I wanted an outlet besides this blog and Twitter to toss my thoughts out there. I mean not like anyone ‘cares’ about my thoughts, but I have a lot of them, and they have to be released so that they make room for something else.
I wanted something different, for me.
I am positive there are other podcasts and shows dedicated to showing the world from the perspective of Black women. Some of them may even be like me Queer and Black. I don’t know about them so I ‘invented’ Da Smoke. My friend Lola thought it should be The Smoke, but my friend and co-host Lola is a lil bougie.
20&20 has created the technology I didn’t have a decade ago when I ‘started’ Vizionz from the Bottom radio. Now I can chill with all 30 of my followers and y’all can hear me vent about the month Black women have had. Also, because it’s 20&20 its been a mostly fucked up year.
Me? I’ve had an amazing year the rest of the 3rd Rock? Meh.
About a month ago a rapper from my spoon’s town of Houston was shot in the foot. Her name, yes her, is Megan Thee Stallion. I don’t have a big opinion on her mostly. She’s got decent bars, she’s cute, I am jealous of her knees. It was odd to hear that she was shot, but hearing a Black person was shot, in hip hop is nothing new. What was eye brow raising was the speculation that it was a Canadian rapper who did it. I have no idea who Torrey Lanez is, still don’t other than he is the person who she identified as the shooter.
What this post is partly about is the aftermath of that shooting.
I’m pretty set in my ways. I don’t often apologize for the things I say since I usually mean them. While my position will evolve over time because I am a human being capable of growth, I typically mean what I say in the moment.
Megan didn’t tell the world when it first happened that Torey shot her. I get it.
I really get it.
As Black women our entire existence is made up of people who at best don’t give a fuck about us and at worst harm and kill us. From diapers to the grave we have no safe place, shit at times not even with other Black women.
So we walk through this life doing the best we can hoping not to die and at times find a little joy.
She then went on Instagram after being digitally harassed for weeks about her injury to show the world her stitches. Yes there were people out there who did not believe she was actually shot, that she made it up for attention.
Then she went on Instagram to flame that pice of shit because in her silence, her attempt to do what we are trained to do, protect Black Men, people affiliated with him called her out and a liar. Or maybe they used to be affiliated with him 🤷🏽♀️ at the end of the day, in her silence the truth was obscured.
Why? Speculation only, we are trained to not believe Black women. If you can tell a story in the wake of her silence, the odds are in your favor that you will be believed.
Megan chose to tell her story. I am not sure I would have but I don’t have a #1 single on the charts, and the pressure of thousands of attacks and threats at my back.
I’m happy she told her story though. We need more women in prominence to normalize telling the truth – that no matter where or when Black women are not safe.
I’m angry that is the truth though. At some point as a Black woman I wonder when and where my safety will arrive.
I mean, I create my own. I’ve been blessed by the universe to have a Black man who loves me who is not only capable of protecting me but is programmed to do that for all the Black women in his space, and he’s surrounded by them. I mean also 1 yt woman, but sure she deserves protection too.
Even before him I was reasonably safe. That privilege hasn’t stopped me from harm, but it mitigates it.
I’m reminded of my relative safety when some random on the Internet threatens to find me and rape me. Yep, that happened this week.
I haven’t told Daddy yet, and the plan was to this morning but things at home got real for him and it will wait. I’m also prepared to catch the shit I am gonna catch for delaying this disclosure.
It makes me stop and think about the trajectory I am on, and how much I am going to have to factor in things like what happened to me, what happened to Megan. I have an associate who is fairly well known, and she catches all kinds of hell online. She’s the rally cry for every ashy wanna be relevant Hotep on the Internet, and I know she’s caught shit. I’ve seen how it’s altered her.
While I don’t want that kind of alteration, I do intellectually understand that it may be unavoidable.
I also ponder why it hurts so much when these jabs come from Black men, Again intellectually I know the answer, I have hope. Hope in general is a lie though.
It hurts so much to watch a Black woman have to stand alone, because I want at the least Black men who don’t come from our uterus or visit our cervix to give a shit. I want you to do the bare minimum and so many of you will not.
Even my understanding of WHY you will not is a coverage of sorts. A rationale of your shitty behavior instead of an outright condemnation of it.
Tomorrow I do Da Smoke and it looks like for the first time y’all gonna see Da Smoke.
Tune in if you like:
Nicole Burton is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: Da Smoke
Time: Aug 23, 2020 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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