Open letter to Chris Cantwell and @VICE News. (This might be the dumbest thing I’ve ever done!)

Devon issues an invitation.

Devon J Hall

Hello Chris,

You don’t know me, but my name is Devon J Hall. I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself. Now those who read my blog know I swear alot I’ve tried not to do that here. I could call you names, but I won’t do that either. I’d like to communicate with you, human to human.

I am thirty-four years old, I used to be heavily involved in the party scene. I am also a survivor of early childhood and early adult sexual abuse. Every man I’ve been sexually intimate with has been white.

I don’t know about you, but personally, I find white men incredibly sexy – some girls like Jewish guys, some girls like black dudes (OH MY GOD I KNOW RIGHT? How weird) but for me? I like a good well built sexy white dude. Like Chris Evans – you probably know him, he…

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Walk in their shoes

Sue Vincent reflects on recent events.

Sue Vincent's Daily Echo

“.. before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.” Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird

“Is everything okay over there?” said my son, calling from half a world away. “Yes… fine…” I replied, moments before madness hit London Bridge. Britain, like so many countries recently, reeled once again as violence destroyed lives and peace. That attack followed hard on the heels of Manchester and Westminster, and would precede a lethal attack on Finsbury Mosque.

“My daughter and granddaughter were there,” said our Companion, speaking of the Manchester bombings that killed children as young as eight years old, as we struggled to come to terms with yet another explosion of hatred and inhumanity.

Britain is far from being unique in this. Globally, over eight hundred terrorist attacks have been listed this year alone…

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The Good Girls Are Always Found

Nicole – where are the good girls found?

The Lithium Chronicles

I have broken my own bones,
splintered them
and placed them into bags,
dozens of bags of me,
and I have thrown them
from the windows of speeding cars
in hope that you will find me
after the crash, somewhere
where the good girls would never go,
littered between back alleys
in the dark parts, the places where
the good girls are always found.

© Nicole Lyons 2017

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Charlottesville: We Cannot Wash Our Hands of This

On OTV, Kara Post-Kennedy reflects on Charlottsville and respons-ability.

Open Thought Vortex

The year after my son was born, my husband had a wonderful job opportunity in Charlottesville, Virginia so we moved our life and newborn to this lovely location for a few years.  We bought a little house that I adored in a suburb outside of “city limits” and settled into the gracious living the place is famous for; a bustling university town full of culture, diversity and history.  It was a happy place for us, now full of good memories.

We were moving from Durham, North Carolina, another diverse university community and before that New York City and Los Angeles.  I mention this because on top of the privilege our college-educated, white, Christian heterosexuality affords us, we also existed in quite a convincing progressive bubble.  From our vantage point we were seeing integrated, thriving communities and we proudly voted for President Obama in Virginia in 2008, the year the state…

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Your Bias Against People With Borderline is Still Ableist

Sam writes on ableism, false dichotomies, and borderline.

Let's Queer Things Up!

256.

That’s how many different ways borderline personality disorder can present itself, just looking at the diagnostic criteria alone. Factor in co-existing disorders, trauma history, and all of the biological, sociological, and psychological influences that make us individuals? You’ll find that “borderline personality disorder” loosely describes a very diverse group of people.

It’s also been used to describe me. More specifically, as a survivor, it’s been used to describe the sort of “emotional PTSD” I developed overtime as a response to very traumatic life circumstances.

But no one ever wants to talk about borderline as a product of abuse. I continue to encounter people who only view borderline as a propensity for abuse — as irredeemably horrible people to be avoided at all costs.

And painting people with borderline with one uncomplicated, overgeneralized brushstroke? Treating us like a plague, as inherently immoral, as dangerous? That’s still ableist.

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Muted Grape and Spiced Wine

A poem from Nicole – let it sink in.

The Lithium Chronicles

I hang suspended,
hot inside the cool tones
of muted grape dreams,
where the reds of a spiced wine
seep past my lips
to dance upon yours.
You are beautiful,
in the hues of my passion,
and I could be beautiful
beneath you, in foreign lands,
and within your secrets,
until I come home reeking
of lavender and my undoing,
and cursing the moon for casting
its heavenly glow a world away.

© Nicole Lyons 2017

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Less Than Ideal

On The Well Tempered Bards, Jessica Scott brings a poem of what to do with what was not quite right to begin with.

The Well Tempered Bards

Hold the broken pieces in your hand of the vase you bought,

So perfect, not quite the same as the one you really wanted,

But almost perfect enough that you glue the pieces back

Though it can never hold real flowers in water again.

So it holds silk flowers-

silver medal never gold,

Second best never good enough

As the first, the original.

Now it’s flawed forever

Scarred forever marred forever.

Can never hold water again.

Can never be whole again.

Can never be perfect again.

Can never be the one you said you wanted.

Can only be hidden, faced to a wall,

Boxed up locked up

Might as well be thrown away

For it’s not worth the effort

To recycle reuse repurpose

The pieces into something

more beautiful than the original.

It’s not worth the effort to love it more now

Than when you bought it…

Because it isn’t…

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Dear White People, No matter how close we might be, I’m afraid of you now.

Devon says its up to everybody to stand up. She’s right, as usual.

Devon J Hall

I wanted to write about this new me. About the fact that normally I wear tank tops and jeans pretty much everywhere. I wanted to talk about this new outlook I had on life a few days ago when mom and I went shopping and I decided that if I wanted to prove myself to the people at the Radio Station, I needed to buy some real work clothes.

Until I came home. I came home from shopping with mom, turned on the news, just in time to see a white supremacist mowed down 19 people, killing one and injuring I don’t know how many others – not just physically, but emotionally.

Every person that was there, that had to stand back or run out of the way while a car mowed down their friends and family members, will live with that image for the rest of their lives.

He…

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Breaking the Legacy of Silence #48 It’s Time to Name It, Claim It, And Tame It: Silence is Violence | Kim D. Bailey | Weekly Column | FIVE:2:ONE

Kim speaks her mind on Five2One – strong words and challenging.

Kim D Bailey

Kim D. Bailey speaks out about Charlottesville and how silence becomes violence.
Click the link below to go to this piece at http://www.five2onemagazine.com
http://five2onemagazine.com/breaking-legacy-silence-48-time-name-claim-tame-silence-violence-kim-d-bailey-weekly-column/

If you have a problem with people who are different than you because of color, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender differences, and you denounce them openly by saying things like, “Jews will not replace us,” and “White/All Lives Matter,” and “Unite the Right,” then you’re the problem, too.

And that “All Lives Matter” thing? Well, what you fail to grasp is that people of color have long been persecuted, oppressed, and demoralized. White people, for the most part, have had it relatively easy compared to them. Some of us have grown up white and very poor. We understand some of the oppression. However, the color of our skin gets us a pass that people of color don’t get, and that alone is privilege we don’t realize…

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ASH MAKERS

Hasty fears to join those dancing in the fire.

FEARING CRAZY

I sit lost between lines
Where logic and insanity
Like to play tug-of-war
Watching as tormented
Setting the world on fire
I watch in silence
For fear my tongue
Might be made of fuel
That I might contribute
To the devised disorder
I ready myself to watch
As those who dance
Among the flames
Get consumed
By the distraction laid
Content they are fighting
For selfless reasons
For righteous reasons
For dutiful reasons
And too late
Finding themselves
Standing in a pile of ash
Useless to anyone
But the devil himself

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