I’m Not Drusilla

Yes, I Know The Word Jealous, I Just Didn’t Know It Could Be Applied To Me

There’s a scene in a movie somewhere, where some character thinks that no one cares, that no one believes that they matter, and I somehow became that person when I spent my entire life trying to find people who cared. Now people do, and all I keep hearing is “well I heard you did this ten years ago…” Okay bitch, lemme ask you something.

THE FUCK DIDN’T YOU ASK ME TEN YEARS AGO FOR THEN?!

One of my greatest fears is getting famous, not because I’m afraid of success, but because like the idea of talking to all the people from my past about what did, didn’t and may have happened ten years ago makes me exhausted.

I look at Meghan Markle as a cautionary tale.

“Sure you can be famous, but you can only be famous if you’re cool with every white person on the planet hating you, only if you can get famous enough to afford the kind of security I have because someone tried to set my house on fucking fire with my baby inside.”

I don’t look at her story as romantic or beautiful – and I’m not sure I ever did. The Princess breaking into the castle and stealing the Prince never happens, so that’s not a fairy tale, that’s the opposite of a fairy tale, and honestly, it’s a much better story, but it’s also a harder story.

If Meghan had given up everything that mattered to her, she could be a Princess, she could have as much power as she wanted, she could have done whatever she wanted – but when she DID what she wanted to do, she was labelled as the bad guy.

Now she has this new podcast on authenticity and I’m like “hey that’s so cool,” but all these guys around me who claim to be so fucking tough and cool talking authentic mean “violent,” and I’m wondering how it is they finished highschool and I didn’t because clearly, the English language doesn’t mean the same to them as it does me.

Yes, where we come from matters. Where we were born matters, but only because where we’re born has an effect on the kind of English we learn to speak.

Yes, read that again.

Where.

We.

Come.

From.

Affects.

The Version.

Of.

The English.

Language.

And that language changes depending on where we come from. In Hawaii they say Aloha, to say hello, and goodbye, but not really. When Hawaiians are saying Aloha to strangers what they really mean is “goodbye,” because all they want is their fucking land back, which by the way, is MORE than fair.

They make films and television shows about Hawaii, and still, the people who live there, by the thousands, are choosing to live in small communities, away from visitors and guests to the nation, because they are just fucking tired.

They are paraded around like zoo animals, “oh look at the pretty Hawaiian girl serving our drinks for $4.00 an hour.”

Meanwhile, in Canada, we completely ignore the Indigenous folk who contributed to the evolution of this country defined by lines drawn by white folk. The Brown and Black folk of Canada are completely ignored, and when we cry out for help, we are called crazy or stupid. Everything about ourselves from our faith to our skin colour is judged and decided to want.

We can never fit in because we don’t belong here, but we were born here, spilled blood here, danced here, sang here, became one with the land and the sky and the water and the fire here, but we’re not good enough to be here.

I’m supposed to ignore the number of times that Indigenous folk have called me niggar, sold me for cocaine, or questioned my loyalty, by demanding secrets of me they didn’t earn, but I’m not allowed to talk about the fact that these things happened to me, because we’re supposed to protect our marginalized communities.

The problem is that there is abuse everywhere. In every single community, and while you all focus on the good and the beautiful, survivors like myself, and victims still being abused, don’t have the luxury of forgetting the race, colour, creed, nationality, size, or orientation of their abusers, because we have to remember EVERYTHING so that we can repeat it a million times so that we can’t ever be accused of lying.

We will be anways because then they’ll just say “well clearly she/they/them/he practiced that.”

Victims and survivors can’t fucking win, and it’s not our fault, it’s a system designed to punish those of us who speak out against abuses of power, and it’s working, and has been working for a very long time, and. yet we’re seeing it more and more every day. White Supremacists in the white house. Russian Assets in the FUCKING WHITE HOUSE.

At what point are you going to stop saying “these people are just conspiracy theorists,” and say “yup, well can’t change the fact that this actually happened.”

Now you ask what this has to do with jealousy, the only reason to tell me that I can look up a newspaper from years ago that says a group of people are something they are not, while defending those same people against allegations of rape and murder, and then tell me that I’m still a rat, I have to honestly question your fucking motives.

Either I’m lying, and they really are the leaders of a Canadian-wide gang, which is fucking impossible because these are NOT the smartest people on the planet – or someone is spinning a web of bullshit that has been passed around the entire country like fucking gospel, putting bullseyes on the backs of 3 innocent people, that they cannot possibly escape from, unless, they do as they are told.

Which is to pretend that they are something they are not.

So. Either you’re jealous or you’re lying. I’ve put my name, my address, my face, out there for the entire world to see.

You hide in shadows, you play in the dark, you pretend you don’t exist and let the world think that women like myself are crazy. You’re pulling a Joss Whedon Angel, and I see you…the problem for you is, that I’m not Drusilla.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall

If you have thoughts you’d like to add about this post, please leave a message, and let’s talk about them in the comments below

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