Greater minds than my own have spoken on this, and I am sure that their resolutions outmatch my own. I still ask have you hugged a Black man today?

2020 being what she is, delivered Juneteenth with me being apart from the two Black men I love the most. I have to call Clyde a man, he’s 19 now, even if he is still my munchkin.

This week in Blackness was hard as fuck. I mean, when is it easy? This was hard though emotionally for me in ways it hasn’t been for some time now.

That’s the thing when you open up that can of emotions, you don’t get to only choose the happy ones, you have take in all of them, even the ones which are a little bitter. A lot bitter. Painfully bitter.

The other man I love, Daddy was in emotional pain yesterday and a nation full of people who hate the color of our skin separated us and prevented me from mitigating his pain.

It was a week which like all of the weeks of 2020 began weird. I applied for a job and got an immediate interview. I worked on the website and the course I am currently taking. I found a new angle for the videos Daddy needs. I stayed close to friends when my instinct was to separate. I almost pulled the plug and became an ordained minister. I know…weird week.

In the middle of all the oddness, America kept being America and Blackness kept being dangerous. I went out Wednesday to Center City prepped for war, but thankfully got to come back home without wielding weapons. I spoke to my best friends this week.

99 years ago, one of the many ….many….Black examples of prosperity in this wicked nation was disintegrated. Black Wall Street happened, and the person who lives at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave decided he would hold a rally on Juneteenth in the city of Tulsa. I expected the City of Tulsa to be reduced to ashes, but someone gave this idiot a resemblance of sense and it was moved to today. Smallish victories or something. I guess.

The joke yesterday morning was that he would get a yt woman to suck his dick that day. I did not find that amusing for a number of reasons. Good girl that I am though, I chimed in on the joke, and held up my Black fist and went about the rest of my day.

I had my mid year review with the woman who got the job I wanted, and turns out she’s a fairly ‘woke’ Korean woman, with a ‘woke’ yt husband and is out there in the streets of Phoenix trying to make things better. Instead of discussing my scores, we spent the 45 minutes on activism. I tuned in to a terribly boring Zoom round table, and spent the night on the porch waiting for updates from the man I love who chose to go out to a friend’s house last night.

As a Black woman I understand the fear and pain when your Black man walks out the house. It exists even if he is doing something as mundane as taking out the trash. You do all that you can to make as much of the world safe for him, and you inherently understand if shit goes down there is almost nothing you can do to prevent it. It’s why I am thankful daily in this bitch of a year which is 2020 that my Clyde is where he is, and safe. Ironic no? I’ve typed here for six years how much I want my baby home and today I am thankful he’s far away.

I won’t ever get used to not waking up to his laughter, but what rest I can find these days starts with knowing in his facility, America doesn’t exist. He’s in a residence with 3 other boys, all immune to the toxicity of Blackness right now with only 2 cases of COVID-19 recorded in what can be considered congregate housing. It’s six years of pain, for the blessing of peace of mind on this Saturday morning.

That one Black man, my little Black man is safe right now.

My big Black man is also safe. He’s as lethal as they come, he’s smarter than most, he’s fully equipped and prepared to live and defend his life and existence. He still went to a friend’s house yesterday. I get it, I’ve been stuck in the house as much as anyone, I get the need. I also get that without his usual outlets, meaning me, the need to ‘escape’ was bigger and greater yesterday. I also understand I don’t make the rules, and I don’t have to like it. Well….I didn’t.

When he told me about the excursion, I felt terror. Even looking at the photos this morning my terror did not diminish, because now begins the 10-14 day waiting period to be ‘sure’ what America didn’t kill last night, COVID won’t swoop by to grab. Being a Black woman, and loving a Black man always means you never have the luxury of knowing he will come home, you are always afraid that this life will take him away.

There were only five of them, and I know Daddy enough to know he won’t expose himself to unnecessary harm. And fear is still a thing.

He needed to be out yesterday, June 19th.

It’s not a surprise. It is a painful day, while also a joyous day. It’s been celebrated in my home since my early 20’s. It wasn’t something I was taught, Bonnie and her respectability didn’t allow it. When I realized it was a thing though, I did. I still do. I am Black every day but I am stereotypical Black on June 19th. Ironically it is also he birthday of the first Black man I called son, but that is another blog entry.

It’s a day marked by the education of slaves in Texas that TWO YEARS PRIOR, the government had broken their shackles. It’s a reminder that law of the land be damned yt people will not respect our existence. As a Black woman, I carry that pain like I carry my weight, heavily. As a Black man, taught manhood from colonizers who don’t know that the fuck manhood actually is, that pain can only be magnified.

I have a good Black man though. He’s special and not just special because I chose him. His manhood isn’t defined by all the tropes which tell us define men. His pain isn’t different though because of it. Just wanting to live and prosper in the way you define prosperity is something we all want, and being Black and being a man it’s ripped away from you all the time.

He tweeted some when he eventually got home. I’m sure he was under the influence of something or other. Unlike his normal indulgence I am also sure yesterday was also to numb pain. He came home and the weight of his existence fell onto his shoulders and I wasn’t there to help. When he needed the relief and support and love, the kind only a Black woman who loves him can provide, I was 3000 miles away. Last night he needed comfort, he needed me. Sure it would have turned into something pornographic….its us after all but it would have started with me a Black woman seeing him a Black man, in this world where no one sees us unless it is a method to subjugate us or cause harm.

I will not ever be okay with this time we are apart, physically. I do find solace though that we are together emotionally, intellectually, spiritually. It is a reminder that when the distance is finally closed what we have will anger those who see us as Daddy says: ‘by the insolence of our existence’.

Yesterday I was not able to hug the Black men I love. Go out there today Constant Reader and do that which I could not, hug a Black man.