Prayer for An Evil Eye
Somebody out there is throwing bad mojo, y’all — for realz!
Welcome to the world of magick. Just when I think the rest of my life is gonna be one amazing event after another, the dark side of magick rears its nasty ass. I got a message from a witch I know that somebody was hurling some dark arts in my direction. I’m not stupid enough to ignore the caution, but I also know my mother is one of my guardian angels and she ain’t no joke. I kind of feel sorry for the person, ‘cause my mother is basically Kāli, the Destroyer.
I don’t want to make light of it, dough. It’s fucked up. Even the world of magick got trolls. It’s like when I started blowing up on YouTube and suddenly started getting death threats and shit. I’d tell y’all to check the comments on my spoof video “Black People are Stupid,” but I don’t want to trigger nobody. Racists be clicking in to see Black people torn down, and then they get they hearts broke when I one eighty on them bitches and ask them to interrogate they own racism. Haters gotta hate.
Now, I’m gonna do what I gotta do. This is my curse for whoever it is out there trying to harm me and mine:
I see you.
I feel you.
I hear you.
I know you’re alone and likely in pain. You feel you’ve been slighted by the world. You feel you haven’t been given your fair share. I see you in shadow. I feel your heart like a knot in your chest. I hear you crying.
I absolve you of any wrong you’ve wished on me. No harm. No foul. Let flowers sprout in the dirt that’s fallen by the wayside.
I embrace you and surround you in the loving and unconditional light of the spirit of all my ancestors. Be free of the darkness that has all but swallowed you. Fill your heart with healing light and joy. Bask in the warmth of self-satisfaction. Your benevolent desires come to you. Be released from dark thoughts that plague you. Commitments to ill will drain from you and leave you cleansed and renewed.
Go in peace.
Is Facebook Racist?
I think Facebook might be racist, y’all — for realz!
Facebook reminds me that what I got to say and the way I got to say it don’t fly with them. I get invited to “boost” every one of my posts. I don’t really give a fuck about boosting shit, but if that shits an option, I wanna think it’s available to me too. So, for the hell of it, I give it a shot. That’s the power of Facebook advertising, I guess. Guess what? They rejected my shit! They told me my shit wasn’t suitable for advertising.
Y’all thinking “Pink, though, your shit is edgy AF!” Sure, I use some frigging harsh language. I’m choosing to write in a voice that reflects my experience as a Crazy Queer Black Radical Atheist. I use a voice in common with world as I see it. It’s certainly familiar enough that most o’ y’all know what the fuck I’m talking about. Whatever, I cleaned my shit up. I took out all the so-called swear words (which, be honest, y’all, most of y’all use those words on a daily basis). Turns out it wasn’t the swear words. Facebook didn’t like my frigging grammar!
Here’s where I gotta call racism, or at least classism. In order to promote my work on Facebook, I gotta adhere to some fucking standard of grammar? Who decided on the standard? A computer. The advertisers? A fucking intern? Facts, y’all. Think of the implications of that shit. That means as an artist, I can’t use a voice that identifies my characters outside of a particular level education and culture. It means I actually have to be intimate (meaning have) that level education and culture (which the average person does not!)
This is from Facebook’s corporate site:
“Facebook's mission is to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together. People use Facebook to stay connected with friends and family, to discover what's going on in the world, and to share and express what matters to them.”
Obviously, Facebook could give a shit about the community I might be trying to build. They sure as fuck don’t want me to express myself—not honoring my experience and in a way people I want to reach will immediately identify. I doubt Donald Trump could write an article that Facebook would approve. Donald Trump, however, doesn’t have to write shit. They can just pay to have it edited to reach however many people they want. Not hating on the Don. Being honest.
Is it me, or does anybody else see a problem here?
Magickal Mishaps!
I tested one of my charmed products on myself. That was a mistake, y’all — for realz!
I been working with herbs a couple years, now. I got inspired by Detroiter Lottie V. Spady of Earthseed Detroit (linked below). There’s plenty of science to support the physical, emotional and psychological effects of plants. I’ve been calling that shit magick but the shit is technology that my ancestors practiced. Western Supremacy has fooled us into thinking all that wisdom was bullshit.
I’ve been mixing African-American rootwork into bath and body products to serve skeptics who ain’t asking for no protection or love spells when they need a little spiritual assistance. I recently made a natural deodorant that was charmed to help the user set stronger boundaries. Of course I tested it on myself—not for the charm part, but to see if it kept me from stinking.
It did okay on my b. o. I got a bonus when my thorny ass neighbor called me. He’s been quiet since I charmed his ass a month ago. Usually, I‘d keep my distance, but something drove me right out to see him. He was arms stretched across his car like a ghetto Jesus. I’ll give him he sexy AF. He even started out sweet. As usual he was there to gripe about my damn lawn . I was ready to smile and nod, but he came right out of the blue and asked point blank if I had a problem with him. Normally, I‘d lie and say “No, you’re a great neighbor!” and bunch of bullshit. I could even feel my tongue getting twisted to find a diplomatic way to be honest.
