That was justice, that was release
solo-fame
If there are others⦠Why are they still
standing
Some of you might be familiar with Olayemi Olurin from the youtubes (you can find all her channels at that link, if youβre not)β¦ sheβs got an article out in Teen Vogueβ¦
Oh, I am familiar.
The following video is her righteously pissed off take at Black folks who actually hate women (especially Black women) and constantly cape for the Black men who are known predators and abusers:
Yeah, sheβs great!
Summed up.: The supremacist story is an unsustainable string of lies that have been made truly real at the level of state power and popular belief, while the story of universal liberty is a truth that has never been fully believed or actualized.
Gotta think the MAGAts will do their best to scuttle this. Will be interesting to see how it plays out.
Black elders arenβt reacting to Trumpism as if itβs a new threat. Theyβre reacting to it like a return. The slogans are different. The tech is fancier. But the menace feels identical. This isnβt abstract for them. Itβs embodied. It lives in their bones and blood pressure. Trump doesnβt just remind them of Jim Crow. He is Jim Crow, reborn in a musty red hat.
She thinks the parade is cover. That white supremacists are going to treat it like open season on Black neighborhoods.
This is a woman who was crowned Miss A&T back when being a poised, brilliant Black college student was itself a radical act. Her husband was president of two HBCUs. She was in grad school at Jackson State in 1970, the night white cops fired hundreds of rounds into a womenβs dormitory. She knows people who were lynched or were βrun out of the South,β as the elders say.
Now, as she approaches the sunset of her life, all those memories she tried to keep folded neatly in the back of her mind have come rushing to the surface, vivid and untamed. She talks incessantly about lynchings like they happened last week. She asks me questions like:
βDo you have gas or electric at your house?β
βElectric.β
βGood. Because you know they can blow up entire Black neighborhoods through the gas lines.β
Black elders arenβt reacting to Trumpism as if itβs a new threat. Theyβre reacting to it like a return. The slogans are different. The tech is fancier. But the menace feels identical. This isnβt abstract for them. Itβs embodied. It lives in their bones and blood pressure. Trump doesnβt just remind them of Jim Crow. He is Jim Crow, reborn in a musty red hat.
What weβre witnessing is generational PTSD triggered in real time. These Black elders are people whose nervous systems were trained to flinch at sirens and white laughter. Who were taught to read the temperature of a room, a street, a nation, for signs of violence hiding in plain sight. Trumpβs presence in the White House doesnβt just offend their politics, it reanimates their terror.
So when my Village Mama says sheβs sleeping in a hotel away from Black neighborhoods during the Nazi parade, I donβt dismiss it as old-folksβ paranoia.
What weβre witnessing is generational PTSD triggered in real time.
What I am thinking is we are getting ready to see this generationβs Kennedy/Kent State/Challenger/911 moment, the βYou will always remember where you were whenβ¦β I donβt know what the actual event will be, but I am terrified of what it might be. Please, everybody, try to stay safe and donβt fall for the traps they will unquestionably set for us.
Yeah, Iβm inclined to agreeβ¦