Category: Pagan Life


Watch Yourself

Filed under: Gender, Pagan Life, Resources & Information — Leave a comment
November 13, 2015

Firstly, sorry the blog was stagnant for two weeks, had to deal with real life stuff that also involves preparing to move. Annnnd the ads should be gone by now, usually I have a “no-ads” feature. Moving on with the rest of the column.

Recently, I was contacted by a person for a death spell. Basically, they wanted me to kill someone out the blue for literally no apparent reason. First of all: I don’t do spells for others. Second of all: I’m not a hitman, get a gun and do it yourself like practically everyone else does. Third of all: Please remember I have friends in the police, up to lieutenant rank. Fourth of all: Please just do your research so I don’t have to make fun of you and initially dismiss the severity of your situation.

After several emails of half information, basically what had happened was I got contacted by a teenager who decided to send nudes to a random person over Kik because person B said “here are poses/games to prove that you are bi” (which is a bs request, just saying) and now the teen is regretting this very decision a bit too late now that person B, also possibly a teen, is extorting for more explicit acts and so on and so forth. The thing here as well is that the teen is over around the Middle East/Fertile Crescent and Person B is in Illinois. This teen was really hard to help because, wow, they really wanted to be spoon-fed info (look, there’s “What’s the number to 911?” panicking and, “What will/does [FBI/Interpol/etc] do?” after being linked to info pages) so, here it is for everyone because I’m a firm believer in “Don’t put yourself in a situation you aren’t capable of getting out of” and “information is everything” (or I wouldn’t have a career in libraries and a high IQ).

Firstly: If you are a teenager, DO NOT send explicit pictures of yourself. If you are considered a minor in the eyes of the law (usually hovering around 18-ish, depending on national laws), it counts as child pornography automatically. The law is like your parents, they don’t care if you think you are an adult, you’re still a kid, comparatively. This is for your protection. Here’s a site with a fantastic rundown of sexting laws and punishments (for both sender and receiver) by state in the United States. For example, the person in Illinois, if they’re honest about being a teenager and receiving this stuff, they’ll get hit with being arrested and tried in juvie court where, if convicted, they have to do counselling, community service and be supervised by the court. If they lied and turns out they’re an adult they’re pretty much screwed because they will be prosecuted under the state pornography laws and, if convicted, required to register as a sex offender, as well as whatever else the court can happily pile on, which is 2 to 15 years, depending on the severity and how the judge feels. If the teen that contacted me was also in Illinois, they would have been punished as well for producing child pornography with the penalty of counselling, supervision and community service. Take a look at the site yourself, if isn’t worth it. Already, you can’t control what someone does with your picture (or if their phone gets hacked), risking the very serious penalties of producing child pornography as well as other charges because the courts haven’t fully caught up to the digital age? That small .02 second pic is seriously going to cost you. As in, it’ll be on your record for colleges and jobs to see and if you think trying to get work and get into school is hard enough, try having that mark on your record. Find other ways to bond with people that isn’t so risky.

Secondly: If someone is pressuring you to do it, they actually don’t care about you or love you or else they wouldn’t risk your safety and well-being. Period. Sending a nude is not a testament of how in control you are or how much you love them, and they actually know that – even when they’re saying otherwise. Don’t do it. And if they’re a stranger on the internet, just assume they have nefarious reasons to ask a young person they practically just met to send pornographic material of themselves. Good people don’t do that, only pedo, ephebophiles (pedos but targeting teens), and other very destructive, abusive people do that. I would say “hey, here is how to report” buuuuut honestly, most – if not all – social media sites mainly do lip service but nothing constructive to thwart this from happening and to resolve occurrences that actually have happened. Actually, I researched all the ways to report to FBI, Interpol*, and Kik but then looked a little deeper and saw that, for the people perpetrated against, they really aren’t anything but painted plywood fronts of security theatre unless the victim screencaps everything, is quick to alert authorities and the social sites and basically speak up for themselves.

Thirdly: If this already happened, tell your parents and the feds. Yeah, they’re going to freak out on you because they care and they’re perfectly in their right to go Pompeii about it at the start. The teen that talked to me said her dad didn’t care, just to ignore it. This means either she didn’t actually tell him because, wow, talk about tone deaf, or he seriously doesn’t care about his daughter at all. Most parents would be hitting the roof if they found out that a) their child has been sending nude pictures of themselves to strangers on the internet and b) the stranger they sent it to is extorting them for more.

Basically, practice safe texting, the repercussions aren’t worth it.

*How are things on the West coast? – I had to do it, I’m sorry XD

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“See, What Had Happened Was…”

Filed under: Pagan Life — Leave a comment
November 6, 2015

Man, this site has been non active for a while. Not on purpose, simply because here’s the run down of what happened:

– Got triggered waaaay too much due to douchebag neighbor

– Due to douchebag landlord, my mother got thrown out of her home of 17 years

– Same douchebag landlord tried to get rid of me, so I had to break the lease and move (just so I can move again 6 months from now)

– Started new gig, one of the benefits is having access to lawyers – very good lawyers – so I’m dealing with douchebag landlady and douchebag neighbor via the courts (yay, I’m only 28 and I already have to sue someone! Seriously?)

Basically this is what happened, it wasn’t on purpose that BW haven’t posted for a while. I have been keeping up with the BW emails and tumblr so there’s that. That means I still had the same old stupid questions, some good questions and moronic White folks who think that I want to write for their publications because I’m Black and from Baltimore. I said it once, I’ll say it again: not interested in giving an “inside view” simply because they see what’s happening in my old neighborhood of Sandtown and think it’s another season of The Wire since, somehow in their eyes, HBO spelled backwards is PBS. Not interested in helping yuppies get clicks and awards for doing absolutely, positively nothing but being invasive, rude, drama-seeking, White saviorist, pillaging and thieving.

It sucks that the month I was basically out on was October, which means no Samhain Pickers for this year. I can remedy the vchat but it still won’t be the same, now would it? I still want to do something different because, hey, I’ve been gone for a while. I may propose to do a Watch Together or something since I wanted to do that for a while. If so, we’re going with National Treasure because I worked at the Library of Congress. However, I have been making new writings, I just haven’t been posting them until now.

Meh. Either way, I’m going to be back. Also, as a reminder, you can always put funds in the Black Witch till to prevent posting hiatuses like these. Huzzah.

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Stressed Vision

Filed under: Divination, Mental Health/Mental Illness, Pagan Life — Leave a comment
September 11, 2015

One of the hardest times to be clairvoyant* is when you’re going through stress. The bigger the stress (lost job, hostile work environment, disruptions at home or in family), the more it dulls the psionic senses. It can even feel like you’re losing your touch, readings are off or simply there’s nothing blipping up at all. You may usually read for yourself but you’re not interested in what the cards or tea leaves have to say anymore out of fear of getting more “Bad news coming” results because you simply are well past your eyebrows in problems and don’t want to know if more is boppling down the pipe. You feel stuck and out of sorts if not out of control.

There’s no point to say “Stress impacts the mind” because there’s countless documents backing that up, as well as lived experiences. Good stress, bad stress, too much of it and you’re ready to pull your hair out. Besides giving you a millimeter fuse of a temper and a more vulnerable immune system, being part of psionics or simply energy manipulation means signs of stress will show up there as well. Despite what branch you practice, it shows up roughly the same way: Way off predictions, no signal at all, even headaches or a cloudy-minded feeling during even small attempts. Being psionic is a mental workout so it should come at no surprise that when under stress, that workout gets more dogged and wearing.

