So many people blame others for repeated hurt feelings from intimate relationships. For instance, I was dating this person several months back. My gut coaxed me to resist. Then to rebuttal all I stood to protect, they laid on thick loving gestures, delicious sex, stimulating conversations. Even sparked ideas of being in love only to sever the cord. I cursed and blamed them to hell. However, I remembered that I felt those things because my spirit was in need of those things. Those things felt so good for the time and I wanted more. that’s why I was hurt. I wanted to heal the void with a temporary fix if that makes since? And while there is nothing wrong with being vulnerable to intimacy, it is our responsibility to be clear about our needs before diving heart first. I wasn’t clear, so I was hurt. People seem to play when they have something to entertain them. I’m learning to entertain my own love, a journey I’m committed to take. -gnb

Free Indeed 🙂

It’s sad and hurtful that people use violence in their words, actions, thoughts to hurt other people. It’s an epidemic that needs to cease. I believe in the value of all bodies. It’s outrageous when people resort to something one is naturally to try and hurt them. I remember being called ‘black girl’ as a white kids way of insulting me as a teenager. I thought why are they trying to insult me with who I am, something that I had no control over. That’s when I stopped taking it personal and started fighting back with questions like is that the best you’ve got, is that all you can say? I realized that those folks who were not of color likely wanted to be just like the black that they were attempting to assault me with. That redefined my experience against racism. Body shaming is the same. And the despite that people can alter their bodies, some people will never look any different even if they tried. Shit! So why not embrace the love one is. All shapes, body types, abilities etc?

Stop it with the subliminal shaming, the “Don’t you think you should eat a little less?”, the “I think that shirt would flatter your fuller figure more”, the “Have you weighed yourself recently?”. And stop resorting to the cheapest, most shallow, and sadly overused comments in the book: “fat”, or “ugly”, to insult someone.

Kindly,
Gracie

Consent, permission for something to happen or agreement to do something. Love, a variety of different feelings, states, and attitudes that ranges from interpersonal affection to pleasure. Drunk, intoxicated with alcoholic liquor to the point of impairment of physical and mental faculties. To be clear Beyonce Knowles Carter is an adult, woman of color, mother, wife, and last I checked she is perfectly capable of sharing in the kind of sex, love, and life she desires? Did she not do everything right by the standard of what it means to be a respectable American? Responsibility, it is not her responsibility to take on the people of the world and their opinions. I’m confused as to why she was called a whore, a person who engages in sexual acts for money. And while their are many people employed as sex workers I don’t see the relevance. I believe wholeheartedly that her position isn’t dark and rebellious, yet well lit and rebellious! As a victim and survivor of rape I do not for one moment believe that Beyonce’s intent is to objectify, or condone the horrendous acts of sexual violence that women are victims of while under the influence of a substance. Furthermore this song in my opinion was an expression of a type of sex, ‘drunkin’ sex’, in this case, all within the confines of consent. I love that the song and video features her husband, her child’s father, the person she loves which sends a clear and stung message in support of consent in my opinion. Although I’m opposed to marriage for myself I like the boldness in her choice as an entertainer to find an additional way to keep her marriage exciting. Think about it, in 20-years from now this song will be a permanent reminder of the love they share. So many people expect entertainers to save the world. Yet in still Beyonce is saving the world of girls by being unleashing her ability to embrace her sensuality with her talented, beautiful self. She has let the world in on one of the many ways she expresses love toward her husband. I guess society will stop the sensuality shaming and degradation of black women when whites are not taught not to recognize white privilege, or males are not taught to recognize male privilege? Sensuality is not evil, nor should it be shamed. Just as I have the right to walk naked only wearing bobby socks at midnight, or the right to share in aggressive sex with a person of my choosing, the key word is consent. As a consenting adult that drinks alcohol I’ve engaged in consenting ‘drunk sex’, and have thoroughly enjoyed it; just as I’m sure other consenting adults have as well. Remember, it’s one’s choice in the matter because consent is sexy. I strongly believe that this song is talking about consent, sensuality, and the power one’s consenting gain’s, not loses from being vulnerable with someone they love.

