hood therapy vol. 9
the first and the last time I voted a Black Man was elected the President.
My President is Black, my Lambo’s blue, and I’d be goddamned if my rims ain’t too.
I remember in college my freshman year hearing the cars drive by us blasting “my President is Black, my Lambo’s blue” all the students would sing aloud hype walking through NC A&T’s campus headed to class.
We were all proud to be Black then and Obama was the reason.
As 18-year-olds, we were so excited to be a part of history. We couldn’t believe how life aligned for us to be of legal age to get in the club, buy cigarettes, and vote for a Black man to be in the White House.
We thought, hoped, and believed what a time to be alive.
I won’t say there was a major chain of events that took place causing me to feel less hopeful about change, but no change that directly impacted my community is where the disappointment in voting is rooted.
There have never been political moves that have impacted my life directly in a major way, yet I’m expected to go through the physical, emotional, and spiritual discomfort during elections and there’s no real return on my investment. I see no positive change in this country and in my perspective, all of the Presidents campaign this false hope for change but never have a clear plan to implement change, nor do they really hold the power to make impactful change.
I think what triggers me the most about politics is that people involved in it are so close-minded. They don’t listen to understand, only shame and blame. Just because I am not openly confirming to vote for your candidate choice doesn’t mean I’m voting for the opponent. I’m not voting for either because neither is aligned with my viewpoints. Me not voting doesn’t impact the election, me voting doesn’t impact the election, you shaming me to vote does not make me vote.
I am doing my part in making a change in this country for my community directly. Not many people can say they dedicate their lives to helping and serving their community many times for free. I know our issues first hand therefore I understand the solutions that are needed to resolve them. If I were to vote again it would be in the way that the Black Panther Party brought several thousand new voters to the polls here in Oakland to elect a Black mayor.1 They pressured Wilson into making sure the needs of the Black community were addressed, but why aren’t we now? I believe if we aren’t voting and using our power in that way, then no matter how many of us show up at the polls whoever’s name is on that Project 2025 agenda2 is who will be in office.
And there is no changing that.
I can only extend compassion to others once I give it to myself first.
Please don’t cancel me for this week’s hood therapy. I believe that as Black writers we hold power in our words because we have ancestors who were silenced with theirs. That burning urge we get when the words are spilling through our minds forces us to stop and jot that thought down as a draft to later expand.
Only this draft didn’t start that way but it was the same intense urge to get a message out, I knew this message held the potential to get me canceled because of how conditioned our culture is when it comes to how to free ourselves.
Our ancestor Ida B. Wells3 speaks through me today to remind us that while she and others fought for our right to vote, our vote has always been discriminated against and limited our freedom. Today is no different, we as Black people need to see things as they are and not through the lens of hope.
Our ancestor Dick Gregory speaks through me to remind us that hope will get us dead.4 And our ancestor Sonya Massey is screaming still gripping the pot of boiling water wishing she would’ve thrown it on Sean since he was going to kill her anyway. 5
Our ancestor Maya Angelou speaks through me to remind us that we rise out of the huts of history’s shame and up from the past that’s rooted in pain.6 We don’t have to continue the cycle of rooted pain and suffering of our people. We can rise to the fight that our ancestors fought for hundreds and hundreds of years.
Our Black politician ancestors from North Carolina speak through me to remind us that the United States government lives by the morals of any means necessary. What they want they will have, and they will manipulate the entire country while wiping out our community if anyone dares get in their way.7
Take a step back and look at how history repeats itself while we allow it to happen with the only consequence being a peaceful protest.
My heart was heavy for our people this week, the words for this newsletter felt more like a scavenger hunt than a blissful escape from the reality of our world. I wanted to hold space for my community both here and on
but the community is withdrawing and I knew we were all grieving the same thing. The only problem was finding the words to show compassion for us because I had not given myself the compassion that I needed to explore my grief.We are grieving something greater than the elections and another Black community member killed at the hands of a police officer. The grief we are experiencing is the downfall of the country that we have carried on our backs for hundreds and hundreds of years. We carried this country while this country beat us, killed us, poisoned us, and enslaved us, and they have not stopped nor have plans to stop. Our ancestors are speaking through me now to tell us to put them down, take our Black breasts out of their mouths, and the only way to save our culture, our community, our people is to rise and fight for our land.
