SAY THEIR NAMES!

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I’m back after six months, whilst I took six months out I was trying to think of new powerful topics to come back with, I had the topic names, but not the true content that will remain inside, I couldn’t think of how to start and intros really loop everything together, yet the simplest of things I just couldn’t seem to think of.

However, Teeks is back better than ever before with my new topic ‘Say their names’ and in the midst of where we are today it needs to be spoken upon.

I’m going to be talking on the black community because that’s what I am BLACK BLACKITY BLACK, racism, discrimination, colourism and whatever else I find suitable, I’ll be adding in links from previous topics where possible as I’ve already blogged about it more deeply and intensely.

This blog will be a mix of my own opinions, it’s your choice to agree or disagree,  and I’ll be including facts and statistics which you can’t argue about because it’s the truth, cry about it if you want but that is your own.

I’ll also add in trigger warnings in, which will be big and bold in red, as I know a lot of the images and videos I’ll be including can be triggering and cause distress, so a warning before you see it as you scroll is fair right?

I was meant to do 10 people from the UK and 10 people from the USA but that’s virtually impossible for me to include everyone, but I’ll try my best to include as many people as I can, however, names you don’t see you will be remembered, all the black people in jail for petty crimes or wrongful convictions from the very organisations that are meant to ‘Protect & Serve’ my heart is with you, all of the black people that are being hidden and ‘secretly’ deported by ICE, when our ancestors BUILT the very land they’re ruling on, turfing and surfing us, putting several bullets through our bodies, choking and killing us, knee to the neck making sure every breath is our last, why because our shade is darker than your own? Our missing black community, no trace no case, maybe a few days in the media that quickly gets kicked under the carpet again whilst our lights go dim, just a hope of going viral on social media to spread awareness and fight for equality & justice, and that is why I’m writing this blog ‘SAY THEIR NAMES’ Say our fucking names in the media, I don’t want to be known as ‘A black young woman has gone missing in London’ ?? What does that do? Do you know how many black girls are in London? When I mean to say their names, pronounce my name properly, if you didn’t say it right the first time I’ll give you time to get there, don’t just call me any random name, my parents didn’t name me for others to pronounce how they like & what they feel comfortable with.

TRAYVON BENJAMIN MARTIN 

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SAY HIS NAME

Born: 5th February 1995,
Miami Gardens, Florida
Parents: Sybrina Fulton (Mother)
               Tracy Martin (Father)

In February 2012, Trayvon was visiting his father Tracy Martins in Sanford, Florida after receiving a 10-day suspension due to drug residue in Trayvon’s book bag.

Trayvon’s had gone on a visit to his father’s fiancées townhouse in the retreat of of ‘Twin lakes’ in Sanford, February 26th Trayvon was walking back to the fiancées’ house from a nearby convenience store.

George Zimmerman neighbourhood watch captain in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman calls 911 of reports of a suspicious person in the neighbourhood, Zimmerman was instructed to stay in the vehicle and not approach the person, however, Zimmerman disregards these instructions, moments later there was an altercation, Zimmerman fatally shot Trayvon Martin in the chest.

February 27th, Tracy Martin files missing person report as Trayvon didn’t return home the following evening, cops show Tracy Martin an image from the crime scene, he confirmed it as his son Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin was a 17-year-old African American murdered by George Zimmerman.

The same George Zimmerman who cops did not charge as there was no evidence to disapprove of his version of events, March 14th 2012.

Doesn’t this story sound familiar? No evidence? Minding your business? Asleep in her bed?

The media portrayed Trayvon as a thug which he was certainly not, loved by his family, loved by his friends, loved by a community, his cousin Stephen Martin February 27th, Tracy Martin files missing person report as Trayvon didn’t return home the following evening, cops show Tracy Martin an image from the crime scene, he confirmed it as his son Trayvon Martinho had been at the park the night before telling jokes with Trayvon, Stephen said him and Trayvon were like brothers growing up and said that Trayvon was very skilled at assembling, repairing and riding pocket/dirt bikes, does that seem thuggish to you? When Trayvon was just 9 years old, he saved his fathers life by pulling his father who had been immobilised by burns to his legs, does that see, thuggish to you? Trayvon washed cars, babysat, mowed lawn to make his money, does that see, thuggish to you? OR does that seem like a kid who knows what he wants in life and by any means will work for it?

Critics judged Trayvon based off of his tattoos, do tattoos on black skin make someone any less of a person?

Also, judging off of an EMPTY marijuana bag?

Trayvon was UNARMED & MURDERED those two words shouldn’t even string together in a sentence, unfortunately being black a large majority of the time we’re unarmed yet we’re still killed in an unforgivable & merciless way.

March 20th 2012

A lawyer for the Martin family, Benjamin Crump holds a conference telling reporters that Trayvon was on the phone to his girlfriend at the time she said she heard an altercation, she said she heard someone ask Trayvon what he was doing, Trayvon asked why he was being followed, at that moment Trayvon’s earpiece fell out and the connection went dead.

March 22nd 2012
A petition on change.org calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman, created by the parents of Trayvon Martin surpassed 2.2M signatures, which became the largest in website history.

Back in 2012, change.org was launching 15,000 campaigns a month

The most recent report of 2018:
– Audience, 265.7M
– Signatures, 603.9M
– 25,000 petitions launched every month
– During 2018, 1.6M people promoted change.org petitions

However, it was Sybrina Fulton & Tracy Martins campaign that propelled the site into public consciousness.

Following on from Trayvon’s Martins death, a movement was created on 13th July 2013 called #BLACKLIVESMATTER, an international human rights movement originating in the African American community that campaigns AGAINST violence and systemic racism towards black people. BLM holds protests speaking out against police brutality which is murder, by the way, no matter which way they want to dress it up, racial profiling and racial inequality in the United States of America.

The USA should stand for ‘The Divisive states of America’ nothing United about that country.

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The originators of the hashtag and co-founders are Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors & Opal Tometi.

SAY THEIR NAMES

The creation of Black Lives Matter also brought backlash and in response, a further two hashtags were created to discredit the black community, they’re known as #ALLLIVESMATTER & #BLUELIVESMATTER.

My response will always be NO LIVES MATTER UNTIL BLACK LIVES MATTER

MARK DUGGAN

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SAY HIS NAME

  Born: 15th September 1981
          Broadwater Farm, North London

Mark Duggan 29 years old, when he was shot and killed by police in Tottenham, North London 4th August 2011 18:15pm, the metropolitan police stated that officers were attempting to arrest Duggan of suspicions of an attack and that he was in possession of a firearm, the same firearm that was found 14FT away over a wall?

So the police are telling us, the firearm he was ‘supposedly’ in possession with was 14ft away? Over a wall? The lies are tremendous, what a thought process that is!

An inquest jury found the shooting to be ‘lawful’ & the police watchdog didn’t find any wrongdoing by the officer known as V53.

In my eyes this was an unlawful killing, he supposedly picked up a firearm from East London, drove to North London and when the police pulled him over in the taxi, they shot and killed him but in their ideal world the ‘gun’ literally flew over their heads and no one saw it? Ok

Can we look deeply into the two images below, if you don’t see a difference then I must say you’re extremely obtuse and deluded.

Mark Duggan’s death sparked the 2011 Tottenham riots, the biggest riots in modern English history.

The 2011 riots were a series of riots between the 6th August to the 11th August and carried on for a few days, there were several violent clashes with police ensued, along with the destruction of businesses, homes, police vehicles & 4 double-decker buses received a significant amount of damage, the London riots spread like wildfire up and down the country including Birmingham, Bristol, Coventry, Manchester and many other towns and cities around the UK.

The media called the riots copycat energy, I’m sure this is a directive to the Brixton riots in 1995 which only later 5 hours in comparison to the 2011 riots that lasted several days, either way in both situations to black men were murdered by the police.

WAYNE DOUGLAS

Today in London's murderous policing history: Wayne Douglas dies ...

SAY HIS NAME

1995, Wayne Douglas was in police custody being questioned about a burglary, police reported that he collapsed in Brixton police station due to a heart attack which was revealed on his post mortem, in actual fact, the inquest showed on FOUR different occasions he was handcuffed with his hands behind his back and was being held face down.

I hope they meant copycat behaviour where two black men were murdered by the ‘Protect & Serve’ organisation, how can you kill a man in your custody! This law enforcement organisation need to bake off, how do the police not learn? Once it’s repeated it’s no longer an accident, life isn’t something you can play with, one who commits murder should get the death penalty, I ain’t God but murdering someone you don’t deserve to ‘Start over’. I always get beyond angry when I hear police officers/cops left right and centre being dismissed from a case of misconduct, why should they be let off Scot free but my BLACK brothers and sisters are laying six foot under, due to mistaken identity, raids on properties, unlawful killing, in prison on petty crimes, I will forever be sick to my stomach over the UK & USA justice system forever killing our people no reasonable excuse. Defund the cops, Defund the police & fuck the Feds forever and always.

If you don’t know the full ins and outs regarding Mark Duggan, then please look at the entirety of the case, from the beginning right through to the end, then you can make your own judgements, it was the police, government and publicists flipping the real script to their very own villain story, all police know how to do is falsify information. Lastly, Mark Duggan’s case deserves to be reopened & investigated and so does Wayne Douglas.

SANDRA ANNETTE BLAND

Sandra Bland

SAY HER NAME
              Born: February 7th 1987 (28 years old)
        Naperville, Illinois

Sandra Bland was a 28-year-old African American woman who was found hanged in her cell, Waller county, Texas on July 15th just 3 days after being arrested during a pretextual traffic stop.

Sandra’s death was ruled a suicide, this ruling followed by protests against her arrest, disputing the cause of death and racial violence against her.

Brian Encinia, don’t forget his name was the officer who stopped Sandra Bland, Encinia had a history of performing pretextual stops, having issued 1,600 minor tickets in less than 12 months, he performed these in hopes of finding something criminal on said persons.

If an investigation was ever carried out, I would like to know how many minor tickets he gave out to the African American community, because 1,600 tickets in under 12 months, is it crack that you smoke?

Encinia was never indicted on his crime in spite of video graphic evidence of how he treated and spoke to Bland within the heated interaction including “I will light you up” whilst holding a taser, the full video is online including the conversation between Encinia and Bland, Bland’s phone footage was released 4 years after her death which shows a 39-second clip of her view of arrest.

Following new footage, this has prompted calls for a new investigation into her death.

Bland was pulled over for a minor traffic stop, July 10th the exchange resulted in Bland’s arrest and a charge for assaulting an officer, the arrest was partially recorded on Bland’s dashcam, Bland’s phone and also a bystanders phone.

 Minor as in failing to signal, FAILING TO SIGNAL

Texas authorities and the FBI conducted an investigation into Bland’s death and determined Waller county jail did not follow policies including time checks and ensuring that employees had completed mental health training, but the police/Cops are meant to ‘Protect and Serve’?

*TRIGGER WARNING*

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Are you telling me she isn’t dead in these mugshots? Her skin colour has discoloured, she looked like she had been battered, her head is leaning back and on a sideways tilt as if she was lying down her shoulders? Eyes don’t fully focus when you’re dead, half-open eyes which the lower image signifies means she was dead on the top image, on the lower image they either edited the photo or tampered with her body.

SEAN RIGG

200px-Sean_Rigg_(Brixton)

SAY HIS NAME

         Born: 11th February 1968

Rigg lived in a hostel for people with a forensic mental health history, following a deterioration in mental health, Rigg became uncooperative and aggressive which led to five 999 calls being made within a period of three hours by the hostel staff, the police simply said it wasn’t their issue and that the staff should take it up with their local MP, police eventually responded to calls from members of the public due to ‘strange behaviour’

FOUR police officers gave a chase to Rigg, who was handcuffed and restrained in a face-down position as officers lent on him for eight minutes, 8 whole minutes? Are you seeing how history repeats itself no matter where you’re located in the world? Rigg was arrested for assaulting a police officer, public disorder and ‘theft’ of a passport which was actually his own, Rigg was then placed face down with his legs bent behind him in the caged section of the police van, during the journey to Brixton police station, Riggs mental and physical health was deteriorating & he was extremely unwell, I’ll never in my life forgive these officers,  FOUR officers to one man and to add on top he had mental health issues and they treated him like an animal.

The police LIED to medical examiners on his state, all the officers denied seeing any physical injuries to Rigg, despite the jury seeing several fresh abrasion on his face, and a large bruise on his right shoulder, but the police are meant to ‘Protect & Serve’?

Sean Rigg didn’t utter a single word from the time he got arrested right up until his death, Rigg died in police custody.

SHY KEMMIA PATE

Shy Kemmia Pate

SAY HER NAME

   Born: Unadilla, Georgia
                   Missing since: September 4th 1998

You’ve probably never heard of Shy Kemmia Pate, let alone the full story may be because black girls/woman go missing and get lost amid the flurry of attention that our white counterparts receive instead which is true in a sense for example ‘missing white woman syndrome’ a term used by social scientists and media commentators to refer to coverage especially on television of missing cases involving a young white woman from middle/upper-class backgrounds compared to black women, men of lower social classes.

Stories involving missing children have captivated the public since The 80s when widespread panic over stranger snatching, which struck American families in 1984, children had gone missing before but it was in 1984 that their faces began appearing on milk cartons.

Shy was meant to ride with her older sister to a football game that night, however when it was time to go her older sister couldn’t locate her, the county sheriffs, Georgia bureau of investigations & FBI couldn’t locate shy in the following days, weeks, months and years to commence.

The cops incorrectly told her family that a person has to be missing for 24 hours before they could report Shy as missing, they could’ve started the investigation when they first got alerted on the situation, unfortunately, falsifying information had big consequences for Shy’s family as till this day she still has not been found.

Authorities received the various amount of tip-offs but due to no solid evidence they couldn’t go any further with the investigation, neighbours in the area allowed police to search their homes but still no evidence gained.

Shy was described as an outgoing child who loved skating and purchasing new clothes, she was involved with her families church, authorities believe she was abducted by someone she was familiar with however due to extensive search of her area and her neighbours cooperating no new leads, Shy Kemmia Pate is now 30 years old.

Shy was only 8 years old when she went missing, hardly any media attention just a family who hopes she’ll return home one day.

In 2014, the black and missing foundation reported that 64,000 black woman and girls were missing throughout America.

Black Americans only make up 13% of the US population, however, more than 30% of all missing people were black in 2018, according to the US bureau.

Only 1/5 of black missing cases get covered by the news, however, the rest of them are dropped and down to social media to spread the word to gain large traction.

Black families in America have expressed that their missing loved ones aren’t classed as just ‘missing’ but are more likely to be classed as runaways and that somehow they’re not a focus to the police or media.

An analysis of US census data by the New York Times shows that around 1.6M black men are missing from everyday life due to disproportionate incarceration, early ‘deaths’ more presumably murder and overseas deployment.

STEPHEN LAWRENCE

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SAY HIS NAME

Stephen Lawrence was born in Greenwich on 13th September 1974 to Jamaican parents who emigrated to the UK in the 1960s.

