RealiTee Talk - August 2024

A: I believe it's every eight years that this Civil Rights Act has to be voted on again. So while there is some sense of relief for Black people, “Oh my gosh, we got our civil rights, we can vote, we can do this, this, this, this, this…” somewhere in there we get relaxed because come another eight years, they’ll have to vote on it again. In between every city-state-federal election, somebody's promising you something, but not even. 

 

Let's just stick to the stuff for Black people. We're going to give people welfare checks, we're going to make pill grants a little more accessible, the list goes on … but they never do anything about police injustice. They never do anything about education. They never do anything about hospitals. But they have these shiny trinkets—

 

B: Exactly! I'm sorry. I'm really feeling you. Because all of this has me so frustrated in a similar way. Very angsty and being like, this is the beginning of the end! Do people not see this? We can't keep wanting representation so badly we forget that the thing we want representation from is what's killing us.

 

At the end of the day, the machine that we want to be represented by is the machine that's built to kill us, and none of the root causes are being addressed. That's what you're saying. We can give you all of these things to help you manage another

day so that we can use you as a slave in our system, but they never give us anything that actually aids towards our liberation—and they never will. 

 

So this argument that like, “Oh, by voting we change the community” No, by being an intentional active member of your community you are bringing the change that you want to see and you don't have to rely on this government. We continue to give this system power for what!?

 

A: Mhm. For what? What is the key? Because continuing to pay taxes means that you support the exact thing that you're trying to escape from. They are using your tax dollars to support the war, they’re using your tax dollars to support the government. Everything that the government does that you don't agree with, that's where your money's going. 

 

But, it's like okay for all of the pride and the glory, I mean my gosh, artistry has its way. Give me your weak and your huddled masses, I mean all of those things that have come to symbolize the United States, those are ideals that people hold true and should be honored. But in day-to-day practice, this stuff is nasty.

 

So fine. Civil Rights. I mean, just the language of it. Give me the rights of a civilian; the dignity of a human being living in this system with the right to vote, the right to have good schools, the right to have clean water. Civil Rights. Okay, so they got a vote on it. They dangle these shiny objects in front of your face, whatever that thing happens to be for the time at hand, and then they continue to kill black men, they kill black women, all of the ugly things that we know about. We don't hear about it for a while, so we think that somehow it's disappeared, right? It's just gone—

 

B: Or because it's not happening to us.

 

A: Because it's not happening to us. 

 

So it's this whole idea that the train keeps moving along and every week there's something a little bit more incendiary in the news regardless of almost anything, everything: stock prices, Bitcoin prices, the plane that fell out of the sky, the 15 car accident on I-75, it's almost anything. Diddy, my gosh. Diddy, Oprah Winfrey, pick one of those names. It's enough to divert your attention. And whatever it is with Black people, those shiny objects get our attention. 

 

Everybody's into whatever's not them. Like okay, well let's pay attention to Kanye, let's pay attention to housewives, let's pay attention to everything that is more attractive than our own lives. It’s like we're trying to be something that absolutely we can be, but the question becomes why do you want to be that? I mean to have so much jewelry on and have all of the appearance of being that ideal something. Why? 

 

Okay so we go on all these different tangents and here we are, July 2024. They knew how old Biden was when he got there. They knew how old Trump was when he got there. They have to get physical examinations and, you know, that information is private to the public, and it really is private to him, HIPAA law is real. But it’s the idea that Parkinson's, that doesn't come up on you suddenly. Dementia, that doesn't come up on you suddenly. They have tests, blood tests that can predetermine what stage you are in in any of those diseases. 

 

So I'm like, okay, well fine, this has been going on a while. Then on the other part with the debate itself… Who let him go on stage that night? Who didn't give him his medication? Who talked to him five, ten minutes before they made the introductions and the salutations and said, “Mr. President, you're perfectly fine.” Fire them, just fire them, because he went out there and he did it to himself. His team let him do it to himself. No, it wouldn't have looked good to cancel it, but they've canceled bigger things for lesser reasons. He's not feeling well, how about that?

 

B: It's such a theatrical production, like Trump's attempted assassination. As soon as I heard about that, the really important question was, is he dead? Then when he wasn’t I was like, oh so we live in a theatrical production. This is all theater. This is literally all fake. This is wild. 

