#needing male validation already SUCKS but having to compare yourself to a friend in the process

[perfectly-uncapable]

i love you it'll pass i love you it'll pass i love you it'll pass

[revlatte]

Sanctuary: Pre-Launch Thoughts

It’s Sunday morning here in the Land of the Sky. I sit in front of a computer screen, alone down a very long drive way. There’s tea brewing in the kitchen. Jill Scott is playing on my Spotify. The track is currently “He Loves Me.” I’m in winter socks, plaid boxers, and a University of Tennessee Center for Leadership & Service long-sleeve shirt I received as a gift for participating on an alumni panel. My plaid pants are laying on the bed next to me with a pair of long johns inside. The heater is set to “4″. I have no clue what temperature that is but it’s warm enough. The curtains are still drawn because I’m a Pisces and love lurking in the dark, even in the day light. I am about to light 3 candles to be obedient to my partner’s ancestors. 

Admittedly, my brain is not firing as strongly as it used too. This gives me great pause and reason for concern. It’s almost as if my brain reached it’s peak a decade ago when I was working, involved in ministry as a youth pastor, and in graduate school at Wesley Theological Seminary. I’ve spent the last decade searching for my people, my family, my home, my faith community, myself. Perhaps with the Sanctuary Movement, I’m a bit closer. 

3 Thoughts for Today: Hidden Figures, #wearenotinvisible & brewing, Black Star Line Brewing. 

Hidden Figures

One of my good friends here in Asheville and I went to the pre-release to see Hidden Figures on Thursday. I was so proud of Taraji P. Henderson. She is a true come up! From Hustle & Flow to Hidden Figures with Kevin Costner. As a Black American, I understand the significance of this and how Taraji is maturing as an actress who is commanding respect in Hollywood circles. I may not respect all of her choices in movies but I see her value as an actress and role model. Heck, she inspired me. 

Throughout the movie, there is a common narrative that we as Black women are familiar with. The asshole bosses who lack any emotional intelligence and create hostile work environments and don’t give two shits about how their egoism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, cis-gendered male privilege, misogyny impacts everyone one else. There’s the narrative of having to work harder than everyone else though you’re more qualified and have more experience. The experience of being paid less because of what’s between your legs and the color of your skin. The narrative of others knowing the discrimination you are facing is real but THEY DO NOTHING! They want to protect their safety, their freedom, their privilege. They watch as you face oppression, hatred, bigotry and become ostracized. And, there’s the one person who can see through this shit and validate and affirm our experiences. We, as Black women, so often, play critical roles in the development of institutions, organizations, companies and receive no accreditation. We are written out of history and convinced that we can be nothing more than subservient slaves to capitalism and white supremacy. Hidden Figures broke that narrative. 

I left that movie theater inspired and proud. I left with a fire in my belly that we, the Sistahs of Sanctuary, could do anything. We already are. 

#wearenotinvisible & brewing

When I first came to Asheville and arrived at my home on Lamar Avenue, I declared my new home as sanctuary and a place to land. I told my girlfriend at the time that I wanted to fly under the radar, keep my nose down, not get involved with organizing, and take some space to process and heal. I needed a low-key, “normal” life. That was my desire. 

Within just a few short months, all of that had turned on its head. I was working at the progressive UCC in town. It was a great experience and also really damn difficult. I had the same degree as the co-pastors, comparable experience in many ways, and was in a position of assistant. My options for employment were limited so $14 an hour for 14 hours a week (as it started) was stable and kept the lights on. Additionally, I had some outside contracting work and residuals, so it was all good. While there, I realized my brain was working the same and was too afraid to say anything to anyone. I imagine the pastors could tell something was off. Perhaps none of us wanted to say anything. I was a shell of a person. Through it all, I waited for the moment when they would ask me to preach on a Sunday. Or help with the Eucharist (which I believe is the most sacred and holy of acts in faith communities.) Or do a reading. I waited for an invitation to be a part of the community. Rarely, if ever, did that come. My engagement with the community was structured around ways I was showing up as a staff. This was sad in many ways and I received a sense of home, place, community through it all. Until...

The week before Valentine’s Day 2016. My partner was certain she was going to loose the baby. I was not surprised. Stress, shitty ass nutrition, and a diet of many beers, mixed with older age. This was sad and devastating for me, as their partner. We had dreamed of the baby, names, colors for the walls. The plan was that I would be transitioning to her house to live. All of us, as a family. 

I received a call from the doctor that whatever was growing on and inside of my uterus was growing. Surgery had to be scheduled immediately for that upcoming Tuesday, the 11th. 

Long story short - an emergency hysterectomy for me while simultaneously, my girlfriend was having a miscarriage. Devastation. 