Bought up in Plumstead, South-East London, eldest out of three.

During his teenager years, Lawrence excelled in running, competing in the local Cambridge harriers athletics club and appeared as an extra in Denzel’s Washingtons film ‘For Queen and country’

Stephen Lawrence was a normal teenager, active social life, school work, family commitments and a dream to become an architect, unfortunately, his dream was cut short when he was murdered in a racially provoked attack 22nd April 1993 at the age of 18.

Lawrence was waiting for a bus home with his friend Brookes, when 5 or 6 white guys crossed the road whilst saying ‘what, what nigger’ they all engulfed him, the attackers forced Lawrence to the ground then stabbed him to the depth of 5cm on each side of his body, the right collarbone and left shoulder, Lawrence was losing blood from four major blood vessels.

Lawrence ran 130 yards as his friend Brookes shouted at him to run to escape the attack, Lawrence collapsed and bled to death.

Two young black boys waiting for a bus home minding their business and one gets stabbed multiple times for minding his business, does that make sense?

After the initial investigation, five suspects were arrested but not CONVICTED. A public inquiry into the handling of Stephen Lawrence’s case was held in 1998, leading to the publication of the Macpherson report which has been called ‘one of the most important moments in the modern history of criminal justice in Britain’

It led to profound cultural changes in attitudes towards racism, to the law and police practice.

Now we’re in 2020, I have every right to question this statement because the UK is still racist, this gets shown on multiple occasions within the media, businesses, in public yet the UK government always deny the fact that they aren’t, I find it incredible that some people see their own ideal fairytale world and not a world we’re facing today, 400+ years ago and in my opinion forever, I want to see justice I want peace but in a very real reality we are not going to get that, I don’t believe all white people are racist but unfortunately, the majority that is overclouding the minority that isn’t.

Dobson NorrisJanuary 2012, 18 years after Stephen Lawrence was murdered, Dorris and Nobson were finally convicted of murder after a 6 week trial into the death, both men received ‘life sentences’ Life sentences in the UK is nothing compared to America, Life sentence in the UK is 15 years and it’s exactly what these two got.

11th April 2018, Scotland yard admit they have no new lines of inquiries into the investigation and will consider closing the case.

Stephen Lawrence was a normal teenager except he was BLACK.

Did you know?

Did you know Presidents’ Day (George Washington’s) birthday was created in 1885 to honour the man who enslaved 316 slaves at his Mt Vernon plantation, George Washington’s dentures were made of ivory and human teeth, yes you read that correct he yanked slaves teeth out and got them moulded into a denture and wore them. 

Did you know, Benjamin Franklin attempted to abolish slavery in 1790, he wanted to promote mercy and justice towards the distressed race but it was immediately denounced by pro-slavery and caused a heated debate in both the house & senate. 

Did you know? Most of the White House was built by slaves 

Did you know? The pyramids in Egypt were built by paid labourers, not slaves that were a myth by Herodotus, the Greek historian. 

Did you know? Slavery was not made a statutory offence in the UK until April 6th 2010, if a criminal forced a victim already inside the UK of from the EU into servitude, they could not be prosecuted for trafficking. 

Did you know? There are more people in slavery today than at any other time in history. 27 million people are enslaved today, more than double the total number believed to have been taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade. 

Slavery was abolished in Saudia Arabia & Yemen as recent as 1962, Niger abolished in 1960, Bhutan in 1958, Qatar in 1952 & Kuwait in 1948. 

Did you know around 4 million slaves were taken from Africa to Brazil about 40% of all Americas, some estimate that 4.9M slaves were brought to Brazil from Africa during the period from 1501 to 1866, the most of any country? First sugar, then gold, diamonds, cattle ranching & foodstuff, in 1888 Brazil became the last country in the western world to abolish slavery. 

Did you know, by 1850 American slaves were worth the US $1.3B, one-fifth of the nation’s wealth 

MICHAEL BROWN JR

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SAY HIS NAME

   Born: May 20th 1996
 Ferguson, Missouri
Michael Brown was an ordinary teenager, drank alcohol, smoked marijuana, played video games, active social life his friends & family knew Michael as Big Mike or Mike Mike since was 6’4, despite his height Michael was seen as a gentle giant he shielded himself away from confrontation and used his size to intimidate people from fighting with him, he also embraced Christianity.

On August 9th 2014, 18-year-old Michael Brown was fatally shot by 28-year-old Missouri cop Darren Wilson in the city Ferguson. Brown was accompanied by his 22-year-old friend Dorian Johnson, Brown was left in the street to bleed out for hours without any medical attention which sparked outrage in Ferguson and across America.

Article on Darren Wilson Offers Window on His Life After Ferguson ...

Michael Brown was UNARMED

There was an altercation before Brown was shot, Wilson asked Brown not to walk in the middle of the road, the officer reportedly realised Brown was a robbery suspect and stole Cigarillos from a nearby convenience store.

Wilson claimed Brown was ‘violent’ throughout there encounter, even charging at Wilson even after shots had been fired, however a witness said Brown was trying to flee Wilson it’ll never be perfectly clear what happened that day, Brown was trying to flee from Wilson but eventually surrendered with his hands up.

The grand jury and the US Department of Justice didn’t believe there was a sufficient amount of evidence to convict Wilson.   

The Ferguson Unrest protests and riots began the day after the fatal shooting of Michael Brown beginning on August 10th – August 25th 2014. The Ferguson Riots had 3 waves, Augusts were the first, 24th November – December 2nd 2014 (Darren Wilson not indicted) and lastly August 9th – August 11th 2015 (Anniversary of shooting)

August 2014 a makeshift memorial of flowers & candles that the residents made was put in place where Brown died, an unidentified policeman allowed their dog to urinate on the memorial and police vehicle later crushed the memorial.

Michael Brown memorial hit by car, then rebuilt - Los Angeles Times

And the police want to ask us why they’re not respected?

September 2014 a memorial to Michael Brown was burned to the ground.

November 2015, the body of 20-year-old Deandre Joshua was found inside a parked car within a few blocks of where Michael Brown was killed, initially, the cops found it suspicious then ruled the case a homicide, he had been shot in the head and burned.

The question surrounding this case was “Was Deandre Joshua murdered after testifying in Ferguson?”

The incident happened on the same night the grand jury decision not to indict Darren Wilson.

September 2016, Darren Seals a leader in the Ferguson protests was found shot and killed inside a burning car very similar to Deandre Johnson.

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Edward Crawford known for the iconic photograph of him throwing tear gas canister during the protests, Crawford said ” I didn’t throw a burning can back at police, I threw it out the way of children” Crawford died of self-inflicted gun wounds.

August 2015

August 9th the anniversary of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting, peaceful demonstrations occurred and attendants observed four and half minutes of silence signifying the 4 and half hours Brown was left on the streets.

Michael Brown Memorial Removed

August 2016 on the second anniversary of Michael Brown’s death, mourners decided to hold a protest by blocking a roadway, a vehicle later drove through the protestors hitting one and flinging them into the air, protestors then began to shoot at the fleeing vehicle, the injured protestor was brought to the hospital and the driver cooperated with the cops.

As of March 2019, Ferguson protestors have continued to receive threats to their lives or well being, a number have died under circumstances that seem suspicious, this leads to a continuing of mistrust between the cops and community.

We get ushered around by the police every week, 24 hours a day, police putting their dirty hands on us, a kick to the ribs? A knee on the neck? Uncompromised positions to degrade us like we’re animals, speak down to us like we are any less to them, putting so much force on someone during an arrest you leave them paralysed, that must sound familiar, am I right?  if anyone in the police scene is reading this (opps btw) does that sound familiar to you? Victims doES this force sound familiar to you?

Regarding the police leaving someone paralysed, I present to you:

JULIAN COLE

Julian Cole: Police officers sacked for lying about arrest when 19 ...

SAY HIS NAME

In 2013 Julian Cole was arrested by SIX police officers outside a nightclub in Bedford, England.

*TRIGGER WARNING*

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The police broke his neck, he is now paralysed and suffers from severe brain damage.

The same organisation that is meant to ‘Protect and serve’ does that look like protecting and serving?

No one deserves this, Julian was a student at Bedford University studying Sports Science, the police just tear people’s lives away, strip them of everything they were working towards.

Julian cole was involved in a scuffle outside a nightclub called ‘Elements’ on the 5th May 2013, he was just 19 out on the town with friends but was ejected through a side door, he was refused a refund and kept trying to get back in, staff the called the police at 1:34am 6th May.

During one attempt a bouncer took him down but luckily he stood up, at 1:48am he was taken down to the ground by officers Oates, Kalyan and ross then handcuffed whilst his face was down on the ground?

Hypothetically speaking IF the club just gave him his refund I’m sure none of this would’ve happened, how can you chuck someone out and not expect them to get a refund?

THREE OFFICERS lifted him from the ground and took him to a police station.

PC Ross made a call to the ambulance at 2:02am as reports that Julian wasn’t breathing, 30 minutes later they took Julian to hospital and discovered broken vertebrae.

PC Ross made up her account and said that she could see movement in the legs in an attempt to demonstrate she had taken Julian report of neck pain seriously if someone is unconscious then where did you see leg movement??

There’s so much more to this story but the fact is the police lied and tried to cover up the truth, SIX officers on one man that led Julian being left paralysed all down to a nightclub scuffle which wasn’t the fault of the victim.

5 police officers face charges after an athlete student was left ...

Doesn’t this story sound familiar to you?

OLASENI LEWIS

Police Professional | Olaseni Lewis: Officers cleared of ...

SAY HIS NAME

             Olaseni Lewis died on the 4th September 2010 after being restrained by 11 police officers whilst he was seeking help as a vulnerable voluntary patient at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, Croydon.

Lewis was admitted early in the evening of 31st August 2010 & had been at the hospital for only a few hours before the incident occurred. 

11 officers pinned down a black man who was experiencing mental health issues, he never regained consciousness, so 11 officers took it upon themselves to restrain a man at a mental health hospital. The family claims he was held face down for 40 minutes, doesn’t this story sound a bit dear to previous ones? 

2017, 6 police officers involved in the death of a man subjected to excessive and prolonged restraint at a mental health hospital in London have been cleared of wrongdoing over death.

Who knew it takes 12 weeks to become a police officer, put a police uniform on and becoming part of the biggest gangs that you can just kill people and get cleared off of an entire case. 

Lewis who was 23 died 3 days after an excessive amount of restraint, he had NO HISTORY of violence or mental health he had been taken to the hospital by his parents after an episode of mental ill-health that began over the bank holiday weekend. 

The police tried to lock him in a seclusion room, that’s when his behaviour changed he sustained injuries during this altercation. 

A doctor called the police in assistance to detain Lewis after he attempted to leave, don’t work in an organisation where you know you have to deal with difficult clients if you can’t handle the pressure, instead of Lewis to be receiving care and help he was met with incompetent staff with them being so undertrained they called the police on someone who had 0 histories of mental health. 

ERIC GARNER

What We Know About Eric Garner Death - Business Insider

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July 17th, 2014, Eric Garner was murdered on the streets of New York by a police officer Daniel Pantaleo put him in a chokehold whilst arresting him, chokeholds have been illegal in New York since 1993. Video footage captured by Ramsey Orta of the incident generated widespread national attention and raised questions about the appropriate use of force by law enforcement. 

NYPD suspected Garner of selling single cigarettes without tax stamps, Garner expressed how he was tired of being harassed by the cops, and that he was not selling cigarettes, the officers attempted to arrest Garner as soon as Pantaleo placed his hands on Garner, Garner pulled his arms away, Pantaleo then placed his arm around garners neck and wrestled him to the ground. 

With multiple officers pinning him down, Garner said ‘I can’t breathe’ 11 times whilst lying down on the sidewalk. 

*TRIGGER WARNING*

Ex- NYPD cop who put Eric Garner in a fatal chokehold sues to get ...

December 4th 2014, a Richmond County grand jury decided not to indict Pantaleo. This decision stirred public protests and rallies with charges of police brutality, by December 28th there had been 50 demonstrations had been held nationwide in response to the Garner case. 

July 13th 2015, an out of court settlement was announced in which the city of New York would pay the Garner family 5.9M. 

2019 the US department of justice declined to bring criminal charges against Pantaleo. 

But wasn’t the chokehold made illegal from 1993 in New York? 

Pantaleo was fired on August 19th 2019, more than five years after Garner’s death. 

Ramsey Orta was arrested for taking the video of Eric Gardner which received worldwide attention, he was arrested in 2015 and was  released on 28th May 2020

Are YOU seeing a pattern between each case?

Edson Da Costa

Edson Da Costa: Young father restrained by police died by ... 

SAY HIS NAME

Edson Da Costa was a 25-year-old black Portuguese man who died on 21 June 2017 after being stopped by police in Beckton, the unclear circumstances of his death led to protests. 

Da Costa was put face down in the prone position, with his arms handcuffed behind his back, hit twice and sprayed with CS gas. 

In June 2019 an inquest jury found that da Costa died by misadventure from the consequences of a cardiorespiratory arrest after he placed a plastic bag containing 88 wraps of class A drugs down his throat. 

Rashan Charles

Police officer investigated over death of 20-year-old father ...

SAY HIS NAME

Rashan Charles, a 20-year-old black British man, died on 22nd July 2017 following contact from the metropolitan police in Dalston. 

Charles died after being chased and restrained by a police officer and swallowing a ‘supposed’ package containing caffeine and paracetamol. 

The officer who wore a body can throw Charles to the ground held him down by the neck and tried to reach inside his throat, a member of the public helped the police to further restrain him. 

First of all, if someone is choking you don’t restrain them, and then bring your longhand to stick down their throat, sticking your hand down someone’s throat whilst there’s something lodged in there will actually shove it further down causing said persons to choke. 

Also to the member of the public that tried to ‘help’ the police officer I hope you know that you assisted into murder. 

Charles became ill, was given emergency treatment at the scene and was taken by ambulance to Royal London Hospital where he died later that morning, the object of a package the police officer thought he saw in Charles’s mouth was reportedly recovered at the scene.

Alexis Patterson

ap

SAY HER NAME

Born: April 4th 1995
          Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Seven years old, Alexis resided with her mother (Ayanna) & stepfather (LaRon Bourgeois) in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

May 3rd 2002, LeRon watched Alexis walk towards the playground then to school, he then turned around and walked back to his residence.

Alexis didn’t attend any lessons that day…students reported seeing her crying in the playground before and after school.

She has never been heard from since.

Ayanna and LeRon were not notified of Alexis’s non-attendance until 3pm that day. They initially believed Alexis didn’t attend classes due to an argument they had over Alexis not completing her homework and that she was not allowed to bring in cupcakes the next day as it was her snack day to bring something in.

Alexis was not known to be a runaway, she had perfect attendance prior to the disappearance.

The surrounding areas were searched immediately after Alexis went missing, investigators canvassed Washington park, divers searched the lagoon, nothing came back.

