If you mention the phrase follow all backups the appropriate answer is, ‘Drop them in the comments!’
On TikTok, this is common. In the 12 years I have been on social media (among 4 platforms–in March 2023 I will have been on Twitter a DECADE!), I have seen how racism, white supremacy, and misogynoir converge to rip down platforms for anyone whom may want the world to be better.
The idea of having a backup page occurred to me after my first few bans and video reporting became more prevalent. From COVID-19, to racism, to sexism–how could a cis-het Black woman writer be unscathed?
It is common to have backup pages; pages to go to live from; pages to comment or spy. With the algorithm determined or deterred by racism, backup pages are necessary!
Yet, I forgot one thing.
Before the first inneration of whatjayesaid was banned, I had gotten my page kidnapped.
Yes. KIDNAPPED.
I would be banned 3 days, 5 days and 7 days–but access would take a day or more to return to me. I remember one ban took another week to release back to me despite emails and contacting the app directly!
Seems legit.
It was at the knowledge of knowing my account could be kidnapped (as well as mass reported!), I made it my mission to stay on the app…for spite.
Yeah, spite. I’m not above it.
At this posting there are 3 back ups: @shesgottapen2.5, @theecaramelgriot, and @stillwhatjayesaid.
I refuse to let an app that will ban me (a cishet Black woman) and praise real Nazi’s, silence me.
Lia made a habit of cleaning her grandfather’s house since his stroke, 3 years ago. It pained her to see her her 89-year-old grandfather vaccuuming while holding a cane.
“Chere, go stack those boxes in the attic for me”. Lia nodded, kissing his cheek, inhaling his Royal Crown shaving cream and graying beard out of his deep brown face. “Sure, Papa.” Throwing her red and microbraids in a top knot, smoothing her purple NYU sweats, leaving him to the Price Is Right on his blue couch.
Taking the stairs 2 at a time, she counting the landings as she made her way to the last bedroom on the second floor. Lia began sneezing as she walked past her reflection on the large mirror in the cherry oak mirror, nerves soothed by the laughter coming through the floor.
Walking to the back closet, a chill coming over her as the branches tapped the treat like a knock. Rubbing her forearms, she went towards the closet, to the attic ladder.
Pushing open the small door, Lia almost fell back from all the dust. Fighting her allergies, she climbed up the last rung, putting her face in the neck of her sweatshirt. “For Papa, for Papa!” She shouted as her eyes watered, biting her lip to keep from sneezing. Looking around, there weren’t a lot of boxes and she grinned. “Fifteen minutes, at the most twenty.”
Sneezing fits took over as she moved the boxes from the left side of attic to the other. In moving a coatrack, she tripped over a small rug and floorboard. After banging her knee, she saw something stick out of the floor, like a flame.
Still on her knees, she picked it up. “It’s…” Lia, holding fast to it, eyes unbothered by the dust.
The journal was red leather, bound with black ribbon. Inside of it she found yellowed pages, fading black ink with the words which read :
I watched his change closely.
Completely frightened, Lia jumped to her feet throwing the journal against the attic wall, screaming. Without her curiosity in all her 30 years of being, she knew exactly what the book was!
Her family were hunters after all.
Vampire hunters.
In a day and age where no one believed black women, let alone believe the supernatural existed, her family had kept a log— intricate in the ways of the undead.
Lia’s breath was tight in her chest, palms slick. That journal was part of an enclopedia set of sorts— before the Internet.
In finding this red journal bound with black ribbon, she had been discovered exactly what her mother on her deathbed told her we told her existed:
“When you find this read journal in the house of your grandfather everything will make sense. Inside of it the men in our family catalog exactly what happens when the change takes place. How their eyes change skin skin in the case of us the people of color the people of the Sun house nothing changes for us our eyes only light. It is always been that difference between us and them black vampires can walk in the sun. In our living lives the sun is with gave us our skin color with us being now condemn tonight only our eyes change. This is what makes black vampires harder to find, and harder to kill.”
Her mother was the fiercest of her tribe, now made civilized by suburban life, the old ways still resonated with Lia.
The secondary hearing.
The razor-sharp wisdom, and an infallible intuition. In finding the book, she knew that the 50 days of night was coming. The dreams were not nightmares—but premonitions.