I was out of work from the church and my girlfriend did not want any support or visits. I couldn’t understand but wanted to respect our relationship boundaries. Less than a week later, a white, older, lesbian, wealthy Board member came in to my home and unleashed her white rage on to me and broke a really dear item to me, at my dining room table. In the weeks that followed, the #wearenotinvisible movement was launched to address anti-Black bias in the workplace, primarily in gay/queer organizations. The fall out was shitty. As per usual, folks took the side of the oppressed, did everything in their power to discredit me, and engaged in a long and multi-tiered level of victim-blaming. It was humiliating and devastating. In fact, to this day, the organization has comments on their website about the #wearenotinvisble movement. As SHE said, it’s painful and it hurts. 

Through that advocacy and raising issues around transparency, I was blackballed. Eventually, I had to leave my job at the church. My relationship with my partner was falling apart. And I was in this new damn town, isolated, alone, afraid, unemployed and not employable. I sought Sanctuary. I had to go inward. Once inside, I couldn’t make my way through the mountains, rivers, valleys, and streams of consciousness and trauma. I was alone. 

Over the next year, I would watch friends come and go. Hot and cold. Close and far. It was as if I was walking around town with the Mark of the Beast. In each conversation, I had to give a disclaimer of who I was and what I was about. It fucking sucked. I just wanted to live.... until I didn’t because I couldn’t take it anymore. 

So what does this have to do with brewing? The #wearenotinvisible movement got hijacked and all around town I saw people wearing the shirts that I paid for (for half of them at least), and not knowing the history. It was clear that they knew this one person and bought a shirt to be a part of a movement. 

To be a part of something bigger than yourself. That’s what the Sanctuary Movement is all about. That’s what we are striving to achieve. Collective working, unity, healing, and liberation. To embody the principles of Kwanzaa. 

Well, as I think about the craft brewing industry, to be blunt: it’s fully of really privileged, white, cis-gendered males with a lot of access to cash. If they have enough cash, they can work hard enough (or make others work for them at a fraction of their worth), and amass a great living, if not millions, in just a matter of years. There’s no one in the industry that looks like me. A thick, Black, masculine of center, queer, woman. I know we exist and are excited and interested in beer. We are the under-served, un-tapped market. I know the secret to our success and healing. #wearenotinvisible and yes I can see the Hidden Figures. 

Black Star Line Brewing

Again, you are probably reading this wondering what the hell I’m talking about and how it all comes together and if it’s remotely related to the Sanctuary Movement. The answer is YES!

Sanctuary will initially house 4 Black, queer womyn and their children in the month of January 2016. We will host rituals. Healing circles. Visioning sessions. And begin to create the world we have envisioned. Challenging supremacy, capitalism, and individualism. We are welcoming each other home. To Sanctuary. 

AND, that comes at a cost. Rent is $1200. Utilities will probably average about $200. Water about $100. Internet is $60. Food for all of us around $400. Other items (such as toilet paper, paper towels, etc.), are estimated around $150 a month. If we have a shared car, estimated payment around $350/month. Insurance estimated at $200/month. Total baseline for the household: $1620. Add food and miscellaneous items: That’s $2170. Then, if we’re able to secure a car and insurance for such, we’re looking at $2,720. For the sake of round numbers, let’s say it cost $2800 per month to support 4 Black women and 3 children. That’s it. 

However, we are all coming to the space because we need, desire, and crave Sanctuary and community. Our collective and individual capacities to “work” in the system, to make someone else richer, and to have our worth evaluated at $10/hour at best, is not an option. There needs to be soul-affirming work with dignity, pride, and honor. 

To that end, we’ve asked folks who can see the Hidden Figure and those that know are lives matter, that #wearenotinvisible, to donate to the Sanctuary Movement. To donate in recurring donations, single donations, donate food, cars, whatever and however they are able. We are not a non-profit (because we do not believe in that hierarchy and oppressive structure). We are Sistahs of Sanctuary who are doing the work of healing and starting where it matters the most, with ourselves. 

We have most of the brewing equipment we need to get started. But not the funds for the rest of the materials or equipment. If we are able to brew and partner with our friends at breweries around town, we can make beer, mead, cider, etc. as a viable stream of income to support the community. We can break through the color and gender barrier in the industry and really show strength in self-sufficiency. This could be a model we could replicate and break free from the chains of traditional employment that is exploitative. It is a pathway to our liberation. 

We have the land and space to grow hops and really distinguish ourselves.

As we heal, we will see the launch of Black Star Line Brewing as a testimony to our individual and collective healing and liberation. As a form of resistance and renewal. As a form of Sanctuary in a bottle. 

Alone. Down the long driveway. Over a mason jar of tea. I dream of the tomorrow that is almost here. I dream of Sanctuary. Of our collective brilliance. Of being at the precipice of healing - individual and collective. I dream of the story that our children and grand children will tell about us being bad-ass, radical women who blazed the trail in the craft brewing industry, in commercial cleaning, healing, at life. 

I think of my Sistahs and give thanks. Because of them, I have the will to live. The fight in my belly. Because of them, I can come home. Because of them I am home and have finally found Sanctuary.