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Today's affirmation...

There's one thing I can thank this resurgence of overt white supremacy and rampant white ignorance for: reconnecting more with my heritage, culture, history, languages, and identity.

I love my black skin. I love being queer. I love being Latino. Living in this body, thriving, having joy and pride is a rebellious act in a society that seems bent on breaking us down and keeping us there.

I am empowered. I have purpose.

They say adversity builds character and experience gives us wisdom. POC are not victims, we are resilient. It's funny that the former becomes the narrative on the other side when we speak on white supremacy - because they don't want to see us as strong, or good, or wise... But we're so far beyond what those small minds can comprehend. We are our ancestors' wildest dreams. Never let them convince you otherwise.

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Thoughts on white guilt...

If you're accused of something and you feel guilty, doesn't that mean you did it? Why is that my problem? If you're accused of something you didn't do, and you feel guilty. Why is that anyone else's problem but your own?

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A haiku for Vinnie's post-bath ritual.

After bath zoomies. No longer a smelly beast. But still a weird one.

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Another fresh cut by the one and only Zakaria! ❤️ (at Seattle, Washington)

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Thoughts on the death of my faith

My faith in god started to wane by 2001. 9/11 happened. After years of faithful prayer he didnt make me straight. He didn't stop the people around me from being hateful towards gays. He allowed all these terrible things to happen, and has since. His followers can be so, so awful, and straight up evil. By the time I came out, I was officially done with Christianity. It was the best, and most fulfilling decision of my life. The clutches of Christian guilt took years to overcome. I wasn't happy in life until I started living it for me, and I'll never look back.

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Thoughts on Racial Progress

Systemic racism will never change if you're of the mindset that it is only possible to be changed incrementally. More and more I'm believing that incremental change is just part of the system meant to keep people complacent.

Racism hasn't actually gone away, it's just evolved into something more subtle, and harder to recognize. Take the War on Drugs and for-profit private prison system as an example - which is arguably a legalized form of slavery.

If we say "look how far we've come," when we talk about incremental change over decades, while at the same time a new form of slavery significantly affecting the black community exists today - what progress have we actually made? The prison system is only one system of many.

We need radical change. We need to stop focusing on people's personal feelings when calling racism out and focus on the bigger picture. We need to demand better from our friends and family who refuse to open their eyes. We need to stop supporting companies that exploit people unfairly and do so unchallenged. We need to demand more from the politicians who represent us. We need to focus on what's broken and leave the incremental change for the issues that aren't poisoning our society. If you think incremental change is the best we can hope for, you've given up on the dream.

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Fresh cut courtesy of @zakthebarber. B/W to match the weather. (at Seattle, Washington)

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Say his name: Philando Castile

It just won’t stop this week.

How many examples do we need that clearly show the system is broken? The justice system is broken. Or as Shaun White puts it, working exactly as intended. Institutional racism is so much more calculated than we’d like to believe.

You mattered, Philando. You were an excellent human being. You deserved better than this. You deserved to live. You deserved justice. The world is a little darker without you.

This system is made for white people (ESPECIALLY STRAIGHT WHITE MEN) to thrive, in every sense, and for everyone else to figure out how to get around the road blocks it creates for them, and even then, only maybe be able to live happily, and free, and safe, and economically stable, and valued, and accepted.

What about economically underprivileged white people? Are they oppressed too? YES!

This racist and broken economic system DOES hold you back.

Eliminating white supremacy in our society can and will affect you for the better. Institutional and systemic racism wants to pull the wool over your eyes and make you think we have less in common than we actually do. If you’re conditioned to focus on the fabricated war on Whiteness, or the conservative vs liberal snowflake narrative, you can’t see who the real enemies are. You’re too busy fighting equality and not acknowledging real injustice. Reject racism. Learn to see it. Open your mind.

Eliminating white supremacy from our government means that interventionist foreign policy is done away with. We don’t have to police the world. We can use those resources to create more opportunities for ordinary American citizens instead of lining the pockets of the already super-wealthy. We can stop oppressing non-white people around the globe.

Eliminating white supremacy in our education system means that we can be the intellectual powerhouse of a country we have the potential to be because the same opportunities to receive higher education would be available for those it has historically been denied to.

