black-lives-matter

Mostly they all were products of single parents, and in the most tragic category - black boys, with no particular criminal inclinations but whose very lack of direction put them in the crosshairs of the world.

Only a few days after my encounter with the police, two patrolmen tackled Alton Sterling onto a car, then pinned him down on the ground and shot him in the chest while he was selling CDs in front of a convenience store, seventy-five miles up the road in Baton Rouge. A day after that, Philando Castile was shot in the passenger seat of his car during a police traffic stop in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, as his girlfriend recorded the aftermath via Facebook Live.Then, the day after Castile was killed, five policemen were shot dead by a sniper in Dallas. It felt as if the world was subsumed by cascades of unceasing despair. I mourned for the family and friends of Sterling and Castille. I felt deep sympathy for the families of the policemen who died. I also felt a real fear that, as a result of what took place in Dallas, law enforcement would become more deeply entrenched in their biases against black men, leading to the possibility of even more violence.The stream of names of those who have been killed at the hands of the police feels endless, and I become overwhelmed when I consider all the names we do not know__ll of those who lost their lives and had no camera there to capture it, nothing to corroborate police reports that named them as threats. Closed cases. I watch the collective mourning transpire across my social-media feeds. I watch as people declare that they cannot get out of bed, cannot bear to go to work, cannot function as a human being is meant to function. This sense of anxiety is something I have become unsettlingly accustomed to. The familiar knot in my stomach. The tightness in my chest. But becoming accustomed to something does not mean that it does not take a toll. Systemic racism always takes a toll, whether it be by bullet or by blood clot.

I like how writing can take you off for a jaunt in your head and then set you back down in the chair where you've been all along.

Women with dark skin are sharing selfies on social media after decades of being underrepresented in the mainstream media. From what I have observed much of the dark skin adoration on social media appears to come from us - black women. We tend to use the appreciation hashtags with our own pictures of photographs of dark skin women whom we feel are stunning. While I am loving this fierceness.. There is just one sidetone to this revolution: I feel as if we are much more appreciated if we show more skin. The timelines are filled with absolutely beautiful dark-skinned women but most sadly most of the time they are all oiled up and showing their body parts in different angles.Now, I am definitely in to art and as a model I know that this comes with the territory. But we most not forget that we are Queens.. We need to stop degrading ourselves for likes on the gram. You don't have to be naked to show the world you're beautiful.You my sister are an African Queen.I feel as if black women are only appreciated if they wear very provocative clothes or if they do naked photoshoots. To me, it's degrading and reminds me of the time that we couldn't ride the bus because we were black. Women were seen as servants. The black women that weren't servants were sex slaves.We are not objects, we are not meat and people need to stop looking at us as sex objects. BUT we need to start respecting ourselves first! A black woman is a woman first and it should not even be necessary to specify the colour but this is the society we live in and I feel like I had to share this.

I can't bring myself to watch yet another video, not because I don't care, but because we're all just a few videos away from becoming completely desensitized. The public execution of Black folks will never be normal.

The conundrum of the twenty-first (century) is that with the best intentions of color blindness, and laws passed in this spirit, we still carry instincts and reactions inherited from our environments and embedded in our being below the level of conscious decision. There is a color line in our heads, and while we could see its effects we couldn__ name it until now. But john powell is also steeped in a new science of __mplicit bias,_ which gives us a way, finally, even to address this head on. It reveals a challenge that is human in nature, though it can be supported and hastened by policies to create new experiences, which over time create new instincts and lay chemical and physical pathways. This is a helpfully unromantic way to think about what we mean when we aspire, longingly, to a lasting change of heart. And john powell and others are bringing training methodologies based on the new science to city governments and police forces and schools. What we__e finding now in the last 30 years is that much of the work, in terms of our cognitive and emotional response to the world, happens at the unconscious level.

We didn't do anything illegal, All we ever did was be black.. #BlackLivesMatter

When it comes to things such as sugar and rice, most people believe that brown is superior to white. But when it comes to human beings, they believe that the opposite is true.

I'm not quite sure what freedom is, but i know damn well what it ain't. How have we gotten so silly, i wonder.

I understand we all have our differences. But while learning about history I've read about white people coming together, Jews coming together, Spanish coming together, different cultures and religions understanding and coming together despite their differences. Slavery was never something that shocked me. What shocks me is how black people have not yet overcome the odds and we're such strong smart people. Why we can't just stand together?