When going through mass amounts of stress, try not to worry about not being as good at divination or prediction as usual because that can create a negative feedback loop that will just add to the stress, not alleviate it. It’s just dulled right now because your brain is more fixated on the current problem at hand, even when you think it is situated in the back of your mind. Instead, just try to alleviate the stress the best you can by making effective changes towards diet and lifestyle. Granted, it is not that easy because stress from towering bills and a shrinking paycheck will not magically go away completely because you decided to drink more water instead of coffee but it will help your brain process information better and not feel so wound up and fretful. That’s a step in the right direction, at the very least. Try to be more firm with boundaries, even if you’re not the type to say “No” because with boundaries, you can better dictate your load, especially if something bigger comes along unexpectedly. Even if they’re little things, they can still help towards and ultimate goal of successfully managing the stress in a healthy way to get back to normal.

It’s ok, even if you’re a diviner, to not be interested in readings or forecasts because you’re worried of what the future is going to hold. Also, it’s ok to not want to listen to yourself because you can’t tell the real future from what you’re worried (or hoping) is going to happen. Fear can cloud anything and easily look like reality. When stressed, it’s not hard at all to be stress about how things are this month, how it will bleed over to next month, and next month … and the month after that…and the month after that, until you’re stressed about things in December and it isn’t even halfway through July. Stress can trigger the brain into fight or flight or freeze mode, it’s not going to function like usual when all the red alerts are going off inside your head. It truly is ok to not want to predict the future because the present already looks unpredictable enough.

That, and you might not believe what is actually about to happen. If you’re so deeply convinced that things won’t get better but you suddenly get a reading or a psychic ping of some good news, you’re likely to go “Naaaaah. Can’t be real. That’s what I would like to happen but I know it’s not gonna. Just no way, because [insert reasons here]”. All the same if you get some bad news, you may go, “That can’t be. I did everything I was supposed to. Maybe I’m just dwelling on my current state right now because [insert reasons here].” When you’re in the thick of it, it’s hard to see any clarity. Or to simply understand it.

As you deal with stress, the best way to handle it is to be as proactive as possible. It’s not easy to manage stress, it takes more than just doing pilates and having green smoothies. It takes a full effort to find where the stress is coming from and trying to alleviate it, even if it means making hard changes. But while being stressed, it’s okay if you can’t tell what’s going to happen next, just try to work on what is happening now and eventually, you’ll find out.

Next week is The Arts!, here’s what’s getting featured:

  • Kitty Underground Railroad
  • Helping Homeless Felines

*Clairsentient, clairaudient, there’s different types

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Mail-Ordered Religion

Filed under: Pagan Life — 6 Comments
September 4, 2015

I had recently come back from break and had to clean out my mailbox. In there was a strange letter basically blind pitching Christianity for reasons I don’t know. All pics taken in crappy fashion because I seriously did not care about this letter.

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It says in the address panel “to a friend”, I’ve no clue what “friend” would send this to me since I’m pretty sure all know that a) I’m Pagan and b) I’m not very appreciative of being steered out of it. They may be a friend but certainly not a good one. Because that’s not cool. So, I’m gonna assume this “friend” doesn’t exist.

Flip onto the back, it shows this:

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Really? Really? They’re basically trying to fence me something. This type of help is not one that I need in life, it doesn’t even make room for the fact I already have a religion. I doubt this is a sign from above. And what are the three most pressing needs?

Inside is a pretty thick pack of papers:

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First, the back said that I had three pressing needs, now the inside is trying to ask me what they are. And how will they help me? They coooould respect my different religion, for a start instead of trying to barge in with their own beliefs. And while 1951 is more than half a century ago (still can’t believe it, but it is), these folks are trying to paint it like the number was 1651. It’s actually not that old. How do I know? Wicca was made in 1957 and people use that as a way to discredit Wicca – by the way, I’m not Wiccan, I’m Pagan, which predates Christianity by at least 50,000 years. That’s actually old.

In the first sheet of paper, which turns out is not a sheet but a couple pages folded together in hope I get duped into the prayer rug shtick they have. Dude, I’m sure if I show this to my Muslim friends, they’d rightfully fuss for days. Especially because of this particular bit:

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It’s awfully…materialistic. You want people to ask divinity for a car? Money? It’s God, not Santa. Yes, a better car would help folks in their lives and so would a better job but it doesn’t seem to play towards that, just “ask God for stuff and you’ll get it”, nothing really holistic. And if they got a sign from above to send this letter to me, it should have included also, “Maaaaaybe take into consideration they’re not Christian and might not appreciate this”.

And the testimony section read cringe-worthy if you’re actually spiritual. Or, hopefully, a Christian that knows better.

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Dude, it sounds like I can ask the Christian god for a Lotus car, half a million and a mansion that could make the White house look measly. Thaaaaat don’t sound right.

I’m not going through every piece of paper (and accompanying empty envelope for me to send back) they sent to me because it’s so much but, goodness, this simply doesn’t sound right. The paper feels charged, that’s for fact, but still something doesn’t feel right because of how materialistic it is. It’s mainly about jobs, money, car – money, basically. Money and more money. It is good to know you can keep your bills paid, for certain, but the Christian deity is not just for that. Some of it just seemed to be a matter of excess such as asking for a bigger (not safer) house or a better (not more functional) car. It basically all boiled down to material goods, mainly.

Money, in and of itself, isn’t bad or evil (didn’t I just talk about a money spell not too long ago?) but when that’s all you got to pitch your deity to someone, that’s not good. And what about people who are currently doing well but want some guidance in life, also known as “something money can’t buy”? Since you can’t go down the “God’s gonna give you a car and some cheddar” route, what does the letter really have then? It doesn’t seem much. This, everyone, is basically trying to prey on people during their low periods. That’s not what religion should do because while that can bolster numbers, it’s a misuse of hope. People need hope, not some metaphysical quick fix. Religion shouldn’t be about boosting their numbers but helping people in all parts of life, not simply the physical parts because how will the people feel when things start to go wrong again? And I have the feeling this church would eventually ask for money with a “We helped you when no one else would so give us money, lots o’ it” slant, in opposed to the “we’re a church that tries to do great by the people but to keep that going, we have to maintain our house enable to serve others. We’ve given more than hope: we’ve given beds to the sleepy and homeless, food to the hungry, services to those in need” route.  It just doesn’t ring right at all and that’s bothersome. It just sounds like an over-promising blackhole preying on whoever is having a bad enough day or life.

And this is pretty glaring but here it is: I’ve only received media like this from churches, Christian organizations. No other religion goes this route, unless the whole religion wants to be seen as a cult because it won’t be that only faction named such.

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Money and Magick

Filed under: Spells & Potions — 6 Comments
August 14, 2015

Something super common about Paganism, Wicca and Witchcraft is how it sometimes seem so costly. Seeing practitioners with cauldrons, extravagant robes, visually rapturing wands, goblets and more, it can appear the price of entry and participation can appear way up there, somewhere past “college textbooks”. This meme submitted to Wiccan Cat Meme basically says it all:

Just as a reminder, I'm not Wiccan, just Pagan

Just as a reminder, I’m not Wiccan, just Pagan

I think such a paradox is ridiculous. I understand how someone can get sucked into it – I certainly did when I started and having a catalog of Avalon Moon as a teenager didn’t help – but for such a nature-based belief system, we can charge like Wall St. investors when it comes to our natural products.