That is only the beginning. White supremacy enables discrimination and oppression of all flavors. Let’s set a precedent that discrimination and oppression will not be tolerated.

The US was built on the lie that we are all equal. It was built on slavery. The only way to make America great is to truly live the words that tell us we’re all free. Until all of us are free, no one can be free. History cannot be righted until this is accomplished.

I don’t have all the answers of how to get there.

Maybe it will take decades, or centuries, but I won’t shut up about this, and neither should you.

Join your POC brothers, sisters, siblings, and allies of all backgrounds and fight this. Make your voice heard.

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June 12, 2016. In loving memory. 

Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34

Stanley Almodovar III, 23

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36

Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22

Luis S. Vielma, 22

K.J. Morris, 37

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30

Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25

Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35

Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50

Amanda Alvear, 25

Martin Benitez Torres, 33

Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37

Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26

Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35

Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25

Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31

Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26

Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25

Miguel Angel Honorato, 30

Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40

Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32

Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19

Cory James Connell, 21

Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37

Luis Daniel Conde, 39

Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33

Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25

Darryl Roman Burt II, 29

Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32

Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21

Jerald Arthur Wright, 31

Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25

Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25

Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24

Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27

Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33

Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49

Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24

Christopher “Drew” Leinonen, 32

Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28

Frank Hernandez Escalante, 27

Paul Terrell Henry, 41

Akyra Monet Murray, 18

Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24

Antonio Davon Brown, 29

Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25

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June 14th 2017 - Seattle, WA

The most amazing thing just happened to me.

I was taking the 8 to my barber, reading a James Baldwin book (The Fire Next Time), phone in my lap. I got off at my stop. As the bus pulls away I realized I didn’t have my phone. Knowing the bus route, and that I might have a chance to catch it several blocks down a huge hill, I booked it. From 19th to MLK.

On the way I had to run in front of a Latino guy in a work truck who was pulling out on a side street down John. He saw my desperation, I waved to forgive my rudeness of cutting him off, he waved me through.

When I got to MLK, I didn’t see a bus in either direction. The same man in the work truck passed, saw me, pulled over and motioned me to his driver side. I didn’t know what to make of it.

He asked me if everything was okay and I told him I was and what just happened. He offered to drive me down MLK to see if we could catch the bus. I hesitated, but accepted knowing I can’t and don’t want to replace a $600 phone right now. He seemed trustworthy enough.

We caught up to the bus at the last moment at the Mount Baker transit station, and my phone was there, still on the seat.

Arturo - I will never forget your kindness. At a time where I’ve really been questioning how much good was left in humanity, I needed that. I’m forever thankful, my Latino brother! ✊🏾

I’m going to be a few minutes late to my haircut, but something tells me it will be fine.

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June 8th 2017

In my early twenties I did a lot of soul searching. I didn’t quite go as far as the author of this article did in my life, but I can relate to a lot of this experience. The guilt and shame after the fact was really hard and uncomfortable to process. At the same time I was coming to terms with my sexuality and the guilt and shame that came of that. I realized my entire life up to that point had not been authentic.

In elementary school I would stare at my skin and entertain thoughts about what it would be like if my skin wasn't​ so dark. No one in my family had my skin. I was different. In my classes, I was different. The kids who looked like me were treated differently. I tried hard to be excellent in my studies and to speak clearly and as eloquently as I could manage … Because I didn’t want people to automatically assume I was dumb, or not as good as everyone else. I didn’t want to be treated differently. I wanted to be one of “the good ones.”

That was the beginning. Over time I started to believe the lies. I looked down on other black people. I couldn’t even proudly acknowledge my blackness. I felt ugly. I hated looking in mirrors or at pictures of myself. I’m half Panamanian so when people asked where I was from I would always say, I’m Latino. I let other people disparage black people and other POC in my presence. I could go on.

I came to terms with being gay first but that was the catalyst. Unpacking that baggage led me to recognizing my internalized racism. I struggle with it to this day but I’m passionate about learning how to be better.

It’s more obvious now but I love my blackness. I love my heritage. I will never live in guilt and shame again, only love and understanding. It’s been a journey. I have further to go.

I Used To Be Ashamed Of My Blackness

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Truths

If you never play, you’ll never win.

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New hair evolution, slight change from what I had been doing. (at Seattle, Washington)

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Bey’s dancers backstage … Black Panthers?✊🏽✊🏾✊🏿