Hello!
If you’re just tuning in, Substack is having one hell of a December with increased calls for comment on their harboring, monetizing, and even amplifying white supremacists. It’s a free speech versus fuck Nazis fight.
The FLARE is a place where I imagine better and delve into the deep, but I want my readers to know a few things about who I am and what I represent.
There are plenty of people with the moxie and firm grasp of the subject matter to construct elegant arguments on the trouble with extremist groups on social media like Substackers
, and Atlantic reporter . I prefer to listen to people who know what they’re talking about rather than speak too loudly myself. I will also drop my coins in their tills where I can, but I’m choosing another road. I need to get to my work. This space is a dream and my act of resistance, my part in the fight, is continuing that dream uninterrupted.I am not opting out of speaking up, it’s just that I am keeping quick takes and biting commentary out of this forum. I will likely take my thoughts to Notes or embed my thoughts in stories. In the meantime, I think it’s important that subscribers and visitors know what type of person I am and what will be non-negotiable in this space.
First, if you are for my liberation, my right to exist, be supported, and my voice heard, then you can come sit in my kitchen any time. If not, then pass me by. I’m not interested in debate of my identity, my sexuality, my community, and what marginalized groups I support. This is not the high school debate team. Flex in front of your friends somewhere else.
I do not want to be “challenged on [my] beliefs” because I am doing that already. I am listening to disabled people about the spectrum in their communities. I am untangling my biases and listening to understand. What I don’t need is to argue about crime in Chicago or alleged absent black fathers. What I don’t need is to allow further dehumanization of trans people by talking about their genitals instead of the daily mortal danger they face.
I’m not doing any work for anyone who insists on disingenuous discourse and whose main objective is to trap and exhaust me.
Also, I support fat people and their right to be loved and be pleased with their bodies. I’m not their doctor, so I don’t know if they’re healthy and neither do you. If you want to positively affect people’s lives, become a therapist, weigh loss surgeon, nutritionist, or educator and stop mouthing off when a fat person wears a colorful outfit or posts themselves doing more pushups than you in the gym.
We are not on the same wavelength if you come at me wanting to rip me from my “echo chamber”. Instead, consider the bile you swim in and never leave. When the same messages of superiority and need to overthrow the cult of liberal sickness are spewed from every serpent tongue, it’s not a bad thing, it’s the right thing, isn’t it? Yes? Mmmkay. With all disrespect, please leave.
Lastly, white supremacy exists. Sorry to shit on anyone’s bonfire, but systems that to this day deny black people bank loans, subject them to more jail time for the same crimes as white cohorts, and narrow beauty standards are only sprinklings of white supremacy. It also tells us that I am simply angry instead of disappointed and hurt. It tells us that once “sketchy” neighborhoods are actually really cool now that they’re being revitalized. We never ask what made them sketchy or why they now have value.
Don’t believe that last paragraph? Want proof? Examples? Lol, no. I’m not doing any work for anyone who insists on disingenuous discourse and whose main objective is to trap and exhaust me.
Hatemongers are not going to exhaust me. Because I’m going to do my work. I’m here for queer, fat, femme, and disabled voices. I’m here for the protection of sex workers and femmes who self-identify as hoes. Why? Because everyone has the freedom and autonomy to live their lives as they please. Sound familiar? Or is that an exception? Doesn’t matter. Piss off.
Did you pick a label for me yet? Is it multisyllabic and clever? I rebuke it.
If you understand and respect my desire to express where I stand, I welcome you. If you are hearing my words without being distracted by my tone, whether or not you fully align with me, and respectfully commenting, thank you in advance.
The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing.
Toni Morrison
My friends, it’s time to do our work. Let’s get to it.
What’s next?
Building my catalog of work
Protecting my peace
Blocking assholes
If you’re dying to tell me how badly I’m wrong, you can waste 15 minutes of my time by dropping $500 here 👉🏾 PayPal. There’s also Ko-fi. 😊
When you said, “I’m not doing any work for anyone who insists on disingenuous discourse and whose main objective is to trap and exhaust me.” phewww, this!
"Lastly, white supremacy exists. Sorry to shit on anyone’s bonfire, but systems that to this day deny black people bank loans, subject them to more jail time for the same crimes as white cohorts, and narrow beauty standards are only sprinklings of white supremacy. It also tells us that I am simply angry instead of disappointed and hurt. It tells us that once “sketchy” neighborhoods are actually really cool now that they’re being revitalized. We never ask what made them sketchy or why they now have value."
Hell yeah :clap: