they could never make me stop saying toboggan.

There are only two sides; God’s or the other, and race can’t draw the line. Our love bomb with Black American culture has kept us suppressing change toward our freedom.

I’ve come to accept that my hardest battles are the ones I suffer with in silence.

The tug-a-war between my thoughts governs my actions.

Conditioned to be my own judge, scared to fail, I grip my gavel so tightly my hands blister.

A lost soul to my ego while searching every which way to experience the zest for life.

Unlearning my conditions while reparenting the versions of myself left behind in a fetal position in the shit show I thought I escaped. Life has not been the clear path that was laid out, the one that I bargained with to allow me to grow into, and figure out rather than be pressured to decide at eighteen.

The things I was taught, passed down from generations before no longer add up, but before I can subtract them from my reality I need to set myself free.

They taught me life was black and white, so I studied the study guide for a black-and-white reality. From the East versus the West allegations to the myths about the South being uneducated while the North holds all the opportunities. I painted the image for my identity with the muses presented, however, now I’m looking inward for inspiration.

Black women from the South are taught a particular skill set to play by, and I mastered every skill but found my success was still limited. So I learned to play THE game and found some major flaws in the playbook provided to me.

The idea of corruption is rooted in the oppression of the mind.

depression is the cause and effect of oppression.

Navigating my seasonal depression helped me make the connection to depression in the colder season and how the social system has made it difficult for humans to care for themselves. Mental health is connected to something greater than generational trauma on a cultural level.

Depression is the cause and effect of oppression.

America’s greed has taxed the mental health of Americans through oppression. The word oppression means mental pressure or distress. While Black and Brown people suffer the most from prolonged, chronic, and debilitating depression that weighs heavier consequences on our ability to handle daily functioning, studies have shown that White Americans are more likely to suffer from acute episodes. Those random, one-off accidents raise major concerns and are often treated, unlike the long-term stress factors that most Black and Brown Americans face.

The greed of this country enslaved all Americans, and we are beginning to see depression, along with other mental health illnesses, normalized as an effect.

Seasonal depression is not because it’s cold outside. Subconsciously, as Americans, we associate this time of the year with a financial struggle. The cause is the holidays; the effect is seasonal depression.

However, it runs deeper than that. Cotton traditionally was harvested from the beginning of August through October. I’m not sure about you, but my seasonal depression starts around August showing up as anxiety.

I’ve been more aware of it this year, and typically by November, I’m crashing out. My birthday is the week of Thanksgiving, and I’m half Indian and half Black. Intuitively, my bloodline was not brought to this land, I believe I am indigenous to the land. For this reason, Thanksgiving has always drained me emotionally and energetically since I was a child.

I’ve started to realize this world is not black and white.

The people who stayed in the South when colonization took place became conditioned, and the ones who moved out West were the ones who had the mindset to get it out of the mud. It’s a different mindset, it’s a different way of living. You have a choice, either stay in the oppression or move into the unknown to maintain your freedom.

Slavery was spirituality manifested in reality to share as a Biblical story. Noah’s Ark is the story of the people who move into the unknown to maintain their freedom. The animals symbolized multiple shades of skin; not races, that word is how the competition began between the different shades of skin. The pairs were to preserve bloodlines but to save humanity, we all became mixed breeds.

Freedom is simple, easy, and undeniable.

• Is this why I felt the spiritual pull from the West?

• Was my search for freedom that led me into the unknown to bring me back home to my native land?

• Am I Noah symbolically? To bring us back home to humanity, not as races but as a collective frequency.

• Was my journey to show and tell my freedom unlocked by traveling into the unknown?

• When facing the South, the West is to your right, is that symbolic of being redirected on the right path when you are heading down the wrong one?

many call it a beanie, where I'm from it's a called toboggan.

The word toboggan has duality, in the South it means a knit hat but in the North, it’s referred to as a sled. What I love even more about the word is that it was used by indigenous Indians of the land, and in the South, toboggan was used short of a toboggan hat used while tobogganing.

Since I was a kid, I’ve used the word toboggan when referring to a beanie, and have been picked on because of it. Even in my adult age, I’m faced with accusations that I am native to the deep parts of the South, a country girl they label me.

Not once have I beat a case.