Investigators announced that Alexis Patterson’s case would go from ‘missing child’ to ‘Criminal investigation’ by May 14th.

Alexis father (Kenya Campbell) was imprisoned in Milwaukee at the time of Alexis’s disappearance, he was released 3 days after and cooperated with authorities as well as Ayanna & LeRon.

LeRon has a criminal history as well, however, the investigators announced that they don’t believe either Kenya or LeRon were involved with the disappearance of Alexis.

Ayanna describe LeRon as abusive and threatening towards her, but the case was dropped, a year after Ayanna went missing, in 2003 LeRon failed a polygraph test & was charged for an unrelated crime, he had a domestic with Ayanna as she was trying to leave him for a while, he was ordered to stay away from her.

In September 2002, investigators announced that there was foul play involved, but as of 2020 Alexis Patterson is still missing, she would be 25 now, someone out there knows something, a scar under her right eye, a bump on her left pinky finger.

Someone out there knows something.

Kenneka Jenkins

Commentary: Kenneka Jenkins case was a nightmare for family but it ...

SAY HER NAME

Anyone else remembers seeing this on twitter? But like you saw it on twitter first before any news headline, yeah? Because that was me too.

It’s funny all these stories about the black community that deserve to be on the news yet get dusted numerous amount of times under the carpet like we have to come on social media to find out what else is happening in the world, I’m a full believer in believing the news is controlled, the media definitely show us what they want us to see, but in reality, I want to see every last nitty-gritty detail, but nope I have to go onto Twitter to see who’s been murdered now by the police, who’s case is being classed as a suicide instead of a murder in a communal area with apparently no CCTV? No witnesses? Hung from a tree? A black man? Hung from a tree? Lynched even? I don’t believe it. 

I have to go on Instagram, to find out another person in my community has been choked to death? By seeing a constant viral video but if I turn on channel 4 news, you guessed it, no sign of said story on my local operator. 

A girl climbed into a freezer? And there was no CCTV? 

*TRIGGER WARNING*

Kenneka Jenkins was celebrating with friends at a party that took place at Crowne Plaza room 926 Chicago, the party started at 11:30pm September 8th 2017. 

An acquaintance who arrived at the party noticed Jenkins swaying back & forth as she embraced him in a hug, several witnesses reported Jenkins of drinking cognac but denied her doing any marijuana or any other drugs. Another witness reported that Jenkins wasn’t acting her usual self, she would dance a little then go to sit down and appeared sad. Jenkins was briefly seen walking around the hotel, camera footage showed of Jenkins staggering near the front desk at 3:20am. 

At 4:20 Jenkins friends contacted Teresa Martin who turned up at the hotel at 5:30am, banging on doors from the top floor to bottom, hotel employee rang 911 due to complaints, hotel management, in addition, said they could not provide video footage from the night before until someone reported Jenkins missing to the police, who officially reported her missing to hotel management at 1:15pm Saturday. The first check of camera footage at 10pm, police spotted footage of Jenkins stumbling through the hotel, her whereabouts remained unknown…until they found her in the hotel freezer pronounced dead at 12:48am Sunday. 

Kenneka Jenkins was found lying face down on her side, with one shoe off, no sign of trauma just a small cut on her foot. The temperature inside was 1° approximately 2 hours after the doors had been left open. 

The investigation of this case is very unnerving. 

The freezer was described as a walk-in freezer, it was also on in an unused kitchen, lights were off in both chambers. 

Why was the freezer on? And why was it on in unused kitchen space? 

Motion detecting cameras showed Jenkins staggering through the hotel drunk apparently intoxicated, eventually arriving at the kitchen, but the freezer door had no CCTV footage. 

Jenkins friends story inconsistencies kept on changing, her ‘friends’ left her alone in a hotel to go back and retrieve a phone from one of the hotel rooms, her friends left her, if her friends didn’t leave her it would be at a very high percentage that this ‘accident’ wouldn’t have happened if the camera was above the freezer door and inside the freezer would the investigation still be open? Would there of been more ‘people of interest’ it’s a hotel, you’re telling me no one saw her? Why is their not CCTV in every inch of that hotel? Is someone hiding something? So many avenues to this case, should’ve, could’ve, would’ve but the police closed the case on October 20th 2017, 42 days that’s how brief the case was, a 19-year-old girl goes missing at a hotel, she’s found in a freezer? And that’s how short the case was, the authorities can do more and should do more!

AHMAUD ARBERY

1029

SAY HIS NAME

February 23rd, Ahmaud Arbery an unarmed 25-year-old African American black man fatally shot whilst jogging, Arbery had been pursued and confronted by two white residents Travis McMichael & his father Gregory who was armed and driving a pickup truck, a satila shores resident recorded the murder known as William Bryan. 

Neither the son nor father were arrested or charged with a crime until late May, even though Gregory ADMITTED to the police that Travis was responsible for the crime, the truth was right there and the authorities denied it.

Ahmaud Arbery was hit with a truck before he died, and his killer ...

This story was spoken about internationally

The death and events have sparked debates concerning lack of racial equality, doesn’t this story sound familiar to one from across the pond? 

After an article put out by the New York Times, the release of the video of the February confrontation that was leaked on 5th May & increased attention from lawmakers, celebrities, civil rights activists, Georgia bureau of investigations finally stepped in. 

Arbery can be seen running down the street when he comes across a truck parked in the middle of the street, a white man is standing beside the driver’s door brandishing a firearm, Arbery attempts to go around but struggled, moments later gunshots are fired and Arbery falls to his knees. 

Since the video leaked, national political figures demanded justice for Ahmaud Arbery, the likes of Joe Biden, Lebron James & Ava Duvernay, many compared Arbery’s death to Trayvon Martin, Botham Jean, maybe even Stephen Lawrence. 

On June 24th, they indicted the Mcmichaels & Bryan on nine counts each, including, Felony Murder, Malice Murder, aggregated assault, false imprisonment, and criminal attempt to commit imprisonment, 74 days it took for the Mcmichaels to be arrested and charged. 

BREONA TAYLOR

Breonna-Taylor-2-Cropped-1920x1080

SAY HER NAME

Every day that passes by, every week, every month, every year, a black person has been shot and killed by the authorities, remember‘ To protect & Serve’ Breonna Taylor went to sleep one night and didn’t wake up the next day due to police storming her apartment and shooting her 8 times. 

Attorneys for Breonna Taylor's family claim officers involved in ...

Breonna Taylor 26-year-old African American emergency medical technician was fatally shot by Louisville police department.

March 13th 2020, plainclothes cops entered Taylor’s apartment with the ‘no-knock search warrant’ Gunfire was exchanged between Kenneth Walker (Breonna’s boyfriend) & the cops, Walker believed that the officers were intruders, over 20 shots fired and Breonna received 8 of them. 

Police stated that they announced themselves before entering the apartment & knocking several times, yet they had a no-knock search warrant? Neighbours and Taylor’s family dispute this 

The police were searching for drugs at the apartment, even though the drug search was unrelated to the Taylors, it was relatable to two offenders down the street. 

The case was never about Breonna Taylor, yet they still raided her apartment? They lied on their statements making it out to the public that they did announce themselves, yet no one else heard this? No neighbours heard anything, yet you forced your way into their apartment gone midnight? 

This case made international news headlines, and is still strong today because we want answers, justice and most of all equality! 

You shoot someone 8 times and doesn’t think her family want justice, or her community wants justice? Never mistake the black community as any lesser than white counterparts because we can put up a fight and we will get justice for Breonna Taylor 

This year Breonna celebrated her birthday in heaven when she should’ve been on earth living her moment, starting a new age, enjoying with family and just living and being free, but instead, the justice system never gives our community the easy road to justice, we are fighting, showing emotion, protesting all in the right to be equal, why can cops kill us but when it’s time for us to stand up and fight back we are doing too much? SWAT teams come out, rubber bullets flying into crowds of people, tear gas being thrown at such close proximity? Police cars being ploughed through 100s of peaceful protesters? 

Here's where Breonna Taylor's case stands now - CNN

All lives don’t matter until black lives matter 

“I’m not a racist but” 

“My kid’s dad is black, and my child is mixed so I can’t be racist”

“I have black friends so I can’t be a racist” 

There’s no counterproductive argument to racism, racism isn’t an opinion it’s just facts.

There’s no ‘but’ 

Because it’ll always be BUT your racist

Racism is taught, racism is engrained into toxic minds who only see one fit of race and it isn’t black and it certainly isn’t an ethnic minority. 

You can ask a racist why they’re racist and the response is very much down to class, where they compare yourselves to them, they don’t see us as equal. 

In 2019 there were only 27 days of 2019 where police in the USA did not kill someone, yet people are against defunding the police? 

Police have killed 576 people in the USA in 2020 regarding I’m typing this (27th June 22:03) this figure could change by the time you’ll read this. 

Black people are 3 times more likely to be killed by the police than their white counterparts. 

99% of police killings by police between 2013 to 2019 have not resulted in officers being charged in the crime. 

Let me repeat myself in a chart format so everyone understands in reading format and seeing format, there is no accountability and that is one problem within many: 

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GEORGE FLOYD

skynews-george-floyd-killed-by-police_5001291

SAY HIS NAME

May 25th 2020, George Floyd a black African American, 46 years old was restrained & arrested in the streets of Minneapolis, Minnesota over suspicions of using a counterfeit $20 bill. Derek Chauvin a white police officer knelt on Floyd’s neck for 8 minutes, whilst Floyd was handcuffed and lying face down repeatedly saying ‘ I can’t breathe’ Officers J. Alexander Kueng & Thomas Lane further restrained Floyd whilst another officer Tou Thao prevented bystanders from intervening. 

George Floyd: All four former Minneapolis Police officers involved ...

During the final 3 minutes, Floyd was motionless & had no pulse, Chauvin didn’t remove his knee until medics instructed him too even though onlookers pleaded with him he ignored and continued. 

Every single black live murdered, lynched, shot, they all had a life before death, death took away, each and every person mentioned here all have families, aspirations, goals, but the sheer hatred of white counterparts don’t let some of us see so far ahead in life. 

George Floyds daughter will have to grow up without a dad, a mother can’t teach their child everything, a mother can’t have the same bond a father can with their child, a bond is now shattered over a counterfeit bill, does that mean his life was not valued at all or it was valued to a $20 bill? 

Whilst George Floyd’s death is extremely sad, we must thank a brave onlooker who recorded the whole incident, Darnella Frazier 17 years old, she received online hate as trolls said why didn’t she step in to help

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*TRIGGER WARNING*

Minneapolis cop charged in George Floyd death – The Bay Observer

8 whole minutes.

(16/06/2020)

Police in the USA killed 120 people since George Floyd.

20 days, 120 lives

Every day I am reminded that the ‘UK isn’t racist’ but every time I hear those very words it’s always from someone that isn’t of my complexion let alone part of my community, I always wonder how backwards you must be to say a country isn’t racist when it’s displayed every day, I hear white people call other white people ‘niggers’ ?? it doesn’t even make sense, some white people know they’re racist though because they’ll be around a black person and be stuttering to say nigga but earlier on in the day when you were around your own people I’m sure it would be rolling off of their tongue easily.

The Media shows racism every day

Football games shows racism every match

The government show racism every second that they can

  • Boris Johnson has called gay men ‘Bum boys’ & compared Muslim woman to letterboxes
  • Boris Johnson labelled black Africans ‘piccaninnies’ with ‘Watermelon smiles’
  • Boris Johson also suggested that Malaysian women only go to university ‘to find men to marry’
  • Boris Johnson has recently suggested that he understood the anger black people felt in the UK’s history
  • In 2002 a column was written Boris said “The problem is not that we were once in charge, the problem is that we aren’t anymore

Must I go on?

And this is some people’s favourite prime minster?

Racist, Homophobic?

I have the source if anyone would like to come forward and tell me the UK isn’t racist, I have time.

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How many more of us have to be murdered before they realise we matter as well?

Do they even see us as people or just a number to the system?

Between 2013-2019, police in the United States have killed 7,666 black people.

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This country & USA and the citizens take everything as a joke

Breathing is such a privilege that our white counterparts think it’s clearly a joke.

ee5db7e7-92a8-4d7b-a178-57a883305fc8b65fd053-c9ed-4ee4-b787-c5a65dd4fc5cd57e8718-e063-4293-a011-dff6353d2afc

If racism doesn’t exist, then what’s the difference between these 3 images?

d00f5216-be26-4cee-8d10-6edcbc5ad4ff805557f8-93d8-4577-926c-656f7943257c20a64bb2-e2e8-4b9e-9147-a6cd7fe90f60a71efeff-2c6b-4c50-bdab-6f57a228acf1feca45cf-0d3c-409e-a9fb-1638dc743b4fcc1fd503-e8bb-4d4f-853e-4f0578b78ac31ec6270e-03fe-4129-9410-0e5c0d71e4a32866fc83-caf8-4080-abc5-03ef6f82432e

If racism doesn’t exist, then I wouldn’t need to fight for justice every day for these people, if racism didn’t exist then I wouldn’t need to attend protests if racism doesn’t exist then all these people would still be existing and living, but the colour of our skin gives us our own life expectancy and it’s a short-haul for some of us.

Apologies if my blog is everywhere, but this is one of the hardest blogs I’ve ever had to write, there are so many names to say, so many stories about each person, the stories make them different, but the bottom line is everyone mentioned in this blog victim wise is black, and the instigators, interrogators and murderers are white.

I have mentioned as much as I can here but feel free to read my other blogs that are related to this one:

Access Denied

Colourism, Racism & Discrimination

Since George Floyd died and even before there were so many police brutalities mainly in America compared to the UK, this happens in the UK as well everyone likes to think because the UK hasn’t legalised guns that we are any different, America is 40 times the size of the UK that is the difference, but the UK has a fair share of police brutalities, I’m also annoyed at how the government truly believe that the UK isn’t racist, Go on any post regarding black people good/bad, you will see the racists alive and kicking at 7am, we have the EDL led by Tommy Robinson a far-right Islamophobic, he hates Muslims, he hates anyone that doesn’t agree with his terms and conditions about them, people in the EDL group have even called the group racist yet apparently the UK isn’t racist? Some people love to see racism as a competition, like ‘America is more racist than the UK’ ?? Since when did racism become a competition? It doesn’t matter where or which country is more racist the bottom line is RACISM has no place in society, I haven’t included everything I could possibly want in this blog, however, I added what I thought stood a good chance, I’m not google the rest of what I’ve missed is on the internet free of charge. 

I’ve gone past the stage of angry, I’ve gone past the stage of hurting because I’ve seen everything I never thought I’d encounter, I just want JUSTICE, EQUALITY & FREEDOM. 

