‘Tradition’s Backfire’

A sample from Book 10

  Tradition's Backfire
  
 they said
you're just a girl‒ 
this is a man's world
 messing with my head
 holding me back
in their dizzy twirl
  
 I tried to push ahead
 but esteem
they made me lack
 on my butt‒ 
they'd just slap
 ignoring my educated snap
putting me in dead
 all those words
they said
  
 but I don't go down like that
 my mind...I discovered
sound
 so much world
all around‒
 I bounced back
learned a few facts
  
 I got over their curse
learned new adverbs
 set it all up‒ 
for a reverse
 when they came at me
in their attacks
  
 they said
 you can't put it out
like that
 you're too bold...too negative
 you...no one will respect
 they'll drop you
as a contact
 ‒see you as an 'old crab'
  
 much more than that‒
 from all sides
came their attack
  
 my professional swirl‒
 downgraded to just a girl
  
 my mothering cap‒ 
smashed to the ground
 with a raging man-ego trap
 stripping me
of those I gave birth
  
 my christian-wife-giving perk‒
 crushed into dirt
 as hands
around my throat...grasped
  
 my daughtering burst
my sistering worth‒
 taken, stripped, clasped
 as man-driven pride submersed
 fist to head‒ 
stripped 'til I was dead
  
 I couldn't go down like that
 my mind‒ 
put in the back
 ‒lost from sound
so much world
all around‒
 on a different
leveling track
 I bounced back
 ‒met their crap with crap
  
 in sexual immortality‒ 
I did flirt
 around edges of freak
I certainly did skirt
 ‒screaming, yelling, cursing
 I explored my worse
from the depths of dead
 completely lost in my head
 over and over rolling‒ 
those words they said
 ‒all those lies fed
I did the dread‒
 around every corner
I did tread
  
 but I don't go down
like that
 my mind...I discovered
much more sound
 so much world
all around‒
 I fell in their trap
 but it's just fact
I bounced back
  
 into a dim light
I emerged
ready...able
 put up
my hard-core fight
 as the light
moved to bright‒
 breaking their holding-down trap
 unveiling their curse
 ‒I moved into rebirth
 learning my worth
what truly
sets my turf
  
 I am a woman
not just a girl
 my looks‒ 
just a perk
 on my body‒ 
let your eyes flirt
 ‒all this framework
aids my intelligence
 (the likes of brilliance)
  
 yes...on my face
a slight smirk
  
 out...I reemerged
 this butt‒ 
yes, try and slap
 see if I don't call out
your crap
  
 this mind‒ 
try to trap
 I'll come at you‒
 out of this cave
like a bat
  
 yes, it's like that
 don't like it‒ 
down...sit back
sap
 for I've learned my worth
 bridges...I'll easily burn
 ‒say it like it is
 this right‒ 
I've readily earned
  
 and...I don't go down
just like that
 my mind...I know
clearly...positively
sound
 all this world
all around‒ 
I am bound
 for, indeed, I bounce back
 with the resistance of a cat
  
 it's just fact
you...I'll come straight at
 I'm 'all' that
and...that's just that!

(September 28, 2016)—Traditions. Lies. Stories. What’s real? What’s not? It’s hard to tell these days with so many websites putting up fake information, with so many people, like the underground web, Photoshopping and manipulating, specifically, to deceive us.

In order to survive through all the mess, we have to know who we are inside, our individual truth, and we all, individually, have to stand for something, and that something has to be a good something free of anger and hate.

I read all these articles concerning race. I have to ask—What the hell? I’m a woman. I write about abuse not because it was my life-long ambition, but because it was an experience that altered the entire course of my life! I decided after going through so much of other people’s drama that if I didn’t take all this negative and turn it around, it would consume me. So…I plowed on.

I have to ask another question—Why aren’t the people questioning why police all around the country are suddenly on a seemingly killing spree? Okay. I have more questions than that. Why aren’t the people questioning why the police all around the country are suddenly seemingly against the people? Why aren’t the people questioning themselves to why they are falling into this aged-old trap of racism? I know racism.

I wrote an article on my personal page about racism and abuse. The two go hand in hand. I can’t write from a black woman’s point of view, although I’ve seen their struggles as a teacher and a person growing up in the deep south. I can write from a pure woman’s point of view. You want to know what suppression is? Ask a woman.

I’m currently reading Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook.