 

A: It is all fake. It really, really is. It's like 9-11 all over again. It puts me in the mind of that because if you create the problem, clearly you have the solution. 9-11 created a problem. You know, how do you say, “just keeping foreigners out,” doing whatever with the State Department. There's some things now that are standard.

 

B: Yeah, it did a great job at creating an illusion of the danger of Middle Eastern and foreign communities so that it could be justified to rape and pillage their lands and people for their resources.

 

A: Exactly. 

 

B: And that's exactly what is happening time and time again. It's so simple. There's nothing in a system of whiteness that’s truly generative. 

 

A: *Laughs* 

 

B: And what I mean by that is when I think about…well okay, this is a super personal question of exploration but it's the only example I can think of… What's the difference between Jesus and Judas, God and Satan, if Judas was of Jesus's teachings? Who's to say? 

 

Judas was a disciple of Jesus’, and Jesus is powerful enough to obtain original experiences and messages from God. Jesus then provides teaching / delivers said messages. Everything that Judas knows is from Jesus, but Judas is not of the original source / not within the power of utilizing original source knowledge to its fullest. Without access to original source energy, all creative regeneration completely stops. It can only be of what it knows and what it was made. And this system of whiteness can only be of what it knows and what it was made. It is continuing out a pattern. 

 

We have so many examples, very accessible examples of how this pattern plays out:  Okay, we're going to utilize these specific tools to justify what it is that we're about to do to these specific people, painting them in this certain light, using them when we can, when they're good for us, shifting people around, positioning them against each other, creating distractions, etc. so that we can continue to take control and be in control.

 

No! We are the people who have the original thought, especially if we want to talk about Blackness, we are the people. Indigenous people have original indigenous language (in more ways than one), understanding, and downloadable information. It's like something you mentioned before, “I don't know how to explain it but there is an element of reincarnation, something that I feel here that’s not right”. That’s what this feels like. We have the codes because we are of the original people. We understand what needs to happen. 

 

We need to reposition that power back to ourselves and our communities — bringing the power back with people that want to do that, because not all skin folk are kinfolk. This is a time now more than ever for us to be in the space of visualizing what we want instead of this. That's it. It's not just a, Oh, whatever, fuck this, I don't care, I'm tuned out, it's all a scam anyway. No, it means that I'm redirecting my energy. 

 

For example, when people hear that I'm not voting, they're like, Oh, so you want Trump to be president or you want this and you want that, and it's like, no, you never asked me what I want. You never asked me what I want and you never listened to what I'm doing to make that a reality. What are the ways that I show up in my community? What are the ways that you show up in your community? That’s the real question we need to be asking. 

 

We can keep projecting, projecting, projecting, projecting onto these other people (politicians etc), but they're not really here right now. You're here right now. I'm here right now. So what can we create in this moment instead of arguing about all of these other things? If what we want is the same, but the ways that we go about it are different, then so be it. As long as I know that what we want and what we're striving towards is something similar, we can work together.

 

A: The point of communicating is almost lost. I mean, who has conversation? We have conversation, clearly, but there are so many people that are restricted to text messaging, memes, and repeating I don't know here's a word I've learned—I knew it all along, but—narcissist, everybody uses the word narcissist. Everybody uses the term gaslighting. Everything's not gaslighting and everybody's not a narcissist.

 

There seems to be certain buzzwords or this whole idea of trending. People want to follow what is trending. Well, I'm personally the opposite of that. I don't want to go anywhere near what's trending. Because if everybody else is doing the same thing, then what's different? Everybody's going in the same direction. There's a cliff and everyone's going to fall off because everyone followed the next one. And the one person that went the other way… Haha you’re over there by yourself, you're gonna get lost, da da da. Mmm, may be a little bit longer but it’s secure. At least you can say “I did it my way” (funny voice). 

 

You have some sense of real authority in your own life, forget everybody else's. I can't control what everybody else does, but I can have some modicum of control over what I do. So when it comes to following trends and picking up language that everybody else is using, like narcissists and gaslighting, that's how people communicate, because it seems to be, I don't know, the in thing, the trending thing, the jargon of the day?

 

B: It's because of the internet, it's what we know without having to do a deeper research into what that thing actually is. Having narcissistic tendencies is much more common than narcissists are. Our distinctions between language and understanding are reflective of how we're processing these things and how far along we are in our own practice of study.