I want justice and peace for everyone but most importantly my community first, the injustices that we have endured from 1619 all the way up until 2020, the injustices our ancestors were facing during slavery, being raped by the white man, being caned by the white man, being whipped whilst out picking cotton, Black Friday? Buying slaves for cheaper to assist other slaver traders in aid during the winter months? Now we’ve adopted Black Friday into our society where shopping is cheaper, we are buying into a now holiday tradition but it originally dates back to slavery. We can’t forget the white women that gave their children to slaves so their babies could eat and having no breast milk left for their own, the wickedness kissing my teeth as I typed that.

We are now in 2020, slavery still exists it might of been abolished but it’s still there in the shadows, we still face racism, discrimination, colourism but instead of slavery we get shot, we get kneeled on, we get choked, stop and searched, treated like animals, we just face accusations from Karen’s, it’s always the Karen ladies that find an acting degree within 2 seconds, so over reactive, everyday ‘get out my country’ but my country says England so where should I go? Always hear ‘but the uk ain’t that racist to America’ Racism is racism, no matter which way you put it, racism ain’t a competition of which country gets more, the bottom line is racism is wrong. 

I’m judged by the colour of my skin isn’t that just weird? If I could change my colour I wouldn’t, I face injustices because of my skin.

I’ve stopped discussing  racism with people who don’t understand, or people who don’t see colour or people who tell me ‘I’m not racist but’ it’s not me you’ll try and justify racism too,  don’t classify me as ‘blacks’ or say ‘half casts’ to me because what is that? You can’t call me a nigga and justify that, you can’t kill a member of my family by restraint and justify that, you can’t shoot someone 8 times and justify that, you can’t shoot someone 40 times and justify that, why is someone receiving 8 shots to the chest, you don’t think they’re dead after the 2nd? I’ve stopped discussing topics with people who believe every wrong action is justifiable.

Someone said to me ‘The horses that got attacked at the London riots by those people is disgusting, how can people attack animals?’ HOW CAN PEOPLE HATE SOMEONE FOR THE COLOUR OF THEIR SKIN? When the grand nationals are on television every year, I don’t hear no complaints about the horses that are injured and die there but apparently if it’s black people fighting for justice it’s wrong, the police brought a horse with prosthetic legs to the protest, you don’t think the animal has suffered enough? Who brings horses to protests, it was a protest not a riot by the way,

Who brings horses to protests, horses have been attacked before so why are the police not learning their lessons? A horse was let loose in London during the riots and injured a young black woman, don’t bring an animal to a protest if you can’t control them, including dogs police officers know exactly how to rile a dog to make it further attack you.

Racism isn’t a point of view, racism is taught from early, it’s engrained.

I don’t have time to unteach racism, why should I stress myself out on teaching you why racism is wrong?

You cannot educate someone who doesn’t have the willingness to learn.

‘Black on black’ crime is a clever concept purely used to weaponise & demonise one race, all other races are free to commit because white on white crime doesn’t exist clearly, black on black crime does not exist it was construed to highlight the black communities wrong doings

“I don’t see colour but black on black crime exists”

Funny how these people don’t see colour then next thing you know they’ve picked up an eye prescription and can all of a sudden see black on black crime.

Isn’t it funny how they’ve called each and everyone on these lynchings ‘suicide’ the authorities are quick to class it as something else to just close the case, so you’re telling me no one saw these people commit suicide from a tree in a communal area at night? No CCTV footage? Or footage not available to the public? I always question the answers.

OR

Kendrick Johnson found rolled up in a gym mat decapitated with his organs missing, the police ruled that as suicide? Do you know how dense you have to be to believe that was suicide?

Justice for Kendrick Johnson

Peppered spray to death? Is that justifiable behaviour? 

Justice for Jamal Edwards

Killed by police in front of his 4 year daughter and girlfriend, whilst reaching for his ID, is that justifiable?

Justice for Philandro Castillo

Protesting peacefully in downtown Omaha and murdered by white supremacists?

Justice for James Scurlocks

It’s not just the police killing us, it’s white doctors ignoring are cries of pain and telling us to go home and focus on something else, it’s white judges issuing out life sentences, it’s white citizens being able to freely kill us on the street.

America have a gun/accountability problem

England have an accountability problem

The exact same happens in the UK, we just don’t have a gun problem.

Say their names

Jonathan Ferrell
Brandon Webber
Christoper Kassa

If you can’t stand a few days of protests, you’d hate 400+ years of systemic discrimination and oppression.

I’m black I don’t have privilege, I don’t get equal opportunities, I don’t get the same life expectancy on this earth opposed to my white counterparts, I always got told “you’ll have to work 10x harder” Doctors treat my body as like it’s a game of operation, they don’t believe I’m sick, they don’t believe my pain.

I don’t believe all white people are racist but it’s the minority that outshines the majority that isn’t.

It’s white people who have made my life harder and made my communities life unbearable to live, we just want equality, justice and freedom.

Until we get that ‘NO JUSTICE NO PEACE’

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JUSTICE FOR SHUKRI ABDI 

JUSTICE FOR BELLY MUJINGA 

JUSTICE FOR MARK DUGGAN

JUSTICE FOR BREONNA TAYLOR

JUSTICE FOR GEORGE FLOYD

JUSTICE FOR TAMIR RICE 

JUSTICE FOR ELIJAH McCLAIN

JUSTICE FOR SIMEON FRANCIS 

JUSTICE FOR JANET WILSON

JUSTICE FOR OLUWATOYIN SALAU

JUSTICE FOR DAMIOLA TAYLOR

JUSTICE FOR ERROL GRAHAM

JUSTICE FOR TAMLA HORSFORD

JUSTICE FOR AIYANA JONES

JUSTICE FOR KALIEF BROWDER

JUSTICE FOR EVERYONE NOT MENTIONED.

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COLOURISM, RACISM & DISCRIMINATION

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You would’ve thought in 2018 the whole ‘Light skinned vs dark skinned’ argument would’ve calmed down not died out just calmed down a tad, but nope it continues with full force every day, Twitter is where I see everything and I’ve seen the same topic upon my TL for a solid two months, being engulfed by black twitter with the same debate/argument every day gets extremely tiring, I was doing Twitter fingers for about a month to get my point across but getting your point across on such a large scale social site is near enough impossible, my thought process is if I can’t get my opinion out why not listen to others so that’s exactly what I did I held two separate polls called ‘Colourism question thread‘ & ‘Colourism question thread part 2‘ The first one I did it didn’t do too well on votes but I realised I was very uninclusive to other races which weren’t fair I really only did questions for the black community when colourism really involves more races than the black community, kindly enough a girl named @yazzwilson kindly messaged me and we were talking on whatsapp for days about colourism and honestly she opened my mind to things I never knew about and she helped me come up with part two of the thread. Part two did so much better than part one but really I involved everyone this time and the number of votes the questions received was crazy! From part one through to part two I received over 400 replies I really tried to reply to everyone but I swear my fingers were literally about to drop off and it’s not like I reply to someone and the conversation is done I had to constantly go to and fro, listen you twitter famous people I don’t know how you do it.

Hearing different opinions and for the person to then further explain themselves is what I need, I don’t really like to take sides too often if my mindset was how it was two years ago I would’ve been having arguments for a month, but I’ve learnt to accept that everyone is different and their thought processes are also different, this world was never meant to be perfect. There were a few views I saw and I was thinking in the back of my mind ‘how the fuck can you be so backwards’ but hey their mind is certainly not mine and vice Versa.

There were a few people I really had to raise my uneven eyebrows at, I had a fair few people in my mentions stating ‘facts’ that were clearly their own opinions, I’m sorry but your opinions are not facts and if that’s what you think then I’m sorry for your mindset because that is just the worst thing ever, I really asked some people for evidence on where is this a fact and they came back with nothing.

I have many subtopics that I want to talk on and shed light on, some are good exposure and some not too good but hey this is a touchy topic and life is not a bed of roses.

But first let me talk about myself and my own personal experiences, how I got shaped for my own life.

My Personal Experiences 

While I was growing up I lived in two separate locations one of them being London and the other one in a town not too far from London probably about 45 mins away, your probably thinking how does that even work? Well both of my parents were born and bred in London, my mum moved out of London before I was born but we also had a family house that was still there, the biggest reason was London is too bloody expensive everytime you breathe money gets deducted out of your account, but we always went back forth between two locations and my dad never moved out of London so I grew up around West London & North West London I know them equally well as each other. I wasn’t born there I was born in the town unfortunately but this has shaped who I am today. 

Town life as a black girl, there is a small minority of black people here, the area I live in is profoundly white, on my street, there is just one other black family, and in my area probably about 5-10 black families, my area I mean my side of the town because believe it or not towns do have different sections. 

It’s only when I go on nights out in town which is hardly ever, is that I see more black people, but it’s only from the past few years I’ve seen more blacks since they built a university campus here.

All my friends from around here are white, in my school, I had a few black friends but switching to city life all my friends are black. Weird right?

But I have been teased a lot by black people because I have friends who are white or any other skin tone, and it’s really weird like I never grew up with that mindset, no one can ever hinder my thought process of who I choose to spend my time with, like their my friends, some of these people I’ve grown up with, but it bothered me that my own race people who shout about diversity all day every day and they spun around and laughed at me.

I have white family, mixed raced cousins, like I shall never understand the mindset that people possess of having different skin tone friends. I’ve generally posted on my snapchat of my older mixed cousins and clearly stating their my cousins and people will still come back and ask ‘who are they, are they your family‘ like I don’t know if some people are generally dumb, but its big 2018 diversity is coming into families it’s been in families for a very long time.

Interracial Relationships

“They are here to stay”

Let’s get one thing straight, interracial doesn’t mean just black and white, it can be anything, it seems to centre on just two races, please there are more races than just those two. 

It doesn’t just centre on sex, there are some people that literally get with dark-skinned men or women to get ‘mixed raced’ children, which I find sick and it has to be a mental illness for you wanting to breed someone for the outcome of mixed children. 

Are Asian girls more submissive? Are black girls freakier? Who has the bigger penis latina men or black men? All these perpetuate stereotypes and turn all of these ideas into experiments. We aren’t bloody science experiments, we are human love who you want for who they are, not for anything else.

There’s a fine line between admiration and fetishization, being seen as a fetish other than a person is disgusting like interracial doesn’t mean a better life. Admire other races as they have a lot to offer.

For the love of God just because someone dates outside of their race it doesn’t mean they hate the people, like allow people to have a preference, have your preference and keep it moving don’t have a preference then knock the people in your own race down.

I saw a horrendous tweet on just this on the 22nd February 2018, honestly, I was horrified, dishearted and angry.

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The beauty to come from interracial relationships and all relationships is that you learn you become open-minded to learn about the other person, their beliefs, mindset, goals, background and a whole different perspective for you. 

I never really deeped the fact that people have been racist let alone a colourist towards me until I did both of those threads, when the threads were done and I was scrolling back through the replies I kept on saying to myself ‘that’s happened to me before’ or ‘ I never knew that was happening on my own doorstep’ As I was growing up in school from year 7 straight through to year 11 I never even knew what I was experiencing maybe because I got into so much trouble in them years everything must’ve gone up and over my head.

I watched one movie called Holes while I was in year 9/10/11 I have no idea, I don’t even know when I finished school. 

Besides that I loved this film so much I even begged my mum to buy me the book, I got it if you’ve never seen the movie I suggest you watch it. 

There was one scene that really captured me which was about interracial relationships, in the book Holes Sam a black man falls in love with Kate a white woman, in that time it was still unheard of, long story short Sam got killed.

 

There were times in school where I would get picked on as a student by teachers and me being a bad child in school had nothing to do with it, there was one time I was in my school main playground minding my business chatting with my friends and I literally turned around to go to the canteen to grab food I was on my way there and a teacher told me to come to her so me being me I rolled my eyes and went over, she started hassling me over my skirt being to ‘short’ I can’t lie it was short but that’s how I felt comfortable and this skirt wasn’t one of those that it would look good being long, in school you follow the fashion ok, so anyways next thing you know I was being ushered off to her office and when I got there all I was hearing was “don’t you feel uncomfortable like that” but my argument back was there was plenty of other girls that had their skirts way shorter than mine to the point if they bent over you would see their vaginas I’m not kidding, I basically got sent home to change, but the point is there were white/mixed girls walking past us while I was out getting lectured about my skirt, honestly I was so mad I went home got changed stayed home for like 2 hours and came back half way into the last lesson.

There was another thing I hated about school was when people touched my hair, I HATE when my hair gets touched and white people especially would say “ew whys your hair so greasy/creamy” um maybe just maybe so it stays moisturised as a black girl having our type of hair is a pain finding a hairstyle, no one in my school had wigs it was either natural, weave or braids. After my hair kept on getting touched by disgusting bacterial invested hands I had to get braids to reduce all the consistent touching. I’m pretty sure my school went through a phase about haircuts and hairstyles like no wacky colours or haircuts, I really had to have regular shmegular black hair while white/light skinned were allowed any hair colour or haircut possible, it was literally ridiculous.

I’ll have to say personally I don’t think I went to one of those schools where there that much more whites than blacks it certainly wasn’t even, all the races that attended pretty much balanced out the equation, if it was teachers compared on skin tone there was certainly way more whites than blacks actually there was like 5 black teachers, but in opinion it didn’t bother me at all who educated me, it was just the way they’d deal with certain situations.

There were many times where I should’ve been kicked out but having the right people on your side helped me a whole lot more, I was one of those kids where if anyone did anything wrong I’d automatically reply “is it because I’m black?” That one sentence will have people flustered because there is no comeback.

But I’m grown now and still growing, and I still have a lot more to learn.

Recently (I lied) about two years ago I went to Spain on my first holiday alone no parents just three of my friends, when I tell you I’m laid back I’m so laid back, one of my friends who shan’t be named kept on noticing stuff that would fly over my head, one time we were walking to the beach and I kid you not there was a swatchsticka on the floor fully spray painted, and then on the way back it was gone, can’t lie I didn’t even see it I was too busy enjoying myself, we also took a few days to go to the town and my friend was like these people are racist I fully didn’t know what she was talking about but when we got back she was like “People were staring at us” I didn’t know how to take it I was really not bothered at all like I fully don’t know what’s wrong me like I’m the most unbothered person ever.

I would just like to say that’s the end of my personal stories but I’ll probably be doing up Esther (BkchatLDN) and relating back to any and everything while I’m talking on subtopics.

Black skin vs Light skin, the number of tweets I saw on this one topic please I can’t some of you lot are bitter.

But one thing I can’t seem to get my head around is “You’re attractive as a black girl” what does this mean I’ve heard it too many times where someone has said it to me and honestly I was spinning. I’ve been reciting the same line in my head for months and I just can’t figure it out I’ve heard that for no other race, personally I think when people say that, they must think us black girls are bottom of the barrel within the human race because if we go back to slavery days our ancestors got treated like shit on the bottom of these slave masters shoes, I will never seem to understand actually I don’t think there is a possible explanation of why there is so much hate on the black/darker skin tones, it’s really a skin tone people act like we chose, like colour selection is a thing. Every day I’m disheartened but more importantly, I end up getting desensitised because where is the end for all of this?

Stefflon Don

We all know what got the Twitter timeline going a few weeks ago and that was the tweet that got retweeted by somebody on the TL which brought a tweet back from 2013 and into 2018.

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At first, I was thinking “this bitch”, but I thought about it and compared it to one of the questions in my thread, some of you who voted probably are dark skinned so what Stefflon Don said isn’t entirely false.

“I just want to be lighter” I’m convinced at least a few dark skinned girls must’ve voted this option because what other skin tones would want to go lighter???

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This doesn’t mean I agree with what Stefflon Don did at all because it was a serious low blow she and her PR team should’ve been smarter and removed this tweet years ago but tweets can also resurface.

She didn’t handle this situation correctly at all telling people to suck their mums, what sort of role model?

But Stefflon Don, what were you doing at 21?

Hair

Our pride and joy

My hair is honestly my pride and joy I’m either natural or has braids, personally, I don’t like weave or wig at all I’ve tried them both once and honestly never again.

But for you other girls that wear weave or wig you continue to slay but also please let your natural hair rest.

I’m sure I can speak for a majority of black girls that we do not like getting our hair touched at all, the blood, sweat and tears that go into looking after it, finding certified hair vendors, hairdressers, products, tying it up every night.

Hairdressers for me, I don’t let anyone do my hair I only go to two women and they really do God’s work.

Hair products honestly rip holes through my bank account like it’s so expensive, I can’t shop in regular shmegular boot’s or Superdrug for hair products, I have to go to Black/Asian owned businesses, they’re the only shops that will sell the products I need.

Experimenting with black hair it can really go two ways very well or extremely bad, a few years back I tried to relax my hair God forbid the outcome the hairdresser made my hair drop out, it actually took a good 3 years for parts of my hair to grow back, the growth is what kills me it takes such a long time, that’s why I hate my hair being touched.

We’re always fighting our hair edges, sometimes I want a slick ponytail or even a cute bun, but the hairs along my hairline do not allow that to happen at all, it’s a constant battle.

Wash Day, this is actually war three hours to comb out my hair, wash, condition & shampoo about 1/2 times, add in leave in conditioner let the conditioner soak into my hair for a good hour, separate my hair into four sections to then comb it out again! ( I hardly blow dry my hair) once its all combed through I proceed to straighten it either with a straightening brush as these aren’t particularly hot and heat damage is a killer or actual straighteners (once in a blue moon).

My point is I’ve received aggro in particular from white girls saying how their hair is difficult to deal with, honestly, it’s nothing compared to what us black or even mixed girls have to deal with.

The modelling industry (I wrote about this briefly in my last blog) but the model world we’d open magazines, watch adverts on televisions/billboards, see highlights from fashion weeks and still see a high number of lighter skinned people fulfilling these jobs when we also have darker skinned models that wanted the same dream to break out within the industry as well.

As a black girl, I know what colours work well with my skin tone and last year orange and yellow was popping on my skin tone, on lighter tones no offence but it defiantly didn’t do there skin any justice. The fashion world want to keep up with trends but are unexclusive on who they involve, first we were dealing with how you have to look a certain way, weight issues but we’ve always been dealing with skin tone and it’s just blatant racism, black people hardly ever feature on front covers of major magazine covers. Black model Jourdan Dunn told The Guardian back in 2013 that ” people in the industry say if you have a black face on the cover of a magazine it won’t sell.”

Recently I literally just learnt how bad the colourism problems were in Asia and the people that were quote tweeting saying how Asia was the worst place to come across anything to do with the colour I was like”Yeah whatever” but little did I know you lot was actually right. From what I’ve heard I now understand I know black people that have gone to China and they’d constantly get stared at and prodded by Chinese people, what’s that about? But you know what doesn’t surprise me as China are quite limited as they’re a communist country.

But first, let me talk about Vogue India and why they cast Kendall Jenner instead of an actual Indian model, it actually made no sense it was nonsense, it spun me even more that Vogue India did that, not Vogue New York, can’t lie but that sounds like self-hate, how can you not cast someone from your own country and as a 10 year anniversary to your magazine that’s what you wanted to do, completely flabbergasted. Kendall Jenner, I respected her but she really accepted this job, she ACCEPTED THE JOB, her manager let her accept the job as in Kris Jenner you let her accept it, Kendall is 100% American nothing else, how can you go so wrong with something so simple. Vogue really thought they were not going to receive heavy backlash, Kendall thought, bitch you thought

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Update: 04/03/18

Someone, please tell me why I’m seeing this family again with Vogue India, it’s like the backlash last time was not enough, Kim Kardashian is American with Armenian heritage, did anyone see me mention anything to do with Indian heritage? No neither did I, I can’t figure out why they keep taking jobs because they damn well know they’ll get done for cultural appropriation, and better yet Vogue India switched off their comments on all of Kim’s photo’s because they know as well what they’re doing, these people make me so enraged. 

Kim Kardashian looks stunning in all these photo’s but girl this is not your culture at all, you’re American Armenian, there’s no Vogue in Armenia go create it there and model for them, you celebrities cry when you get backlash as if you didn’t create it yourself.

Vogue India you lot are dumb and disgustingly stupid, your whole magazine doesn’t even represent India, it represents everywhere but India, you hire stylists that will happily play dress up with American models and dress them up, you have a whole country of models to pick from yet you play pick n mix with the rest of the world. Get a grip.

The women and men still striding down the runways are all still profoundly white, diversity isn’t a trend it’s certainly here to stay forever. Many models have been rejected because of skin colour or apparently “we have too many black girls”. Every race has different features, why on earth would you not want new unique features instead everyone is still looking at the same blonde haired blue eyes or brunettes.

Change it up

Models

Duckie Thot is Sudanese-Australian and was a runner-up on Australia’s next top model and is now making her way to be an international model. Duckie Thot revealed that she struggled to get her coins down under and decided to relocate to New York City, she was also worried about being in a country that didn’t promote black models.

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Shaun Ross is of African-American descent and was born in the Bronx, as Ross was growing up he received a lot of discrimination as he was albino, he was bullied for years and called names such as ‘powder’ ‘white-out’ and ‘Casper’. Ross was discovered on YouTube and switched over to the fashion Industry when he was just 16 years old. Before modelling Ross was a dancer and appeared in music videos like ‘Pretty Hurts’ ‘Party’ by Beyoncé and a few more.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

Joel Mignott is a 19-year-old model &  an aspiring DJ originally from Leeds. Signed to AMCK, Joel has travelled the world with his job & modelled for names such as Viviene Westwood, Adidas and Diesel. Joel has experienced setbacks within his career as people always wonders what race he is, Joel finds the issues of where to fall in.

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Destiny Owusu is Virginia born and of Ghanian descent, Owusu first started her modelling career at 22 years old. Owusu has experienced many setbacks being a black model, she stated “We have to work 10 times harder, because with agencies as long as they have that one token black girl, that’s all they want.” Owusu also said that if she could change one thing in the industry it would be diversity. Owusu’s African beauty & melanin movement has inspired many others to feel comfortable in the skin they’re in, she created the hashtag #isyourmelaninonfleek she has paved the way to becoming influential with no representation. 

Destiny

 

Khoudia Diop is Senegalese, Diop was teased as a child because of her dark skin but after moving to Paris at age 15, she was approached consistently with the suggestion she’d be a supermodel. In 2016 Diop moved to New York as was featured in the ‘Coloured girls project’ this led to Diop becoming Instagram famous and appeared in advertising for French cosmetics brand ‘Makeup forever’.

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Ashely Chew is 25 and the brain behind the movement #blackmodelsmatter, Chew is a model, activist and fashion & arts passionate, who fights every day for her rights. Chew was asked if she had ever been rejected from a casting her simple reply was “I’m lighter toned with green eyes” Chew has also struggled with modelling as her hair isn’t what is expected, they’ll ask her to straighten her hair or say they already have a girl that looks like her, Chew also stated “It’s almost like being too light for the black castings and being too dark for regular casting.”

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Winnie Harlow is a Canadian fashion model, spokesperson & activist. Winnie gained prominence as a contestant on ‘America’s next top model’ while having the skin condition vitiligo, while she was growing up Winnie was victimised and continuously got called names such as ‘cow’ or ‘zebra’ etc, she is of Jamaican ancestry. Winnie was diagnosed with Chronic skin condition characterized by depigmentation of portions of the skin. All the abuse she received Winnie considered Suicide.

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Personally, if people accepted that people of different skin tones and ethnic backgrounds were different and learned we all possess different qualities and look different a lot of problems from this century wouldn’t arise, a colour should no way determine what you can and can’t have, there’s space for everyone on this scene people just need to learn how to use all these features to their advantage. 

Update: 01/03/2018

I only saw these photo’s on this day, but 2018 black people being on the cover of major magazine’s we are certainly getting somewhere as a race.

Update: 07/03/18

I told Y’all.

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Bleaching  

Skin lightening/bleaching is a procedure to make dark areas of your skin lighter or to achieve a naturally lighter skin tone. Melanin is the pigment that gives skin it’s colour and protects it from the sun.

Bleaching never have and never will understand why you would want to go lighter like it’s so normalised now there are whole procedures to go lighter, the results aren’t even certain and the side effects you can get, do you people not fear God.

If you consider going lighter then please read and educate yourselves on what you’re doing to your skin.

Possible side effects
  • Skin Irritation/Inflammation
  • Burning sensation
  • Itchy & Flaky skin
What else could go wrong?
  • Skin turning to light/dark
  • Thinning of the skin
  • Visible blood vessels on the skin
  • Scarring
  • Kidney/liver damage
  • Abnormalities in a newborn baby

Honestly, the side effects sound normal to me, all those unknown ingredients you would happily put on your skin it’s slightly worrying.

But when I read the ‘what else could go wrong’ I’m shocked! People will generally go lighter with the risk of their health.

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“Health before wealth”

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Update: 07/03/18

Look what I found, these celebrities think you lot are weird, period.

50 shades of melanin

Yet only a few makeup companies can actually get it right with the foundations and concealers, there’s really 50 shades of melanin yet most makeup brands give a pick n mix of about 10! 

Personally, I don’t wear a lot of makeup at all, it’s effort to put on and take off! But that doesn’t mean I don’t see whats going on within, as an outsider looking in the makeup industry has messed up big time. 

I fully don’t know whats wrong with the people in this industry, some of them have their head screwed on others are just bloody PR stunters.

Now I’m going to educate you about the unexclusive and inclusive makeup brands.

Inclusive

  • Fenty Beauty 
  • Bobbi Brown
  • MAC
  • Maybelline
  • Nars

Robyn Rhianna Fenty, she really has done that! After seeing a void in the makeup market Rhianna really experimented with the best of the best in beauty. 40 shades of foundation and still plans to bring out more, not only is it inclusive it’s affordable.

Those two factors definitely lured me in, normally I would never leave my house for a launch but as soon as Fenty Beauty landed in the UK I know I had to try it, so I gave it three weeks before I went to Harvey Nichols, I really thought bitch I thought that there would be no queues, me and my friend were sadly mistaken. We turn up I kid you not the queue was three hours long so yeah I joined I certainly was not turning around like an idiot and going home! Fast forward now I get close to the front and finally let in, so of course, I bought the Foundation and KILLAWATT highlighter and they were my best purchases of 2017.

Bobbi Brown is No.1 leading makeup brands in the world for the past two decades Brown has worked on creating products to suit all skin tones. It’s the newest foundation called ‘Skin long wear weightless foundation’ contains 30 diverse colour options. The brand is available in over 60 countries and at 17 exclusive stores including Harrods, Macy’s, Selfridges etc and 75 freestanding stores. In SoHo London, Bobbi Brown recently opened a store it looks like a normal store upstairs but downstairs they hold masterclasses.

MAC is a leading professional makeup brand, co-founded by Frank Toskan. Toskan realised the lack of suitable colours and textures needed to maximize performance, Mac celebrates diversity and states on their ‘who are we’ page on their website that ‘We are for ALL ages, ALL races, ALL genders’.

Maybelline the company was created by a 19-year-old entrepreneur named Thomas Lyle Williams in 1915. Williams noticed his older sister ‘Mabel‘ applying vaseline and coal to her eyebrows to give them a darker fuller look. Williams adapted it with a chemistry set and produced a product sold locally called ‘Lash brow-Ine’ Fast forward now in addition to its expanding range Maybelline added on the ‘Fit me’ range which includes 40 shades.

Nars is a French Cosmetics and skincare company founded by makeup artist and photographer Francois Nars in 1994. In 2017 Nars announced that despite being against animal testing, it was a requirement for them to sell in China. Nars continues to grow it’s shade collection the brand’s new ‘natural radiant longwear foundation’ is available in 33 shades with a various amount of medium to deep tones to choose from.

Unexclusive

  • Kylie Jenner Cosmetics 
  • KKW Beauty
  • Lancome 
  • Physicians Formula
  • Benefit

Let me be straight I love the Kardashians/Jenners but they’ve pulled some horrendous stunts lately.

Kylie Jenner Cosmetics, none of her products bring the wow factor, her whole range has no originality for example ‘Kylighter’ all she did was add in her first two letters of her name to try and give it authenticity. Kylie recently bought out a makeup brush set costing $360 and had the audacity AUDACITY to compare her brand to high-end luxury brands such as Kevyn Aucoin, MAC etc, she received a substantial amount of backlash towards her twitter post announcing this, I wasn’t surprised they looked like paint brushes and lord they fray, no one wants to put makeup on with a brush that frays. 

Scam Brushes

 

KKW Beauty, ah with Kim Kardashians makeup line I really I just can’t, just look and tell me is that not clay?

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The other three please just look at the shade range and ask yourself “In big 2018 where is the diversity?”

Advertisement 

PR stunts: A planned event to attract the public attention to the event organisers or event

PR stunts are what gets everyone talking, H&M, Dove if you really believe they didn’t know what they were doing then I’m not sorry but you’re deluded.

These companies know what they’re doing, they love our arguments, the more we talk and type about their brand, the more money they’re receiving.

The H&M ad was genius apart from the smashing up of the stores in America, the creative team knew what they were doing, whoever passed that and allowed it to be drawn up and distributed those people are honestly laughing at us, even though they had to pull it from the stores in the end, the more we spoke, the more we typed and included them in our tweets or on any social media they were receiving money, and frankly that is all they care about. People were still going to shop their regardless of colour, they did an 80% off sale in some countries. The mother of the child she was going to get paid regardless so of course she allowed it and told everyone to ‘shut up’ in the process, imagine if she declined that opportunity…

The Dove advert when they showed a black woman turn into a white woman after using Dove body lotion, Dove responded with “We missed the mark” they didn’t miss the mark they knew exactly what they were doing.

When I first saw both of these adverts I thought it was a bluff but it was real, honestly, if I had a company that was known worldwide I’d be dropping stunts every other week, because when you lot speak and type they just earned money! Social media is where the money is, the sooner some of you realise that the more woke you’ll be.

