Protect Yourself

BLQ(blæk)Podcast is the first step in BlackLoveQueer's multilevel digital platform. Historically, Black Queer voices have been marginalized in both Black and Queer spaces. This is for us, designed and crafted by us, to amplify and protect our individual and collective voices. ©BLQPodcast is hosted by creative and community organizer A.J. Lucky. This episode Is all about protecting yourself during the current movement. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey, black boy, black girl.

Speaker 2: 0:03

How come when we walk into a room full of pink people? It's tiring.

Speaker 3: 0:10

Okay. Black boy, black girl. Don't you know, a black, black, spiritual Lackey don't feel good to be black. Sometimes I was black. Queer black is where blackness intersects with queerness.

Speaker 2: 0:36

Uh, so what is your show called black like BLS. You can make B, L Q it's called it's called black Slack.

Speaker 4: 0:48

Hey, y'all and welcome to black podcasts where blackness meets queerness and intersects with love. I am so happy to finally share this with you all. Um, I just want you guys to know that this is a brave space for us. This is the platform for us. And before I dive into this first episode, I really wanted to talk, um, and just be super honest about, um, a little bit about the journey arriving to this podcast. Um, at first I was thinking about this and I had this idea and I've been working on it for months, or I've been coming up with it for months. I had the entire season one and season two outlined this, the kind of guests I wanted to have on the topics I wanted to discussed. However, the way spirit works, spirit moved me in an entirely different direction. Um, yes, it's still a space for us crafted by me crafted by my queer hands, my black queer hands at that. And it's going to be a platform to amplify and protect our voices. Yes, that's still the same, but I just couldn't ignore the world around me. I couldn't ignore what was going on with us as a collective of black people around this world, around this globe with the institution of police and police brutality. So I really wanted to dive into some things. Um, I just wanted to let you guys know I'm going to lay down a foundation. A lot of stuff that we discussed in season one will be, um, surrounded around or based around the things that we're experiencing right now in society, Nina, Simone. She said something and it stuck with me ever since I first heard it. She firmly believes that as artists, as creatives, no matter what capacity you're creating in or under, she said that it is your duty to reflect the times. And I firmly believe it's my duty to reflect the times. So this is where I'm at, and this is where I arrived. And I've decided to compile a list of, of things that we can use to help ourselves during these times, because I'm looking around and I'm speaking to other black people. And what I'm finding is that this movement, these uprisings, the fight for change, the fight for resistance. It's really fucking us up. Y'all, it's really taken a toll on our bodies, um, mentally, emotionally, and physically. And look, I'm not an expert on how to deal with this, but as a professional organizer, I can share some things with you that helps me manage, but I'm going to be, I'm going to be 100% with you guys. There are going to be times where none of the tools that I'm going to talk about today are actually going to help is going to be moments where you're just going to have to feel that shit and live in that shit. I had one of those days this week, the week of June team, I've had one of those days to where I just was so overwhelmed with hearing about the black parties and the black death. And I just, I found myself in the fetal position on my bedroom floor, just taking it all in and just feeling that shit. And none of my tools were working. None of my tools were helping that in my tools were, um, um, helping me manage. And that's okay because sometimes it's not about managing. Sometimes it's so strong that you just got to feel that shit. And then once it's done and, um, once it's done, then it moves and then it transitions and then it transfers. Energy can not be created or destroyed. It can only be transferred sometime that shit has to sit in your body and do what it has to do. And then you have to transfer it somewhere else. But sometime you have to feel it. So I'm going to go ahead and get into this. Um, the first thing I want to mention tool one is to breathe. Y'all breathe. I know that shit sounds simple. Um, I know you probably talking about, we're probably thinking like, what the hell is he talking about? I breath all the time. It's something that I do as an involuntary response as a living human being. No, I'm here to tell you that as black people, sometimes we are not breathing. We don't breathe y'all we don't breathe properly. And I, this has a double meaning is two-sided on one end. Yes. You need to take the time to actually physically breathe. It's good for you. Deep breaths, deep breath in and exhale out.

Speaker 1: 5:29

[inaudible]

Speaker 4: 5:30

it helps calm your body. It helps bring your body to steel moment, breathe y'all and you can look online. There are multiple, there's a magnitude of breathing exercises that you can do, but actually take that time to breathe, because what happens is right now, we're in a moment we're in a movement that's filled with like anxious feelings. We're anxious. We are, um, we are nervous. We are panicked are afraid and that breathing can really help control and manage all those feelings with our body. That breathing is kind of like you own in it. Like, Hey, this is my body. And I'm going to control this energy. That's in this body right now. So be mindful of that and actually take the time to breathe throughout the day. But then also the other meaning I'm going to mention too, taking a moment to breathe is taking a breather, taking a break from the work because the work is exhausting. It can be overwhelming and it can consume you. If you allow this work to consume you and look as black people, we are constantly, always in the motion. We're constantly, always moving. It's been a fight for survival. Since we've been in this country, it's been a fight for survival. And I just had an ancestral reading and not too long ago. And, and she was saying, Hey, Jay, like you are going, you are moving. You're always hustling. You're always on this grind, but take the time to enjoy the moment, enjoy the journey. And I'm sharing that with you guys, because I feel like as a general collective of black people in America, most of us are always in that hustle. We're always grinding, but we have to take those breathers. We have to break. We have to take those breathers to check in on ourselves. We have to take those breathers to enjoy the journey and enjoy how we've come thus far.