She writes in the first chapter titled ‘Internalizing the Revolution’—

…In addition to the external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within themselves. We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve….

Wow…I bought this book back in 2015 when I sat on a course that changed so much inside of me beginning with Joyce Meyer. It is only now that I’ve picked this particular book up and started reading. That is a strange course for me because what Sandberg writes about is exactly what I’ve been writing about, so I wondered why I didn’t choose this book earlier.

I watched the movie The Shift by Dr. Wayne W. Dryer put out by Hay House. I related so much to this film because it is everything I’ve been discovering for the past ten years. I’ve read the book The Secret and saw the movie. Everything Dr. Dryer talks about is basically what The Secret talks about. God is the universe and everything we have in our lives, we attract. To make our lives better, we must first start with self.

I always say that everything happens for a reason. I am smiling because, indeed, everything does. When I bought Sandberg’s book, I also bought about eight other books. The first book, of course, that I picked to read was Meyer’s Battlefield of the Mind, which literally changed my world.

All the things Sandberg writes about, I’ve experienced on a different level. Being smart, being pretty, being a woman…the perfect recipe for strife and drama! These ending paragraphs in Sandberg’s introductory chapter had me shaking my head with a crocked smile on my face—

…Some, especially other women in business, have cautioned me about speaking out publicly on these issues. When I have spoken out anyway, several of my comments have upset people on both genders. I know some believe that by forcing on what women can change themselves—pressing them to lean in—seems like I am letting our institutions off the hook. Or even worse, they accuse me of blaming the victim. Far from blaming the victim, I believe that female leaders are key to the solution….

…Some critics will also point out that it is much easier for me to lean in, since my financial resources allow me to afford any help I need. My intention is to offer advice that would have been useful to me long before I heard of Google or Facebook and that will resonate with women in a broad range of circumstances….

…I have heard these criticisms in the past and I know that I will hear them—and others—in the future. My hope is that my message will be judged on its merits. We can’t avoid this conversation. This issue transcends all of us. The time is long overdue to encourage more women to dream the possible dream and encourage more men to support women in the workforce and in the home.

I, too, was heavily criticized when I began speaking about abuse and the traditions I was raised with out loud. I live in a constant hush-hush society. I have been shut-out by family and friends who couldn’t handle my extreme, sudden open side. I had got to a point where I refused to be quiet any longer.

My hope is the same as Sandberg’s:

That more women stand up for themselves and go after their dreams without being condemned or shot down by both men and other women.The woman world is very catty from my point of view. Other women don’t like smart women. They sure as hell don’t like smart, pretty women, and the worse is being smart, pretty, and thin! That is just the worse curse. Or, so I thought.

I look at the books that I chose to read first compared to the ones I’ve read in the last few months. Those first books were all about rebuilding self and making self stronger in body, mind, and spirit. These books I’ve turned to now are all about empowering the self. I truly think that I didn’t read these books first because my calling is to write about the authentic self in the immersion of strife: The entering into, the fight to get out, and the surviving of. Everything happens for a reason. Isn’t that amazing?! Empowering of self.

My eyes truly opened up back in 2012 to abuse and the results of it, the secrets of it. Not much has changed since I began my journey through the five stages of grief. I still see all around me women who bow down, who hide abuse, who live with it. I am also keenly aware of the racism issue as everyone else is. Racism. Abuse. Same damn thing!

If you are a black man, think of all those moments when you felt belittled put in your place condemned harshly in subtle words…that’s what abuse feels like. The silent kind. The most dangerous kind. Women of all races experience this at one point in their lives. It’s a given. There’s no getting around it. This is what my work is all about. This is where ‘Tradition’s Backfire’ comes from this morning.

You can’t make others see your point of view. You can’t change anyone. You can let all that hate and anger and manipulation destroy you. It almost destroyed me. Or you can learn from it and turn it around starting with self. How we deal with things determines how others will treat us. If we allow them to make us anger, then they have control. I can say this today that [x] doesn’t control me as a person.

What still angers me is that it doesn’t seem to bother anyone that he said he loved, but clearly he lied. Meaning: This man could do what the hell he wanted without suffering the consequences. He could unravel the lives of four people and still be considered a good guy, and I, the one who suffered his wrath and sudden change of mind, am considered the bad guy. No, I’m not stuck on the past. I’m stuck on a society that breeds that it’s okay for people to treat others with cruelty, as long as, that people is a guy, and that’s the gust of it.