The Nike Advert, that is one advert I can’t fault Nike really did that, included the London music scene and sports all in one advert! The only people that faulted this ad was really the Asians, like really who did you guys want Nike to include in the ad??? And the worst thing is you guys were screaming at black people like we were the ones that created, directed and published the advert it isn’t our fault, you lot had so much energy, redirect that to Nike headquarters.

London really used everything that makes ‘London Culture’

  • Barbershops
  • Corner shops
  • Santander Bikes
  • Chicken shops
  • DJ 
  • Black Cabs 
  • The Underground
  • Bipolar Weather

They used our slang they interpreted everything that is us and what makes a Londoner.

Music Industry & Music video ideologies

Matthew Knowles said “The music industry must stop ignoring singers with darker skin”

The music industry is doing so well in the UK with light/white men/girls and even dark-skinned men, but what about the dark skinned girls? Is the issue darker than colourism, could it be sexism within the race? To me, it just doesn’t make any logical sense how can the men of the same skin tone be doing so well but the ladies are literally fighting and scrambling to the top.

The Music videos are a different ball game, why are there so many light/white skinned females in music videos now and hardly any dark-skinned females, the UK music scene will not be diverse until it rectifies this problem.

Blitter

Ah Blitter the time where the Twitter purge began and everyone transferred to Blitter known as (Black Twitter)

Honestly, Blitter went downhill so swiftly and quickly, the app had no originality used the exact same features from Twitter, the interface didn’t change at all except there’s was 100 times shitter than Twitter. The owner of the social media application was absolutely crazy at the start I thought yeah he’s alright because really Twitter headquarters don’t interact with us all they want to do is suspend accounts all day but Pat the guy that created the app interacted with his supporters, sounds like a swell app right?

Oh, and by the way the app is racist and I have clear evidence to show this.

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Deep the photographic evidence this guy has to be ill.

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Racist/Discriminative Brands 

Amazon 

Wycon

Shea Moisture

Versace

Tommy Hilfiger

Marc Jacobs

American Eagle

Kendall & Kylie 

BooHoo

Straight up facts, these have all been broadcasted on the news and social media.

Amazon recently had to pull a product of off their shelves which a third party user was selling which was products like baby bibs, mugs and T-shirts were all up for grabs, it had a saying printed on it that said: “Slavery gets shit done”. The offensive merchandise got removed and Amazon released a statement saying “It wasn’t me” but really in truth it was them because don’t you have any guidelines on your site or a process that you should go through to get a product posted.

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Wycon an Italian beauty brand got into hot water internationally when they released a nail polish named ‘Thick as a nigga’ what colour was that meant to represent? Oh yeah of course black. After being called out Wycon never actually apologised they just changed all their nail polishes to numbers.

They further released a statement, honestly, you’re going to laugh about what they said queue the laughter ” We’re sorry this post triggered these types of reactions, every colour from our gel collections is ‘Inspired’ with a ‘Cheerful‘ attitude and a ‘Pinch‘ of naivety.”

Complete and utter bullshit.

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Shea Moisture in the spring of 2017 black beauty brand makes the greatest stumble of all time (that’s my opinion) in their haircare commercial. A black woman with long stringy hair was compared to two white women who also lamented their hair struggle. 

Some black women including me felt like shea moisture was turning their backs on their real audience to an audience that literally doesn’t know about struggle upon their head tops.

Shea Moisture admitted they ‘Fucked up‘ and also announced that Unilever is acquiring it, wonder what this means for future advertisements.

The one ad that I saw that actually made no common sense.

Versace

‘Versace Versace, Medusa head on me like I’m Illuminati’

In 2016 a former Versace employee vowed to sue the luxury retailer, accusing the company of discrimination for its use of a secret code they use when a black person enters the store which alerts staff and security. The former employee who was hired in the San Francisco store 2016 said the code ‘D410’ alerts when someone of black skin tone enters and is then followed around the store. The code is also the brand’s label for a black t-shirt. According to TMZ, the man was fired after telling his employer he was African American.

Tommy Hilfiger 

“My passion for music has always inspired my designs”

Tommy Hilfiger was accused of being racist when a ‘Chain Letter’ went round of his saying if he knew minorities were going to wear his clothes he would’ve never made them and wishes they would stop wearing them. How lovely.

In 2014, however, Hilfiger did say that while hip-hop’s adoption of his clothing ‘Fueled growth‘ for his label, he’s disappointed at the urban demographic ‘Took us away from our roots‘ So is the word urban black? 

Marc Jacobs 

” I always find beauty in things that are odd & imperfect- they are much more interesting”

During 2016’s NYFW Marc Jacobs felt a wrath of Twitter backlash as he sent predominately white models down the runway in dreadlocks, which many felt was a blatant appropriation of black culture. 

Jacobs response: ” all who cry ‘cultural appropriation’ or whatever nonsense about any race or skin colour wearing their hair in a particular style or manner – funny how you don’t criticize women of colour for straightening their hair” Ouch.

But wait is straightening only for white people? Because I’m pretty sure when I was growing up I used a flat iron comb, but hey you know what if that’s what Jacobs wanted to bring to the table than so be it.

A few days later he issued an apology on his Instagram page.

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American Eagle

“Don’t quack like a duck, soar like an eagle”

In December 2017 people were outraged at American Eagle who was selling bracelets that looked like slave shackle cuffs.

The public started sharing photo’s of the bracelets on December 11th, by December 12th they issued out an apology.

American Eagle pulled the product from the shelves but a few days later the public still found them in stores up and down the USA.

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Kendall + Kylie

“It’s always the people that know the least about you, that want to judge you the most”

2017 Kendall & Kylie Jenner were in hot water with the public again for plastering their faces over popular music icons.

After controversy and heavy backlash, Kendall & Kylie pulled the t-shirts from their site, the shirts were put on their website June 28th, 2017 and removed the very next day, the sisters put their faces over the likes of Biggie, 2pac and The Doors. 

They were even issued with a lawsuit as their faces ruined the trademark of The Doors.

They issued an apology.

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Boohoo/Nasty Gal

Before being sold to BooHoo (If BooHoo minded their business they wouldn’t have been in this predicament) Nasty Gal went under fire for appropriating black culture with a $50 faux leather do-rag.

The discontinued product sparked outrage in 2014 after users on Twitter questioned if Nasty Gal knew the true function of a do-rag, which is to protect and maintain natural hairstyles.

Vegan??

 

Blackface

“Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non-black performers to represent a black person” 

Blackface was either a layer of burnt cork, a layer of cocoa butter or black grease paint, in the early years they painted on red lips to resemble a clown, costumes were either swallowtail coats, striped hats and top hats. 

Minstrel shows entertainment imitated black music, dance and imitated ‘plantation talk’. The shows featured some of the most ‘ugliest‘ African Americans from 1840- 1890, minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in America.

The Golliwog is a black fictional character that resembles the exact same features as blackface.

It is the 21st Century 2018 and blackface and golliwogs still exist to this day, Blackface started in the 18th century over 200 years ago and us black people are getting resembled a doll and we still get taken for idiots by fellow white people. We are not clowns, we are not your entertainment at all.

Careers/Work Paths

“Ever felt like you haven’t been accepted because of your skin colour? Yeah same”

Some workplaces just aren’t diverse enough, to be honest, I’ve never let this stop me from getting to where I want to be, but I’ve had a good few arguments along the way because I’m always adding my signature somewhere to guidelines like ‘We accept everyone no matter what background or race your from‘ And most of the time it ends up complete and utter bullshit. I’ve been discriminated at work so many times, I’ve had managers all up in my space talking down to me like I’m a child and stupid, I’m far from that, did I ever report any of these incidents? No I did not my mindset back then and kind of still now is that the white man won’t listen and in my case it’s true, I’d report something and it will get shoved in the bin, a white person will report the exact same thing and of course it becomes a priority! Am I an idiot? 50/50 really. I wanted to quit some of these jobs so bad but no one will ever get in the way of my money and qualifications absolutely impossible.

There was one job I absolutely adored, but I started to hate it once we got new management, there was one event I had to work at over 1000 + people attended this event, my manager treated me like a slave like I actually felt like a slave, it was a 15 hour shift from the last minute planning to sort out big preparations, I value my job description and honestly the things he made me do, certainly werent in my job description, and oh yes I’m one of those people if it isn’t in my job description then piss off I ain’t doing it, I did as I was told for about 12 hours the last three hours my anger was boiling and honestly my anger is not something to play with because once I flip it’s game over. I’m 100% sure he was doing it on purpose long story short I flipped and got so angry I cried and traded some very nasty words towards my manager, I told my mum and she went ballistic because I never cry I also quit my job.

It was the fact I was the only black person doing the dirty work everyone was chilling, watching the boxing event, I was going back and forth like a flipping circus animal.

Update: 08/03/18

Honestly, I’m extremely upset & extremely infuriated about what I witnessed on Twitter 07/03/18 “Fuck the blacks” I felt extremely sorry for the girl that had to put up with this as she was the only black person on that floor, it is a hate crime! I know racism still goes on till this day, but it’s not even on a sly it was full on and I’m highly disgusted by Nottingham Trent Uni, they responded far too late for my liking, if this was dealt with earlier it probably wouldn’t of reached the likes of social media but I’m glad it did!

Now have a look at some more evidence and opinions:

 

Nottingham Trent University, look what you have done, you’ve ruined the reputation of your own university for not responding in the correct time frame.

How can this be reported on Monday and you want to come and issue a response 3 days later, the young woman had to bring the situation to social media’s attention just so it could receive an uproar so you lot could respond! You would’ve dusted this under the carpet like other issues, which I have further evidence on.

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All these universities claim they have ‘support’ but you don’t, a situation similar to this happened at De Montfort University in Leicester (DMU). DMU I definitely didn’t forget about you lot.

You universities love ruining your reputation, either accommodate every single race or close them down. 

Oh and the Daily Mail, I see how you were very quick to swoop down and collect the news and write your article.

Listen to me, you lot are not slick in the slightest.

Daily Mail keep the same energy! You hate us one week and the next week you want to write a supporting article. 

Sorry but I don’t like you at all.

If this was my situation, I can’t lie I wouldn’t hold back at all the same attitude you people think black people have ‘The angry black woman’ I’d unleash it 100% paint me with that brush, wouldn’t care less don’t be racist and not expect a backlash!

If a group of black boys were to walk past, those white men would’ve ducked their heads, a young black girl on her own in her accommodation had to experience this.

I could never imagine getting through all the stages of getting to university and then a situation like this occurs.

I understand steps have now been taken as arrests have been made & suspensions have been enforced, but that is not enough! Their courses need to be terminated, named and shamed, faces need to be shown, in the real world things like this cannot run at all.

A few of my opinions:

If you follow me you should know, that I was literally going for anyone with a silly opinion.

@RufaroChisango_  I stand by you, and so do a majority of Twitter.

Interesting Questions

Why is it acceptable for black women to openly prefer dark skin men over light skin men, but black men can’t openly prefer light skin women over dark skin women?
Do you pick friends based on skin tone?

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Does dark-skinned privilege exist?

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Jorja Smith

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All races answer…Do you like your skin tone? If no why not?
&
If you could would you change your skin tone?

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Do you think people use colourism as a scapegoat for the fact their ugly?
&
Why is it always the ugly girls feel a type of way, when it comes to colourism why do people relate to men’s preferences and not a social construct?

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Now to all the tweets where I just couldn’t figure out where to add them in but all equally important as each other.

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To everyone that enjoyed my thread and took time out to say, I certainly didn’t miss you out and I’m ever so grateful.

My Personal Hypothetical

Personally, to me, it all boils down to racism, colourism and discrimination.

If those three things didn’t exist this world wouldn’t be so twisted, looking at slavery it’s so immorally incorrect and I will never understand how you can punish someone on the colour of skin, if I had the option to change the skin tone I 100% wouldn’t if I have to take all the abuse that comes with it, then so be it. I’m black and I’m so proud some of the history associated with the colour black is disheartening, but our ancestors fought for our freedom! 

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks 1913-2005, refused to surrender her seat to a white passenger on a segregated Montgomery bus which spurred on the 381-day boycott. This helped launch nationwide efforts to end segregation of public facilities. The city of Montgomery had no other choice but to lift the law requiring segregation on public buses. Rosa Parks did that.

Social Activist and Baptist minister, Martin Luther King Jr led the civil right’s movement from the mid-1950’s until his death by assassination in 1968. 

 King received the Nobel peace prize in 1964 along with several other honours, assassinated in 1968 he still lives on to be one of the most influential African American leaders in history.

“I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.”  — Martin Luther King, Jr. / “I Have A Dream” speech, August 28, 1963

South African Activist and former president Nelson Mandela 1918-2013 helped bring an end to apartheid and has been a global advocate for human rights. A member of the African National Congress party beginning in the 1940s, he was a leader of both peaceful protests and armed resistance against the white minority’s oppressive regime in a racially divided South Africa. This manoeuvre landed Mandela in jail for nearly three decades, but he was the face of the apartheid movement. Mandela was released from jail in 1990 and participated in the eradication of apartheid and became the first black president of South Africa.

Antiapartheid: The anti-apartheid movement, originally known as the boycott movement, was a British Organisation that was at the centre of the international movement opposing South Africa’s system of supporting South Africa’s non-whites.

Honestly, we have so many more people but these were honestly the greatest people in my opinion! They lived and died by the movement and they will always live on!

I wrote something a few months ago and hopefully, it can sum up my conclusion because I am absolutely lost for words.

All colour, ethnicity & race is beautiful. 

Black is beautiful.

Mixed Raced is beautiful.

Brown is beautiful.

White is beautiful.

We all slay every day, don’t we?

Don’t get it twisted we’re all ugly in someone’s eyes, but we’re all beautiful in someone else’s right? 

We as humans weren’t made for everyone, we don’t get accepted by everyone but that’s okay because that’s life isn’t it? Or wait am I wrong is that just my conception of my life lessons, or is it the god damn truth that everyone should bloody well listen too?

Oh, I don’t know what is life, what is beautiful, what the hell is ugly, who created these words, was it YOU, did you give us your unwanted opinions? 

My own words 

This one is very short as I just didn’t know what I was writing, but in this day and age I see a lot of slander  on race, colour, ethnicity the whole bloody lot, this hatred for other people will never stop, no race is better than one, no ethnicity is more powerful than the other and no colour is more superior, God created every single one of us differently so no one has the right to say anyone is ugly or disgusting. But I honestly do believe that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and that not everyone will find us all beautiful but that’s okay, God created us all with different features so we can all individually stand out and be unique. 

I’m pretty sure no one would like to be the exact same as someone else, everyone’s personality is completely different, we all get angry differently, for example, I get angry in the speed of sound while others can just keep their cool and act as if everything is a walk in the park. But don’t be scared of being different, act out, go crazy, experiment with things, do you! 

Regarding my cover photo, I wanted to outline all the different features everyone possesses whether your black, white, pink, orange or purple, everyone is different in their own way, shape and form.
Hope everyone has seen my vision and liked it. 

