Archives for April 2022

Russian political prisoners former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan (detained since December 2018) and former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed  (detained on March 11, 2020) are benefiting from NBWA Star & two time Olympic Gold Medalist, Brittney Griner’s arrest in Moscow in February 2022.

Due to her celebrity,  Griner’s Russian incarceration has brought mainstream attention to America political prisoners. So much so, Trevor Reed has been freed and is coming home to his family.

But what about Brittney.

I feel sick to my stomach.

I keep thinking about Breonna Taylor. How her life was stolen as a form of “collateral damage” for the cops just “doing their job.”

Just like America.

America is doing its job to bring home white military-serving males while the system uses black queer-identified female body as leverage.

I have served in the military.
I love my country as flawed as it is.
I would rather be a Black Woman in America than any other place in the world. And while I am well aware that Reed’s health is said to have been in grave jeopardy and Whelen has been a political prisoner much longer than either Reed or Whelen, the very nature of the arrest SCREAMS Racism.

Griner was arrest at an airport near Moscow. In her luggage it is alleged that “drugs” were found. THAT’S how the arrest was initially characterized. Upon further inquiry, it turns out the “drugs” were a vape and container with traces of cannabis oil. For this “crime” Griner could spend up to 10 years in a Russian prison.

Both of the White Male Marines were charged with much more serious offenses (Whelen accused of being a spy; Reed for assaulting an Officer while drunk) but the punishment is so very similar to the American Justice System. We, get more time for smaller offense than any other race in America. It’s starting to look the same in Russia too.

Racism has no geological loyalty.

My point is this: we know of Reed and Whelen BECAUSE of Brittney Griner. And yet, just like Aubrey, the situation had been kept on the hush. It hasn’t been in the headlines NEARLY enough for Americans to rally behind Griner.

The silence is deafening.
Silence kills.
I’m afraid our silence will turn Brittney Griner into another Breonna Taylor.

No.

Not on my watch.

It’s time to make some noise.

Please share this video

#freeBrittneyGriner

Tomorrow is Easter Sunday.
For many of us, Easter is the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus after being crucified. The word “resurrection” is defined as: a rising again, as from decay, disuse, etc.; revival.

I am thinking about apply the word “resurrection” to Black People.

Here me out.

I am NOT saying Black People surviving Slavery is the same as Jesus rising from the dead after three days.

I AM saying, as I sit with God and be with what it would take for us as a People to heal, trust each other and thrive both emotionally and economically, I see something.

In my imagining, Black people have been treated, historically, in many ways, the way Jesus was treated: accused, betrayed, whipped, murdered. Be it physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally we have, as a People, known persecution for hundreds of years.

Do you ever feel targeted?
Discredit?
Crucified?

I Imagine that’s how Jesus may have felt. When the people who sing your praises ( Hosanna!) one day and then on the next day those same people cried “Crucify!”, it’s enough to empathize with the Christ.

So as I sit here empathizing with Jesus, I think of you.
I think of us.
I think How can I help.

I start to reimagine resurrection as a “rebirth” of the Black Family.

Or our relationships with Black Men being “born again.”

Or our wealth “arising” so Black People are no longer the tail, but the head.

My point is this: if Jesus could resurrect. himself from the grave, why can’t we resurrect ourselves from the wounds of slavery?

We are made in the image and likeness of God.

God spoke.
Then there was.
We speak.
What we speak becomes real.

If the power of life and death is in the tongue, and Jesus gave up his spirit after saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” don’t we have that same power?

Resurrection power?
Revival?
Resuscitation?

As I reimagine resurrection for us as a People, I draw courage and hope.

You sis, are God wrapped in flesh.
You bro, are the character of God.

Together we can “resurrect” Black America from the bondage of oppression and systemic Racism.

If this speaks to you, I can show you how we can break the yoke of oppression and create our own resurrection.

Go here for details: www.HealedBlackMillionaires.com/Opt-In

I admire Jesus because he was a man his word.

He was a radical who GAVE his life up for what he believed. He fulfilled the law out of love and duty as a son. I learn a lot from his example. Especially, him laying down his life, calling the shot of rising in three days, and fulfilling his purpose. So I an applying Jesus’ resurrection power to our 21st Century crucifixion called Chattel Slavey and Colonialism.

I say it’s time for us to be like Jesus was in his day.

It’s time for us to take up our cross and become our own Messiahs.

For me, it’s the names.
Their names scream new precedences.
As far as I am concerned, their names say it all.

On April 7, 2022 a Black Woman named, Kamala Devi (meaning “lotus”), representing her mother’s Indian linage) and Ketanji Onyika (meaning “beautiful”) expresses her parents pride in their African heritage and hope for the future—made WORLD HISTORY!

These two Black Women (keep in mind I am using the term “Black” as a social position not the color of a person’s skin) transformed the course of human history. Vice President Harris had the honor to count the votes and DECLARE Judge Jackson as the first Black Woman Supreme Court Justice in World History.

The implications are boundless. Especially for girls everywhere.

I imagine young girls of all races, worldwide watching these two mocha colored ladies, in the presence of a room overwhelmingly filled with covertly hostile white men, owning their power and witnessing each other.

There will be young girls from around the world whose mother cried watching Vice President Harris count the votes and then congratulating Judge Jackson for her bipartisan confirmation to the highest court in the land. These little girls will be puzzled, then intrigued, then inspired to reach new heights that weren’t IMAGINABLE before that vote.

These beautiful brown-skinned girls will grow up into exquisite and brilliant brown-skinned women, who will cite April 7, 2022 was the day they dreamt a new dream for themselves.

I then think backward.
To the ancestors.
Who walks with and watches over us as we live this life.