I’ve spoken with so many women in the last four years and over and over again I get the same message: Women really don’t have any say-so. I even get this from other women, and that has been the biggest shocker of all.

Note: As I’ve said many times, I have, but one [x]. Sorry, that’s just the facts of it. So, my experience with that [x] is all I have. I have no intention on writing about something I do not know about, so using my personal experience is going to happen…like it or not, and just because I use my experience does not mean I’m stuck back there.

With that said, using experiences that we do not actually experience is not really being totally factual because we can’t speak about something truly truthfully, from the heart, that we have not personally experienced. It becomes a matter of hear-say: She said, he said sort of thing. I say that because of all the articles I’ve been reading on slavery issues which no longer exist. I have to ask the legitimacy of the anger expressed in some of these articles.

If you weren’t actually there, then how can you actually express your anger in truth? You can’t. I have to ask, what is your experience now? Then you have my attention, and that’s what matters now, leading me to the articles I’ve read and the videos I’ve watched about what a black man or woman actually experiences today. Appalling, but it doesn’t stop there.

There are the articles and videos about how women are still treated today. Appalling. Hello. Earth to Mars. Mars to Earth. Houston we have a problem! Videos. Wow! When we were children and we took a cookie without asking, that was considered stealing and we got our hands slapped. This may have to occur a couple more times before we learned that we must ask before taking a cookie. Hint: May I have a cookie, please?

I’ll use the police as an example. Call it racism or whatever you want. It’s abuse all the same. One or two police shootings, that would be a police person shooting an unarmed person recorded on video and put before the world would have me saying—Something is just not right here.

As any captain in any police department across this gigantic bitch of a country, I would damn well be sure that safety meetings are held pronto, that retraining takes place weekly, psyche evaluations occurred regularly and without warning as well as drug testing, that all ammo is accounted for and that every police officer on my force had working cameras everywhere and they are constantly being examined to ensure the safety of the public, and I wouldn’t do that to save my officers’ asses. Hell no, that would be just to save my ass!

One or two policemen from across the country showing unnecessary force towards another person who is not endangering their lives, the same action would be taken, but with a vigorousness that would ensure no police officer on my force mistreated any civilian. Period!

I would also hold conferences on the television, on the radio and on a public Facebook page (because every body is on Facebook) and ensure the confidence in my force that no civilian should ever fear my department because we take all precautions to ensure their safety! Oh, that’s just me. Did they even watch Beverly Hills Cop?

As in domestic abuse, after seeing how many videos on Facebook where police officers from around this gigantic bitch of a country brutally attacking people, holding people without cause, arresting people for no reason, you would think eyes would be further opened, then this is every department around the country, then you have to wonder the real reason to why domestic abuse still exist in this country!

Which leads me to this: Domestic abuse. In any form. Relationships of all kinds. Racism. Etc., etc. has been around forever! People like little ole me speak out and get slammed! Ignored! Shut the fuck down! Labeled drama starters and every other name in the book! Bullies continue their B.S. Now it has escalated to policemen…those that take an oath to uphold the law and protect the citizens of their districts! You would think there’s some kind of outside influence going on here! So, where does it stop? Abuse, I mean.

What has to happen to open the eyes of everyone, not just the victims? So, where does the anger stop, the hate? Small. That’s right. Small. Self. Family. Friends. Community. State. Country. All with God in the forefront. It’s that simple. Hate breeds hate. The more hate shown, the more hate attracted, but take it the opposite direction and see what happens! Posting all these videos isn’t doing what you think it’s doing.

The captain of each department all over this entire great big vast country…why isn’t anyone putting them on camera? A good question. Don’t you think? A group is as strong as its leader.

Meaning: Take for instance a military unit. I can write about this because I have experienced it. Each unit has a leader. The morale of that unit is a direct link to the morale of its leader. Take a school and its teachers. Take a business and its employees. The atmosphere. The morale. The spirit. The anger. The hate. All…a direct link to the leader! Take the country. The same goes here. What you see going on in the country is a direct link to its leader. Need I say more.

Back down to the basic: The most intense…the morale or disposition of a woman in any relationship is a direct link to the man she is in relationship with. It’s really simple. What goes around, comes around. Treat people bad…sooner or later it backfires on you! That’s a given. Not a promise, but a fact. Treat people good…sooner or later, you’re going to get a bag of Hersey’s kisses and shit. Trust me on this. God is great all the time. You can take that statement to the bank!

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