 

A: Nothing is simple and nothing is complicated. How can I say this even better? It's like: for all of the things that we don't like about everybody else, there's a little bit of that in us. So to just say that everything is out there, out there, out there, I mean, I can point at it because it's easier to do, but at some point I like to look at myself and figure, well, like you said, how did I become a part of this? What took me so long to get to this point? What was the trigger that made me even look in this direction?

 

Me personally, inch by inch I look closer, a little bit closer, a little bit closer, a little bit closer, and now I see the edge. Uh-uh. I ain't going over, I ain't goin out like that.

 

In terms of this whole, what is it, 2025… Civil Rights Bill… you know, 1965… when they talk about planning, there’s some financial analogy that really wealthy people plan seven generations ahead. 

 

B: Which is interesting because seven generations thinking is an indigenous practice.

 

A: And it probably comes from that. Probably. 

 

Just think of yourself. Here right now as the paren. Obviously you think of your children, you think of your grandchildren, and you think of your great-grandchildren. You can reasonably think of four generations on your own, and if you have a daughter and a granddaughter in there, everybody's old enough to talk, comprehend, and communicate, then you want the joy for them that you have for yourself. So they go to two more generations. So there's six generations right there. And that seems very reasonable if it's done in that “timely fashion”. 

 

Let’s say someone has a baby when they're 18. 18, have a child, and then you're a grandmother by the time you’re 37 - 40, and thats reasonable. By the time you figure okay 40 years old, another 18 years, you're 58 years old, then you have a great grandchild, and everybody is of a cognitive age and experience that they can share and actually see the lives that they've created. They can look backward and they can look forward and they can have aspiration and hope all in the same breath. It's a beautiful thing. But something got flipped, turned upside down in our community. I can't put my finger on it. But as I look at this, how do you say, the 60 years, because 1965… 2025, the book is already written. They’ve planned this for years. We're talking seven generations in terms of financial and political plans. You can't have the finance without the politics.

 

It's really true in terms of the delegates. How do you get to be a delegate to go to the Republican National Convention? How do you get to be a delegate to go to the Democratic National Convention? Well, the truth of that is, you have to be someone who is influential to the party, some that attends all of the events, who shakes hands and kisses, and goes to dinner parties, and makes contributions to the deep state, or the power brokers behind the office names. Or you’re already an elected official. Maybe you have been in Congress or the Senate or some other capacity previously, but you know the inner workings of it. 

 

The point becomes, in order to be a delegate, you've got to be on the inside. So you've already served at least four years, maybe eight, twelve, sixteen years. Maybe you were the person to go get the water, get the coffee, get the donuts, it's some low-level thing, but you're in the mix. You know all these people. They know your name. You got their number one speed dial. Cool. Those are the delegates. Here's the election. 

 

You get to a point now where it's like, okay, you got Trump, you got Biden. There are so many people that don't like Trump. There are so many people that don't like Biden. We see the failings of both of them. But no one out of the millions of people in these United States, no one else can suggest another person? 

 

B: Or something else, something different.

 

A: Nobody can. It's like, oh, the delegates have already been set. These are the two people that the delegates have decided will be the front running candidates.

 

B: And that's how we should all know that we have no real power anyway. It's all just a show!

 

A: And that is it right there. Even when it comes to the electoral college, it's like everybody thinking, okay, one man, one vote, I'm gonna take off, I'm gonna get a babysitter for the kids, make sure…okay, I'm gonna stand in line, I'm gonna vote. Okay, cool, great. 

 

B: It’s like okay… do that, do that. 

 

A: The electoral congress actually makes the decision on who becomes president. Go back to the election with Biden and Trump. Go back with Hillary and Trump. Go back with Obama and whoever the…we don't select anything. We don't select presidents, we are not delegates to be a part of the national conferences. We're not a part of that gerrymandering group that gets to decide how to restructure maps in cities and towns. And now they're trying to have us without the ability to vote. They're giving the police, what is this, unlimited power? 

 

Okay so we have a problem voting, and goodness, those people have been beat up, shot, stabbed, a whole bunch of stuff trying to vote, so why that wouldn't happen in 2025, 2026, I don't know. You know, they gon kill some more black children, they gon kill some more black men—

 

B: I also feel like there's this strong argument from people of the generation who really fought for the right to vote that because there is (and I'm speaking from a personal experience) a consideration to not vote that it denotes or is disrespectful to the history of the people who did protest and believe that voting was going to be the thing to help secure a better, freer future for Black people. 