When it was Free Palentine we united with all to boycott Starbucks, McDonald’s, and all the other brands we discovered were funded by or funding Israel. Now that the focus is back on the elections we seem to have divided yet again, is nobody else really not seeing this for what it is? Is the plot twist never too predictable for us to question? From October 2023 until June 2024, we were all aligned with the mindset of coming together to build our own, but now because the same Black woman that is already in the White House is running again everything goes out the window.
I realized this week I won’t be able to save all of my people. Some will remain asleep to what reality is showing us in plain sight. Some will choose to turn the other cheek and to those, I send you a gift of compassion. But today I am showing up for those who are grieving and may not understand why, I am showing up for the ones who know there is a greater life available for us and are searching for it.
Compassion takes forgiveness. Compassion requires rest. Compassion is unconditional. Compassion can change the world if we all start spreading more of it.
Living in America as a Black woman I’m realizing there is no soft life.
Living in America as a Black woman feels like being forced to nurse a White baby with the breast milk that was produced for your baby and not being able to ever say no without an ‘ally’ saying it for you.
Living as a Black woman in America is thinking you are free to explore to find out that no matter where you go you are branded as an American like our ancestors were branded as their property.
I used to believe I could live a soft life, in fact, up to this week, I felt that I was living a soft life. A soft life is something you define for yourself based on your own experiences, mine happened to be slow mornings with coffee and writing while the sun rises, a smoke session with my partner during that time, the freedom to prepare quality meals for my family, money flowing into my accounts effortlessly and consistently, and the ability to disconnect from the world.
However, this week my Substack timeline had other plans and the typical American drama made its way back into my life and threw my whole nervous system off.
As the news continued to flood my timeline, Note after Note, I noticed my body tense up again, my jaw began to clinch, my hands began to shake, my heart was racing, and my mind was confused at how the people changed their minds so quickly.
This country has brainwashed Americans, and many Americans will never know what it means to truly be free. Many Americans will never experience change for themselves because they are waiting for things to “go back to normal” or change. But how can anything change when we aren’t willing to change our mindsets and beliefs first, after years and years of voting, fighting to vote, and now voting bills restrict 8 even more Americans from their right to vote?
I’m 33 years old so I am going to share some reasons why I believe that the older generations are part of the brainwashing. I think of my mother when she was heavily into the news and living the American Dream. She would lecture me about my decision to stop voting because in her eyes this was a right that our ancestors fought for and they would be disappointed that I was not experiencing the right that fought for me to have.
Understandable.
I explained to her and will share with you that no matter if I vote in every Presidential and local election that still doesn’t fit any issues within our country. The news has painted this image for the older generations that we Millennials are the problem, and that we are too liberal now and disconnected from politics.9 While part of that is true, they don’t explain why.
My mental health takes the biggest hits when it’s election time. My nervous system starts to shut down and I suffer from extreme anxiety and depression leading up to the elections my birthday is the 21st of November so by then I am in full-on depression. I have a unique way of thinking and question why we vote for representation when our voice is never heard, how can one person with only the interest of half the country lead us, and where are they leading us exactly?
Is no one else questioning this?
Living in America as a Black woman feels like when I don’t follow the rules of what Masta says then the other slaves of America beat me and tell on me until I get back in line. Living in America as a Black woman is exhausting and I just want to live a soft life, is that too much to ask?
America tried to put us in the ghetto and turned this whole country into the ghetto.
Can I be honest with you about something?
I fucking hate this place.
America.
It’s so ghetto here and as much as I love ghetto culture this is that Trailor Park type of ghetto, where I’m from we call it Trailor Park Trash.
America is Trailor Park Trash to me.
While everyone is celebrating the potential idea of a Black woman being President I feel guilty that I don’t share this excitement with my community. I can’t help but wonder when we will learn from the years of disappointment this country has given us. The last time I voted was when Obama was elected for his second term, and in his first term, I volunteered the entire campaign because I would be turning 18 that year AFTER the election.
