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Legal Note: You must be of legal age, or have a medical dispensation to use cannabis in your area. The information here is not intended to replace the advice of a medical professional and is only intended for educational purposes from one patient to others.
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I am not kidding when I say that I am being stalked and harrassed, but I am also not kidding when I say that I’m not interested in giving up or backing down.
I could very easily slip into the “let me medicate myself back into insanity, and let me slip into the comfort of being gaslitten, because that means that’s not really happening and I’m just paranoid.” HOWEVER.
I have no interest in doing that. I have 0 interest in pretending that I am okay when I am not, and since I promised since the first incarnation of this website to remain honest, I can’t remain silent about what’s going on, SO the only solution I have to the problem of being harrassed, is to keep fucking going.
Early in 2021 there was a video of a little brown girl crying because she realized what it took me 30 years to realize. They hate us for the color of our skin, they hate us because we braid our hair so that we can look like Allen Iverson, they hate us for taking a knee, they hate us for getting pregnant, they hate us for doing anything that celebrates where we come from.
The opening scenes of Colin in Black and White compares the NFL recruitment process to how white men used to choose their slaves, and honestly that broke me. I couldn’t finish it after young Colin got his hair braided, I just couldn’t watch anymore.
I am still too raw, still too traumatized by the sheer number of white men who tried to end my life through rape and ritual abuse, and so because of that, watching other people suffer, even for educational and entertainment purposes – but especially Black folk, is just too fucking hard for me. I am not making an excuse, I’m just not willing to shed any more tears over trauma that I know is all to real.
I’m too angry.
It took me a long, long time to talk about what happened to King Colin, because honestly I am just so fucking disgusted, but I am not shocked, and I am not surprised.
I used to hang out with Orville Lee, who was the youngest CFL player of the year (I might have that title wrong) and whenever we went to events or to celebrations people were excited to see him, to me he was just Orville, the guy who was trying to help me get my life back on track. To the fans? He was a CFL hero, but it never occurred to me that if he’d been white, his life might have been vastly different, because we didn’t talk about that stuff.
No one I know in the Black community talked about that stuff in the 90s, it was sort of just accepted that our lives sucked, because we live in Canada, so what do we have to complain about, you know?
The answer to that is lots. We have LOTS of things to complain about.
Did you know that the Underground Rail Road comes up under the University of New Brunswick? Or that the first church in Winnipeg was built by a freed American slave, who built it with his bare hands and volunteers?
Neither did they, and years after being told this information, what exactly have they done to acknowledge these facts? Nothing.
The Hogan Alley Society is devoted to reminding Vancouverites of a community I didn’t even know existed until 2021, I’ve lived here since I was 13.
When I was THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD, for the FIRST time in my life, I saw three Black man sitting on a Vancouver corner talking and hanging out. I’ve never seen that before, and because of the pandemic I haven’t seen it since, I’m 38.
I have spent my entire life being told that I was going to make someone a good wife one day, and then being surrounded by white men specifically who begged me to embrace my darker Black roots, in order for THEM to be able to say “I got the Creole woman,” and at 38 years old I can finally say “Thank Christ I didn’t settle.”
“I” chose the men that I wanted to be with as often as I could be, and even if they turned out to be jerks or they turned out to be the wrong kind of guy for me, at least I can say that WHEN I was able, I chose who I WANTED to, instead of who I was supposed to choose.
That means I missed out on relationships that might have sent my life in another direction, that might mean that I was with guys who I thought were great at first but not so much after, or the opposite, but at least when I could, I was free to be myself.
As I think more about the work that men like Iverson and Kaepernick, women like Queen Latifah, and Missy Elliot, Venus and Serena, Beyonce and Oprah are putting into the world, the more I am feeling comfortable being the girl that the white guys wanted me to be, but not because I want to be a wife, but because I genuinely want to celebrate my culture.
Yes Hogan’s Alley is gone, and yes Kaepernick doesn’t get to take his rightful place in the NFL, but one day he WILL be in the hall of fame, one day he WILL stand before the Gods and say “hey, I tried.”