I complimented him on his own lawn, but told him straight up I didn’t want my yard to look like his. I let him know I was tired of having this talk with him. His head snapped back like I had punched him in the face. He sure AF wasn’t used to me being that direct. I wasn’t frigging used to it. His sweet soured right quick and he went back to being the bully. I wasn’t phased. I said what I had to. When he got to threatening, as usual, I asked for clarification in a loud voice to remind him there were witnesses. I sprinkled a little black pepper and kept it moving.
I didn’t hit me (and neither did he) right away, but that was magick at work. That charmed deodorant had kicked in hard. I sent a message to the client letting know her work was on the way. I gave the client a warning and I hope she reads this. That shit is strong magick—faith, vanilla and Psalm 23—use with caution!
*UPDATE - The neighbor came back and apologized for their behavior. #strongmagick #unify #wagelove #hoodoo #rootwork works
Loving Donald Trump (Take Two)
How to learn to love Donald Trump, y’all — for realz! Take two.
Before we dig into this shit. I gotta say something to you. Yes, you! The one who knows so frigging much about everything that you think this don’t apply to you—thinking “I don’t care what this fool says. I’m gonna hold onto my hate (or pity, or whatever negativity you gripping like your life depended).” It never occurs that your negativity (you only do it a little, right?) might be generating the very thing you are hating on.
You need to love Trump, ‘cause you made Trump. That was your dark magick. You laughed at the idea of Trump, with your attention on whatever trivial shit you thought was more important than electing a suitable alternative. You jinxed yourself ‘cause you ain’t have the wherewithal to imagine what you wanted instead of a Trump. Your arrogant ass figured you’d never get a Trump and your apathy turned into his red carpet. So, you conjured him.
Right now, you’re thinking this is bullshit! Magic isn’t real! It just isn’t! How’s that thinking working out? “But, we’re gonna elect Joe Biden and then Trump will be gone.” No, bitch, it don’t work like that. You’re hate is gonna out conjure your flimsy hope, just like it always does. You have to dispel this demon your damn self. You summoned it. You gotta send it off.
Here’s what you gonna do.
Stop calling Trump evil. Trump is just a human you’ve made a lightening rod for your negative thoughts.
Recognize we’re all of the same Unified Field. What you send out is coming back at you. Period.
Petition whatever you believe in, even if it’s your own ego, for a heart capable of boundless, unconditional love.
Start on a loving vision of the world where everything is an extension of you (from a speck of dust to the Universe itself).
Include Trump in that.
Let me know when you’re done.
Done with Black Lives Matter
Y’all, I hate to say it, but I’m done with Black Lives Matter — for realz!
I dreamed about being robbed by Black hoodlums. Racism and White Supremacy play out on the landscape of my subconscious. Deep down I believe every word I was ever told about Blackness and Whiteness. My mother drove it home every time she took me and my brothers out in public. She would snap at us for “misbehaving,” saying “White people already think Black people are ignorant!” By the time I heard “Black is Beautiful” the long-term damage had been done.
Black Lives Matter is so necessary, but it comes way too late for me. I think the greatest flaw of the movement is it may be directed at the wrong audience. That may also be my internalized racism kicking in. That may be more of the White gaze peering out from behind my African eyes. I assume that this well packaged message of the value of Black Lives is for White consumers. Maybe I’m way too worried about the impact of this message on White people.
Regardless, I don’t want to just frigging matter. How lame when you think that shit through. Black Lives Matter? We fight over turf about a damn slogan. We get ruffled when people say All Lives Matter. What the fuck does it mean to matter, anyway? Money matters! What you wear to a job interview matters. Wearing a condom for sex with strangers matters. I hope my life more than just fucking matters. I hope my life is frigging essential. My life is fucking magic. Black Lives Magic, bitches! Black Lives Miracles! Black Lives Majestic! How else we survived a four-hundred year, worldwide campaign of hate?
People get ruffled AF when I say engaging through anger defeats the purpose. I guess it’s ‘cause I assumed the uprising was to get to live in peace. I know for some the purpose is just to win—to matter. What’s the end game? What does winning in this struggle for Black lives to matter look like? Fuck the rhetorical. What will it mean for me getting out of bed everyday? Sometimes I think it means, getting “their” side to do whatever “our” side wants. Maybe it means it’s “our turn.” Maybe it’s White people on plantations picking cotton and singing spirituals!
I want a movement of loving up on Blackness to celebrate it’s rightful place in history, with Black people as founding mothers and fathers of us all. Blackness will be the walk on the red carpet, a Rolex watch, a Lambo, or some fresh J’s. Instead of getting weaves, my sisters will go a little dark on that foundation, while hair does whatever the fuck God wants. Give me the real story of Africa blasted through all media channels in a campaign on par with “This is your brain on drugs” or “Where’s the beef!” to have the world saying “Thank you, Africa, for every-fucking thing!”
That’s heavy lifting and I won’t settle for White fear. Putting a couple White cops behind bars for killing Black people will send a message about what happens when you get caught hating on Blackness. It doesn’t inspire Black love and, real talk, I won’t settle for anything less than universal adoration of my Black ass.