I remember how much work I invested into his campaign that year canvasing the campus of NC A&T University, Bennett College, UNCG, Guilford College, and Greensboro College. My hometown is known as a college city and it’s capitalized during elections. My point in saying this is I am very familiar with voting, and my decision to stop voting was once I realized no politician will ever come to the hood and find out what help is truly needed in the Black community.
Presidential Candidates want Black votes, but I never see them in Black neighborhoods campaigning. Instead, once in office, they enhance the police’s duty to protect and serve those same neighborhoods with Cop Cities orchestrated by the same country that the Biden-Harris Administration has funded their 2023-2024 massacre.
Israel has a right to defend itself. And we will remain steadfast in that conviction.
These are the remarks straight from Harris’ mouth in a White House briefing on December 2, 2023, and on July 25, 2024, the narrative is still the same.10
Interesting to say the least.
Why don’t we get opportunities to vote on issues that we find important as citizens?
I would vote for solutions to school shootings, cop cities, wars/ceasefires, and the bills that we elect people to vote on our behalf on yet never vote on our behalf.
And just to set the record straight, I don’t feel that Kamala Harris isn’t worthy of being President. It is admirable that she is from Oakland, CA, where I settled down to make my new home.11 I would love to see a Black woman in the White House, I don’t want to see my people disappointed. I don’t care if it was me running for President, not one person can change our lives only we can.
No President has stopped police from killing us, and based on Harris’ statement there’s still no progression with the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that she coauthored as a Senator.12 Hell, they just passed the bill that made it illegal to lynch us after 100 years! This country is a joke, but we are the butt of the joke as long as we turn a blind eye to the issues staring us in the face.
Chapter 5: Rooted in Confusion
“Remember, transformation is the change of pattern to provide a change of outcome. We have to focus on being compassionate, gentle, and kind to ourselves. Accepting the truth can be difficult when you are rooted in that confusion. The truth is that our lives were conditioned to fit within a false reality. Forcing ourselves to chase something that is not tangible or real. The dreams of stability, for example, we have been conditioned to chase what is not tangible. What makes it not tangible is it exists on a frequency that is not accessible to this false reality. Therefore you cannot chase something you are not meant to be in alignment with. You have to break free from the false reality vibration and raise to the frequency aligned with what you desire.” 13
As I prepared this week’s newsletter I knew I wanted to continue using my book, UN-TRAP DA HOOD, to add the therapy aspect to these newsletters. It has helped me connect the parts of the book that highlight my discoveries with what is happening in real time within our community.
When I was writing this book I was on my rite of passage journeying home, but I had no idea the words I wrote on the pages of this book would reflect in this way. The book feels like a timeless read, no matter when you pick it up there will be gems waiting for you to discover. It reads like listening to a Kendrick Lamar song, with the many layers intertwined in the words.
Reflection:
The only way to see the change we desire is by identifying the need for change within ourselves. I learned this on my journey to break free from the false reality.
What is the reality that you are subscribed to right now?
Are you in a fear-based reality or a faith-based reality?
Can you step back and identify how you feel around this time every four years as an American citizen?
When was the last time you felt the feelings you feel now when you think about the world news?
Are your shoulders tense? Jaw clenched?
What change do you want to see?
What can you do today, right now, to create a change in your reality in this moment?
How often do you take deep breaths to reconnect with your body during the day?
Are you waking up stressed or fearful?
What are your beliefs on what change needs to happen in America?
If America had no elections to appoint a President, and we lived in peace and harmony how would you spend your days?
Repeat these Reiki-infused affirmations each day:
Just for today, I will not worry.
Just for today, I will not be angry.
Just for today, I will be grateful.
Just for today, I will do my work honestly.
Just for today, I will be kind to every living thing.
I know this one was heavy so please take care of yourself. Thank you for allowing me this space to say what I’ve been holding back and afraid to say. This took a huge toll on me but I could no longer continue to hold it in.
My paid subscription is open: Special thank you to
for being my very first paid subscriber I appreciate you as a friend and how you have supported me over the past 30 days and some!If you want to purchase my book, I would love it if you order it from my website after receiving my BIG $7 Amazon Royalty deposit yesterday.
Or if you would like to Buy Me a Coffee I have a coffee date coming up soon with a fellow Substacker and that would be so cool to buy a latte from a Substack subscriber with a Substack writer!