It is very important for everyone to remember that you don’t have to pay out the wazoo to practice magick. It’s really cool to have that fancy candle holder and obsidian mirror with a robe that is as intricate as it is incredibly flammable but as nifty as it would be to be the prettiest fireball running down the block if you’re not careful, it’s not necessary. To do a money spell, for example, shouldn’t make you broker than you were when you came up with the idea. Yes, there’s the Western capitalist idea of “gotta spend money to make money” but when dealing with the universe and asking it for a solid, it’s probably better to think outside the box. Intent is there, physical substances are merely supplemental to the practice. Think of being a runner or simply an active person. You don’t have to be plastered from head to toe with Nike to simply jog, which only requires comfortable shoes and clothes as well as a water bottle. The extra stuff is certainly nice and can totally make running a lot more comfortable but not necessary.

Working magick can be done with birthday candles and some dirt from outside, it can be done just using only the salt and pepper shakers, it can be as simple as writing down a name and stuffing it into a short water bottle to freeze. Magick can be cheap, if not free. Magick can also be heavy meditation on a particular outcome. All these things require practice but they’re there. A smart witch is one that can work with little materials but still make it work. It’s not necessary to have the $300 crystal ball when a shiny glass or small orb of quartz is fine enough because the intuition comes from within, they’re just helper materials. Using table salt in circle casting (but not outdoor spellworking because that kills plants, try soil or protective herbs) is fine. Using the same chalk made for sidewalk art is fine in spellwork, too. Using a branch or incense stick instead of a wand or staff is ok as well. This is using nature to do natural magick.

Basically, while it can be great to use fancy materials in spellwork but what makes spellwork, well, work is the practitioner, mainly. To be informed of practices and spells via reading countless, substantial resources and to simply continue practice the basics such as energy manipulation and meditation, that’s what makes a great practitioner with successful spellwork that doesn’t break the bank. Because what’s the point of making a money spell that makes you more broke? That’s practically an accidental hex.

Next week is “The Arts!”:
– The Trendy Geek

– Z-Type

– Quinni

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Real and False Crystals

Filed under: Pagan Life, Resources & Information, Spells & Potions — 2 Comments
August 7, 2015

Firstly, join me and Tamara Winfrey Harris on Sunday at Exittheapple on 2334 Guilford Ave between 11AM-3PM in Baltimore City, MD for a discussion of the recent book The Sisters are Alright: Changing the Broken Narrative of Black Women in America. I believe there will be light refreshments. Alright, onward with the column.

Posted recently on the African American Wiccans Society FB group page was an article titled “Beware of Fake Crystals on Ebay (How to Know the Difference)” penned by aLoverOfLife. This article is actually really good about how to spot fakes when buying crystals online.

I usually buy my rocks from physical places but I definitely have bought gems online. Sometimes stores will over-price on something that you will eventually think, “This is a rock. I am about to spend $25 on a semi-common rock smaller than a phalange on my finger” in regards to so you want to have a more acceptable price. However, the thing about buying online is that you can wind up with fakes. Surprisingly, it never truly dawned on me that folks would sell fake stones because I thought it would stand out but I’ve been staring at rocks speculatively since I was a kid (and had a rock growing kit using chemicals) so there’s probably that. However, give folks an inch, they’ll take up half the coastline of California: I’m good at identifying a fake but the average person isn’t and especially not the noob who really just want to get any stone to start their witchy practice. And while there are those who would say, “Why don’t the person just go outside and dig in the dirt? There you go, rocks galore,” you’re not likely to find a Herkimer diamond or phantom quartz or sodalite in your backyard in the middle of Detroit. Hence why folks like me buy stones in physical and digital places.

The information the writer got was from an Ebay seller that recently closed shop that finally decided to share the tricks of the trade of how to spot a fake versus a real rock.

The starting information is about Azeztulite/Satyaloka (I’m not going to quote the whole article since clearly it has been written but merely give my own experiences), which is simply not real. It’s just a milky quartz with the price hiked up way high up. Also, here’s a rule of thumb since this is probably going to come up a lot: if the seller mentions that the rock (or any item of question) comes from a “secret” or “old” pocket or space of any US state or country (the more otherized, the better), it’s probably a fake. It’s very rare this is actually the case. If the orgin story sounds too glamourous to be true, it probably is. For example, I could find really good stones under the Middle River Bridge in Baltimore City, my hometown, buuuut that orgin story wouldn’t sell as well as “found from a secret pocket among the Appalachian mountains region”, which is basically the same thing, jazzed up.

Also, the piece says that rough white quartz is pretty much worthless in price. That’s actually quite true. Remember, not everything that comes from the earth warrants a high price and also remember that high prices are man-made, no rock comes out the ground with a price tag. Usually prices (fair ones) are based on established value delved from location (is it somewhere remote or easy to get to?), ease of acquiring (can you just pick it up off the ground or have to scale a mountain?) usage (can it power something or just be a pretty paperweight?) and rarity (are there a bunch of these scattered around like gravel or is this the only rock you’ve seen like this?). This is why some metaphysical shops will gouge the price of a gem you could purchase from a science-y rock store for less.

Next mentioned are glass crystal points from China. I don’t like the hyper focus on China because geez, it’s becoming yellow scare shorthand for “cheap, worthless, comes a hundred a penny”. Yes, a lot comes from China (it’s a big country, in case no one has noticed) but still, it bugs me. Moving on, buying glass when you thought you were getting crystal certainly sucks. The tell-tale sign, as noted on the piece, is that they’re perfectly clear and quite big but quite cheap. A crystal like that would sell for hundreds, possibly thousands, not ten dollars. If they have fractures, they look odd because they were made with a cloth and a ball peen hammer.

There’s also a common man-made fracture made, as illustrated by the article, by heating the glass and dipping it in room temp water (or cold water), which makes these odd fractures. I think I gotten one myself because it was thrown in when a purchase was made at the Maryland State Fair. It was a clear fake because there was glue on top to keep the “stone” fastened to the holder. Remember, I got it for free, mainly because it wouldn’t sell and the seller wanted to make their payload lighter when it was time to pack up shop.

Here is another “[fake crystal] from China” entry. Y’know, I know China is seen as the king of fakes, partially because of Western orientalism but ummmm, China produces authentic stones as well. Like jade. Not everything in China is fake and other folks in different nations can make dupes as well. It’s not like China (and to a further extent, Nigeria) holds the world population of scammers and frauds. Cons exist everywhere. As for stones, I’ve seen fakies coming straight from New York and LA. Yes, China can make passing fakes but the hyperfocus on them is a bit irksome.

This entry was about colored crystal points. This reminds me of being told once that sapphire is not actually a brilliant blue unless scientifically doctored. Given the picture on the article, it can show how the “quartz” actually is colored glass. If the quartz can remind you of a kitschy glass kitchen bowl, it’s probably fake. That and if you take a close look at the surface, the surface is probably perfect. Crystals, given their creation, are not perfect, especially at a close look. There are teeny ridges and if you look super close, indentures and fragments. And no bubbles.

