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Being Loved In The Cleansing Light of Blackness
“One can never forget the feeling of being loved by one’s folks, the looks of care and wonder.”
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You Black, sing like you mean it.
The stream of all of it was there. Flowing like a stream or perhaps the tears of my inner goddess, forbidden, cryptic, yet flowing with healing energy. I ran naked through the woods. Was I free? Were there dogs barking? Was the crackling underneath my feet my own. Or were they slave catchers? Slave catchers.…
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Hunger and Tears
” I cry for all of the ways that we have tried to voice are pain, through words, through dance, through hymns, through protests, through silence, through carrying signs, through law suits, through chants, through the sweat of our bodies.”
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Farts, Racist Funk, and Frat Boys
Here is the thing–I am really getting tired of being thrown into the centrifugal like ride, media circus about race relations and racism in this country….I don’t think it is news when the manager and the police chief in Ferguson resign…this is a time warp thing that I knew would eventually happen. It had too-…
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The Drip-Drip Method: I JUST CAN’T GIVE YOU MY FORGIVENESS -S1/E8
Previously on Episode 7: Miss Wilson tells ReeRee about ReeRee’s father, Becker. This is what Miss Wilson said about the enslaved Black man that she loved–“I loved your father. You may never understand but having you near me all of these years has kept my love for him in my heart. I still remember…
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How To Read The Drip-Drip Method
Thank you for reading my TV series, Drip-Drip method. Here is a helpful hint on how you might want to read them, if you like. On the right hand navigation panel look for “The Drip Drip Method”, and then in the drop down menu, search for “The Drip Drip Method, and all of the series/essays will come…
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The Drip Drip Method: Sobbing Like There Is No Tomorrow S1/E7
Previously on Episode 6: The group got all of Tim’s money and kept it at ReeRee’s house in a tin cup. ReeRee learns that she and Sethaline are bloodsisters, and that she is half white. Lauren fixates on the new hired hand Melvin, who replaced Tim. ReeRee swooned her head up and down on the table while…
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The Drip Drip Method: You Got Two Choices S1/E5
Previously on Episode 4: Velvet shared with the group that Tim has sexually assaulted her. Lauren joined the group but not everyone liked her. Tim attacks Bird’s son, Peter. S1/Episode 5: You Got Two Choices ReeRee was the first person to jump on Tim’s back as he tried hard to straddle me, using his knees…
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The Drip Drip Method: His Breath Stank S1/E4
Previously on Episode 3: Cedric mentions new Indians at the Unity Farm.. Sethaline told the group her husband was having an affair with her sister and felt betrayed by the group. Sethaline threatens to sick Tim onto the group. S1/Episode 4: His Breath Stank “His breath stank,” Velvet started sharing with the group, grimacing as…
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The Drip-Drip Method: Palms Facing Up S1/E3
Previously on The Drip-Drip Method: Sethaline threatens to shut the group down. She also presents a threat to sick Tim on one of the group members. The group also struggles with the possibility of a mysterious new visitor. S1/Episode 3-Palms Facing Up: “Ok,” Sethaline continued tucking her long straggly hair behind her left ear, “I…
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The Drip-Drip Method-Sethaline’s confession S1/E2
Previously on Episode 1 of The Drip-Drip Method. Early Fall, 1859. Velvet reported that Tim keeps spitting on the children. Tim slapped Sarah’s daughter which outraged the group. The group used Drip Drip method, classic form, to correct Tim’s behavior. Tim bought Sarah’s daughter, Rhonda brand new shoes. The committee never got to the issue…
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Lather
If I had known I would have made more lather. Smell of ivory soap, clinical, clean, nothing extra. We grab these plastic things and push out the slippery stuff Sprinkles, then gushes of water. We mold it through our fingers, our longing. Clinching the lower palm, bumps on the top of our wrists We make…
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How Many Walls In Your Teepee?
I woke from a wierd dream state while finishing up my ten-day assignment in Indianapolis. I was staying at the JW Marriot for my university. As my mind crawled out of its haze, this emerged; “How Many Walls In Your Teepee?” I didn’t really know what this meant, pondered it for a minute or two,…
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Kick Off Your Boots and Save The Cat
I read a lot. Usually a strange mix of things, like eating a spoonful of mac and cheese, followed by a nip of jellied cranberry, then a slight detour nip of buttered roll and a gulp of water to wash it all down. I can quickly move from reading a section of a book, reading…
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If You Dream It…
I don’t make New Year resolutions, not any more. So I spend a fair amount of my time dreaming. I dream of happiness for my friends. I dream that people all over the world have clear moments of peace. I dream that the person who feels they are unloved, will feel real love. I also…
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Friendship and Fillet of Fish
I am spending time with a dear friend of 20 or so years. He is visiting us and every time I look at him, I feel comforted. There is nothing like the love between old friends. While passing the time we went to McDonalds and I tried something different, the small egg nog shake. Quite…
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Five Tips for Being Creative
1. Time has nothing to do with it—spend as much time or as little time as you need to complete the project. If the project requires monotony, like drawing a line over and over before getting it right, or reworking a sentence like you are kneading bread, do it. If you want to know when…
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Happy Holidays and what to do with the lemons.
Thank you for being a viewer, reader, follower, and contributor. May the new year bring you all good things. If or when life gives you lemonade; make a lemon painting, take the lemon grinds and use them for soup, or use the lemon juice to wash your hair. Whatever life brings you, use it and…
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Reflections on “12 years a slave” from a Black Psychologist
For many of us, how and when to talk about the enslavement of African Americans is “the elephant in the room.” In order for people to move forward in harmonious ways “elephants” must be taken out of the room. In my work as a psychologist, I have learned that if the elephant is not talked…
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The Assassination of Renisha McBride, Part 2: Let Us Mourn In Peace!
As predictable as the sound of a choo-choo from a passing train, the media is trying to control how we mourn the loss of Renisha McBride. The media is trying to riff off the popular stereotype that people of color are overly emotional and therefore, unstable. That somehow our melanin correlates positively with emotional instability,…
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My Grandmother’s Grandmother Was EnSlaved
Imagine that your great, great grandmother was born into slavery. Mine was. I had the honor and privilege to tape record an interview with my 99 year old great grandmother, Mary Jeffries. Although our conversation was brief she shared these powerful memories of slavery before she passed away. The interview you will hear happened in…
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When White Fear Leads To Black Death: Is This What Happened To Renisha McBride?
As you can see from the original post date, this article was written in November 2013. I still think about Renisha McBride, and now my mourning heart must widen and include so many other people of color who lost their life in similar ways over the year. I will never accept this as normal,…
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Wanting Crystal
…It, this thing, had so much promise such newness. It tasted like wind, like cool water, I felt it land on me like sun rays.
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Sweet Sadness
Loving someone is both sacred and vile. Vile because it, the thing we cannot name, becomes something that binds us in light and darkness; surely will grow or change while it creeps into some dark, rusty, abandoned place, through circumstance, non-believing, or some other form of organic drizzling. Like a remnant memory from one of…