Teeks X

 

 

 

 

Goodbye 2017.

2017-2018

I’ve decided to write a blog about Twitter and other social sites but mostly Twitter because what’s gone down on the Twitter TL this year has made me laugh and made me scream literally, the clap backs I’ve seen some people receive its made me grip my non-existent chest in agony, I’m that person that will just scroll and scroll till I find the root of the argument or sometimes I’ll make a quick two’s two comments then dip out again and say in my head “That’s your problem”

THE WHOLE SAGA

‘Come collect your man Whitney’
‘Sayphilzki’ (Clothing line grafted though) but did she say philzki?
‘SpAcNaTiOn’ (Gifty & The Skengman)
‘Men are trash’ (continued)
‘BkchatLDN’ (Nunu admitting she’s been eating out on her reds)
‘ Caribbean vs Africans’
‘Bashment vs Afrobeats ( “If you don’t play Afrobeats at your wedding, what are you going to play?”
‘Curious cat’ (Found out my boyfriend was bullying me about my weight)
Nyash vs breasts
Portugal Invasion ( Common £200 flights deetsed, fake money, fake garms)
Black girls hating on black girls (Zero sense)
“I spent over £3000 on driving lessons”
25+ Twitter
“You people still beat people from the TL”
“Your body count still looking like the yellow pages”

“Twitter Purge”

The twitter purge was the weirdest thing to come about, people’s accounts were getting suspended left, right and centre ( but mine didn’t though, too blessed to be stressed) and it only targeted UK accounts, normally if you get suspended you get a warning and shown the tweet that caused ‘offence’ which no one seemed to get, it was more black twitter I saw got kicked off and that’s why everyone moved to ‘Blitter’ which is black twitter supposedly well it is, but I don’t have time for people calling me a racist, the amount of white people that got reported and suspended within a few minutes I’m sorry but it was actually funny just shows how fast and vigilant people really are. I had a Blitter account from day dot so as soon as Blitter came out I made an account, the app was dry as the Sahara desert, but I gave it a chance and kept the app as decoration, as soon as the purge began I swapped to my other twitter account and started following bare people just in case my main went down, I went to Blitter because twitter was boring without the regular accounts, chatting shit, making jokes or just generally there existing, but really I knew Blitter was not going to last for long, the Americans thought they ran shit on there like honestly they did not, they were arguing with us over dumb shit like “AmErIcA Is BeTtEr ThAn THe Uk” WOT the fuck??? Donald Duck is running your country and they wanted to argue I think the fuck not.

I understand Blitter was just starting off but Bebo looked more advanced than them, once it all died down, people emigrated back to Twitter, thank fuck.

I don’t think twitter understood the full effects of what they did, some of us just have followers for absolutely no reason at all, but a majority of us are building businesses through them, some people are Youtubers, bloggers all different kinds of content creators and tell people to follow them on all their socials, but oh no twitter completely obliterated them with no thought, there were people who even appealed for their accounts back and got completely the opposite, do you know how hard it is to get all these followers let alone get them back after you’ve been suspended, when it did happen I was like “minor they’ll be back” but they never came back with their normal account, the TL was dead for a good two weeks, the most boring two weeks of social media history.

There’s way more, If I’ve missed any key ones then let me know.

Listen when I say the TL has been a mess it’s been a real mess, but I’ve seen the TL in positive light as well, like The Grenfell tower inferno, yo I’m not saying the tower burning down is positive but it’s how the community on social media and of social media came together to push for things to change, if it wasn’t for the communities coming together we would’ve continued to be lied to, we would’ve never found out the truth, no one would be getting rehoused, if it wasn’t for us the government would’ve allowed it to crash and burn even more, there are so many things that would’ve went tits up if it wasn’t for the likes of social media spreading it so quickly then we would be living under a cloud of doubt, another example is looking at the Kenneka Jenkins story, smart people would’ve seen straight away by looking at evidence that the hotel staff and friends murdered her there was enough CCTV footage to come to this conclusion, but there’s always a dumb few that couldn’t quite get to the point, they’d always question something completely obvious and make their own stupid assumptions, the hashtag for this one girl was trending for weeks upon weeks, the hypothesis’s some people were thinking off were very realistic, the police shut down the case in minutes of hearing it, we as social media have kept this girls spirit alive and remembered.

Social media is very powerful and it can either make you or break you, if you have an upcoming project utilise all the tools that are now available to you, back in the days all these social sites did not exist at all.

Twitter ( Launched July 15th, 2006, 330 million users)
Periscope ( Launched 26th March 2015, 10 + million accounts)
Vine ( Launched January 2013, 40 million users)
Facebook ( Launched February 4th, 2004, 2 billion users)
Snapchat ( Launched September 2011, 20 million photos shared per day, 6 billion videos per day, 166 million active users)
Instagram ( Launched October 6th, 2010, 800 million users)
Wordpress ( Launched May 27th, 2003, 74 + million, 6 new WordPress posts per second)
Tumblr ( Launched February 19th, 2007, hosts over 375 million blogs, 555 million monthly visitors)
Crowd fire ( 21st February 2010, used by 10 + million Twitter and Instagram users)
Hoot suite ( Launched December 2008, 15 + million users)
YouTube ( Launched 14 February 2005, 1 billion active users monthly, YouTube has a production space in LA which is free to use if you have 10,000 + subscribers, if you search ‘do the Harlem shake on YouTube, the page itself will shake)

So what are you lot thinking after reading that, hmm let me guess ‘What’s with all these fucking numbers” “Too much information to remember” I agree it’s a lot of figures but they are facts and you should utilise them especially if your in the creatives section, inhale and exhale this information on what you want to do, download these apps especially crowd fire and hoot suite.

Crowdfire ( Millions of creators, for example, Youtubers, bloggers, artists, freelancers etc can grow their audience through this app, it’s all about marketing and knowing who your audience is and people to follow, but it also has the helpful tool of who the cheeky fuckers who ( follow, unfollow then have the cheek to follow back) (compose tweets and post later including media as well)

Hoot suite ( Social media management, with hoot suite you can manage all your socials through one application, no one likes to keep switching apps when it’s all built into one) I also use this app to write my tweets and then set times for them to be posted, one thing people normally think is that I sit on social media all day especially Twitter, 60% of my tweets are grafted hours or days before then I’ll set a time and date to post the other 40% is things like replies or tweets that are in the moment that have to be posted there and then.

I’m guessing you know what the rest of the social sites are, if not then please just look it up.

Overall I think 2017 has gone not too badly I’ve seen people on my TL grafting, collecting money, having months full of bookings and that’s what I like to see and hear for example singers, rappers, content creators, snap filter creators, Youtubers, photographers the grind really never stops and I’m looking forward to what everyone gets up to in 2018, I want to see everyone winning.

For me personally, 2017 has been a whirlwind of events, at the beginning of the year I went ghost not fully but I just wasn’t interested in a lot of people my social life was crazy from the beginning of 2016 – the beginning of 2017 my phone was buzzing every few seconds I was in so many group chats on WhatsApp, snapchat, twitter, so I just went silent after March, work and home was my life, I didn’t like going out too much or interacting, in the middle of 2017 I hit a low point like really low, but I managed to get through it alone, no one helped me people who I thought I was close to didn’t realise but in the end it was okay because I’ve been coping on my own for a long time.

I met a few girls on a group chat who are honestly like long lost sisters because we honestly don’t live any close distance together, we are all up and down the map, a few of us have met up and it honestly felt like I’ve known these people all my life, their people you can open up to, well for me anyways and whatever opinion they give it’s honest and that’s what I live for, no sugar coated bullshit just straight up honesty and just love.

But now it’s the end of the year looking back I’ve achieved a lot maybe one thing I didn’t complete but I know by God’s grace I’ll get there next year.

I’m thankful for who’s entered my life whether it’s through social media or just out and about, I’m grateful to myself for who I’ve dropped out, I don’t do toxic people in my life but I’m lucky to be blessed with a life.

I’ve got a few projects up my sleeve this year that I’ll be speaking into existence inside my house and not anywhere else because I know people like to see downfall well hahaha suckers I won’t be falling down anywhere except maybe on New Years night, but apart from that no I’ll continue to rise up and prosper.

Ooooo one more thing if you saw my previous pinned tweet on Twitter I asked for help to get to 4,000 views, well on the 21st December I asked Twitter and other sites but indeed mostly Twitter to help me get to 4,000 views before the end of the December on that day I was on 3,676 and now I’m on 4200 views which I’m forever grateful for, getting to 4000 views in less than 2 days makes my end of year goal for next year which is 10,000 views before the end of the year which is highly possible.

“Tomorrow is the first blank page of a 365 day book, write a good one”

Goodbye 2017.

Be good to us 2018.

Teeks

Black & Asian Mental Health

ead2248e9de8fa63ed8d477f2c2876f9--broken-inside-drugs-abuse

I’ve decided I’ll write about mental health as it’s something I suffer with and so do so many other people, I feel mental health is brushed under the carpet just because it’s not physical, your health is your health and it’s so important. I was meant to start writing this blog just over a week ago but I’ve been in a dark place myself, and I kept on blowing it off and kept saying I’ll write it another day, well 2 weeks before release date here I am twiddling my thumbs on how I should come about this topic as it is very sensitive subject to talk on.

I’ve been in a dark place for weeks probably months even and I can’t even figure out the reason why, I’ve been to the doctors countless amount of times on my physical health and haven’t even got simple health, on my mental health I can’t bring myself to do it, the fact that I could get sectioned or giving medication to make me feel ‘better’ I really don’t have time for that, I have times where my mood flips uncontrollably and it’s so hard to control it, I have times where I can’t go to sleep past 6 am, I have days where I get sleep paralysis the first few times I was really freaking out, then it continued to happen regularly and I got used to it, there were times it would get so bad I would get dragged down my bed, no bullshit people would say go read the bible?? What’s that going to do? Sleep paralysis is not a fun situation to be in at all, the only thing in your body that will move is your eyes, it’s a real damn struggle to move everything else, I’ve been depressed but not overly depressed it didn’t last very long but now I’m anti I don’t really talk to people anymore, people pop up all the time and say ” you haven’t been active lately” or ” you’re not normally like this” this really does play on my mind I’ve deeped people I normally talk to I can’t find the energy to talk to them anymore or if they talk to me, I really can’t be fucked to reply anytime asks me “how are you” everyone will get the same reply “I’m calm” it rarely changes I really copy and paste the same answer to everyone, you’re probably thinking that’s cold, I agree it is, but when you have no energy to conversate that’s how it’ll be, a couple people called me reserved so I asked the person who knows me the best which is my mum, and she agreed but the thing is with me I let people know what I want them to know, if we’re having a conversation and the topic becomes a little too personal 9 times out of 10 I’ll cut the call and go sleep or go about my business,everything depends on my mood I don’t mean for my mood to flip I even get called crazy like what the fuck it’s not really my fault, I’ve tried to top myself by taking excessive amount of tablets it really didn’t work at all the pills must of liked my immune system because nothing happened. I’m one of them people that would rather help someone else through their problems I’ve heard people talk about how they’ll commit their own suicide on the phone to me, I’ve seen people try to top themselves ending up in accident and emergency all I think is I could’ve done more, but there’s only so much I can do, if you want to die then do it, there’s only so much help I can give. A few weeks ago I decided to give blood as I saw that only a small percentage of black people do, so I went along and like I said I ‘tried’ and failed I have the sickle cell anaemia trait and iron deficiency which makes me sleep for heavy periods at a time or my energy is low, sometimes I am in a good mood and my energy is out of this world but other times no I’m just Teeks, I sit in my room all day hardly leave I’ll decline times to go out and just sit there get restless, sleep, eat and then repeat all within my own space, my worst times were through my childhood just dealing with the divorce of my parents hurt and it’ll stick with me forever…but be moving on as time goes on so do I and what goes on will always have a reason.

Recently I’ve been on Twitter scrolling up and down the TL like a mad woman and started to come across tweets that are talking about mental health, I’ll scroll further and see the suicide help line number tweeted in both the United Kingdom and America, but the main communities I want to focus on are the black and Asian as I know these are the forgotten communities we have something wrong with us we get called crazy by the national health service or given medication that should somehow make us feel better or we just get abused by the police trust me it happens, or in some cases rituals are made. Mental health is an important issue in the black and Asian community and as a black young woman I’ve been more informed about this, over the recent weeks on Twitter I’ve seen more mental health tweets, my own followers tweeting about committing suicide, saying they have no one to talk to, no where to turn, mental health within these two communities are swept under the carpet as if they don’t exist, growing up I got told to be a ‘strong independent black woman’ but really I was crippling on the inside, social construct is so backwards we’re told to be this, do that or act like we are completely normal, what is normal? I fail to understand.

If you’ve read my blogs before you know that if I’m writing such strong topics I’ll have facts to support my evidence, with this one topic it took me time to find facts but once I got into it I came across a lot, I was actually flabbergasted at what I found.

I’ve found that in the black and Asian communities:
– More likely to be diagnosed with mental health problems
– More likely to experience a poor outcome and treatment
– More likely to disengage from mainstream services like social services leading to social exclusion and further deterioration in health
– Likely that mental health is overly diagnosed in people whose first language isn’t English

Have you ever thought about why mental health and mental illness impacts people in the black & Asian community more than any other?

Personally, I think it’s down to the factors that are plastered on us as a whole
– Poverty
– Racism
– Background
– Bad housing
– Unemployment
– Stress
– Abuse
– Neglect

All these factors play a huge role in the support which we should get equally but we don’t, we’re judged then ‘treated’ I hardly call it treatment I’ve seen a number of people descend on how they’re and it’s sad to see, what I seem to not understand is how can colour separate us, how can black people be diagnosed with severe mental disorders, we go to doctors for help, a psychiatrist for our problems to be listened to, God for guidance, our parents to see if they see it from our point of view, as a community you think we have a options but do we really?

An overwhelming amount of people with mental health are living in poor conditions, there are considerably high rates of physical and sexual victimisation, most people with mental disorders are restricted in their ability to access essential health, social care including emergency relief services. Poverty is the worlds most ruthless killer, poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon encompassing the inability to basic needs, lack of control over resources, lack of education and poor health. The measurement on which poverty is based on is income, if you earn less than a certain amount then you will be classified as poor. Poverty is associated with many long term problems, such as poor health and increased mortality, school failure, crime and substance misuse.

People with mental health are one and half times more likely to live in rented accommodation, social housing and in a poor area, they’re twice as unlikely with their housing and four times more likely to say that it makes their mental health worse. Children who have moved around quite a lot tend to have depression and anxiety compared to their peers. Many people have reported that housing costs have caused stress.

– 33% (15 million) say housing costs cause stress and depression
– 25% (12.2 million) are kept awake by stress of paying bills and mortgage
– 25% say housing bills cause arguments between partners and other family members
The number of homeless people diagnosed with mental health is spiralling out of control, it’s almost double the rate of the general population homeless link surveyed 2,500 homeless people and found out 45% of them had a mental health issue compared to the general population only 25% of them was found.