Finally a fake gem not from China. Here we have fake smoky quartz from the United States, namely Arkansas (and noticed for the US, a state or location gets made. It doesn’t care what region the fakie came from in China, just the fact that it did, which creates the illusion that all of China pumps out fake stuff when really it’s just certain parts). As pictured on the article, it’s a clear quartz that went through a radiation treatment to give the stark black smoky color. If the color is claimed to come from a heat treatment, it’s a lie. On the article, there is a side-by-side analysis of a man made smoky quartz and a real one as well as a short list of how to tell the difference, which is pretty on point.

Afterwards, you have polished quartz being sold as natural. Goodness, here’s the thing about natural, raw quartz: it doesn’t look “perfect”. Natural quartz have sharp, clean lines instead of dull edges and polished crystals are often cut flat on the base. There is also a short list of how to tell the difference between the two, also very good.

There are certainly more features of false stones and how to tell on the article, I would recommend reading, this is pretty much a very cohesive article for when you buy online but also when you purchase in person. Crystals are bought for their qualities as created by their formation, it is not the same to use false stones or materials such as glass. Metaphysics is a lot more than simply the “power of thought”, authentic materials are important.

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Black Witch is on Vacation!

Filed under: BW Announcements, Pagan Life — Leave a comment
July 10, 2015

Yep, that’s right, I’m on a three week vacation, commence the hen dance of glory!

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chickns2

What does this mean for y’all? Well this is going to be an actual vacation-vacation so that means no tablet, no internet, no nothing. Gooooootta unplug. I have never taken a full vacation that also included a vacation from Black Witch, ha! So, it’s an actual “not gonna do anything” vacation. That means:

– No new posts for the month of July

– No responses to emails or messages until Aug 1 or the very, very end of July

I may just recycle old posts from Early BW days…or just leave this post here so everyone knows what’s going on. Ehhhhh, I’m probably going to do that.

Until then…here’s some Static Shock fan made short films! Huzzah.

“Static Shock: Blackout” by Stefani Dezil

“Static Shock: Phenomenon” by yvzproductions

“Electrogenesis” by HsingHProductions (Static Shock when he’s older and not exactly Static)

Huzzah!

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Won’t Let Go (But Should)

Filed under: Relationships and Dating, Spells & Potions — 3 Comments
June 8, 2015

For some really weird/stupid reason, people keep asking me to cast spells for them, despite the fact I don’t do pay-for-pray/paid spellcasting for other people and have made that clear a number of times. I don’t personally do it because ethics, but the same people, already showing a major lack in cognitive skills, they think my hard fast ethics will magically disappear if they say, “I’ll pay you”, because listening skills are not prominent in the intellectually redundant. I know I’m American but I lean Socialist, not Capitalist, with my opinions on money. If I say I don’t do paid spellworking, I think you should listen. Besides, paid spellwork costs somewhere around college tuition and most aren’t forking that out, I’m American enough to know that.

This goes double for love spells. Least favorite request (next to body-switching spells, which, as a result, I mercilessly mock), especially spells that try to control another person. It’s stuff like this why A) I don’t do paid spellwork B) Why I never deal with love spells, I’d rather counsel rather than help someone Evel Knievel their love life because love lives are already sticky enough without magick.

And this is where the story/example starts. A dude contacted me because they wanted their wife back. Already, this will be a doozy. At the start, I roll out the basics (click through if too small):

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Usually when people say “I need your help”, especially if they write pretty poorly, it’s usually an eventual request for me to do paid spellwork, which I don’t do. I say that all the time. Alllllllll. The. Tiiiiiiiime.

Continuing on:

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Just to be super basic, I don’t call folks. Yes, there is a Black Witch number but that’s mainly for business, not simply to talk to readers unless it’s super duper necessary, like the person is suicidal or going through a mental breakdown or something. This does not count as super duper necessary. That and I was on a phone call via Kakao to a friend in Korea. I’m not breaking that enjoyable phone call for some person who managed to probably nuke their own relationship.

For starters, the wife left this dude and took the kids with her. And as this convo goes on, I’m gonna put a little tic where this dude basically lacks all listening skills eh, you can probably count for yourself, it’s pretty obvious. And since I don’t do love spells, that means I shift into counselor mode, hence why I asked what did they argue about. The simple fact the dude quickly goes, “We were perfect but then her mom got in the way” pretty fast is definitely an issue. Yeah, there is such thing as meddlesome families but there’s more than one side to every story.

Here comes the issue: “Is there something [you] could do to help fix it so my wife will talk to me again”

I smell a spell request about to happen. And a manipulative one at that.

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As this dude tries to explain (describing endometriosis as merely “a female sickness” is already problematic and distancing, if he said it like that in front of her, that’s one reason why she’d split), it seems that the estranged spouse had a lot going on and simply wanted to cut whatever she felt was possibly adding to her stress. It’s usually never a good sign if someone tells you they fell out of love with you. That’s not something people do lightly.

And here comes the first mention where I say “I can’t do stuff that directly mess with free will” because messing with free will is bad, especially in magick. Now, everyone, why I especially don’t do it in love spells is because controlling others is abusive, regardless of how it happens. Forcing people to come back to you is never good, even if you miss them a lot. Because, if you want them back simply because you lost them and not because you figured out how you screwed up and want to make things right, then you don’t really want them back for them but for you and your bruised ego, heart and pride.

Alright, moving on:

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This dude starts to get a wee bit confusing. First time he mentioned that they weren’t spending a whole lot of time together, it sounded like the (ex)wife was making the claim. Now it seems dude is trying to back-peddle a little. That’s suspicious. And if it is the case of me simply derping out, if it is him who wants them to more time with each other, and she’s parted ways, maybe he’s starting to show an obsessive side…y’know, more than he already is.

This dude is super hardheaded, to be honest. This is a first of a buuuuuunch of times that I say “you can’t force her”. Because you can’t. If she wants to be gone, she wants to be gone, plain and simple. Yes, it hurts but life isn’t easy. And I get really confused also about how this dude somehow never knows what his soon-to-be ex is doing but somehow still knows updates about her life despite being somehow cut off from everyone who talks to her. That and how he bounced between “no one speaks to her, she’s basically alone” and “oh, they talk to her but not to me.”

Also, holmes shows a stunning lack of listening skills (which, mind you, are vital in a relationship) because despite the fact I said that I’m not doing any spellwork, he keeps asking. If you’re going to hardline like that, no wonder she left. It’s a really self-centered move to basically sidestep something someone says just because you don’t agree with what you hear. You can’t just ask the same question over and over in hopes a “no” will turn into a “yes”. It’s badgering.

And here comes the mother being somehow evil and masterminding the breakup. Somehow, I’m not buying this. Yes, meddlesome relatives are very much a thing but I don’t think that is what murdered this relationship.

Screenshot_2015-05-30-08-14-56-1Or the (ex)wife’s sister. The plot thickens!

This dude’s telling me that he never got along with her family (who she is close with so of course their opinion of him matters because she cares) and they never talked about it? That is a super dunce move because you basically have a live mine laying around buried in your relationship, quietly laying in wait. Everyone, if you have something like this TALK ABOUT IT. Because it will bubble up somehow, some way. Ignoring a problem won’t fix it. What this dude is calling “negativity” and “they just don’t like me” could very well simply be the mom and sis telling the (ex)wife that maaaaaaybe this dude ain’t so charming. I doubt they meddle in every relationship this chick has ever had because they’re from Cinderella’s step family.

