I spend a lot of days feeling suicidal. Today was one of them. This isn't a cry for help--it's just fact. I'm in therapy for severe #PTSD related to trauma and for #depression. Millons of other folks feel like I do daily. Some lose their fight & die. Don't die.
1-800-273-8255
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#Depression means some days you can barely function. #PTSD means some days everything is painful & you are so traumatized you can barely function. I just want folks to know how hard it is. When famous people like Candace Owens joke about #suicide, they could kill someone.
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I wrote this a couple months ago about the breadth of suicidality in the US. I hope you will read and share it--help someone else. Or you. Let's keep folks alive if we can. Thank you. 💜🌿
1-800-273-8255 #MentalHealthAwarenessMonth 3/ epgn.com/2021/01/the-hi…
If you can only RT one thing, please make it be this--the #SuicidePrevention hotline: 1-800-273-8255
The extrapolation here is that the violence of slavery and the forced displacement and dissolution of families plus the circumstances of raped women is somehow comparable to today's Black families. On its face and historical mismatch, but guaranteed as the ratio shows, to rile.
The fact that two parent families have declined overall in the US and the factor of cohabitation v. marriage is a complicating data point. But ignoring racist trends enforced by Reagan and Bush1&2 like mass incarceration of Black men is also a factor.
Spending the day writing about next week's primary in #Philly. Only here could a guy fired by the current DA for being bad at his job be running to replace him.
The only rational and progressive choice for DA is Larry Krasner, who is implementing much needed CJR.
His opponent, Carlos Vega is supported by the FOP (which should be completely overhauled and John McNesby removed) and Ed Rendell, who hired Vega a bazillion years ago and apparently wants none of the reforms Krasner has put in place.
If you want an end to relentless incarceration of Black, brown and mentally ill Philadelphians, vote for Krasner. If you want police reform, vote for Krasner. If you want the same structural racism and status quo CJ system, Vega is your guy. But Philly deserves and needs better.
This essay on Woolf is told jocularly, a #NotAllMen to the killer critiques by men of women's writing. The smug inanity of dismissing Woolf, who pre-dated James Joyce in the invention of stream of consciousness "Helpful Men," indeed. Read more Woolf. thenation.com/article/cultur…
The importance of Virginia Woolf in English literature really can't be overstated. When we talk about Joyce, we should be talking about Woolf. To the Lighthouse and The Waves are such pivotal works--they re-order our thinking of how a narrative is seen, processed and revealed.
In years of reviewing Toni Morrison, I often thought about how she was the natural inheritor of Woolf: In Beloved and Mercy, Morrison re-orders our view of narration. Even in her earliest works, before her masterworks, Morrison does this. And male critics often got lost.
In Tennessee right now, a week after Sen.Tim Scott insisted America is not racist, there is discussion in the state legislature by Rep. Justin Lafferty of how the 3/5 Compromise was good policy and Lafferty got applause from the GOP.
The 3/5 Compromise got applause. In 2021.
If you are unfamiliar with the 3/5 Compromise between the North and South, this is a good, concise, detailed overview.
This is where slavery was codified in the Constitution by the Founders, some of whom were slave owners--that is, men who "owned" other human beings. Never forget this country was founded as a democracy that also believed that Black men, women and children were not fully human.
Throughout 2020 I reported a series of pieces on a story that flew under the radar: Sect of State Mike Pompeo's radical remaking of USAID as an extremist evangelical operation. #PostForThePress
As the US was voting to oust Trump, Pompeo was continuing his extremist policy-making at State. He coalesced dozens of rogue nations to create a "pro-family" agenda for the US abroad. #PostForThePress
The work Pompeo was doing via USAID was increasingly far-reaching, yet largely ignored at home due to focus on Trump's excesses. Biden and Blinken have yet to undo any of this. #PostForThePress
Politicians on both sides--Tim Scott, President Biden, Harris--saying America and Americans aren't racist are not unifying the country. They are gaslighting us. Black, Latinx and Asian people are being killed due to racism. 74 MILLION Americans voted for Trump. THAT'S RACISM.
I get that no one wants to critique Biden and Harris about anything after the past 4yrs of hell. But when they are wrong, they must be called out. Parroting Tim Scott parroting Trump won't help us address the structural and systemic racism that both Harris and Scott grew up with.
A 16yr old Black girl was shot to death after she called police for help. Ma'Khia Bryant was a victim of racism. We cannot and must not ignore these realities.