On Cities Church, ICE, and a Toxic Situationship

Georgia Fort, Don Lemon, Trahern Jeen Crews, and Jamael Lydell Lundy were arrested this morning at the direction of y'all's president's Attorney General Pam Bondi. This is not even a week after the arrests of Nekima Levy Armstrong, Chauntyll Louisa Allen, and William Kelly. All of this is said to be connected to the Cities Church protest in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which this regime/administration has painted as "an act of domestic terrorism." What actually happened was a protest of the Church's leadership after it was discovered that the Church's pastor, David Easterwood, is the acting field director of the Minnesota branch of the taxpayer-funded slave-catcher domestic terrorist group ICE.

Now, mind you, not one act of violence happened in Cities Church during that protest. Those who entered the building violated no laws. They went in to hold the pastor of the Church - the man who was supposedly leading this congregation - accountable for being an ICE director and selling out members of the community he's supposed to be serving.

Now, some of you may see this protest as a violation of the place of worship. Sure. Why not? I mean, I hope you look at all of the violations of mosques and synagogues in this country by xenophobic "Homeland Security" agents in the same way you're viewing this act of protest in a Western culture-driven church building, but I'm going to guess most folx who view this as a "violation" aren't exactly the most accepting. Take that as you will.

Regardless, seven people have been arrested as "ring leaders" of a "violent coordinated attack", six of whom are Black and two of whom are journalists.

Again, no crime was committed. But we live in a horrifically toxic situationship where the federal government can paint anything as a crime and waste taxpayer dollars trying to prosecute people, especially Black and Brown people, on trumped-up and ridiculous charges ad nauseam if people of pallor who support the white supremacist regime and its leaders are "in danger" of being held accountable for their hatred. I mean, they tried to prosecute Letitia James three times for holding y'all's president accountable for his actions, and they would've tried a fourth time if they weren't shut down by the courts.

And guess what? There's not a lot of media coverage around the optics of this moment or the arrests of respected journalists. Why?

Because people of pallor only care about the optics when journalists of pallor are arrested.

People of pallor only step in when they don't fear for their comfort and well-being.

People of pallor speak up about hate when they can, then move on without giving it another thought.

As for the rest of us? The Black and Brown? The melanated?

I suppose it's just another Friday in the United States, one where we find ourselves sharing information the media and the masses are avoiding, while being tired of asking those who are willfully asleep or faking it to wake up.

Let us know when y'all are done sleeping.

On Pharrell and Catering to Those Who Don't Care About You

To my melanated folx: today, choose not to be Pharrell.

Choose this tomorrow, too.

And the day after. And the day after that.

Just add "don't be Pharrell" to your daily philosophy system.

Don't let that paper-thin "acceptance" from pallor audiences and the vestiges of tokenism sold to you as perks, privilege, and capitalist gains make you a tool of your white supremacist oppressors against other oppressed communities, especially not your own people.

Also, don't wear those hats like he was doin' for a while there. Only Cree Summer can rock those.

Choose not to be Pharrell.

On Candace, Anti-Blackness, Self-Hatred, and Begging for the Hand of the Massa

What’s always wild to me about Black folx who are so stuck in anti-Blackness, self-hatred, and white supremacist ideology is that they spend their entire lives hoping, praying, that people of pallor will care about them and give them the head pats and validation that they so desperately yearn for, for the willingness to hate and help oppress their own people.

These Black folx never receive the recognition they believe they deserve from whiteness for participating in harming their own people, because they never fully comprehend that they are tools of the master, discarded by whiteness once they’ve served their purpose. They ultimately find themselves with nowhere to go, isolated from their own people, with no other person or societal institution of pallor interested in taking them in because they’ve been drained of their perceived usefulness and have burned every possible bridge to support and care they once had. When this happens, they, of course, try to crawl back to the Black collective, hoping we’ll forgive and forget. Suddenly, they’re “Black again,” trying to endear themselves to the Black collective, adopting or re-adopting AAVE. Suddenly, we’re their brothers and sisters again! They know how it feels to be “held down by the man!” So, after they “prove themselves” with a few phrases and colloquialisms, they believe Black folx should forgive them, let them come back in from the cold, and invite ‘em back to the cookout.

Instead, the Black collective ignores their asses and leaves ’em out there in the streets alone because they’ve proven they cannot be trusted to take care of Blackness - ours or even their own.

So, defeated, they crawl back to whiteness, living on the outskirts of white supremacy, hoping they’ll do or say the right thing that will once again get them the comfort of whiteness that they ultimately yearn for. They do things like cry and have an online, videotaped breakdown over not being invited to the memorial service of a white supremacist bigot that they buddied up to for years, even while said white supremacist bigot spent years openly and happily talking about how he believed Black women were “inferior” and “lacked the brain power” to do anything other than procreate. And after all that hootin’ and hollerin’ and carryin’ on?

They still find themselves with no invite, on the outside looking in, hoping that one day the master will let them back on the plantation or Black folx will let them back in out of pity.

That one day never comes.

What a wild existence.

Sh-- wouldn’t happen to me, though.

[Image description: A group of Black people laughing. Above them are the words, “The Black Collective’s reaction to Candace Owens being upset that she wasn’t invited to Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.”]

Image description: A group of Black people laughing. Above them are the words, “The Black Collective’s reaction to Candace Owens being upset that she wasn’t invited to Charlie Kirk’s memorial service.”