Brah, what the flying fu- “She got a good man”?! Brah think he’s Will Smith or Barack Obama or something. Here’s the main difference between him and them: they still got their wives and don’t have to beg anyone to make them come back. Painting himself as the victimized, hard-working husband is super annoying because it usually never works out that way. In disintegrating relationships, it’s a two way street, usually. And, everyone, remember that the most common denominator of all your failed relationships are you. If everyone has divorced themselves from this dude and basically alienated him but not her, that’s saying something. And notice how the narrative changes from “she don’t talk to nobody/nobody talks to her” to “everyone sides with her, I get blocked out”?

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I know one other person who was in a relationship with someone who had. My guy friend was a lot more understanding than this dude. Also didn’t frame it so poorly. Plus, it sounds like the relationship was dying out for this dude.

Also…Math time!!

They’re both 28, known each other for 8 years (since they were both 20), married for 6 months and got separated for two months after that in those 8 years…

It would be rude to laugh but this is a looooooooong time to accuse a relationship going sour because of meddling. Even Othello wasn’t that long. If your relationship is crashing after a near decade, maaaaaaaaaybe it isn’t outside meddling alone because it should be strong enough to overcome that at the near ten-year point. That and both of you should have gotten used to (with air quotes) her family treating the dude like he’s Scott Pilgrim. And it should have been a point of discussion sometime within those eight years.

But wait…the kiddo is 7. This don’t sound like a “friendship” because while friends share many things, kids right after they initially meet aren’t one of them. Taking the usual 9 month pregnancy into account, it seems like they met, screwed about, wound up with a kid. Since Mississippi sucks on the whole “abortion is an ok option/god won’t hate you/here’s useful birth control methods” thing, this couple decided to wing it with this near-new stranger they just had a kid with. Stuff like this is part of why I sometimes rather counsel queer relationships because, like Dan Savage said, “gay people can’t get drunk one night and adopt.” I feel like if a kid was not involved, none of this would be happening.

This is not exactly a perfect situation. Chances are, the chick saw things were just not working out and ducked. At least she’s stable enough to get her an apartment for her and her kids while this dude is chillin with an aunt.

Since this guy is annoying, I mainly suggested bay leaves because bay leaves are good for luck and fortune. This is simply to boost his luck, not be a magic bullet that forces his (ex)wife to come back to him because, remember, I’m big on free will in relationships. Since this guy is pretty crap at following directions, thus it was a lot of “Yes, do [thing I just said]”, we’ll skip that screenshot.

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Notice that despite the fact I said that the bay leaves are just supposed to boost his luck, he still is asking time and time again if this will immediately fix his relationship. And time and time again, I keep saying, “if it is meant to be, sure” because that’s basically it. I am not going to suggest anything manipulative. Because that’s wrong. I don’t want this dude doing any magick on his wife because he doesn’t have her consent, for one. And for two, he’s not going to cast anything that actually benefits her, just him alone. Thaaaaat’s not love.

Also, here’s a protip: magick is usually subtle. What did this guy expect? That he would burn the bay leaves and immediately his (ex)wife would call him, swearing up and down that she made a mistake and will never leave him again? Naaaaaah, that ain’t how it’s going to work. I intended that. Plus, controlling will is not exactly newbie work and he’s beyond n00b. Still, it’s wrong tho.

Skipping another round of “Yes, do [thing I just said]”, let’s go to the screenshot after that.

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Here comes the dude going on the defensive about how things get bad and basically say “She needs to change, I’m fine as is”. Now, it’s not everyday people are going to be meta and objective about themselves but this is just ridiculous. If you think you’re perfectly fine and the partner needs to change, just let them go. If I have to pry a “But what will you do to help keep up the relationship should it ever come back together” answer, maaaaaybe you should just leave this person be.

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And here comes the really derpy thinking that a “good man” is basically “one that doesn’t cheat or physically abuse”. That doesn’t make you a good husband, you’re supposed to not hit or cheat on your significant other. That’s pretty basic. That doesn’t constitute “good significant other”, that’s the baseline you’re supposed to build upon, end of story.

Considering all of this, even though he likes to blame the mom a lot, I don’t think she is the main reason why she is gone. If anything, I think I’m talkin to ’em.

Skipping a few posts because it’s the same go around because, wow, this guy is hardheaded, I even suggested the dude read Dr. Nerdlove, who has written three, great pieces, including one recently(oh wait, a newer one! That makes four!), about dead/dying relationships. Dude wouldn’t listen because there’s no “How to make someone who doesn’t love you anymore love you again” article.

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And here comes the granddaddy derp of them all: the “cuz she’s my woman” defense! Dude thinks it’s ok to control people if you’re married to them. I think he took that “love, honor and obey” part way too seriously (do people still say the last bit?). Um, no. The (ex)wife is still an individual, her own person. It doesn’t matter if she is his wife, if she wants to make her own choices, she should be able to. To be with someone who thinks otherwise, they may as well not even get married since that person clearly haven’t moved on from the “property” concept of marriage. Kind of sh*tty concept for the 1500s, really sh*tty concept when you hit the 2000s. She don’t wanna love him for anything, and definitely not for him. She proved that when she walked out the door and blocked him everywhere. And everyone is working in concert with her to make sure he doesn’t know where she is.

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As much as I would have liked to have said this convo ended here, it continued on for a way while longer. This dude needs to simply move on and have a hard think on what makes a relationship “good”. In all honesty, it sounds like an accident with a super long lasting effect. (Remember, safe and consensual sex is great!) And the fact he wanted a controlling love spell to get her back is part of why I don’t do paid spellwork and why I’m vehemently against inflicting on free will. Usually, spells like these aren’t with the estranged’s best interests in mind, it’s usually for a selfish reason. People have to decide for themselves, not have someone wrench that away from them. I’m going to take it that if she doesn’t want to talk to him after 8 years of knowing him, she probably has a very good reason.

Actually, after talking to this dude, I have a strong feeling she had a really good reason. I doubt if she could ask me anything, it would be him coming back to her. She moved on, he should, too.

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Too Many Minds to Mind

Filed under: Mental Health/Mental Illness, Pagan Life — 2 Comments
May 29, 2015

It’s been a reoccurring theme for me so let me talk about my Dissociative Disorder. Might as well since it’s been ticked up more than a notch since the riots (“Baltimore Uprising”? Yeaaaaah, way to Whitewash and disrespectfully glorify what is going on, you can nearly hear Muse “Victorious” playing in the background. I guess White saviorists got tired of Ferguson and want to live out their Rage Against the Machine dreams here. In my city. Where they are not welcomed. At all. They’re riots, stop trying to romanticize the problem you helped make) because, as I have said several times in the recent past, I’m originally from the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood. So, like the vast majority of the people from Sandtown (and Baltimore), I have C-PTSD, which means “Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”. The basic difference between PTSD and C-PTSD can be best put this way: If a soldier has PTSD, the kids and people living in the invaded country has C-PTSD. The soldier eventually gets shipped back home but the kids and people left behind have to stay in the rocket-pocked area because it’s home.

Same thing for kids in the inner city, it’s a place where you can easily get PTSD/C-PTSD because of the environment alone, not even including the institutionalized barriers that keeps the people there (and not getting help). Add that and the situation turns from being like crabs in a bucket to trying not to get sucked back into a malevolent vortex. It’s nearly impossible to say someone could come from such an area and still wind up neurotypical or sane. I certainly didn’t and many don’t. And we didn’t even add the usual day-to-day circumstances of just being an individual, which can compound the ever present stresses that no one – except for the people actually from the areas – want to talk about.