Transplanted in my culture, I stand ten toes down rooting for everyone Black because that’s the unspoken law that governs us. Black American culture is what we have curated over the years through the stories we have passed down. Oppression, suppression, repression, and unity in our community through suffering, with sprinkled victories that resulted in sacrificed consequences.

It’s all been strategic, hand-selected influencers to push the narrative used as our muse to seek inspiration. These characters are transplanted and placed in the storyline to thicken the plot, but for our culture, the ones shaping and molding generations for decades. We stood ten toes down for them, not just on the famous ones. Children kept family secrets while adults groomed them for their turn.

No matter which way you look at it, America groomed the people of this country to accept abuse. As an effect, we’ve been conditioned to trauma bond over our abuse, and for Black American culture that rooted us in our cycles of suppression.

Katt Williams said something in his with Shannon Sharpe that has become a condo in my mind. There are only two sides, God’s or the other, and race can’t draw the line. Our love bomb with Black American culture has kept us suppressing change toward our freedom. The unity around this masked Americanized identity has kept us hidden from our truth. Our fists balled tight and raised high with pride, however, we may be the only ones that don’t know that every shade of skin has been niggas once before.

Before this land was robbed and renamed America, our prefix did not label our identity by a region. I’ve been experiencing another spiritual ascension, and race has been a highlight for me. Specifically, who the original people of this land were, and that led me to learn more about the Creole and Cajun Louisiana genealogy. From a spiritual perspective, I’ve felt the pull to visit Louisiana for answers for three years while one of my angel’s name is Louise. These synchronicities fuel my curiosity and the information revealing itself is redefining what it means to break free from cultural traps.

Today, I can’t say I have the answers. However, today, I can say that I have been documenting my discoveries, and it feels like I’m in class finding the answer to the question in my notes from the beginning of class. Life is my classroom; the Universe/God is my teacher, and I am forever the student.

I want to end this for now with an excerpt from my book, Un-Trap da Hood, where I talked about this very discovery from a cultural perspective. As I was writing this creative article, I typed the words ten toes down and immediately knew there was something in that chapter for me to add to this piece.

Wow, that is really all I can say.

“It might have worked then but it’s limited us in adulthood. Shit, it was probably limiting us then but we didn’t have the guidance to show us a different way. Let’s be honest, we are teaching our parents how to navigate their emotions.
Not to turn this into a blame session, this is why we gift them with grace. Understand any triggers we experience are signals that we are imprisoned. It’s our job to discover the how, what, when, where, and why that resulted in this imprisonment. It’s not intending to place blame, but for us to unlock freedom.
When the triggers surface that is the opportunity for us to keep them or let them flow, it’s completely up to us. We decide if we want to keep the limiting perspectives or free space for new ones.”

This clicked when I started to recognize a pattern with the flow of myself and the Universe. In troubling times my practice and faith would be amplified. In these dark moments I would openly release limiting beliefs and morals I once agreed to. Like always as the storm lightly up my reality would reflect the manifestation. However, there would be an opportunity presented for me to take action on what I released. It feels like you are being presented with all the attachments you said you wanted to release. One by one, the Universe asks you do you want to keep it or let it go.

I believe this is what we get hung up on when it comes to surrender. Our subconscious mind believes when we surrender we disconnect from a part of our identity. This subconscious belief is fueled by the ego. If we release these attachments, what do we then hold on to?

Blind faith. That’s what you hold on to. This is the main reason I will always encourage someone to learn to nurture their ego rather than kill it. Setting the stage for compassion, grace, vulnerability, respect, and most importantly validation is what allows us to redirect the ego’s practiced pattern. Having blind faith in ourselves and the Universe is how you set that stage because you develop that inner knowing that this is the path to freedom.”


Excerpt From
UN-TRAP DA HOOD
CHAPTER 3: TEN TOES DOWN
Jacquie Verbal
This material may be protected by copyright.

Thank you for reading, I’m so proud of myself for this piece. Not only was my pencil sharpened with a sharp tip, but my ability to change my mind openly about something I’ve been so loud and proud about for my entire life. Old me would be embarrassed for this, but who I am today is proud of myself because I’m not.

…but the question that lingers in my mind is, as Black Americans, are we going after true freedom or the repressed watered-down version of freedom? What race are we really running in, and is that why we are so tired? From running a race that was never meant for us to run.

Welcome to my Chronicles of Change, right?

xo,

Jacquie