Spellcheck and Other Microaggressions

I hate spell check. Truly, I do.

Aside from the fact that it’s making America a country of lazy, shitty spellers, it is constantly reminding me in tiny ways that I’m not a real American.

Tonight it sneaks up on me when I am writing a cover letter for a job I would actually be excited to get up for. I finish, hit spell check, and immediately have to ‘ignore’ my first and middle names.

Hales, the name that the English immigrant who owned my forefather gave him, does not bear the telltale red line that indicates we have erred.

Ajah does. Diangella does. Nichol does. The names my mother gave me are, to Google, an error.

This shouldn’t be a big deal to me. But for some reason on this particular evening, it’s one paper-cut too many, and suddenly, I want to cry.

Nicole is okay. Nichol is an error. Let’s not even get into the fact that the O is supposed to have a ^ over it.

Now, I have come to expect a slight undertone of racism from Microsoft Word (don’t get me started on that paperclip). But this is GOOGLE we’re talking about! The organization the Feds get their scoop from!

Let me give you an example. A little over a year ago I was dating someone pretty seriously. We discussed rings and looked at a few together while I was logged into my Gmail. For months afterwards, I kept getting ads for Brilliant Earth, an ethically sourced diamond supplier.

Google knows where I live, what I eat, what I buy, even which kind of naughties I  like, but it doesn’t know my name.

I’m reminded of one of my sheros, Heben Nigatu of Buzzfeed and Another Round when she talks about her name and how immigration basically robbed her of her essential self.  I feel your pain, Heaven.

So in honor of Heaven, Tracy, and all of us ‘misspelled’ names that are magic for taking and holding space in a world that does not want us every single day, I’m going to do a top ten list of microaggressions white Americans should just not do.

Ten Microaggressions I really wish you wouldn’t...

10. Touch my hair.

9. Call me articulate with a tone of mild surprise.

8. Ask if I was on scholarship.

7. Assume I’m familiar with all black people, everywhere.

6. Call me a racist or accuse me of hating white Americans.

5. Ask me in a social settings if it is okay to use the ‘n’ word. It’s never, ever, okay.

4. Tell me “You're not really black.” Is that supposed to be a compliment?

3. Tell me, within five minutes of meeting me, that you know the perfect guy for me (the only other black person you know).

2. Touch my hair.

and the NUMBER ONE thing I wish you wouldn’t is:

1. Ask me to speak on behalf of all black people, everywhere!

Choosing Change Part II: Fixing Global Inequality Starts with Black America

Oxfam published a report on Monday saying the wealthiest 1% have more money than the rest of the world combined. Initially, I felt defeated, both by the lack of conventional media coverage of this groundbreaking (if damning) data, and by social media’s lack of sustained pressure to discuss this inequity in the subsequent week.

Sixty two people have a combined worth of 1.67 trillion dollars, the same amount of money that the poorest 3.6 billion people in the world share. The report goes on to list statistics on carbon emissions versus impact that had me throwing up a little in my mouth. As my horror mounted, I tried to put this gross amount of money into a context that my fifth quintile mind could comprehend.

Sixty two people have 28 billion dollars each. How much is a billion? One hundred millions? Nope, google says it’s 1000 millions. Twenty Eight Thousand Millions still seems like an inconceivable sum. I try again.

Sixty two people can spend 1 million dollars a day for eighty years.

Sixty two individuals could take up a collection and pay the U.S. deficit-- and still spend 1 million dollars a day for fifty four years.

This isn’t make-it-rain money. It’s make-it-Katrina-money.

My first reaction was to get angry. The 1% are running our world, and they’re doing a piss poor job of it. It’s not even sixty two families! There are four Waltons, three Mars, and two Kochs on the list. These players and pimps are getting it in on elections, media, holidays, pharmaceuticals, banking, gambling, makeup, the internet, and television.

There is literally no way to avoid putting your money in one of their pockets.

Like the mythological Hydra of old (that’s Greek, not Marvel for you millennials), this monstrous inequality has many heads and seems impossible to best.

Yes, I was frustrated and angry. As a black woman, the release of the report on the thirtieth anniversary of Martin Luther King Day served to underscore his sentiment (related by Harry Belafonte on the #MLKNow Livestream) that we were ‘integrating into a burning house’.

Martin Luther King’s solution was for us to become firemen. Instead of fighting fire with fire, he encouraged black America-- the downtrodden, the oppressed-- to extend the branch of kinship, take on the burdens of others-- to find a way to put the fire out! He encouraged us to use the power of economic withdrawal to force a government that was known as an agent of peace in the world and an economy that worked for everyone, not just a privileged few.

Critics might point out that during the time period Dr. King made those suggestions, the black/white wealth gap ranged from 1.8 to 1.6%, not the staggering 15-20% margin we read about today. They’re right. This is the largest margin of income inequality by race the United States has experienced since the eighteen hundreds.

Despite these bleak realities, black America still has the ability to realize Martin’s dream by following his plan. According to Nielsen’s market reports, African Americans possess 1.1 trillion dollars worth of buying power, and significantly influence market trends across all races and segments.

In other words, We Lit, and what we pick is Lit.

The sixty two richest people in the world are getting richer because we keep putting OUR money into THEIR pockets. It should make us angry-- at ourselves.

Forbes publishes this list every year. The same people are on it every year. All Oxfam really did was connect the dots for us that we could have connected for ourselves a few decades ago. Black America’s buying power keeps growing, while our wealth keeps shrinking. The solution is straightforward: stop making them rich.

If we are serious about economic justice, we have to stop shopping at Walmart.

We have to stop buying Mars candy.

We have to stop voting for any politician who gets money from the Koch brothers.

We have to give up Nikes, give up L'oreal, give up BMW, brands that we like. We have to remember that a brown face in the ad doesn’t mean it’s for us. But it won’t be enough to just give things up that we don’t need.

We have to invest in the creation of things we do need. We can’t escape Microsoft, Facebook, Google, Cox, Disney, Dell, and Apple without widening the digital divide. But we can invest in people like Kimberly Bryant of BlackGirlsCode. We can download free apps by black developers like Five-0 (a user submitted police interaction rating site) and Around The Way (a black business locator).

We cannot replicate the white supremacist and exclusionary structure that landed us in this mess by replacing it with a black supremacist system. We have to seek out diverse allies as equal partners in the fight to extinguish the fires of injustice. This is their house too, and it is burning.

We have to begin the move, as Dr. King stated, “from a thing based society to a people based society”. We have to adjust our view of integration from a melting pot of indistinguishable slop to a spicy paella of varied yet complementary ingredients. In 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. stood in a church in Memphis and asked black America to set a new standard for the world. Forty eight years later, Oxfam showed us the cost of saying no.

The way out is straightforward. It’s just not simple.

Sources

http://news.yahoo.com/us-budget-deficit-falls-8-low-2015-194021330.html

http://sites.nielsen.com/africanamericans/

http://blerds.atlantablackstar.com/2014/11/28/20-amazingly-innovative-apps-created-by-black-developers/2/

http://www.forbes.com/billionaires/list/#version:static

https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/bp210-economy-one-percent-tax-havens-180116-en_0.pdf

Black Unicorns

Cleveland is experiencing a moment for which I have no words. We live in an age where white armed militants are deemed terrorists and black twelve year olds considered threats. The story of Cleveland is as singular as the story and legacy of structural, race delineated dominance for the purpose of controlling finances is anecdotal.

I have too many words for this moment. And many of them end in -er.

Alas, 2016 is a brand new year, my lovelies, and I do so try to keep my halo polished-- at least until Ostara.

I promised to choose change last year, and I’m sticking with it (at least until Beltane). That means no more complaining about problems without offering practical solutions.

I can’t solve Cleveland right now. To be honest, I can’t even talk about it right now. Tamir struck too close to my heart.

So while I work on getting myself back to optimistic and (somewhat) objective, I’m going to let you in on what drove me to share MYStory in the first place. But before I do that, Audre Lorde is going to give you the words I cannot:

“A Litany for Survival

For those of us who live at the shoreline

standing upon the constant edges of decision

crucial and alone

for those of us who cannot indulge

the passing dreams of choice

who love in doorways coming and going

in the hours between dawns

looking inward and outward

at once before and after

seeking a now that can breed

futures

like bread in our children's mouths

so their dreams will not reflect

the death of ours:

For those of us

who were imprinted with fear

like a faint line in the center of our foreheads

learning to be afraid with our mother's milk

for by this weapon

this illusion of some safety to be found

the heavy-footed hoped to silence us

For all of us

this instant and this triumph

We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid

it might not remain

when the sun sets we are afraid

it might not rise in the morning

when our stomachs are full we are afraid

of indigestion

when our stomachs are empty we are afraid

we may never eat again

when we are loved we are afraid

love will vanish

when we are alone we are afraid

love will never return

and when we speak we are afraid

our words will not be heard

nor welcomed

but when we are silent

we are still afraid

So it is better to speak

remembering

we were never meant to survive.”

― Audre Lorde, The Black Unicorn: Poems

My name is Ajah Hales and I have been a published author for twenty-one years. This is no small feat, considering I'm only thirty.

Although I knew practically from the moment I picked up a book that I wanted to become a writer, it took me a while to find my voice. I spent most of elementary school composing mediocre poetry, progressed by secondary school into sophomoric narrative dramas, and by college was firmly ensconced in the incense-and-patchouli world of Spoken Word.

I was art imitating life, forcing my talent into ready made molds which fit my perception of what a writer should be. Fortunately, as an English major, I had plenty of opportunities to learn the difference between mien and metier.

I took a break from writing in my mid twenties to travel the world and live the seldom glamorous, oft dangerous life of a community organizer. Living and working with individuals who had been marginalized into the fringes of mainstream society helped me gain a level of maturity, compassion, and depth that was previously lacking in both myself and my writing. I came into an understanding that the changes necessary to create an egalitarian American society were in direct juxtaposition to the values that epitomize the American Dream.

I realized that my peculiar combination of life experience and writing prowess qualified me to do something that no one else could-- to speak in a voice no one else could use.

I recognized that I could reach more people from my computer than I could knocking on doors and marching in the street, so I stopped organizing and started creating change.

Now I blog about life's quirks, quandaries, and crossroads at MYStory:  A Blog Outside the Box. I write brutal truths packaged in palatable bytes on Twitter (@glcworldtalk), and still, on occasion, knock on doors and march in the street.

Hey, at least it beats the alternative:

"This is slavery, not to speak one's thought" ~Euripides