The Magick Twelve-Step
Here’s twelve steps to up your magick game, y’all — for realz!
Even though this shit sounds like what I’ve been trying to tell y’all for the past few months. I thought it might sink in coming from an old White dude. Here’s what Doc Wayne Dyer (a Detroiter) prescribes for people who wanna start making miracles part of their daily life.
Practice multidimensional, multi-sensory thinking.
Cultivate an understanding that loving divine guidance is always available to you.
Focus on the authentic power that comes from inside.
Develop your connection to all of humanity.
Get to know a dimension beyond cause and effect.
Get motivated by ethics, serenity and quality of life—growth motivation.
Practice meditation. Learn to recharge from within.
Understand that intuition is real, valid, can be honed and can be trusted.
Understand that a violent response to evil is participating in evil and shift your focus to what you want to grow in the world.
Cultivate a sense of responsibility and belonging to the Universe.
Live a life of forgiveness.
Believe in your ability to manifest miracles.
I got almost all of these working the fuck out a 12 step program (or five!). If you don’t believe you have it in you to make real magick, do I have a twelve step program for you! Lol. Hit me up and we’ll talk about it.
Of course, I can always hook you up with a mojo!
My Best Life
I keep living my best life, y’all — for realz!
Just when I think life couldn’t get any better, it throws me another curveball. Clock! That shit is flying out of the park. I don’t know shit about sports, so if that don’t make no sense, fuck it. I hope you get the point.
I keep thinking I’m kissing my best years ciao bella. Then something happens like when I turned thirty and suddenly found myself on Broadway and TV. I hit forty and became kind of a fitness personality. Now, in my fifties, I’m suddenly gifted with magick. By sixty I may sprout wings!
The point here is, as I get closer and closer to what seems like the end of my life, the Universe grants all these bonuses. Sure, I’m not as cute as I was when I was twenty (don’t get it twisted, I’m still cute AF), but I’m way more attractive (including sexy) to myself than ever! I certainly haven’t suffered when it’s come to attracting beautiful, intelligent, interesting and gifted (even magickal) people of all kinds into my sphere—romantically or otherwise.
The whole “youth is wasted on the young” thang ain’t been my experience of the shit. Even as a tadpole, I was was drawn to older people. I don’t think that’s so frigging unusual. I didn’t see the full-on sex appeal in quite the same way as I do now. Some older folks buy the “I’m old and useless” myth, and the media sure shows old people as pastel colored doting mo’ fo’s. My friends over fifty are fucking rock stars. They are vibrant and curious and frigging bowled over by the wonder of everything. They like sex. Only the very eldest ever seem to sit down.
As I age, I do have to work harder to keep this meat wagon (AKA my body) running smoothly, but when I do the work... There’s nothing like something old in good condition. Even if it’s a little worn at the edges. Rustic. Think how you feel when you see any well kept antique. It don’t matter if it’s a mint condition Model-T, or a Louis XV sofa. That shit makes me wanna run my hands all over it! Lol!
I still worry sometimes, when my luck is gonna run out and I’ll hit a wall, but it ain’t happened yet and I really am holding out for that set of wings.
Black DNA for Mental Health
Knowing your family history is everything, y’all — for realz!
My mental health, my outlook, my frigging everything has taken a 180° turn towards the sky is the mo’ fugging limit, since I started searchin’ ancestry records. No lie. That shit is better than any sex, drugs, music, experience I’ve had in my life. I didn’t even know how shaky my self-image was until the gaps of my world started to fill in with knowing who came before me. I bet a lot of shit Black people go through is because they don’t know who the fuck they are.
New call for reparations, starting immediately! The US government should start a program to make it effortless for anyone with links to enslaved Africans, to access any o’ the available data—free of charge. The US need to compile that shit and there need to be offices set up to walk people through looking they shit up. That shit need to include bills of sale, names of traders and any documents recording exchanges of Africans from one place to another.
The US government also need to pay for DNA testing that should be confidential. I should be the only person who knows who I am related to and no one but me (and who I decide to tell) ought to be able to connect me to the DNA sample. I should get a random frigging ID number that links me to the sample, and nobody need to be tracking me cause they got my DNA.
It’s gonna take a lot of people to be the admins in these new programs. Black people need to get free training in DNA analysis, historical research, anthropology and genealogy. These things need to be made part of the school curriculum along with anti-racism, and some accurate fucking history that starts in Africa (not Greece). No child need to grow up wondering where they came from. Everybody got a right to know they history and the culture of they ancestors as common frigging knowledge, like every mo’ fo’ knows who the fuck George Washington is (or so they think).
I’m serious y’all. It frustrating AF hitting a wall at 1880 for all my Black family members because their “owners” didn’t bother to include they name on census rolls. When Black folks finally sit down and file our class action law suit against the United States, lets be sure to add this to the list of damages.
#WagingMoreLove
I don’t think I’m waging enough love, y’all — for realz!
