Loud Mouth Brown Girl

Trigger Warning

This post contains conversations about Abuse, Trauma, and the result of white supremacy…

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Trigger Warning

Okay, quick catch-up before I dig into all the work that is overwhelming the shit out of me this week.

My mom has an infection and is in the hospital. She’s going to be fine, I’m sure of it, as she’s too stubborn not to be fine, but nonetheless, this is my mommy, my mother, my mamalove, and I am worried for her health. She’s not exactly aging backwards, unfortunately, (or fortunately?), so yeah, I’m worried. So prayers up, k?

I am trying to get my identification, so that I can go back to work, but the problem is the same problem I’ve been bitching about for nine years. I have absolutely no interest in facing the reality of going back to Support work.

Working in the support field, be it from a church perspective or a governmental perspective, is too much work.

There are far too many rules about who you’re allowed to help, when you’re allowed to help, and how you’re allowed to help, that prevent you from really doing anything other than putting Band-Aids on leaking ships.

I’ve seen firsthand how easy it is to fall through the cracks of this system, and I’ve also seen and am a living result of the difficult climb to something other than “Survivor mode.”

I wrote a whole ass book on using your pain as content, and the purpose wasn’t to repurpose your pain. It was to give you direction in moments of “What the fuck?”

And yet even though I use all of the tools in that book, even I have to admit that Uncomfortable II can only take you so far.

There are so many resources out there, and so many amazing Black women and Black and Biracial people, who have written a thousand or more words on how to succeed in a time of strife.

And yet, when push comes to shove, none of that matters in the moment unless you can remember the tools you learned. Which is really difficult for some people to do, and it’s not that they aren’t necessarily doing the work, it’s that they aren’t retaining what they’ve learned, because what they’ve learned doesn’t DIRECTLY impact them as individuals!

Phew!

That’s a whole ass sermon that Black, Brown, and Black and Biracial people have been saying for at least fifteen years now.

“If it doesn’t impact me it doesn’t matter,” is the reason that we’re here right now. I’ll be the first to admit that I was soo mad at Harris for her stance on Palestine, but nonetheless, I wanted her to fucking win.

I wanted her to be the person who stood on that Podium and said ,”I promise, I will take care of this country.” I wanted so badly to see someone who looks kind of like me, up on that stage, standing in that roo,m making the big decisions.

So much so.

But I forgot what I re-learn with every President, I forgot because I didn’t think that it would be Trump, I underestimated the people who would inevitably vote for him, and as much as we’d like to say “Blame white people,” it wasn’t white people alone. And that’s the part that sucks.

White supremacy doesn’t exist with just white people. There are Black, Brown, and even Indigenous people who fully believe that white supremacy will choose them.

I didn’t use to talk about politics or race in my writings. If you use the Way Back Machine, you can find some of my old posts, and they talk a lot about trauma, but not about the systemic cause of that trauma.

I didn’t know the beast that I was facing until about nine years ago, when someone I used to love called me a whore. A door opened, and once it opened a Tsunami of emotions came forward that I had to explain, and once I started writing, I realized. White supremacy stole our childhoods.

Some boys were taught how to treat girls by their fathers. Some Priests learned that Black lives didn’t matter as much as white lives. And even then, white lives didn’t matter that much either.

I am still relatively young. And I could if I wanted to, settle down and find someone to have children with, but what kind of life would that be? It’s not a matter of waiting until “I have my life together,” its’ a matter of deciding that you don’t bring children into a war zone if you can prevent it.

Now, in saying that, I recognize that I have a whole fuck ton of privilege, because children are born into war zones every day. But I can’t be one of those people right now, It’s far more important that I focus on getting better, so I can build this into something that helps others in a tangible way.

I am so excited to show you the Artist Feature for January tomorrow, because I know that this person absolutely deserves their flowers.

They are a local artist from Canada, who has been working on their dream for a very long time. And I am excited to partner with them to showcase their work and show you who they are.

That’s just one part of what I want Loud Mouth Brown Girl to be doing, a small part, but it’s what I can handle right now and so I’ll take it.

This isn’t to say that I am not frustrated with the lack of growth of this site, it’s to say that although I am indeed frustrated at how long it’s taking, I am also enjoying the experiences that I am having.

I made a new friend recently, and she’s a bigger stoner than I am. Her ADHD is also way worse than mine, so it’s like keeping up with a pack of squirls, but it’s also hella fun talking with her about all the things going on in our lives.