My PTSD came from a lot of different things I grew up with, from really crappy people to really crappy systems and circumstances as well as people and circumstances that were very well meaning but did more harm than anything. Then you had folks and circumstances that you seriously couldn’t tell which type they were: one second they’re helping you, next, they basically made you mastermind your own demise without knowing.

Now, from that PTSD basically came a garden plot for other issues such as OCD (not fun and riddled with tv-made myths), trichotillomania (that showed up first when I was around 10), and the most destructive one, Dissociative disorder, where I’m officially considered DD-NOS.

Because I’m lazy and saw a really good picture explanation from a tumblr titled “Trauma and Dissociation”, here’s the basic overview of what I am talking about and how the Dissociative spectrum works:

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If anyone is going “Wow, this sounds totally crazy. Like, psychokiller crazy,” yeaaaaah, you try dealing with really violent and unstable environments for a vast majority of your life and let’s see how you turn out. Most people get scared of Baltimore because they saw The Wire or read The Corner (which is the source material for the HBO show and was also a HBO special itself), and they’re just reading about it or watching a cable drama, not actually living there so it should be no surprise I or anyone else could wind up with such a severe disorder. Also, not everyone is an amoral, violent nutjob out to murder any and every one…that’s moreso White guys from the middle class on up. Kids in the hood at least have valid reasons for being angry, but with less high-numbered mass killing sprees. My disorder can easily turn quite vicious when triggered (hence why I tell people to not trigger me) because it turns out bottling emotions like anger and frustration and more anger in the name of social upward mobility is unhealthy – eventually it tries to becomes another person.

Also, if you learned most of your psych knowledge from tv or movies, this means you have very little knowledge on disorders in all. Going off of that one (inaccurate) episode of Empire won’t teach you anything about mental illness, just that people who have it are somehow scary and should be both actively and passively shunned, preferably into silence and out of sight. Random youtube vids and vines would show that mental illness should be made fun of for kicks and giggles because picking on mentally fractured people is funny, kind of like cracking on a dying cancer patient. Media does not try to depict mental illness in its honesty. Instead it is used to be a short cut to making a tv show or movie look more “riveting” or like there is supposed to be a stunning plot present because the show creators were lazy and good writers are expensive. There is the Korean drama “Kill Me, Heal Me” which was based around the main character having Dissociative Identity Disorder (a bit different from Dissociative Disorder, I’ll touch on that in a minute) but still, the show didn’t showcase the illness correctly, it basically tried to hit on as many mental illness tropes as it could. I watch the show with my friend, who lives in Korea, and from everything I saw, it was pretty decent tv (from a K-drama perspective) but no way would a Korean resident feel empowered to say, “Maybe I should get help” or “hey, mentally ill people aren’t wacked out freaks but actual human beings inflicted with a condition because of their experiences.” Newp. Not at all. I still suggest the K-Drama “It’s Ok, That’s Love” however because, even though it is framed around schizophrenia, they did an amazing job depicting Tourette’s and schizophrenia in very humanizing ways, which is necessary. Especially since most media doesn’t do that. Or if they do, the casting looks like it was done by a Klansman.

Alright, I said that Dissociative Disorder is different from Dissociative Identity disorder, let’s touch on that. They’re both part of the same disorder but the different points on the same spectrum. The Dissociative spectrum, basically. It starts out at Dissociative but in the middle of the spectrum is Dissociative Identity Disorder (old name is Multiple Personality Disorder) and the end of the spectrum, a very rare formation of the illness, is Dissociative Fugue, where you basically forget who you are and build a brand new life, personality and identity. The basic part of Dissociative is that it’s not Dissociative if there’s no amnesia. All Dissociative is, in all forms, is the mind trying to disconnect from the realities of the trauma(s) taking place and thus puts the memories somewhere else, which causes the amnesia and gaps in the memory beyond reasonable stretches. This isn’t forgetting where you put your keys but forgetting whole chunks of your life. Dissociative Identity is where the mind is still trying to shelter itself but still forced to engage with the situation and/or environment, it creates a new person to deal with it. So now that person has one set of memories and personality traits (someone with DID can have many personalities, someone with DID-NOS can have many different personas (non-fully formed personalities, more like masks), we’re just going with one here) and the other personality has a different set and sometimes personalities don’t know about each other. Dissociative Fugue is basically the mind going “I’m just going to restart fresh” and do exactly that. The person will have no memory of the life they previously lived, they’ll possibly have a different name, they may even relocate to a different state or country, have a different personality, everything. Also, because DID is so “popular” in the public consciousness, many people will assume that DID is the end all and be all of the whole spectrum instead of simply being a notch, not the measure, of a bigger spectrum. So if someone says they have Dissociative, don’t call it DID. It’s like calling clinical depression “manic depression” simply because they share a word.

If this all seems really confusing, think of the mind like a desktop computer. On a normal computer, there’s only one account because it belongs to one person. But in the case of Dissociative, memory files, including vital ones, tend to get moved to distant and rarely used folders without the user knowing. And the user may never know what is missing until they need to pull up one of those files but keep getting 404 Errors and “File Not Found”. For Dissociative Identity Disorder, imagine the computer now having various user accounts. Now the computer will look different, have a different layout, so on and so forth based on user but it is still the same computer. Each user has fairly immediate access to their files and their files only and won’t see the files from other users, as if the computer is just for them. Now, it’s not that those files on the other accounts disappeared, they’re still there, but you have to dig deeper into the system tree to find them. Everyone still pulls their information from the same hard drive, it’s just all compartmentalized for personalized use. Sometimes different users know about each other, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes files cross, sometimes they don’t. For Dissociative Fugue, it’s like the computer going through a reformat, a hard restart, without knowing unless someone uses a data retrieving program on the harddrive to see what was originally on it before it got cleared.

Here is a video also about someone talking about Dissociative (actually, Disssociative Amnesia, to be exact), notice how the woman affected in the video responds to a memory about a traumatic incident in her life.

This is basically what happens to me. Memories locked away by Disassociation are usually not recalled, that’s the amnesia part at work. With therapy, the elderly woman could rediscover her memories but it’s not going to be easy because they were buried away for a reason. If it was DID, she would have another personality that would be able to remember the incident perfectly. Notice that she does not. It’s just plain Dissociative disorder, the bottom part of the spectrum.

Now I’m considered DD-NOS, as you read above in the picture, this means that I’m considered “Not Otherwise Specified”. It basically boils down to “I’m between place points on the spectrum.” I do more than simply forget/block out bad memories, I nearly become someone different while really disassociating so I’m not merely tagged “Dissociative”. The persona is not a full-fledged personality, complete with practically an identity of its own, so I’m not considered DID. I’m too close to the “DID” label for my comfort but I’m still not DID. Instead I’m just a potentially prime candidate to go DID if my disorder is consistently disturbed and I’m still in a volatile environment. This is why I stress to people that I don’t like being triggered, that I usually go out my way to reduce chances of triggers, go to a therapist, etc etc.

A mini, crappily made guide to best illustrate what I’m saying:

2015-05-13 17.59.59Yeap.