I get anxious and blame myself for that shit. There’s things I could do to change the world but don’t. I could use a lot less plastic. Half the shit I buy comes wrapped in plastic. I could waste fewer resources. I definitely let the water run way too frigging much. They say the waste of individuals is just a small percentage of the problem. Meh! I think it’s a big part of the problem. It’s action against the whole—it’s suicidal behavior.
I’m not trying to beat myself up, or get pity or impress with honestly. I am just being honest about the work I know I need to do. I am in no position to fight anyone about anything. I’m not in any position to make demands from others when I got so much shit of my own to fix to claim the right to wage love on the world.
I could stand up for love more. I shrink when people say “love is not enough.” I second guess myself when people bad mouth personal transformation. I’m the one who knows my shit ain’t correct. I need to start asking, “Who do you know that’s waging love? How you get to say whether the shit works or not? How many people you know committed to personal transformation?”
It ain’t that love ain’t enough, it’s that people assume love ain’t an answer ‘cause they assume they way got to be the “right way.” Otherwise, why would people keep defaulting to hate and violence, right? How many people are really ready to let go of their rage and fear and anxiety so they can really start to understand the “other” (I think we all other a little—a lot!).
Waging love is being the “crazy” person scooping bulk items into a jar brought from home. Waging love is walking, when it’s so much easier to drive. Waging love is refusing to “other” anyone or anything, regardless of how much I “hate” the things they do. There are no “theys” and “thems” in waging love. There is no “me” in waging love. There is only “all of us” which includes everything.
If anything, I hope I have inspired someone to take a similar inventory and, before hitting the street, get yourself correct. Get mindful and stop solely looking at other people to make a change. Perhaps we can make this movement about all of us learning to wage love.
Yahweh is Gangster AF
Y’all! The God of the Israelites is Gangster AF — for realz!
Ain’t but a few things annoy the shit out of me like contempt prior to investigation. I can’t stand when some ignorant ass comes at me about what they don’t like (especially when it’s me) and they haven’t even bothered to read through or check out the material. I can tell, ‘cause the criticism be vague AF and driving at one or two cherry-picked examples, don’t add up to shit much less the overall experience of the thing.
Come to find out, I been guilty of that shit myself. I’ve been hating on Judeo-Christianity knowing dick about it. My knowledge of the Bible is Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, and whatever Cecil B. DeMille decided was worthy of the silver screen. Other than that, it’s been hearsay. So, instead of staying willfully ignorant, I decided to read the Bible—cover to cover.
Y’all! God be hating! Like out of the 26 books I’ve read so far, 17 of them mo’ fo’s is either about God kicking ass, promising to kick somebody ass or telling people what they gotta do if they don’t wanna another ass whooping. God is like “You better give me my money, bitch!” I swear his shit is like a drug lord usually taking out whole families and regular like ending in genocide.
A few years ago when Islamophobia was all the rage, I actually accepted, not as logical, but I could follow the train of thought that hooked fear of Muslims to violence in the Quran might o’ been wove into the fabric of they society. Maaaaaybe. Now? Fuck no. Anybody afraid of Islam and not shitting they pants on the daily over what some fundamentalist Christians might do, is not only a frigging hypocrite, but just a dumb ass. No offense to donkeys.
The Bible is a scary, scary book. I do not recommend it for kids at all. It is not queer-friendly. It ain’t feminist (even with Deborah leading an army in Judges). It do not show God in a very good light if His ass is supposed to be a father figure. If this was a custody trial, He would not get the kids and might end up catching a murder rap. My dad beat my ass, but was Mr. Fucking Rogers next to the God of Abraham.
I’m gonna withhold judgement ‘til I’m done before I post my review. No spoilers! I have my doubts the authors are gonna be able to dig they way out of this one.
The Rachel Dolezal
Rachel Dolezal ain’t got shit on my great grand ma, y’all — for realz!
1901, at the age of 19 (which could explain a lot of it!), my great granma, Fannie Russell, said fuck it to White privilege and married Walter Hendricks—a Black man—in South Carolina. It was illegal AF. South Carolina was the first state to pass an anti-miscegenation law. It was almost a Federal offense, talking about “Intermarriage between whites and blacks is repulsive and averse to every sentiment of pure American spirit. “ That ain’t fly, but most states went ahead and jumped on the band wagon, making mixed marriage illegal.
Grandma Fanny came from a slaveholding family. Her grandma, Lucinda, inherited a “negro girl” named Emily, so, I‘m shook to figure how two generations later, Fanny turned around and married a Black guy. What her family have to say about it? How great-grandpa Walter not get lynched?! What Justice of the Peace would have done the ceremony? Lucky for me, I was able to find the marriage paper, if you call that shit luck.
It looks to be the right couple. Same parents for each of them. The ages listed matched they dates of birth. Then I saw Fannie’s race was on there as “col” (Colored). I was like “Wait a second!” I checked and both Fanny’s folks show up on the census as White. Fannie had lied? She also put down both parents as “deceased.” In 1901 her parents were alive there death and burial records and all.