– 32% said they were experiencing suicidal thoughts
– 39%’said they have panic attacks
– 18% hear voices
– 67% feel depressed
– 41% misuse drugs or alcohol

Racism will forever be an ongoing issue I feel like the black community and the Asians are hit the most, not a day goes by where I see a non-black person say the word ‘nigga’ or a non Asian person say ‘paki’ ‘chinky’ etc.. But besides this discrimination against the black and Asian communities is reported across a wide range of everyday activities, a survey was carried out between February and March 2013 where 740 people from these minorities communities carried out a study. 6.9% (69) of people said they did not experience any discrimination which shows that 93.2% (671) of them felt some form of discrimination within finding a job, housing, education, getting into a relationship, why is it other people in other communities get every and anything handed to them on a plate, but because there’s a couple stereotype here and there about others we have to scream for our voices to be heard, rally together to hold protests that clearly get ignored, constantly being stopped on the road for a ‘routine check’ I’m not completely obnoxious but through my eyes this is things I hear or see every day. Imagine being black you receive the lowest treatment rates in England, half of what a white person would receive, being coloured ha such a hard life.

Recently I was scrolling on Twitter and a topic of conversation made the TL overly active everyone well I’m saying everyone I really only saw blacks/Asians started talking about the ‘beatings/licks they received as a child most people didn’t see it as an abuse but I don’t know what minds some of you lot have because by the way some of you lot described it I would’ve called child line, however everyone’s different for me growing up if I did naughty things around my dad he’d instantly say “yuh wan licks child sha” then I’d instantly pause whatever I was doing and go back to being good, with my mum the most I’ve done is kneel on my knees for quite some time, but the ones I saw on Twitter they were something else, I can tell how these implications can affect someone later on in life, beating your child is the first steps of abuse, now I know people will come back and say “My parents beat me because they wanted me to learn how to be respectful” blah blah blah you can be taught in various ways without beating someone with a belt, ginger in your anus, products being thrown at you etc…What I read I could tell these had an effect on the people’s lives and it’s daunting to see or read.  Domestic abuse can have a huge effect on your mental health, it is now well accepted  that abuse both in childhood and adulthood is often the main factor in the development of depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders and may lead to  sleep disturbances, self-harm, suicide and attempted suicide, eating disorders and substance misuse.

We have people drowning in their own thoughts within their households, can’t talk to mum, can’t talk to dad, so where do we go from here, my problem with some parents is they always think they’re right, some believe their child is completely fine, we can look perfect on the outside and be dying on the inside, some say go pray to God, praying does not help everyone, performing a ritual doesn’t cure everyone, doing witch craft doesn’t work for everyone, being a shoulder to cry on helps letting out emotion which is completely natural, supporting your child on what to do next is so important, I’ve seen teenagers, adults, children be here today and gone the next, and the parents always say ‘I blame myself’ stop blaming and start acting upon what is happening in front of your own eyes, under your own roof, I’m completely aware that some people can hide pain scarily well but asking a simple ‘Are you okay’ is fine but never settle for the answer of ‘I’m fine’ ask for them to expand until you’re both satisfied. A study of 2000 adults commissioned by the mental health foundation has found that the average adult will say “I’m fine” 14 times a week although only 19% will mean it so out of 100%, the other 81% won’t mean it, do you see where I’m coming from? That large percentage your family member, friend, could not be ‘fine’ what does fine even mean? What’s normal? 1/3 of the same study = 667 people said they often lie about how they’re feeling to other people, while 1/10 = 400 say they always lie about their emotional state. “I’m fine” is such an effortless answer, this answer is the answer to end all conversations, it has to be a conversation killer but if we don’t know what to reply how are we meant to say.

I personally believe that mental health should be completely equal to physical health, but for me saying that I would expect to see pigs fly first before they rule out this new plan. The media is such a dark place, they ignore us at any given moment or take the original story and twist it, these inequalities are virtually ignored by them, but to be honest, this is nothing new, it’s been the case for decades due to a lack of focus, but for why? Why does the colour of our skin rule out the level of exposure we receive, this is highly incompetent and extremely melancholic. The image it paints is one for misery, loneliness and desperate individuals needing help but each time we are let down for the colour of our skin, a colour that we can’t choose, even if I could change my colour I wouldn’t I’m proud of my race and what we’ve become and what we continue to achieve each day.

The NHS is an amazing amicable service to an extent, they’ll fix your broken arm but won’t fix a broken mind, they’ll give you gas and air but won’t give you air to breathe in real life, drowning in thoughts and no one around, is this what black and Asians should expect for the rest of our existence. People from African & Caribbean communities are more likely than others to be admitted to the hospital, worldwide it seems people who move from country to country have a higher risk of, mental health illness, this is predominantly true for black people who move to mainly white countries and an even higher risk for their children.

I’ve found quite a few statistic from the Asian and black communities on our mental health systems
– African/Caribbean are 3/5 times more likely to be diagnosed and admitted for schizophrenia
– Suicide is low among Asian men but high for Asian women
– African/Caribbean are more likely to enter the mental health services is the police or courts
– Indian men have a high rate of alcohol related problems
– African/Caribbean are more likely to be treated under a section of the mental health act
– Asian people have a quicker recovery rate from schizophrenia due to family support
– African/Caribbean more likely to receive medication rather than be offered a talking session known as psychotherapy.

We’re being failed as two separate communities due to ancestry, the colour of our skin, moving to predominantly ‘white’ countries the first I’ve heard Britain as a ‘white country’ I’m pretty sure we’ve been multi-cultured for 158 years since 1858 since Queen Victoria’s proclamation of India. We’ve been failed as people and institutional racism started this and no matter what people say racism will never end, there has been mounting evidence that institutional racism plays a major role, systematic analysis of what is wrong from sociological, historical and political perspectives really shows how embedded racism is in the practices and how it really does affect mental health services, while at the same time can show us way in which changes could be made. Black and Asian people are significantly over- diagnosed with stigmatising ‘conditions’ such as schizophrenia, depression and bipolar and are under referred for talking therapies but instead given large doses of drugs which cause long term physical problems which will continue to live with them for a long period of time and are over represented among sectioned patients, people served with a community treatments orders and those incarcerated in secure hospitals which are known as dangerous. There have been many attempts in recent years to make mental health become more culturally and sensitive ‘attempts’ these attempts I’ve never seen we all get treated like animals we get drugged up and sent into a room, we’re not listened to at all, whatever we say gets ignored, we’re seen as crazy. We want help, don’t label us. The attempts by our government to bring about racial equality have been very unsuccessful they haven’t even touched the edges in 30 years nothing has changed. One way to counteract them is for private and public services should minimise the use of sectioning get incarceration and the use of forced drug intake, instead of telling us these drugs will make us feel ‘better’ tell us the real effects, tell us that these drugs stop certain feelings from showing through, tell us how to deal with the side effects, tell us what we can do if we’re feeling suicidal etc, give us structural advice instead of giving us pills, focus needs to shift towards collaborating with service users, aiming to support where and when needed with recovery from personal setbacks and social problems.

There are so many mental health problems/illnesses and I think you should all be aware of all.
– bipolar disorder
– Schizophrenia
– Psychosis
– OCD
– Alcoholism
– Eating disorder
– Anxiety disorder
– Post traumatic stress disorder
– Personality disorder
– Fatigue
– Mood disorder
– Borderline personality
– Mixed anxiety
– Major depressive
– Seasonal affective
– Delusion
– Mental distress
– Sleep disorder
– Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder
– Schizoaffective disorder
– Autism
– Emotional & Behavioural disorder
– Autistic spectrum disorder
– Dissociative identity disorder
– Confusion
– Spectrum disorder
– Postpartum psychosis
– Sickle cell disease

I’ve done this long list for you to be more aware of what is a mental health illness, there are things on here I never even thought of like delusion because all I hear is ‘your so deluded’ who would’ve thought delusion would even be apart of it.

The one thing I’d say to be aware of is lucid dreaming it can cause sleep paralysis if it’s not done correctly and having a sleep disorder is not fun at all it’s completely wack. Lucid dreaming is safe but if you don’t know how to do it I suggest you stay well away from doing it, performing a lucid dream you can experience hallucinations, you can fall between consciousness and unconsciousness within a few seconds. Lucid dreams can turn into lucid nightmares extremely quickly and a lot of things don’t scare me but sleep paralysis scares the shit out of me and lucid dreams are weird but lucid nightmares are the worst thing I’ve experienced, but within lucid nightmares it’s something you can control to an extent you can really remind yourself that it’s a dream, you can encounter demons in lucid dreams and sleep paralysis but whether you know how to control it is another thing.

Last year I watched a documentary called ‘Being black, going crazy’ This film is presented by Keith Dube known as (Mrexposed) on Twitter, he’s a young writer and blogger who wrote the blog ‘Mr exposed’ Keith used to suffer from depression and as a result he wanted to spread awareness about mental health within the community. Keith spoke to patients as well as staff at Park Royal mental health centre, they spoke deeply on how they were treated before, how their parents treated them, even how the police treated them. In my opinion, when this aired on BBC 3 it was one of the best documentaries I’ve watched, there were topics within topics discussed and it was alarming how some of these people were treated, I suggest if you haven’t watched it then it will be a good idea that you do.

– Black men are 17 times more likely to be diagnosed with a serious mental health condition and 6 times more likely to be an inpatient in a mental health unit than a white man
– 56% of black in patients have been sectioned more than any other ethnic group
– 67% of black people with mental health issues have been stigmatised and treated unfairly by their own families
All I’ve been writing is black blackity black for god knows how long, and every time I write black in whichever sentence theirs always unfairness that comes along with it.

Moving on a few weeks back when I was on the idea of writing this blog I wanted to write about people that have suffered from mental health and died in the hands of police custody, that wasn’t hard to find at all, I came across someone named Sean Riggs, the name sounded very familiar and as I looked him up I remembered this is the man who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, unfortunately he died following a cardiac arrest on 21st August 2008 while in the hands of police custody no surprise there. Sean Rigg was a 40-year-old black British musician and producer, the events leading to the death Mr Riggs lived in a hostel that dealt with uncooperative and aggressive behaviour, on the 21st August five 999 calls were made during a 3 hour period by the hotel staff, the police didn’t find Mr Riggs a priority which is extremely odd because being black we’re always a priority for the police no matter what situation, on the fifth call the police finally turned up and restrained him in a ghastly manner, he was handcuffed, face on the floor and officers knelt on him for 8 minutes while he was being transported to Brixton police station, during the journey his mental health deteriorated massively, he was extremely unwell and not fully conscious, when they arrived Rigg was left unattended and unmonitored for 25 minutes one of the officers said he was faking it, a further 10 minutes later his heart had stopped and all signs of life was not there one of the sergeants mislead the doctor by telling them he was faking unconsciousness, which is totally untrue he was dead at the age of 40 because police do not understand how to understand people with a mental issue. If we fast forward a few years the series Orange is the new black has an exact scene like this where Poussey dies as an officer holds her to the ground leans heavily on her back, and she begins to say “I can’t breathe” the exact same words Eric Garner says when cops choke hold him and slam him to the ground if you’ve seen the video you will hear him saying “I can’t breathe’ 1 fictional character dies and 2 non-fictional people die, and of course each one of these had a protest of unfair ruling, even though one was a scene it still shows it goes on and only to one race, I haven’t seen it anywhere else.

Really I think police officers think they’re superior actually correction they do think they’re superior, sad really a uniform gives these people such confidence, the job they’re meant to do they can’t do it without drawing out a baton or gun, what happened to talking and engaging, what happened to simple handcuff on and in the back of the police car, but instead now I’ve seen guns drawn out, people with a condition being tackled to the ground like it’s a game of rugby, their knees should be on the ground not on the offenders stomach/back, I’ve seen so many people die in the hands of police custody not necessarily with a mental health issue but people like Edson Da Costa, Rashan Charles did not in anyway or form deserve that treatment I’m highly disgusted reading the newspapers everyday scrolling through Twitter to find out another black teenager here in the UK or anywhere else has died in the hands of police custody, I actually want to know what the fuck do these police officers do in training, because somewhere along the lines they always end up killing someone. There should be a complete end to physical restraint and training should consist of dealing with people and their mental health problems, beating them up will only lead them to further deteriorating we want people’s health to improve not to further worsen we’re not crazy, we are human and deserve humane treatment. Black, white, brown, purple and blue all just colours. If we turn people inside out we all have the same features a heart, eyes, arms, legs etc we’re no different stop treating us as separate, stop causing a divide and help us.

Helpline UK: 116 123

Helpline USA: 1-800-273-8255

 

Hypothesis:

First, off my apologies for taking so long to write this, this is the first ever topic I’ve been stuck on, but thank you to everyone that helped give me further ideas on what to write on.

Mental health is so hard to write on and if you find anything offensive or incorrect then let me know but I’ve looked for information everywhere, I’ve read books, watched documentaries just to get a further insight into the world of black and Asian mental health, within the Asian mental health I couldn’t even find a lot, but there was so much on the black communities and I’m glad I’ve written this because I’ve found out things I never knew, I would like to say anyone suffering from mental health please speak on it for yourself and for others, raise the awareness we deserve, fight for what you believe in, if you know that someone is suffering help them by listening never ever settle for the answer of “I’m fine” because 9/10 they’re not, dig deeper into the situation don’t grill them on it but ask more open than closed questions, look for signs I’ve seen people in front of me suffer and I never knew till I started asking and they started doing funny things, and you can kinda tell, I’ve had people call me saying they’re going to kill themselves, counting down the days, hours till they top themselves, sometimes I feel like I’m the shoulder to cry on in certain groups of friends but thinking about it I don’t mind, even though I issue out the same advice I’m not that person and only that person can change themselves. If you think there’s something wrong within yourself then go and get help and always get a second opinion, I’d even suggest going private, if your parents are in your life start talking to them, because they certainly are not here forever, parents start talking to your kids in some cases your children are under the same roof as you crumbling with no one to talk to, friends, family there is always someone to talk to including me, my social accounts are all out there, if you feel alone want someone to talk to then honestly I’m here!

Please, can we all remember that yesterday marked the two month anniversary of the Grenfell Tower Inferno, 2 months later still fuck all done, 2 months on and a lot of them have come out with mental health issues, 2 months later and hardly any questions have been answered.

Also, would like to say a huge thank you to everyone that continues to read my blogs, I’m so thankful for how far I’ve come, you lot might count it as showing off, well couldn’t care less. I’ve met my target which was 2k and now on 2.2k if you have me on Twitter remember what I said when I get to 10k I’ll throw a party which I will.

“Each day means a new 24 hours, each day means everything’s possible again.

Not entirely sure if this blog makes sense, but hey I tried, I’ll be writing two more blogs before the year ends, so if you have a topic let me know.

Teeks X