Since there are folks who are probably going, “Then this means that we don’t have to listen to you because since you’re mental, thus a terrible source of information about Paganism and metaphysics.” Nah, wrong. I learned metaphysics despite having PTSD and all the disorders that it basically brewed. I’m still sensible enough to explain and understand complex philosophical theories. It’s not like my PTSD rendered me unable to read and think. When not triggered, I’m pretty regular. As I explained in a past piece “My Peanut Allergy”, my disorders don’t start raising havoc if nothing pokes at them. However, I’ve been hyper-focusing on my disorders so I can get better faster instead of just saying, “‘Eh, I’ll worry about it later” since I’ve basically been saying that for nearly 10 years. Procrastinating on your health for a decade is never a good idea, let’s be frank. It just gets in the way of everything else and gets worse, not better. Not being fully invested in metaphysics, energy manipulation and psionics does suck but I gotta focus on getting better, which is remarkably difficult since the United States is still crappy when it comes to healthcare and affordability of said healthcare. Last I checked, America came 34th in Healthcare but no.1 in how expensive it is. And that’s with the major focus being on physical healthcare. Mental healthcare is worse, that’s certain.

Ah, wellz.

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Over-Exposed

Filed under: Race — 3 Comments
May 3, 2015

I have basically spent this whole past week just forever in my feelings. Nothing but irritated and pissed. It’s one thing to have you city make national news, it’s definitely different when the neighborhood you were brought up in is the reason the city is basically on lockdown. And why morons would stop talking like they know how it is in Sandtown when they’re going off info they learned from HBO and reports written by people who are also not from Baltimore. Yes, reading relatively objective reports about the plight here is nice but your 20 minute read is not going to trump my personal experience, no matter how much you want it to. I was born and raised there. You could got to an Ivy, take a bunch of classes, get a degree and you’ll still have no idea compared to my actual, lived experience. That is just how it is. Baltimore is a whole lot more than Old Bay and Hon bullsh*t. That’s not even really Baltimore, that’s a White-washed, gentrified view of Baltimore because they don’t like that Baltimore is 64% Black and only 12% White. With effort from the Mayor(s, plural because Dixon was bad, O’Malley was awful, we haven’t had many good Mayors that actually care about Baltimoreans more than yuppie outsiders), there has been a healthy move to Whiten up Baltimore as much as possible.

I think the only White person that has been interacting with Baltimore and actually was not a douche about all that has been happening is the Manager for the O’s and why he closed the game to the public:

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He gets it. He wasn’t being a douche, he was comfortably understanding by saying that this is beyond baseball and that he’s not going to say more than that because he has no way to relate to the experience of the people rioting and protesting. See? He made a comment that wasn’t disrespectful, agitating, exploiting, or White-Saviorist. It is ok to say, “Look, I’ve no bones in the game, all I know is that this is a big problem and that’s for sure. Baseball is just a game, this is a burst of a bunch of problems.”

Basically, this Baltimore club song is basically how I’ve been feeling all this week

This is more accurate to Baltimorean culture. We’re not really into outsiders telling our tales and speaking for us. At all. We don’t like exploiters, people who don’t genuinely care and just are talking about Baltimore because they’re tired of talking about Ferguson or to look like they’re up on current events. Everyone who is not from Baltimore wants to do a think piece about Baltimore, a city they have zip idea about. If all you knew about Baltimore was basically stuff that starred White people (or, if it was negative, Black people) such as The Wire, Hairspray and Old Bay, then maaaaaaaaybe you should just go back to watching Game of Thrones or something.

Everyone has been getting on my nerves, especially non-local media. I haven’t bothered to look at CNN, FOX News (how did you manage to come to Sandtown and not get your media truck firebombed? Not even catch a rock to the temple. Or a cracked camera?), even Wild Hunt – who asked me for my take – I’ll touch on that in a minute – tried to get in on the calamity as if they’re New York Times or they actually care. Even us Baltimoreans know we’re just activist groups heat of the week, flavor of the day. I haven’t even looked at The Root, which is a Black publication that usually is pretty on the level about things but again, I’m sensitive because as I said before, I’m from that neighborhood so I take it very straight to heart. Like, Mondawmin Mall? I grew up near that mall, my paternal grandfather’s house would have only been maybe 5 or 6 doors away from where the rioters started to break apart and scatter. That mall also started to gentrify a little, which served in part to getting its windows dropped. Remember, we don’t like exploiters. I’m pretty sure they’re clear with that now and if not, Baltimoreans are very good at strong reminders.

The only media people that contacted me was just Wild Hunt. Merely because I am in Baltimore, I’m close enough to the destruction. The person contacting didn’t even know (how, I don’t know because I made it very clear that I am more than just a Baltimorean but also from that neighborhood in the last post), that I am a native Baltimore and from the Sandtown-Winchester neighborhood and gave me among the smaller snippets whereas some random person in bum-f*ck Maryland gets a whole paragraph cited and another person in New Jersey. I am probably the only Black person (aside from a quip from Ray Lewis) that was even mentioned in the article. Dude, the writer even wanted to include my MLK quote with snarky part to White liberals, the only reason why I’d post the quote interestingly edited out (I wonder why…oh wait, MLK quotes attract White folks like metal to magnets!) and I had to get a bit snippy to get it out. I told her to mention that I wrote about Whitewashing and gentrification. That didn’t make it to the final cut. It was just labeled “impassionate” (nice word/code for “angry”). I’m actually from here but I get among the least mention. And Wild Hunt doesn’t really try to be that “Oh, here are non-Pagan current events”. Maybe they should try to stick with more Pagan life stuff. The only reason why I agreed was because it isn’t like the writer was going to try hard to find someone else who was Black and from Baltimore…or from Baltimore…or possibly even Black. Now, it isn’t that any Black person can automatically talk about what happened in Baltimore (I mean, Don Lemon should have proved that), but at least there would be a higher likelihood of the person saying “Institutionalize racism” in opposed to saying the super soft “Ohhhh, those pooooooor Black people being murdered. Gives me a sad”.

And speaking of media inaccurately depicting Baltimore, how about that low key Whitewashing between “peaceful protester” and “rioter”. The City Paper posted a gaggle of White people whenever demonstrating peaceful protesters.This is one of many, maaaaaaaaaany times where when you would see people talk about “peaceful protesters” they usually would pan to crowds mixed with White folks…or just pan to the White person in the crowd just standing there amongst the Black folks. But if they’re trashing cop cars and wrecking stuff, it’s All Black Everything. Quick tip: Stop centering White people to make any movement “relevant” or worth caring about. Minorities get edged out of their own movements all the time, it really isn’t fair. This movement isn’t about them. At all. If you have to see a White person somewhere in there to justify a movement, then that’s pretty bigoted. They’re not affected at all by racially charged murders. It’s nice they care but no one needs to put them at the forefront to validate a movement and to depict a “peaceful protester”, that is certain. That is sneakily dehumanizing the Black protesters as barbaric unless there is a White person to symbolize order when really there were definitely White looters. They can be just as bad if not worse because they’re not acting out from being oppressed for decades, just taking an opportunity because they figured even if they hit a ton of stores, media will just show a news reel of a Black folks doing it instead.