She’s shared enough that I’ve learned she’s a super kind and gentle soul who just needs a few good friends to have her back, kind of like many of us in the world.

So I am excited to see where this friendship goes, that’s a big deal for me, as you know I don’t often write about my frinedships. I think I am going to start. For the first time in my life, I have friendships with people whose lives don’t depend on who I choose to show up as.

I have stable, healthy, life long friendships with powerful people who are in their corner of the world, doing what they can to mitigage the damage the universe is tossing our way.

I am so profoundly happy, and that’s the part that scares me. After trauma it’s always a test to see whether or not you can let yourself get “Too happy,” because then something bad might happen.

Today we learned that Catherine O’Hara passed away. I guess that’s the bad? Oh, right, and the overwhelmingly massive genocides happening around the world.

I feel like I am in a fucking bubble to be honest with you. I am rightfully enraged at what’s happening in the world, I am going to protests, I am fighting my fight against my mental health battles, and I am using my platform to tell folks to get involved and pay attention and no it doesn’t feel like it’s enough.

But we do what we can do, when we can do it, and that has to be enough until it’s time to fight. I hate to say it, but I am absolutely prepared, or well, I will be.

I can’t believe we’re talking about the prospect of America actually attempting to invade Canada, but what shocks me even more is the “Seperatist,” folks trying to undermine our national security.

Like are you for fucking real?! Do you not see the absolute annihilation that Israel is preforming against the Middle East right now? You are aware that America is building the guns, planes, and weapons that you’re crying about killing dead children right? You realize that Israel exists because America wants it to right?

Martin Luther King Jr and Malcolm X, agreed that the conflict in the Middle East absolutely affects Black Americans, but it also affects Black Canadians.

It occured to me today, that we do not have many Black Journalists in this country, we don’t have many Black people on our television screens on a regular basis at all, it’s almost as if we don’te exist in this country until we decide to exist on purpose.

And that’s fucking annoying. I hate being the only Black-Biracial, but more than that, I hate being the only Black Person, period. It’s exhausting. I will never forget that trip to Winnipeg when that white lady looked me dead in the eyes and EXCLAIMED, LITERALLY, “You’re Black!” as if I wasn’t aware.

I wasn’t shocked she was shocked, I was shocked she had the balls to say it, no white lady had ever treated me like that before, but it was also the first time I’d travelled without my white mother, down the block let alone to another province.

Which I should explain.

When I was a toddler, I was raped by the babysitter’s boyfriend. He chased me around the room, beat her up when she tried to stop him and then he broke down my door and raped me.

I remember. I’m not supposed to, but I am, this was when my mom went out for an evening without a child. Before my brother was born.

Phew.

I tell you this to explain that I finally understand the codependant relationship I have with my sole parent. This woman for all her faults has been through Hell and high water trying to keep me alive.

She’s the reason for a lot of big feelings, but she’s also the reason I am here. And for that I am forever grateful

I am tired, but I am also galvanized, by the idea that “I” could be one of the few people to help change the laws around girls and women and rape abuse.

I think that’s what we should call “Sexual abuse,” because it’s not sex, sex is a consensual act. Rape however, rape is a game of power and politics, it’s an act of war against another human being, and it’s a soul-crushing violation that one does not simply get over with ease.

It can take decades to undo the damage of a single act of “Sexual abuse”, regardless of how damaging outsiders might think it was.

When the term “Violation,” is used, it’s used because that’s what it feels like. A violation of boundaries can change the way you see the world, and open or close doors you didn’t even know where there.

This is why I don’t want to have children. Because at the end of the day I’ll never trust that any partner I choose to end up with, won’t inevitbly become abusive in some matter.

I know this post feels all over the place, but that’s because I am all over the place. I never promised any of you that I was going to be the one who “Has it all together,” I’ve always and only said that I am a continuous work in progress just like all of you.

I’m growing, I’m seeing, and I’m learning as I go, and what I am learning is that I’d give up all my privilege if it meant that the absolutely most marginalized among us got some of it.

Okay maybe not toilets, I need those, I can bathe in the river though, but toilets are absolutely necessary. See, this is how I know I wouldn’t survive the apocolypse. I’d absolutely go screaming to my death for a working toilet.

If you know, you know.

XOXO

Devon J Hall,

The Original Loud Mouth Brown Girl