Is my Granma Fanny a Rachel Dolezal? Then you had people like former NAACP chair Walter White who was White as a sheet, but lived as a Black person. I’m like “Damn!” People been choosing Blackness, against their own comfort and privilege for as long as these bullshit ass categories have existed. Why’s it so important to cling on these categories now? Maybe the lesson that got everybody shook is that race only has the power we give it—we’re comfortable with racial boxes.
I’m starting to see through this fog as I realize more and more I ain’t who I thought I was. I’m sure a few people got they finger on the cancel button. I’m poised and ready. Come for my grandma, though and we gonna fight!
Baba Blair: Hosting a Panther
The movement came to my front door, y’all — for realz!
I’ve been thinking about what my role is in this here moment in hiz-tree. I’m a natural born outsider in a lot of ways—I’ve tended to be talked about a lot more than folx have bothered to talk to me. Getting in touch with my shaman and all around magick self, I realize it just comes with the territory. My kind live on the outskirts, in the woods, and alone on mountaintops. We wait to be called on—like Batman with the bat signal.
Odd AF, the march landed dead ass in front of my house—heading up Field. My neighborhood is warm with the spirit of resistance. Grace Lee Boggs was one of my neighbors, ‘til she transitioned. Her spirit is still in these streets with us. The crowd had log-jammed in front of my house. I guess they felt the same energy that keeps hawks circling above my crib. They were out there ten minutes before I gave in, grabbed my drum and joined them. I keep safe distance, though. I ain’t trying to flock with COVID-19.
A few days later, Blair came at my door with a brick. Blair is a surviving member of the Black Panther Party, an elder and a friend. Blair was in the Monroe Street apartment in Chicago, when police raided to assassinate Fred Hampton. It’s a fucking miracle Blair is alive to tell the story, which he did again last night after I gave him the best blessing my atheist ass could summon.
My relationship with Blair defies logic. When we met, he was battling his own homophobia. I had mind-controlled attitudes about men in general, and Black men in specific, I had to squash. Blair was the first time I stood my queer ground on a personal level. He took that shit to heart and changed. I gave Blair a charm and a piece of High John the Conqueror root. He left the brick behind. I’ll be using that in another kind of protection spell.
A lot of folx who been following these daily posts know Baba Blair. Now that I know a bunch of y’all have been practicing work of your own, I’m asking y’all to do some for Blair today. While you at it, work those protection spells for all our kids in the street. Get in my DMs for suggestions. If you’re one of the kids taking to the streets, take your ancestors with you. That’s what they’re there for. Counter-protestors and other officials who may be monitoring these little musings, I bless you and see a change of heart for you to act in your own best interest and become part of the solution.
Stay safe today, everybody.
The Irish in Me
My Irish relatives were some badass blitzes, y’all — for realz!
I hate to single out any of my relatives. Especially since a lot of the lines dead end in the 1800s, cause those folx weren’t even considered people, but property. All my relatives brought they A game to this plane, even when they were doing dirt. I am gonna call out my Irish blood, though, just ‘cause that shit relates to the ides of starting a school and who is worthy to do what in this world. I’m still waiting on the DNA results to confirm shit, but it looks like I come from the MacCarthy Reagh line.
The MacCarthy’s were kick ass and basically just claimed the Irish Monarchy in the 13th Century and wrestled to hold onto it until Oliver frigging Cromwell rolled up ganster and jacked they shit. The mysterious link would have been from Donogh MacCarthy, one of six kids of the last Prince of Carbery. In a twisted inversión of my African ancestors, the noble history of my Irish blood is cut off. The Irish became target of the English propaganda machine that is so good at turning entire races of people into monsters and clowns.
Of course, history showed that the next 400 years for the Irish were no picnic. Things came to a head in the 1900s with the Irish Revolution and didn’t chill the fuck out until the Good Friday treaty in the 1990s. Of course history paints the fighting Irish as the uber-violent and crazy IRA (Irish Republican Army). Before I get blamed for hating on the British, I have that blood too and here in the U.S. we know how the British got down.
So, I’m not gonna take the usual turn here and say, “See, they are the violent ones and everybody else is just fighting back!” If we’re engaging in the violence, even on defense of violence, we still end up violent. What I do wanna say is we gotta, gotta, GOT TO, let go of this idea of Westerners as peaceful and civilized and responsible for “rescuing the planet.” We were not a planet of savages waiting to be dragged out of savagery by “White” people.
We must (I must) stop this automatic credentialling of shit because of its proximity to Western Civilization. We need to recognize that so much of the stuff we love existed (started) in places outside of Europe. That, my people, is White Supremacy. Every time anyone blindly accepts that other cultures are less civilized, more violent, less educated, less fashionable, less clean, less classy, less cool, less wealthy or in any way embraces an uncontested faith that the west is best, that shit is White Supremacy.
Check yourself on this. Do you really know history, or are you blindly accepting the one you’ve been fed? Do you conflate dominance and excellence? Do you rank cultures? How do you score?
That’s it, y’all.
School for Magick
I wish there was a magick school, y’all — for realz!