This article in the City Paper, which is a surprise for me because CP doesn’t tend to reflect the city it represent but even a broken clock is right twice a day, written by Helena Hicks, titled “Helena Hicks Talks about Institutional Neglect in Freddie’s Gray Neighborhood” accurately depicts the problems in Sandtown-Winchester. I strongly agree with this elder, who also participated in the 1955 sit-in at Read’s drug store in Baltimore as a college student, I recommend reading because as I have said this whole time, to best understand how things are, ask someone who actually is from the area. And the most striking part is that, despite Hicks and I come from two different generations, we have many of the same complaints.

“Sandtown-Winchester has just been left to its own devices all these years, and the devices unfortunately have been destructive ones.”

Anyone from there would tell you this. It’s nicknamed “Crazytown” for a reason. It practically the wild west there. A prison without bars, a concentration camp without electric fences.

“[Since the 40s] You had the gangs starting, you had the murders, you had a drug cartel. There’s never been any justice for people who have committed murders there. As for the Western District police station, it was well known you buy those cops off for $5. It’s had a history of violence, and violence over drugs, since the 1940s.”

Heeeeey, didn’t I say in my last piece I remember drugs being sold on the steps of the Western District police station? Thought I was exaggerating, huh? This, everyone, is the reason why I absolutely abhor the drug trade in all forms, all who participate in it and why I have a therapist. And PTSD. And why the current drug laws gives me the shakes, they’re growing so soft. It was pretty bad there. Still is. What everyone saw on Monday is only an iota of what I saw growing up.

“In the years since, virtually no resources have ever been put into the neighborhood, and it became a drug neighborhood. My sister, Lillian Jones, fought to have something different for the kids in those projects, and the Lillian S. Jones Recreation Center there is named for her. But she died, and the center just fell apart.”

I wasn’t raised in the projects, but I was raised across the street from them on the 1500 block of N. Mount St. I can attest to how bad it got. It was swarmed in drugs and, in turn, cyclical problems such as violence. And anything that has any strain of good in it doesn’t last long. Ever. I remember when the rec. centers got closed. I remember Central Rosemont, which got replaced by PAL, a recreation program that the police thought up (and failed), and then got shut down completely. My mom helped create the protests against City Hall about the shutting down of rec centers, which helped extended the life for a while until the City just stopped caring and did what it wanted.

“The city has consistently done nothing to help this area.”

Didn’t I just say that?

“There is no active drug rehabilitation program. You have nothing in terms of education, nothing to build self pride or desire to rise above the situation there.”

My mom did the smart thing and moved my sister and I out there when we were in our pre-teen. For me, I have a burning hatred of the people who made Sandtown such a terrible place with the strength of a million suns, so that has convinced me to never put myself back there. I just didn’t (and still don’t) want to go back there. I built self-pride in how smart I am, and that was tough in and of itself. That’s why I’m so cocky about my intelligence. And with a very, very, very obscenely low bullsh*t threshhold, as my steady readers have probably noticed. Especially from people who were raised from a higher social station than I was.

“You don’t have any job training programs. People don’t finish school, they don’t make any money, they have nothing to do with their time. Torn-down houses. No food stores. Vacant houses. Open drug markets. 24 hours a day.”

Even the old Stop, Shop, and Save that I grew up with, the only actual market in the area, just closed recently, if Google Maps showed me correctly. Actually, Google Maps has not even been behind my house on the teeny street since 2008. Lolz. Even Google doesn’t want to know.

“We set up child day care in Sandtown. It ran well for a while, and then we lost funding and got kicked out. Nothing has worked because the city won’t invest permanently in that neighborhood. It once had responsible citizens, and it still does, but you don’t have enough of them and they have no direction and no City Hall support.”

Yeap, that sounds about right. If it’s a good thing for Sandtown, the plug will get pulled on it faster than fast.

“There was the Empowerment Zone in the 1990s, and then it dissipated. The developers got a hold of that. It was all about how they could use the neighborhood and the money that was coming in on federal grants to supposedly help that area. The federal grant money dried up; it never did a whole lot of good anyway.”

I was raised in the 90s. Basically, people got greedy. Tried to gentrify Sandtown a little (basically go, “Let’s move in White people, that’s the only way we think a neighborhood is worth saving!”), and something on the calculator must have said, “You’re going to have a lot of dead White people, just leave it alone.” That and greedy people are greedy. The money was seen to help the area but the people in charge most likely saw the money as a free payday.

“The police have been a part of the problem and not the solution in that area since I was a child. Former Mayor Martin O’Malley didn’t help. He started the ‘zero tolerance’ policy, so half of the people who were hanging around got locked up….Plus, they put the bottom of the barrel down [in Sandtown]. Not good teachers, not good police – and if they get anybody good down there, they don’t last.“

Bolding is mine. I have been telling people this time and time again: There’s no room for good guys down there. The reason why the cops are so ruthless down there is because the people they have to get are more ruthless than them. Even though in the different neighborhood, Oliver, the police didn’t murder the Dawson family. Here in Sandtown, things are downright atrocious, there’s no room to play by the rules. Absolutely none. If there were, they would quickly be called “loopholes”. It’s not fair to the people caught in between but that’s simply just how it is. And how it will be, none of this media circus will affect a thing, sadly. Trust me on that. It’s just a heinous cat and mouse game.

“It’s possibly to do something constructive in Sandtown-Winchester, but you’ve got to get City Hall to understand the mess they’ve made, take responsibility for it, and start planning to go in another direction….Nobody is looking at how we got here and what do we need to do to turn it in a different direction. They just concentrate knee-jerk reactions to whatever’s happening in the present.”

Like a riot. A loud one at that. Classic move of City Hall. Media is already giving them a heaping of help by milking this “Black Lives Matter” stuff in hopes for a Pulitzer or to look progressive. Just focus on the now, not the future and definitely not the past.

“Marches won’t do it.”

Are you me? Ye gods, it sounds like something I would say.

“I don’t have any faith in these ministers leading things. They’ve been there all this time and haven’t done anything. They just want a platform. You need to understand the history.”

Sounds nearly like me.

“There are people who know what’s going on and could be asked for help. But City Hall is not going to ask for that. [Mayor] Stephanie Rawlings-Blake doesn’t think anybody over 50 knows anything that she can use.”

The mayor also has a tendency to think the same of folks who can’t pass a paper bag test. A White person tell her that she’s on fire, she’d run for the fire extinguisher. A Black person tell her she’s on fire, she’d just remark, “The weatherman said we’d have summer temperatures today. You just are confused.”

“They think nobody knows anything but them, and they have the answers and they’re going to resolve it.”

Their solution: A neighborhood is only worth saving if there are White people living in it. Time to gentrify! Then we’ll pump in much and desperately needed resources.

“And they’re not. It’s just going to get worse and worse.”

Basically what I’ve been saying.

“History repeats itself, and we’re about to repeat something very bad if we don’t get in there and do something fast.”

Yes, it can get worse than this. Way worse.

“I’ve tried to pass the baton, but many young people don’t see any future. And I understand why they don’t see it: They don’t get many examples of good things that are happening, so they don’t believe that it’s possible….I think there is some hope. But it’s getting harder and harder to find people who believe that and it’s been harder and harder to point out where there is some reason to hope.”

Sounds about right. The future of Sandtown is pretty bleak. And I’ve seen little to convince me that it will get better for the residents of Sandtown ever. That’s the super sad part. It would only be possible if people actually cared and tried to break the cyclical damage and hurt there. Buuuuuut that’s not happening for a while. Once the cameras are off of Penn-North, and the rest of Sandtown, it’s back to business as usual.

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