for sure and that you’ve had to battle your entire presidency (and likely every other moment of your life), is the fact that no matter how much you’d like to fight it, the world will see you as black before anything else. You aren’t the president, you’re the black president. You aren’t a politician, you’re a black politician. Likewise, I am not a woman first. If you’ve learned anything about modern feminism, you know women of color are never just women. I am brown, brown, brown. So naturally, I felt an alliance with you.

“My president is mixed.” I thought when you were first elected. When you got your dog and noted he was mixed-breed, “a mutt like [you],” I felt a connection.

And though the connection has not waned, I have been a little disappointed.

I get it Mr. President. You had to be cleaner than clean. Like that speech Shonda Rhimes wrote for Poppa Pope to give to Liv. Better than white folks, twice as good. Like Kiese Laymon’s grandma and mama said it too. Must, be better. Must not give anyone the ability to say you didn’t. So you have to stay clean.

But, and this a big but that I would go into at length - for all the awesome that you’ve done, you’ve left behind women of color. Again, we’re asking you to be all things, to all people. Yes, life as a black man here has not gotten any easier, but you’ve taken a stance on how it has to matter and left black girls to ride on coat tails, and wait in the dust. Not you alone of course, but how you’ve stood for things. I won’t say what you stand for, you stand for a lot, that’s clear. You’ve allowed yourself to be human, emotional, noted that Trayvon Martin could have been your son. You cried while having to painfully list all of the places where we’ve seen gun violence unnecessarily take lives. But…

You’ve benefited from having a white mother, who advocated for you ways only white mothers of black and brown men can. Yes, you’ve still endured the struggles that come with simply being black and simply being a man. So maybe your short sightedness isn’t about not caring, but simply having to chose your battles.

—-

As someone working in education - I’ve been disappointed in your solutions to making student’s lives better. Though you grew up in Hawaii, where race politics are OFF THE CHARTS, you benefited from having grandparents who could afford tuition at one of the best/most expensive private schools in the nation. In the spring of 2004, when I was studying “abroad” at UH Manoa, I attended that high school’s annual carnival… HOT DAMN that was a sight to be seen and when I learned how much they made in the one weekend it was held each year, my public school educated heart nearly exploded. You’ve not once said we shouldn’t invest in our public education system however, in fact you’ve asked for the opposite.

(Image source)

One year, during a state of the union address, you made a call to action - asking young people to become teachers, but living in this reality in California, a state with too many students and low teacher salaries it felt like a joke. Asking someone young, to be broke, and do one of the hardest jobs out there is such a hard reality we live in. I would love to see more young folks become teachers, but as someone who knew she lacked the balls to do it and had student loan debt that would never die if she’d done it, I can’t always in good faith expect others to make that jump.

These things make me sad. Even still, your departure, our break up if you will, makes me sadder. It’s not because of what you have done or what you do or what you’ve been unable to address. It’s because of what you represent.

We often talk about how important it is for young folks to see themselves reflected in the world around them, to have real, legitimate role models. Black kids need to see black teachers. Young men of color need to see successful men who share their back story, their complexion. For me, even as a woman, you’ve been somewhat of that reflection.

There’s so much you started, that I hope we can finish before next year. The momentum that’s been built around things cannot be lost. You said that in your somewhat unexciting state of the union address last night. There are so many things you didn’t get to do, that you couldn’t.

Kiese also wrote a post on his facebook - and as he’s a brother/friend/mentor who is also imperfect, it bears repeating. (I’m going to paraphrase pieces of it, because frankly, I’m trying to make a point here, that’s what you do when you write, right?) In it he pointed out that by design, you couldn’t fix, and serve the needs of black and brown folks. By design, you had to be all things to all people - and that included being “President/Master Narrator/Enabler of our Empire.”

I don’t disagree with that. You had a role, you had to play. And while you’ve done a few things to try and be a little less clean - “if folks wanna pop off” dropping hits on Trump, unusual appearances and such - you still have a year to be cleaner than clean. As much as we wanted to see you literally walk off stage and drop a mic last night, honestly, how the fuck could you have done that? It would have been all bad.

All things. To all people.

Seeing the future, a year from now, is like being a senior in college and knowing on graduation day, you and your SO will be going seperate ways, moving across the country from each other and breaking up, yet trying to remember and enjoy what you can until then. Maybe we’re not perfect together, but we’ve had our fun, and what we have working for us now is still giving us something.

You closed out your speech last night with the following quote:

“So, my fellow Americans, whatever you may believe, whether you prefer one party or no party, our collective future depends on your willingness to uphold your obligations as a citizen. To vote. To speak out. To stand up for others, especially the weak, especially the vulnerable, knowing that each of us is only here because somebody, somewhere, stood up for us.”

If that, was the primary expectation of your job Mr. President, I firmly believe, you’ve met your obligation. Your presidency has not been a band-aid, nor has it been a cureall. It’s been the sort of rehabilitation and regeneration stage we’ve desperately needed. It’s also been a reminder, that on a micro level, in my low level government world, this is why I do what I do.

With extreme gratitude,

N