Tapping into these “gifts”—that I think are just ancient AF technology that’s been encoded in my blood all along—is starting to be a pain in my ass. We live in a world where if it ain’t serving the status quo it ain’t in the course catalogue. So, here I sit with a Masters from frigging Yale University, but the thing I’m really meant to do, I gotta teach myself or learn from videos on YouTube. I guess once upon a damn time, families use to support they kids gifts as a matter of survival. That’s probably why the Bible is so full of magick.
I shouldn’t complain. My degree from Yale kept my ass fed. It wasn’t my purpose, though. Although voice and speech classes helped me get in touch with the full range of my voice (thank you Barbara, Virginia and Ursula). Studying all that Shakespeare prepped me for understanding the Bible. I can’t hate on my pedigree. It’s hard AF to be impressed with an Ivy League degree when you can heal people with your touch. For real, y’all — the sound of my voice has had the power to sooth my whole life. That’s what I want to master now and I’m like a baby learning to walk.
I hope I didn’t insult anyone with the YouTube crack. I’ve learned a lot of valuable shit on YouTube. I have a pretty big following on YouTube myself. Unfortunately, magic isn’t the kind of thing you can learn from watching a video. Everybody’s magic is different. Ain’t no “one size fits all.” It comes through like it comes through. It shows up all unique and it’s up to you to figure the shit out, I guess. It’s a lot like X-Men, where people’s mutations show up like they do. Unfortunately, there ain’t no Xavier Institute!
So, I try everything. I listen to the animals. I write down every dream. I follow every instinct. Then something clicks. I hold a pack of tarot cards and it’s—forgive the cliché, but I’m going for accuracy not art—a jolt of electricity running through my arm. I get a sudden impulse to go to the cemetery and fill a jar with dirt. My other magick folk out there will have they own stories (and y’all need to share that shit).
I know this: I can probably cure what ails you. I can ease pain. That seems to be my main “super power.” I have a knack for throwing together the right herbs to dress a candle. I think I can lay on hands, which I’ve done for people my whole life. I can offer soothing words and release emotional blocks. You’ll probably cry a lot, but you’ll sure feel a lot better.
All that said, I’m holding out hope for a mentor. I can’t be the only person with these gifts and somebody out there has figured this shit out. Anyone know a good miracle healing coach?
Thank Capitalism for Racists
How to talk about race when your family owned slaves—for realz!
Y’all, I’ve been tripping that last week, after finding out my great to the fourth granz was a slaveholder who thought it was cool to leave her Negro hostages to her grandkids in her will. The levels of fucked-up-ed-ness keeps gaining by the day. My family was in Alabama and South Carolina, mind y’all, and those was some of the worst states when it came to making slavery seem normal. Like 40-50% of households in S.C. had kidnapped Africans forced into labor. I don’t have that many slaveholders in my family, but the ones I did, went big!
Even if I didn’t have White ancestors, there was that tiny less than one percent of Black people who also “owned” people. It was what you did for the first three centuries and the first 100 years that the United States of America officially existed. There was a certain amount of White Supremacy at work in that, but I really don’t think slavery was about racism. White Supremacy was invented to pacify poor people—dubbed “White.” Poor people didn’t own “slaves.” This is why, unfortunately, the image that comes to mind when we think of racists is the toothless “red neck.” It took a violent coercion to get poor Whites onboarded with racism.
Rich people may not be racist, at least not like you imagine your KKK member dreaming of the good old days. Rich people sure did and sure continue to benefit from racism. Hell, I benefit from the fact it’s acceptable for brown people (mostly women and children) in poor countries to be exploited for they labor, in pseudo-slave conditions. As long as capitalism continues to run on everybody being a little bit racist, there’s never going to be the political will to do anything about racism.
It’s become easy for people to conflate racism with slavery, and then let themselves off the hook, ‘cause no one in their family—and sure as fuck they—never owned any Black people. Black people let themselves off the hook for racism ‘cause they Black. White people of culture and breeding, who benefit the most from racism—even today—let themselves off the hook, because they don’t carry internalized bias against Black people. At least, they don’t think they do. That’s how clever the system was designed: Everybody thinks the problem is “them.” Everyone also seems to accept their part as unavoidable, like the world will fall apart without it. More on that another day.
For now, maybe we need to take our minds off racism (which has too easily become the central idea in social unrest these days) and get our eyes back on the ball of slowing the destruction of the planet (which, by the way, impacts way more Black lives than renegade policing). Tell me, if I’ve got this wrong.
Peace
All F*ing Related
Face it, we’re all related—for realz!
I’ve uncovered about a hundred different family names in my family tree. I got people from the continent of Africa (likely the Benin/Togo region); folks from Ireland, Scotland and all over the U.K.; and it’s pretty likely some of the brown-skinned folks are indigenous (which means they came from Asia). All of ‘em prolly migrated from Africa, but I ain’t even got to go there for this.
The big change in so-called civilization is that we are getting away from the tribal BS. Face it, keeping the group “pure” meant a lot of in-breeding. Our shit is going global. Diversity is the bomb and nature got a way of forcing our hand so we mix shit up as much as possible. There’s a crew—let’s call them the 1%—clinging to the old way. It’s killing them. They have to break out of that shit. That’s what a Royal wedding between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle is really the fuck about.