Speaker 1: 7:23

Two,

Speaker 4: 7:25

you have to control what you consume. I know this is the age of social media. Um, on one end, it's amazing because we can, you know, we can see everything that's happening in real time. We get updated in real time. It's completely uncensored. We can see, Oh, that's happening here. The protesters less what's going on. People are claiming it's a peaceful protest or that the police were in the right. But we really saw the evidence where, Hey, they started off kneeling with us, but, but a couple hours later, they were throwing tear gas and they were beating us and it got violent. So we're able to see things in real time. That's amazing. But with technology, it also has its bad things. Too much of anything is bad, even if it, even if it has a lot of potential. Um, good. So I'm, I'm, I'm telling you guys to control what you consume. Social media, the news. It's a lot. If you're constantly taking things in that are potentially traumatizing, again, energy is not created or destroyed. It's only transferred if you're constantly taking in things that are, are, um, potentially traumatizing and you're not balancing it with things that are loving with things that are carrying with things that are peaceful, it's going to disrupt your mind. You're not going to be able to function. Um, and as a collective, I know this is affecting us on a mass scale. I'm just personally speaking with some of the black people in my network. We've talked about where sometime it's become so overwhelming with social media where we've had to delete the app altogether, or in my case, I don't, I didn't want to delete the apps altogether because I didn't want to be completely tuned out or disconnected, but I did turn off my notifications on social media. So I wasn't being notified instantly by things as they were happening. Um, I had the space to control and decide, okay, now I'm about to go and actually access this. So I was controlling what I was consuming. Um, but I also want to say, to be mindful of, you know, the friendships or the people that you follow on social media, because not only are we faced with all those potentially traumatizing videos and content that that's happening or that's being shared around the globe, um, or black bodies are Brandon abused, beaten, and killed. We are also, you know, in circles or we are in association with people who are in opposition of black people fighting for basic fucking rights. Like this is ridiculous. And, um, let me tell you something. I see a lot of people who are on social media, who exerts so much energy, going back and forth with people who are racist, bigoted and prejudice. Guys, let me, let me tell you a secret, hardly ever do people experience a paradigm shift through a back and forth on social media. That's just the real. And I had to learn that very early on in my journey, because I remember when I was, you know, coming around to be relatively socially conscious, um, in, in, in high school, my junior and senior year, and I had a whole bunch of Facebook friends and I was in a small city and there's an Indiana. I had a bunch of Facebook friends. And I mean, these folks were just, they were going in when I was posting all this conscious content. And I was posting all this blacks things about black beauty and about police brutality about things like Trayvon Martin and Tamir rice. And they would come in and they would be justifying the actions of the police dehumanizing our black bodies and us as black people. Eventually they got my whole page report in and removed from Facebook. So when I remained my Facebook, I literally to this day only have like 140 something friends. Because if I add you on my Facebook, I know I need to make sure I know you to some degree. And I need to know what kind of content you're posting and this isn't to promote or ensure that there's some kind of group thinking or the same collective thinking. No, that's not it, but you have to control what you consume. And again, that's not my contribution to the movement to sit in line all day and argue and do back and forth with people. I'm going to take that energy that I'm exerting. And you guys might not even think it's much energy, but let me tell you something. Every interaction takes a certain percent. So maybe you think, Oh, me going back and forth with a few people. You know, that's not as big of a deal, but one person took 5%. One person took 2%. One person took 10%. One person took this amount. So at the end of the day, guys, it's just something you have to be super mindful about. You have to control what you are consuming and not only you controlling the bad things that you're consuming or the, I don't want to say bad things, but the potentially traumatizing things as you're consuming, you have to control and make sure you're feeding yourself with those amazing things. For me, it's been black love black love movies, and seeing black people in Trump situations where they're free of trauma. That has been beautiful for me, that has been feeding me. That has been feeding my soul, find something that's feeding you guys and find something that's going to balance the potentially traumatizing things that we are consuming. Three, you have to find a ritual or routine right now. This is an unfamiliar time. We were hit with a global pen. Dimmick where we were on lockdown for months. And now we're hit with the uprising to what seems like a rebellion to, to the government. And this is all unfamiliar. This is new to us. Therefore your, your, your body, the way you cope, the way you mind, the way you conceptualize things, that shit is going to be jumbled inject up. So what are you going to have to do to make a foundation to steady your foundation? You're going to have to ground yourself. You're going to have to find some kind of ritual or regular routine that you do on a daily basis. That's a habit and it's going to ground