 

To that I want to say two things. One of which is that the ways that we think about escaping a white supremacist system are initially going to be from a white supremacist framework, because for our entire lives we've lived in one, regardless of whether you grew up as a super pro-Black, anti-white person, whatever, right. We still live in a world of white supremacy. We cannot fully escape it. So there's going to be things that we think about from these frameworks, and we have to be honest about that. 

 

It's the same way in which we want white people to be honest about the fact that regardless of whether or not you think you're racist, you are racist. And it's better to just say that because it's really acknowledging the history that we all come from, in which we have been indoctrinated into racist ideologies, than to sit here and tell me that you don't. Because by saying that you don't, you choose to not acknowledge all of the things that still need to be transformed about you and about the way that you understand race and move in a racialized society.

 

That’s the initial thought of like well if we just get to vote, if we get a black president, if we see all the Representations of Blackness in this space, then we will be represented as a Black people which is so not true. This is a humongous country! No other country in the world is this big. It does not make sense. There's too many people to govern, too many people that want different things, and ultimately it feels like there’s a forever echoing call to return to “tribal” community living. Understanding that so much of this experience of capitalism is not the way that we were meant to be as original people. And so like feeling that dis-ease, right? That's one thing. 

 

The second thing is that things evolve. Even if at one point the thought, the starting point was that we need to vote, we need to have X representation, we're seeing the reality of how powerful we can be when we come together. We’re also seeing, now even more glaringly so, that regardless of whether or not we have the right to vote or not, regardless of whether or not the president is Black, regardless of whether or not the president is going to be a Black woman, we're still not going to receive the root changes of the things that we need. It didn't happen and it's not going to happen by doing the same thing over again. 

 

Not voting does not mean that all of this other work was useless, it does not mean that at all. It means that that was a beautiful learning opportunity for us to move to the next level of understanding the of type of beast and demon that we're working with.

 

A: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. That is exactly true, exactly true. For all that we know, well it's just the two of us on the phone, it's the other million people in the background that seem to have a problem. You know, for everything that we know: what we don't have in our communities, how we feel deceived, how we feel betrayed, how we feel used, everybody in the Black community that I'm aware of feels the same way and I'll be enough. White people in the same boat, it's just that their skin color is different. The government is screwing all of us.

 

You know, the biggest trick is the fact that they've convinced us that we should be against each other as opposed to against them. I really believe that as Black people, just Black folk, we can turn all, all of this around. We started off as tools of commerce. This country was established for white people. The Africans brought to America, well, they wanted to work us to death, literally and only to serve their needs, to build the houses, to clear the land, to do the things that we've done. But in the miracle of nature, the years of hard work made each generation of us stronger. Some of us didn't survive, but that's how we got the way we got.

 

We got the bodies like that. You know, we got the stamina like that. All of those things that we were bred to be by the malicious intent of those Europeans turned out to be the saving grace that gives us everything that everybody admires. From having soul food to a certain style of clothes, or a certain kind of music and the list goes on, we survive it all. So if we started off as the tools of commerce and as times have changed we have continued to be the tools of commerce, whether or not it's music that they're selling, whether or not it's food that they're selling, whether or not it's… the list goes on, pick one. 

 

So if at the middle of the day, at end of the day, we know that we are American culture, we know that we are the fashion industry, weknow that we are the music industry, we know, and the list goes on, across every genre… How do we manage to support, it could be one of a couple of things. 

 

Either we support a Kamala Harris just on the principle of her being quote unquote “Black and female, but hold her nipples to the fire in terms of what she can do, will do, for black people and know that as those Black people make those demands, we got some money to back it up—we ain't giving you nothing. We not gon buy this product—we gon stop drinking Coca-Cola.

 

B: Yes!

 

A: We gonna stop wearing FUBU or whatever. Whatever that brand is, we're going to see some pricing tumble in the stock market. Only because we don't need Gatorade, who needs Gatorade? But they make millions. The list of products goes on. So it may not be the kind of commitment Black people or any person can make forever. I mean, who stays on a diet forever? But you do change your lifestyle. 