And one day a thousand years from now some little person is going to say “well Kap got on his knee, so I could be here, so I better make this shit count and turn it into gold.” THAT is who I want to be.
Yes, stalkers, abusers, and assholes knocked me off track for a couple of weeks, but it’s 10:00 pm and instead of crying in bed as I have been doing, I’m using that information that I’ve gathered and I am putting it into my work, and getting right the fuck back up again.
Tonight as I write this I am already planning to start the next course in the CBD section of the course I am taking, I am going to be sleeping like a baby tomorrow while you read this, because instead of letting trauma control my life I am choosing to make this time that I could be wasting and I am making it matter.
THAT BEING SAID HOWEVER…
This isn’t because it’s fucking easy, this shit sucks. I’ve laid awake plenty of nights in the last several weeks crying my eyes out, wishing that I was dead, wishing that God would just end me already so that I could supernaturally kick the crap out of my abusers, but since that does not appear to be happening, and since I do NOT in fact have majick powers, I have to do what only I can do.
You can cry your eyes out as much as you want, but eventually you have to get back to work. Here are three things you can do to help you deal with bouts of trauma based anxiety that might help you turn a corner:
- Scream as loud as you can, as often as you can.
I know it’s uncomfortable, and I know that we’re supposed to be quiet humans, and I know that random bouts of screaming scare the shit out of people, which is why you should conform it to your house or the middle of the woods, BUT, you should if you can, spend like forty minutes just screaming about all the shit that pisses you off.
Smoke a joint (it helps), turn up a tune or ten that fits your mood, and let it out, and if there’s no one there all the better, because damnit you deserve to release all that shit you’re holding onto inside, and honestly? When we’re being attacked by actual humans who want to disrupt our peace to protect themselves, we really do need to let that shit out.
- Turn your bathroom into a private spa.
Okay I’m going to be the first to tell you that my bathroom is a friggen mess, but not because I’m lazy, it’s because normally I put about 15 hours a day into building the Loud Mouth Brown Girl brand, from t-shirt designs, to studying, to posting blogs, to doing all the things, so cleaning for me is like “meh, I don’t really have people coming over, so I don’t give a fuck,” to be honest with you.
THAT BEING SAID, if I wasn’t so absolutely addicted to building Loud Mouth Brown Girl, if I wasn’t so invested in seeing what this website could become, if it COULD become more than just a blog, I’d have time to turn my bathroom into a spa. This takes actually cleaning the bathroom, it means adding some flowers, maybe even some dried ones that you pick from the wild. The plant Broom is really a great addition to any house, but especially the bathroom.
Choose your favorite candle, turn out the lights, hot box the bathroom, add some music, and relax under the water. enjoy letting whatever’s happening in the world wash away and down the drain. Remember who you are under the surface of Poseidon’s gift of water. Or Neptune, or whatever, who gives a fuck who your higher power is damnit, just invoke them, see what happens.
- Get stoned and play with your energy
Lots of people will tell you how to focus your energy, but very few will tell you exactly what the fuck that means. It means being one in the universe, and knowing that the energy around you has an actual physical presence.
I learned how to do this by getting stoned and dancing – I started by getting stoned and listening to a variety of music.
I wanted to find different sounds, different tones, beats, and melodies that helped me shut up the toxic voices in my head, once I found music that actually worked while stoned, I started dancing, and the dancing led to actually understanding how to touch the energy around my body.
Using my hands, my legs, my skin, I could feel the way that my movements pushed through the energy around me, and eventually I learned how to harness it.
Now I can take that energy whenever I need it, or I can let it remain where it is, and although doctors might think I am nuts, spiritualists will understand precisely what I am talking about.
When we’re talking about centering ourselves, when we’re talking about fighting against supremacy, against abuse and trauma, sometimes fighting means taking the above suggestions and adapting them so they work for us.
Not all positivity is toxic, sometimes we gotta lay in bed and cry it out for awhile, and other times, we gotta do what we gotta do to just make it from one night to the next.
If you need to lay in bed for a few days, that’s fine, but you gotta get up eventually, or you’re going to die there and they are going to win, and the one thing that I can think of that is more offensive than dying before I’m ready, is letting them win.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
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