you. It's going to bring some kind of familiarity to your life. Um, it's going to look different from everybody. I'm not saying you have to start a spiritual ritual or spiritual routine, but for me it works. Um, I wake up every morning. I have to sit in silence. I listened to some music. That's usually like an old Negro spiritual to where I'm honoring and acknowledging my ancestors. I get up, I read Psalms 23 and then I burn some candles for my ancestors. I burned some ancestral money. That's my ritual, that's my routine. And then I meditate and I do. I try to do something to that effect every day. And that has been so changing. Cause let me tell you that first weekend, when all this was happening, I hit several breaking points to where I just, I couldn't function. I was doing work. I was working from home, but simple things. I could not register simple ideas. I could not connect. And I know that other people were filling those same things. I spoke with the VP at my organization and she was like, well, we had a very, very similar, um, experience, a very similar week, um, about just being jumbled those first two to three days. And that's okay. Y'all put those rituals and routines will help ground you. Um, for, you need to find that you need to find an outlet. You have to find a way to channel this energy. For me, it's this podcast for me is developing and, and, um, putting out this platform. But for you, it might be different for you. It might be sports for you. It might be golfing for you. It might be walking for you. It might be working out for you. It might be a number of different things, but baby, you gotta find your outlet. You gotta find a way to transfer this energy because that's, it's an energy. And if you're not careful, we're going to be transferring this energy to our children. We're going to be chanting this energy to the next generation of black people or people who look like us and baby, I'm not trying to transfer all this trauma that I've experienced in this 21st century in this realized body. I am trying to transfer all that. I know some of it. I have no, no choice in it, but there's some energies. There's some things that I got to come to peace, where I have to recommend. And I have to get that out. I have to transfer that somewhere. I can't walk around and hold that my entire life. I'm not trying to pass that on to anybody. So finding outlet and then five find a community. Y'all we're in a time right now. I see a lot of people for some people. This is their, their first time, you know, being a part of protests or this is their, you know, their, their big awakening. And they're finding out that they're surrounded by people who really don't give a fuck about their wellbeing and their life as a black person or a person of color. And you know, for some that awakening is harder than others. They're hit with it. And it, yeah, it's harder than others, but you're going to have to find your community. It's gonna it's sometimes it takes time. Even as a black person, sometime you, you around the room, black people and you gotta, you gotta move and you gotta maneuver and you gotta wake up and you gotta expose some truths to realize that, Hey, even my own folk, everybody not going to be for me, that's especially true for black queer people. We can be in the midst of black people and the moment they find out we're queer, or the moment those, those trans rights come up. The moment we start talking about sexuality, then suddenly it's taboo. Then suddenly we're othered. So find your community because that's a critical and essential moment right now. In these times, you need a community that is feeding you that love. That's feeding you that piece that is supporting you. You're coming and showing up as your individual self. And you're bringing something to the collective. You're bringing a contribution to the collective and there's this mutual exchange you're valued. You're respected. You're not just quote unquote tolerated. I'm telling you, you have to find a community because we can not get through this alone. This is a group project. And if most of us are failing, then everybody going to fail. I mean, as black people, we just don't have the luxury of going through shit and being an individual person because what one black person is doing that shit somehow magically affects every black person. And that's just the way that the world set up. That's the legacy of white supremacy. This is a group project y'all so we need to all be good. We've got to make sure we all good. Not just those people over there, not just those people over there, we gotta make sure we're good. And we got to look out for each other. So find that community, breathe, control what you consume, find a ritual or routine, find some kind of outlet and then find your community. So these are the five things that helped me manage this. These are five things that usually help me manage, you know, being a community organizer and working in the space where I'm constantly mobilizing and moving people to move towards a goal. These are the things that helped me. Um, so I hope that someone finds these things to be helpful. Again, I'm not an expert on this, but these are things that helped me. Um, and you know, leave a review, leave a comment. When you see this posted on our social medias and talk about some things that help you manage it because these aren't, you know, definite these aren't the only things. There are a ton of other things that are probably helping people. So be mindful of that. Spread the love, spread the joy, spread the peace. And, um, before we head out today for this episode, let's just take a moment of silence, but let's take a moment of silence for all our black brothers and sisters, all our black trans people who, who have died or been a victim of the institution of police. Let's take a moment.

Speaker 1: 20:30

[inaudible]

Speaker 3: 20:46

[inaudible].