Darkness seems to have prevailed and has taken the forefront. This country as in the 'cooperation' of The United States of America has never been about the true higher-good of the people. Know and remember this.Cling to your faith.Roll your spiritual sleeves up and get to work. Use your energy wisely. Transmute all anger, panic and fear into light and empowerment.Don't use what fuels them; all lower-energy.Mourn as you need to. Console who you need to__nd then go get into the spiritual and energetic arena. There's plenty work for us to do; within and without.Let's each focus on becoming 'The President of Our Own Life.Cultivate your mind. Pursue your purpose. Shine your light. Elevate past__nd reject__ny culture of low vibrational energy and ratchetness. Don't take fear, defeat or anger__n or in.The system is doing what they've been created to do.Are you? Am I? Are we__ollectively?Let's get to work.No more drifting through life without your higher-self in complete control of your mind.Awaken__ully. Activate__ow. Put your frustrations or concerns into your work.Don't lose sight. There is still__ higher plan.Let's ride this 4 year energetic-wave like the spiritual gangsters that we are.This will all be the past soon. Let's get to work and stay dedicated, consistent and diligent. Again, this will all be the past soon. We have preparing and work to do.Toxic energy is so not a game.Toxic energy and low vibrations are being collectively acted out on the world stage.Covertly operating through the unconscious weak spots and blind spots in the human psyche; making people oblivious to their own madness, causing and influencing them to act against__heir__wn__est__nterests and higher-good, as if under a spell and unconsciously possessed. This means that they are actually nourishing the lower vibrational energy with their lifestyle, choices, energy and habits, which is unconsciously giving the lower-energy the very power and fuel it needs__or repeating and recreating endless drama, suffering and destruction, in more and more amplified forms on a national and world stage.So what do we do? We take away its autonomy and power over us while at the same time empowering ourselves. By recognizing how this energetic/spiritual virus or parasite of the mind__perates through our unawareness is the beginning of the cure. Knowledge is power. Applied knowledge is__reedom.Our shared future will be decided primarily by the changes that take place in the psyche of humanity, starting with each of us_ vibrationally.In closing and most importantly,the greatest protection against becoming affected or possessed by this lower-energy is to be in touch with our higher vibrational-self. We have to call our energy and power back. Being in touch with our higher-self and true nature acts as a sacred amulet, shielding and protecting us from the attempted effects. We defeat evil not by fighting against it (in which case, by playing its game, we__e already lost) but by getting in touch with the part of us that is invulnerable to its effects_ our higher vibrational-self.Will this defeat and destroy us?Or will it awaken us more and more?Everything depends upon our recognizing what is being revealed to us and our stepping out of the unconscious influence of low vibrational/negative/toxic/evil/distraction energy (or whatever name you relate to it as)that is and has been seeking power over each of our lives energetically and/or spiritually, and step into our wholeness, our personal power, our higher self and vibrate higher and higher daily.Stay woke my friends__et's get to work.

An act of violence, no matter how small, can never be justified if it can be avoided.

Most people write me off when they see me.They do not know my story.They say I am just an African.They judge me before they get to know me.What they do not know isThe pride I have in the blood that runs through my veins;The pride I have in my rich culture and the history of my people;The pride I have in my strong family ties and the deep connection to my community;The pride I have in the African music, African art, and African dance;The pride I have in my name and the meaning behind it.Just as my name has meaning, I too will live my life with meaning.So you think I am nothing?Don__ worry about what I am now,For what I will be, I am gradually becoming.I will raise my head high wherever I goBecause of my African pride,And nobody will take that away from me.

Forget 'pray the gay away.' I you're more turned on by an AR-15 than a pair of tits, time for some serious therapy. Time for all you gun-humpers to come out of the closet. Is this really about the 2nd Amendment and self-defense -- or just a pathetic fetish for guys with tiny pee-pees?

If slavery persists as an issue in the political life of black America, it is not because of an antiquarian obsession with bygone days or the burden of a too-long memory, but because black lives are still imperiled and devalued by a racial calculus and a political arithmetic that were entrenched centuries ago. This is the afterlife of slavery--skewed life chances, limited access to health and education, premature death, incarceration, and impoverishment.

But what's braver?' Emmanuel said. 'Naming the bigots and possibly being killed for it? Or living in silence in order to protect yourself and those you love?' I think bravery had more to do with making the choice and less to do with the choice it self. In that situation, bravery was both living and dying.

The problem is, there is no geographical cure. No matter where we (Black American Folk) go, we are still too plugged into this place. Our cousins, grandmothers, aunts, nieces will be in this place. And the second we start looking at it as a "them" problem, we become another problem.

Is distinctive black culture the cause of economic disparity between whites and blacks or merely the reflection of it?