Mid-Week Vibes

If you fight to the death, what’s left to fight? Ponder that.

Much love to all my folk in South Boston, VA, including my mother Shareon and my step pops Sam. Love y’all. When they give me my Pulitzer (it’s coming), I’m taking it to 307 Nottingham Drive. That’s for moms.
Just let the pain out (Troy Ave. voice)…
I thank the Lord for my family every day, as I’m certain you all do with your respective families. Sly said it best himself, “Blood is thicker than mud.” Personally, I ride and die for mine no matter what. You touch one of mine, you already know the MF rest. We police ourselves no matter what, and we never put our business out in the streets. All beefs are settled in-house; we don’t need any judge or arbitrator. One thing is for damn certain; keep our names out your mouth. Don’t ever speak on shit with regards to my family because even if you’re looking through the window, you are still outside. You are an outsider who can’t hear anything that is said. Your nosy peering into our lives can never tell the complete story because you aren’t equipped with the dialogue or its context. Again, I’m certain that all of you beautiful people reading my lil blog right now feel the same way, agreed? Agreed. But I’d like to take this conversation in a bit of a different direction, being as though we are all on the same page, same line, and all. We’re gonna stick with the family motif, but we now are gon address a different reality pertaining to family, especially black families. For all my White, Hispanic, Asian, and indigenous African folk who read my blogs (thank you so much, by the way), this may pertain to you as well. I don’t want to exclude you all, but my focus is on my folk, those of us who are black on both sides. If you can relate, that’s even better because at the end of the day, a person is a person. But this is something that I’ve seen all too often in black households, being that I’ve been around colored folk my entire life. So, with no further “to do,” let’s get it. Buckle up. You know the rules.
I’d like to begin this train of thought with the following statement: there is so much pain in black families and households. That sounds pretty rudimentary, I know. I suppose it is at the end of the day. Most people immediately think about our higher than normal rates of incarceration, drug and alcohol abuse, and disease of diverse causes. Sure, they are factors in the equation. They play a huge role. But even greater than that, in my highly qualified opinion, is our perennial need to remain silent about our issues. What I’m getting at is the way we are so prone to keep quiet about things within the household, the way we seem to have blind eyes to serious matters within the household. I know personally that in my era, children were to be seen and rarely, if ever, to be heard. You had no opinion; one was given to you when necessary. That was just the custom. But what did that lead to, often time? That led to so many children remaining quiet through sexual and physical abuse from family members and trusted adults in their lives. They remained quiet because that’s all they were ever taught. Meanwhile, evil people were allowed to continue with unspeakable acts of fuckery whose lingering effects have damaged lives, families, and communities all over. If children back when were just given the opportunity to express their feelings, to speak freely (albeit respectfully) without feeling fear or shame in speaking on misdeeds they suffered, I’m certain so many horrible persons would have been put away and wounds would have been allowed to mend so much faster. So many are scarred for life as a result of remaining silent on atrocities they were forced to endure. I’m certainly glad that, through all the new millennium “modern” bullshit we face today, children are on a large scale not only allowed to speak their minds, but encouraged to do so. I’m certain that many acts of abuse have been preempted because children have spoken up. That’s a great thing. Y’all know me. It’s all about our youth, our future. Each one teach one. Never make your child, student, relative, etc. think it’s not okay to sit with you and express whatever is on their mind. That also helps to cut suicide off at the pass. That’s all some people need to know; that they will be heard and embraced.
I’m also not at all big on our tendency as black folk to remain hush-hush on calamities that have occurred within our households, all because we don’t want our business in the streets. Sure, we want to keep our business in-house, but not if failure to speak on it to proper outlets harms one of us in the house. Families have been reluctant to bring justice to people who have done certain family members wrong out of fear that if news of the act is relayed to the community, the community subsequently will look at them a certain way, that the situation will bring shame to the household and family. Meanwhile, the family member, who has been victimized, continues to slide down a slippery slope to his or her demise because he or she has had to suppress everything as if it never happened. The mind has its own system of Volume and water displacement. If our pool of thoughts is bombarded with enough mass it will eventually overflow. You may not be able to clean up or repair the damage afterward. And oh yeah, stop being ultra-ignorant black folk with regard to mental health. There’s nothing wrong with consulting a psychiatrist or psychologist. If you break a bone, you go to a doctor to mend it, right? The same holds true with the mind. Earl Simmons said it best, “The mind is so fragile.” Y’all go on ‘head and chew on that. I’m through, mane (Sly voice). 100.
Send all love/hate mail to [email protected]. Follow me on the twitter @tymonday, as well as my brogod @themisterceizzo and my fam @crewunB. While you’re here, scoop some of our fly AF apparel. It’s getting warmer and warmer every day. You need some Unbearables in your life.

@tymonday Author/Crew Member