Quiet as it’s kept, Harry/Meghan ain’t the first mixed royal marriage. George III married Sophie Charlotte who they say is the first Black queen of England and the last queen in the American colonies. Ironic AF, Charlottesville, VA where the Unite the Right Rally got Heather Heyer killed, is named after a sista’. None of those racists knuckleheads got the frigging memo.
This ain’t about who’s Black and who’s whatever the frack. The point I’m making is, when you start tracing shit back, you find out pretty quick that we’re all related, one way or other. We might not be in a direct line, but somebody 4th or 5th cousin is married to somebody else great-great-great something. Y’all know that shit is true. Forget six degrees of separation. More likely we straight up six degrees of blood relation up in this mo’ fo.
We spend so much time trying to fight over turf. I do that shit too. You can’t do this to me because I’m this and you’re that and now I get to be offended and that makes me morally better than your ass. Y’all know exactly what the bleep I’m talking about. Don’t try and be innocent. No wonder White people are trying to get in the game. We respond to life under capitalism and oppression by capitalizing identity and using that to oppress each other. Lol!
If me and any five strangers got in a room and started through our family tree, I’d put money we find our way to each other over time. If we DNA test, that shit would be over lickety split! Science be sayin’ back like 200,000 years there was an actual person related to everybody on the planet by blood. So, even if you don’t want to do all the math and follow tree branches, you can rest sure AF that we got genes in common. As we said as kids “Whatever you say, sticks right back on you!”
So, go ahead and get mad, unfriend and unfollow. It ain’t gonna change the fact that you’re my relative and we might end up sitting across from each other at some family gathering. Pass the mother fugging corn bread, please.
My Nana McCarty’s Will
I’mma let one of my ancestors speak for herself, y’all—for realz!
I’ve been on this ancestry kick a couple weeks. It’s a mo’ fuggin’ rollercoaster ride of who’s really who and picking through other people lazy research for “facts.” Dots connecting theyselves, as I dig deeper, get crossed in my fucked up family tree. I’m still cross-checking the Shakespeare thing, while “Princess” Vanderburg turns family Ana-fucking-stasia. Dead ass doh, my way great grands from both mom and pop’s was slave holders—dead ass.
To cut to the meat o’ popular belief about the role of white women during slavery. There’s a trope about women going against evil “Massuh” to show kindness to the “poor slaves.” This is my 4th great grandmother Sarah McCarthy, y’all:
“In the name of god I do give grant or bargain unto my Son W.B. Funderburgh my Negro Boy Ambrus. I do also give grant or bequeath my Negro girl Dafney unto Martha Celona Funderburgh Daughter of my Son W.B. Funderburgh her said Dafney and her increase unto my above wrote Grand Child Martha to her and her heirs of her body for ever. I also give grant or bequeath one feather bed and furniture unto each of my daughters Lucinda Foreman and Charlotte Oden.
I do also give grant or bequeath my Stock of Cattle unto my Son W.B. Funderburgh and the more better to secure the title of my Negro Girl Emily which I have given unto my Daughter Elizabeth McCarty. I do give grant or bequeath the said girl Emily and her increase unto the Said Elizabeth and the heirs of her body for ever in witness whereof I have hereunto affixed my hand and seal...”
Irony here is daughter Lucinda did have a kid, Frances, for to pass her claim on Emily. Frances’ daughter, Fannie, married Black man Walter Hendricks—blessing, curse or what have you. I ain’t blamin' Nana McCarthy. If any o’ y’all do, then go ahead and cancel me too. I see how a lot o’ y’all do. Fuck, I benefit from the society her “sin” helped to make.
Fannie had Bette (my grandma), who had Kitty, who pushed me out into this world. That’s my legacy of slavery. At least a piece of it.
Let me know if this family shit is getting old. If not, I got five hundred years of this shit for your ass.
Rootwork Makes Good Neighbors
A little rootwork makes good neighbors, y’all — for realz!
There’s only one way to to become a rootworker, and that’s to do work that works. People can say anything but the proof of the pudding is eating that shit. A notorious mystic’s got to prove theyself in the ring. It ain’t just hangin’ a few bottles from a tree. I need willing ass subjects, brave enough to try some bizarre shit to get they wish. Most people don’t even believe rootwork is a thing. The word Hoodoo’s come to mean bullshit in a lot of people books.
I needed me a target and a little work that would be obvious enough to observe without binding me to some shit. I chose an old favorite: the sweetening jar. That’s some benign ass magic—turning somebody’s foul mood to sweetness. Victimless. In fact, bringing a little sweetness into somebody’s heart is doing them a favor, far as I see it. It had to be somebody close enough to track their behavior, but nobody too significant.
A certain person in the neighborhood comes around a lot, giving me shade about my damn yard. My yard is kind of nasty, but give a byrl a break, my shit is under construction. The yard ain’t a priority. This person don’t appreciate the plants and animals that Source be sending our way. All my neighbor sees is an overgrown lawn and pests, while I see cancer fighting red clover, delicious dandelion smoothies and spirit messengers. My neighbor is at war with nature. I work with it.