 

No, I don't eat Lay's potato chips, but I do make them at home. No, I don't drink Coca-Cola, but I figured out how to get some seltzer water and slice some ginger and put in some food coloring and I think I got it. Whatever that alternative is that allows for those big brand-big-name-ticker-tape-symbol-Wall-Street-traded-companies that have been built truly over the centuries and continue to be supported by Black people, let us just stop using them.

 

B: Mm-hmm. Take our power back.

 

A: And that's really it. Take the power back. Because if it's really down to the money, and we are the money, for everything that's on television, for everything that's on your phone, for everything that's everywhere, they're selling you something, and Black people have a tendency to buy certain things. What we don't buy you will see they're creating a marketing plan for it so that they can get the share of the negro market.

 

All white people can't buy this but there'll be some Black people, some Hispanic people, blah blah blah. So how do we get to support a Harris—and I’m not on either political side really— but hold her nipples to the fire in terms of what she can and should do for Black America? 

 

Or

 

How do we not support the system and not support either candidate? Because if we take our money out, what are they fighting for?

 

B: Right. They actually have nothing to fight for anymore because it's all about money. It's all about capital. Let’s say for example, for every black capitalist—a  requirement to enter the Black capitalist VIP club is that another 10 black men have to be jailed. Then it's like, if we really make the comparisons of the reality of the situation, then would you still want it? 

 

I don't thinks it’s fair to hold her responsible for an entire community of people when white people don’t have to hold themselves responsible to being the white whatever—they’ll just do that on their own as white supremacists— but they’re not expected to speak for all of the white people and even then no one wants to hear it. 

 

At the same time, I don’t want Kamala Harris to have to be a voice for all Black people because she for sure does not represent all Black people. That’s also not a reality that I feel should be projected onto her by other people who maybe even admire her or do like her, which I do not.

 

It’s also not a helpful framework in terms of how we need to be understanding who does get to be a representation of Blackness too. It would never be a dark-skinned Black woman that people would be fighting for or down for like this at all. Kamala Harris has also definitely benefited from being a bi-racial, racially ambiguous Black person, so there’s also that added element of it. Barack Obama is Black, but he’s not a dark skinned Black man, so keeping in mind all of these other isms that are at play and present here in terms of how we then ask these people who do not have experiences of unambiguous Blackness to be a representation for a community of people that are the most disserviced under these systems are frameworks. 

A: You used this example of Barack Obama. Barack Obama’s Blackness came in his hair texture. You know what I mean, there's something in the way he walks that gives them a little swagger, a couple other things we can pick out. But just on the appearance of things, if his hair texture were different, his Blackness might be questionable, until he opened his mouth. 

 

With Kamala Harris, her hair texture is the hair texture, her facial features help support that white ideal. Just like Obama seemingly came out of nowhere, Kamala Harris seemingly came out of nowhere too. And she has a history in California.

 

B: Right, so I’m like, she didn’t come out of nowhere. 

 

A: For those people on the West Coast, yeah, I mean you're fully aware, you know. But the rest of the country doesn't know her history. It's like when she came on the scene, Ooh, you got a Black woman? As a running mate?

 

In my mind—just totally in my mind—it's like, all right, these two people came seemingly out of nowhere. They both have a similar coloration that's palpable for the whites and palpable for the Blacks. Their educational resume is impeccable. They seem to get along with everyone. 

 

I think part of Kamala Harris' facade is that she's never seen serious. Most of the things that I've seen make her not an angry Black woman. She's always joking. She's always cackling. She's always laughing. She's always attempting to make light of something so that she won't be an angry Black woman. The same thing for Barack Obama, it was like he was always very serious, but he was so straight-faced that you didn't always know.

 

B: I mean, she also gets to be within the privilege of being perceived as not an angry Black woman because she doesn't phenotypically or featuristically fit what someone who would be categorized as an angry Black woman would be. So she's also allotted a lot more privilege in these aspects, it's like a Meghan Markle type of situation.

 

A: Yeah. Yeah. You know, and that's something else that I wanted to think about too as this election is coming up, and this trial for Diddy and the others. I wonder how much of the Diddy nonsense will impact politics. Because when you said Meghan Markle, it kind of triggered something for me (oh god I don't even believe I know this stuff hahaha) but Meghan Markle was a yacht girl—

 

B: Oh

 

A: and Prince Harry has been to several Diddy parties. 