If she would not have long to prepare. And she could hear her mothers voice in her head saying, “Now you know. So what will you do?”
All the mammies are dead they said as they walk toward freedom with their rifles and Bibles in their hands summoning thunder with each clap with blood of their fathers and the features of their mother‘s as they advanced toward everything they were told they could not have.
all the mammies are dead they chanted as they charged Citadel‘s and burn plantations and overturn systems and tables as their Lord and Saviour who through the support and love of his own mother and power of His father endured the cross to the end.
All the mammies are dead they said as they threw down the babies of their oppressors to the dirt by which they are destined to return nothing more that is vital will be pulled from our body for you to only swallow to greed Spit up because there is no chaser Or reject because it is not sweet enough. because it is expected of us to die dry!
All the mammies are dead they said as they took their rightful places at tables cut by the hands of their father in woods their great grandfather’s had planted… and sons hung from
all the mammies are dead they said as they ruled and reigned crowns adjusted putting 10,000 to flight
all the mammies are dead they said knowing that freedom is now freedom is present and we never ever going back
Mood forever. Picture taken by my best friend, M. Southards.
I am 41.
I am now almost half of my grandmother’s age, and 1 year younger than Dorothy Dandridge was when she died. I am also the age my murdered cousin would have been had he just listened.
Had he just listened.
For this completed trip around the sun, I am more confident than I thought I would be, and yet more resilient than I thought I had to become! I am writing more, tolerating less, and aware that the person I make my life with cannot be intimidated by my light.
I have decided to proceed with getting my MFA, at my dream school: New York University! I am raising daughters to negoitate the world, and not just survive it.
At age 41, I refuse to shrink. Why should I?
I am learning to own every space I am in, because my presence is a present! My talents in any situation are assets, and I refuse to have anyone around me that desires me to shrink or be mediocre!
I have been gifted with more opportunities to be great, trusting God in a way I’m sure will leave legacy, and in a relationship that both strengthens and scares me. Part of me believes that I cannot be a wife again because the vulnerability it would require—I don’t believe I can. Yet, I cannot help but to want that again.
I have decided before at the completion of my divorce, to keep my maiden name. The crazy thing? I have to ask the state for that privilege to ask for what I was born with back! As I started writing new work, I began hyphenating my name. The ex didn’t give me the name I needed to move in the world, not really.
My father did. The only man who could ever be bold enough to tell me what to do!
I am learning that joy is a choice. Daily. Sometimes hourly! My good girlfriends (whom know have crossed into the realm of ‘grown’) tell me how fabulous these 40’s are–and I am glad I listened! As I reflect on the 4 previous decades, I am in awe of God! I am in awe in a way that proves just how fragile life is, and the times when I thought not being in the world was the right answer.
This birthday is more than cake, more than presents–it is readjusting my crown. It is realizing that I deserve everything I have earned…every joy, every achievement! I am now at the point where I can look at the woman in the mirror and tell her, “We made it! Let’s see how this ends up.”
In the right circumstances, that title is both intimidating and completely discouraging. This is the dichotomy that writers encounter. It is a calling most odd: you have things in your head (ideas, concepts, characters), and you want to tell people about them.
Yet, when you tell people those magical four words, the reactions you get run a gamut! Either you have people whom think you’re immediately going to be published and win an Oscar; people who think that you have no talent and can’t believe you want to write; people who think they should be your personal muse.
Yet, with being pulled in multiple directions, you must have the wherewithal to own your pen. And push doubt away, while keeping focus on what it is you want to create. You have a right to that…don’t relinquish it to the people whom have no idea how powerful you are, and may never read your work anyway.
This collection of poetry for this particular April 2022 was personal and freeing. As these pieces were published here, I did 30 days of poetry on TikTok as well (look for the playlist 30 Days of Jaye 2022). This was needed and necessary.
This year I have become the personification of this quote:
“I have so completely given over to the talent, that I cannot bare to doubt its power.”
-JBHarris, April 2022
There were ideas that bubbled up this month, poems written in the matter of hours, and books of poetry found on my phone.
Yes, my phone.
This month was a reminder to do what Baldwin said: do my work. My job as a writer, as a keeper of space, is to fill that space. My job is to keep going, keep creating, keep sharpening the weapons of my warfare.
There is much left to do, much more to say, and there is work indeed to do.
I Breathe Fire 