And of course, I am always the most grateful for the continued love and support y’all give me on this platform!
Love always,
Jacquie
I moved HOME here in Oakland, CA. My internal guidance to come here not knowing that Oakland was the birthplace for so much of the change I am actively pursuing to implement for my community. Fun Fact: Last year I was invited to join the Black Panther Party chapter in Greensboro, NC but I didn’t have enough money at that time to purchase my uniform to attend the event and I just never circled back around.
This information is in our faces but many of us are too tired to fight back now. Please educate yourself on Project 2025 before you run to the polls in November, we need to be strategic because this government is about 400 years ahead of us now. It’s not even just an attack on Blacks anymore they want HUMAN KIND. This thing is more deep and spiritual than the surface.
Although we know of MLK Jr as the face of Black voters’ rights, Ida B. Wells came to me while writing this week’s newsletter with a clear message about the challenges she and other Black women faced with what this country’s voting system is built on. It was not designed for us, and it’s still not.
This video of Dick Gregory sharing his belief about the word hope has been something I have lived by since seeing it.
The story is still too fresh for me to talk about, my soul can’t handle watching Black people killed senselessly at the hands of White men. I CAN’T TAKE ANY MORE, I AM TIRED. So instead
provided some shocking details that left me with goosebumps all over my arms and the link to the video footage that was released. It sickens me because Sean should have NEVER been able to protect and serve the community with his background.
Maya Angelou’s Poem Still I Rise spoke to me while writing this piece. I believe that Maya Angelou and other Black writers and activists speak through us with our words and today for this hood therapy Maya spoke through me.
One of the things about our history that shaped my decision to stay out of politics was when I found out about the Wilmington, NC Race Riot in 1898. This is the beach in NC I grew up going to and taking my daughter for her birthday. To discover that this place that is so white that as a Black person, you feel out of place was once considered “Black Hope” with Black politicians and thriving Black communities was a shock.
wrote a piece on this event, here is the link:
Remember, I have been living my soft life without the news media. Still, I remembered hearing about some Bills being passed in Congress that restricted the voters’ rights or their ability to cast a vote so I looked it up and found this article. There are more specific ones on a state level so feel free to do further research on this topic, I won’t be expanding on it.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-june-2023
Upon my research, I wanted to see what the people who ingest the news were being fed about younger people and our viewpoints on voting. This article by the NY Maginize was the perfect example to prove my point that we as Millennials are being narrated to be the villains in the American Voting story.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/06/millennials-will-not-age-into-voting-like-boomers.html
While the country is raising money and fighting for the war against Palentine to stop and begging for a ceasefire, the Biden-Harris Administration called for one but not for Palentine it is called for Israel because the narrative is that America will stand with Israel to defend themselves from threads made by Iran, Hamas, and other terrorist groups mentions.
December’s Briefing: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2023/12/02/remarks-by-vice-president-harris-on-the-conflict-between-israel-and-hamas/
July 25th’s Briefing: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/07/25/readout-of-vice-president-harriss-meeting-with-prime-minister-netanyahu-of-israel/
Originally my argument was that Harris is not Black, but I wanted to fact-check that and I decided to leave that perspective out of this piece completely after reading this article. I respect her perspective on her Black experience,
has been teaching me this. I was shocked to discover she is from Oakland, CA, where I recently moved this month. This was a good read, and I give her props for running against Mr. Trump again.https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/14/opinion/kamala-harris-black-identity.html
I wanted receipts for my points without using TikTok as a reference. I am shocked by the information that comes directly from the White House and how alarmingly disconnected this administration is from the cries of the American people. This statement about Sonya Massey from Harris felt both relieving and disturbing, I’m still navigating that four years later we still have no government solution to an ongoing issue within the Black community yet they want our Black ass votes.
This paragraph is an excerpt from my published book, UN-TRAP DA HOOD. The excerpt is from Chapter Five: Rooted in Confusion pages 40-41. If you would like to support my work please purchase, UN-TRAP DA HOOD, from my website through Amazon I only receive a $3 royalty.
It’s always good to hear different perspectives.
I think that more than one thing can be true.
Perspective is often based on our understanding and individual experiences. One of my tenants of parenting has been to never squash my children’s voices. Because I can learn from them too.