 

B: Ohhh! Yeah, well the royal family is all fucked up anyway.

 

A: They are. Prince Andrew was a part of the Epstein, Donald Trump mix up. This is a little deeper than what I know, but I’m just drawing the pictures. A lot of people are waiting for the democratic national convention to happen in a few weeks and to see who’s gonna come and now that Kamala Harris she's going to try to bring in rappers and, you know, whatever person will come out to support her Blackness. To get Black people to the polls—

 

B: Exactly, because Black people are a pawn in this show.

 

A: Yes, it is. We are. And that really does get to be the point. It's like, okay, they're doing the shiny objects now. The rappers will be there. They're going to promise everything.

 

B: Let’s reinforce the relationship between celebrities and the government because they go hand in hand. By continuing the illusion and facade of celebrity, which is totally embedded in government and all of that debauchery, then we can continue to have people's attention because they'll always want to be like you and you are us.

 

A: Everybody wants to be a star. And if you can hitch your wagon to a star that's a politician and y'all have an equal goal, okay let's go, vice versa, and we can feed each other. Thinking back to what, Ronald Reagan, and who else was a Hollywood darling that got to be a politician? Was it all of them? 

 

B: Arnold Schwarzenegger 

 

A: Exactly, but the public recognition, the name recognition, the kind of roles that you’ve taken in Hollywood that give you a certain persona and a certain personality. You had mentioned this before, but now it’s not down to the issues, we are talking about two personalities. The issues have been the same for all of my life. It’s always been prison reform, it’s always been healthcare, it’s always been education, but they have a different personality to promote whatever it is that’s going to give them some money. 

 

They say it’s not guarantee that Kamala Harris is going to be a shoe in but—

 

B: Definitely not 

 

But it’s like okay, so you have to think (but who thinks anymore!) who else is out there, what kind of records do they have? Even if there are, and there are other options, why do we have to make this decision in less than 90 days? 

 

They knew how old Biden was when he got started, they knew how old trump was when he got started, they have those medical records from whenever. And everybody sees, everybody is not crazy, something’s wrong with Trump too. But now that the poop has hit the fan, you want the public to make a decision in this short period of a time? You all have had years.

 

They’re going to want to demand, what, education reform, police reform, prison reform, abortion is on the ticket, food prices are on the ticket. I mean Al of the common issues that have been on the list for all of our life, they’re still on the list today. So given this short period of time, the powers that be will put in their political stump speeches,. They’ll go to Philly, Detroit, Oakland, Houston, and they’ll make these speeches about what they want to promise Black people and it will get peo0le riled up. Oh my god, she’s gonna do everything that Barack Obama didn’t. She’s gonna do everything that Trump couldn’t. But then when she gets into office, it’s gonna be the same as before.

 

B: It’s just plain old manipulation. 

 

A: It really is but I guess the point becomes… I know how I would turn it around just by myself in terms of spending, but some people are so invested in their Gucci, Louis Vuitton, all of these hair products and hair, who spends 2,000 dollars just to buy hair? 

 

B: I think it’s down to point where we have to understand that for these companies to be this successful they have to exploit people. Within that, exposing the exploitation is important. If exploitation is exposed to you and then you make the conscious decision to utilize a brand that’s not of an absolute necessity to you, then that says something way bigger about where you are in your politic if you have one at all. 

 

We need to have more education to make these things known. We need to uncool all of these things that are cool, and start reframeworking our own brains and minds, something I have to do every single day of my life. We have to start asking ourselves why do we think this way? Why do I think that this $200.00 sweater is going to make me a better, more loveable person? What is at the root of the things we really want? 

 

When you sent me this message asking the question of if they would assassinate Kamala Harris, you said that you don’t like her but you don’t want that for her either. It makes me think about no matter how good you play the game of whiteness as your told or “supposed to”. No matter how successful you become on a scale of white success, you’re still going to be affected by white supremacy as a non white person. Even if she was to be assassinated, then it would be even more of an example of the ways in which her presence there is always affected by white supremacy, it never escapes that. We can never as a society escape ourselves through a system that uses us as pawns continuously, that makes promises that we depend on instead of depending on ourself and depending on each other.