In addition black women are too often hypersexualized. Their is this unspoken expectation of a slave mentality, for black women to be the good little house niggers that can do no wrong, that have no rights of expression, that it is her job to serve her master only in private, to meet the needs of all of those around her without ever acknowledging her own needs. As a woman of color society makes it so damn hard to live comfortably in black skin. It’s like a body mask that covers all of the painful and beautiful truths of a woman of color. Our bodies are natural phenomenon’s and some of us choose to express the beauty of our bodies, our movements with no apologies. I remember being told after confessing my love to a white guy I was seeing and that I consented to sleeping with that he only phucked me because I was black. Their is a sickness attached to people like that and it goes beyond skin deep. It is inherited from a time when they sold black slaves like beasts. His expectation that I was their to fulfill a long awaited desire or need that was burning in him, only to be blatantly disposed of, hurt. As he put it, it was always his desire to phuck one of ‘my kind’ and that somehow I was asking for it, or that I knew what it was. These outraged people reminds me of being raped, and how my perpetrator told me in in choice words that I was asking for it. It was easier for him to blamed me the victim instead of accepting his own desires and sickness. Beyonce was not asking to be called a whore. Those who are offend by her most likely religious, desire her, or wish they could be like her. Beyonce having grown up Methodist in Huston Texas has challenged the role of sexuality in the black church since the beginning of her career. Kelly Douglas, who wrote, Sexuality & the Black Church: suggests a dialogue by which the church and community can “nurture the kind of discussion that promotes acceptance and appreciations of the rich diversity, even sexual diversity, of the black community.” Beyonce has broken away from such confines and has chosen to liberate her own experience and good for her! Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie said,”We teach girls shame. Close your legs, cover yourself, we make them feel as though being born female they’re already guilty of something. And so, girls grow up to be women who cannot say they have desire. They grow up to be women who silence themselves. They grow up to be women who cannot say what they truly think. And they grow up–and this is the worst thing we do to girls–they grow up to be women who have turned pretense into an art form.” I phucks with Beyonce because she is liberating the experience of the modern girl. -Gracie N. Berry

watch video, it’s amazing! 🙂
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/beyonce-jay-z-open-grammys-674153

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1aSJCvnsCXcclo2bzlzano5YVU/edit?usp=sharing

i say one’s physical appearance only bides time. for all that one is, is really on the inside. In the spirit of things on some top shelf shit, only for the look, never for the taste. and what is beneath is the truth. and in this case i call it a character flaw. flawed deception. and his words were empty like hallelujah to a non believer. and I don’t believe in you sir. texting me back cause your girls in the room saying have a nice night young lady. when you just phucked my back out last week. tried to pull the down comforter over my eyes as you tried slowly phucking me to death in the beginning, and no wonder you always insisted on us phucking in the dark. cause you never wanted to share my gaze and probably couldn’t handle it. and like i told you i shall text til i feel better. and that sir is apart of my healing. now i will write like word vomit projecting you up and out of my belly. liar. and you coward i should’ve known all along when you shared that story, couldn’t even save those children you were paid 28 bones an hour to protect, so how could i ever expect you to protect me in any way? you coward, who instead of not standing 6 feet 2 inches against systematic violence in a residential treatment facility, was found lying petrified in a fetal position. and you shamed yo self trembling, all out, desperate spilling red roses out of hands, let them smear ass with shit to your face. and you thought you was smooth cause you gained financially from those children’s suffering. and oh the funniest shit is that civil law suite you mentioned that you and your coworkers were going to file for your pain and suffering. tell me sir, tell me again who’s child is left behind still suffering? and you coward who with your silence allowed those children to be victimized with horrendous acts of violence domestic, sexual, substance, vigilante style suffering against those children. with wide eyes wide, i sat in horror, disbelief that a living being could be so passive with the suffering of others, yet how could i expect you to understand any suffering i was feeling. and that suffering sir you have within. as you recalled a story about that young boy under 18, being courted by his therapist, raped. the pictures they snapped of each other kissing one the beach, under the moon light, and all you could do was shake your head at it. little boy trapped in that phucking big body! you punk dick fallacy. you ain’t no leader. no more worthy of the space taken up in the belly of glutenous capitalist’s. and i wish to obliterate your lack of self-respect with a wash board. scrub you away, the impurities sir. and i admit the way your physical appeared made me feel safe at first and then when you opened your phucking mouth i felt a since of silence, embarrassment, squeamish that i even feigned over you. you are no different sir than the slave masters that sold Africans like beasts. and you sir are a cowardly beast instead you smile perpetuating the same losses. and i expected you to care that i cared, for what? time biding, biding my time, and thank goodness for poems and words. -Gracie

breath through all the space that is left. don’t hold one bit inward, only push outward. remember locs are like them ghost spirits that woo and catch the eternal we are. they never leave and only find space to nestle closer. its no wonder that when we see them in pictures, in flesh they capture and shutter souls with the greatest of ease. never a fad, yet a natural phenomenon. locs loving on locs. they be like umbilical cords fused to a depth all their own. on the surface they sing and play and bind together. beneath they sew sweet vibes of melancholy figs. they grow stronger with wisdom. solidarity. dance. swing to rhythms in crowded places. they command all the love. they deserve it.