I wrote my neighbor’s name on a piece of paper, put the paper in a jar with herbs, added some sweetener and poured in a little water from my ancestor altar. I was gonna need mom’s help on this. I read a little out my spell book (the Bible). There was a few other steps, but I ain’t giving the shit away. I shook the mixture for a few days, a couple hours a day (there’s a reason they call it work). I went full Eve’s Bayou on a mo’fo!
I went by the neighbors house and was floored when they greeted my ass with a smile and a wave. It was some straight up Invasion of the Body Snatchers, pod ass people shit. It definitely was a change but, I was like “No!” I needed a better sign than that. A week passed and I went by again. This time the sign was frigging undeniable. They had taken down their front gate. Ain’t no better symbol of a neighborly change of attitude and “opening” up.
I’m still testing shit out. I got a few clients seeing results. It ain’t buying a car, but spirits let you know when you’re on the right track.
Be next. You know how to reach me.
Black Devil Magick
Why you probably think Hoodoo is “Devil” stuff — for realz!
When I talk about rootwork, I’m sure a lot of you start scratching your heads. That’s another tragic side-effect of White Supremacy. Y’all are like “WTF?” You might want to sit down for this, I’m gonna talk about slavery. One of the effects of White Supremacy and racism is that, while we can see the enslavement of a people and 400 years of subjugation as fucked up, most conversations are left off there. What we miss are the full implications of slavery as loss and or demonization of culture.
Why would it matter? Those Africans were primitive savages...blah, blah, blah! But of course no one believes that, right? We understand the full humanity of everybody. Black people were not only subjugated, but became objects of contempt, fear and humor. That’s grimy, right? So, why we still accept (embrace) stereotypes about African culture when we actually know shit about it, or even the culture enslaved Africans developed in spite of attempts to repress the shit out ‘em. I know I’m speaking for myself, but we’ll see. I think denying our negative attitudes about all things African American is sweeping a big part of the problem under the rug.
African culture (now Black culture) been almost completely stereotyped, homogenized, fetishized, criminalized or caricaturized. American society knows squat about authentic African culture. I suspect a majority of U.S. citizens (including Black people) still think Africa is a country. It’s jacked up most people know little to zip about the culture that helped Blacks survive most o’ the last 400 years (spiritual and healing traditions, agriculture, mutual aid, etc.).
The White Supremacy machine did a great job of making Black people into boogeymen. I grew up terrified of any Black people I didn’t know personally. Black people were those scary people on TV. I still have to check the impulse to lock my car door in a Black neighborhood. Black spirituality was a joke and a spoof of Christianity. Folks miss the fact Christianity practiced by Black Americans is an expression of African spirituality. When Exodus, or Psalms is read or recited in Black churches, it‘s a whole different meaning than in Anglo tradition.
My practice of rootwork is my attempt to reclaim a truly Black expression. I don’t want to disparage Hip Hop and R + B, but those forms, to me repackage the White gaze for Black consumption. I want to discover what Blackness might be like in the absence of the White gaze. The practices that were, for the most part, kept in secret.
I’m looking for accomplices.
My Road to Damascus
I used to want sex all the time. Now, I’m horny to bless people—for realz!
Y’all know I’m an addict. I used to wake up and check my Grindr profile to see how many “woofs.” It wasn’t unusual that I’d have some stranger in my bed by 7:00 AM. Life was about getting the next fix. My sense of myself was all wrapped up in who I was having sex with, who I wanted to have sex with and who I hoped wanted to have sex with me. As an incomplete person I needed a lot of validation. Bringing out the animal in someone was a pretty powerful fix.
My road to Damascus moment was a gradual awakening. First it led me into recovery and writing about recovery. I recently completed a book on the process and the dirt that came with my several addictions—including sexual compulsivity. But, then I started having these out of body experiences that I knew were “God” talking to me. As an atheist, I think of it as experiencing myself as part of a unified force of life in the universe: Source
Like Saul became Paul and wrote like half the New Testament, I’ve had a similar mid-life turnaround. I’m ain’t going for sainthood. I do have a non-stop jones to lay hands on people, to do conjure work and read tarot. It’s the weirdest frigging thing. That’s my new addiction. I wake up in the morning and I can’t wait to either watch something on YouTube about Hoodoo, learn more about my ancestors, write about radical love or do magick!
I’ve also been reading the Bible, which still blows my mind. I think I’m supposed to know it. Mostly ‘cause the Bible, which has been used to justify slavery, was used by those enslaved as a tool for their own spiritual and ultimate liberation. I’m reading from the perspective of my ancestors who saw it as a way out of an unbelievably cruel and violent life, inflicted on them in the service of capitalism.
Anyway, I share this to say, if I can be blessed with the gift of divination as crazy queer black radical atheist, there has to be hope for this planet. My change may as well have been overnight. It was fueled by self-forgiveness and radical love. I intend to touch a lot of lives today. It may seem like a small thing. But every time one of y’all reads my shit, you’re taking part in a miracle—dead ass.