My mind imagines them rejoicing beyond sound. I wonder if they wept for joy that we did not give up. That Judge Jackson stayed the course.

That she suffered a “21st sort of whipping” by the spiritual vultures called the Senate.

I imagine an ancestor or angel whispering into Senator Cory Booker’s ear to remind Judge Jackson that she was worthy and had earned her seat at the table.

Then my mind comes to you Sis.

I think about how hard you have worked. How much you sacrificed. To NEVER get the brass ring.
Or the raise.
Or the promotion.
Or the capital.
Or the support of a Black Man speaking life into you when you were surrounded by wolves.

Trust me—I know the feeling.

To see Kamala Devi confirm Ketanji Onyika to the Supreme Court FELT like a personal victory. Like our collective disappointments, let downs, betrayals, attacks—ALL the things—for a moment, didn’t matter.

Why?

Because one of us made it.

If Judge Jackson can stay the course and keep here cool to ascend to highest court in the WORLD—it gives us, it gives me hope to finish what Spirit has kept me alive to do.

What makes this victory for Black women even sweeter is to be witness by another Sister who gets it. Vice President Harris REALLY gets it. For Harris to confirm Jackson, who too had to be twice as good and work twice as hard to have her seat at the table as the second in command of the Free World (as flawed as it may be) made this moment holy.

Sacred.
Divine.

I’m sure there is more work to do. Confirmation is different from execution. Just like the wedding is not the same as the marriage. Judge Brown has her work cut out for her.

But today, in this present moment, as I sit in my chair and listen to the birds sing hallelujah, I look in both directions: the future of girls of color worldwide. And the past – at our ancestors who died, so we could live free.

In this present, I inhale. I rejoice.

And I am grateful.

Thank you Lord.
Thank you.
Thank you.

Will’s Slap: Character Flaw Or Trauma Response?

This is not an excuse.
This is an explanation.
An explanation I have been developing since 1997 when I started my 2nd Masters degree and Ph.D. at Stanford University.

“Why do Black people hurt each other?

I am an Identity Theorist by training. My are of study is the formation of cultrual identity from African Slavery, through the Middle Passage, to Chattel Slavery. Cultural Trauma is where I lay my heard. As crazy as it may sound, trauma makes sense to me.

I grew up in trauma and have been studying it, unpacking it, and healing from it since I was six years old.
So when I heard Will Smith yelling at Chris Rock after slapping him in front of the world, my body reacted the same way it did when my momma yell and slap anyone one of us kids.

The violence in his voice triggered my history of violence. It took me almost a week to process my triggers. And in the process I saw the historical trauma being enacted and embedded at the 2022 Oscars Awards.

I did a 45 minute video on the historical trauma as it relates to Black Men and respect. Click here if you would like to watch it.

I will be “deep diving” on this topic at my upcoming “Healing Black Love: Manifesting Millions Together Live Event.” For now, here are some important points if you are committed to healing and thriving together as a people.

HISTORICAL WOUNDS- GENDER BASED

Black Women have a historical wound around being heard. During slavery our screams were silenced and or no was ignored. That wound is alive and real within many of us today.

Black Men have a historical wound around being respected. During slavery Black men were rendered helpless and powerless via shaming, sexual exploitation, and the inability to protect and provide for loved ones.

Take the case, when Black Women and Men get upset with each other, it’s not them that are arguing. It’s their wounds at war with each other. More often than not, we villainize each other, as if our character is the problem. Take the case that our wounds are not us, no more than our feelings, thoughts, or bodies are us.

So if you can take the case that our wounds are not who we are, then why is it we CRUCIFY another when she or he does something we deem as not respectable? The answer is simple: we have, generally speaking, become the emotional and social whip of the slave master.

We do to each other what has been done to us.

As enslaved people we were never considered human. So we don’t have the right to have feelings, or fears, or failings. In order to survive in the “White Man’s World” we need to be respectable. Perfect. Work twice as hard. Do twice as much.

We have to “represent” the race.

And we NEVER air our dirty laundry in public—ESPECIALLY in front of (omg!) good white folk. #cluchyourpearls

So we become our own owner overseers, and treat each other as inhuman as plantation owners treated our ancestors.

Like animals.

As human beings we have the RIGHT to have wounds, feelings, mistakes and anger, and yes, trauma.

Trauma responses are NOT a choice.
Trauma responses are NOT a character flaw.

Trauma responses occur when a person is triggered. The trigger is directly tied to a real or imagined threat. The threat can be physical, emotional, mental, financial, and or identity based. When one is threatened, your physiology takes over and you will either flee, freeze, or fight.

Think back on a moment in your real like when you were trigger. See if you can recall if, in that moment, you could have done ANYTHING different than what you did at that time. I have MANY such moments!

But those moments are not my character.

Those moments are past hurts screaming to be healed.

Will Smith writes in his book, Will, about his shame that he could not protect or defend his mom from his dad hitting her. He was 9 when he watched his father hit his mother in the head so hard, blood came out of her mouth.

My point is this: we as a people have trauma. It takes a willingness to clean up the impact of one’s trauma responses on others. It requires us as a People to relate to each other the exact OPPOSITE way history has trained us to do: as human beings.

We can’t heal until we start to distinguish our character is NOT our wounds. You HAVE wounds just like you HAVE arms. But that’s not you. You have feeling but you are not your feelings. And you are not your wounds.

A character flaw is permanent.
A wound can be healed.

A trigger is a trigger. Yes there will always be something to clean up when a trigger flex’s at the most inopportune time.

In my world, that flex means you’re ready to heal.

I am using Will Smith’s trauma responses at the Oscars as an example. I’m not debating, justifying, excusing his or anyone else’s action. I have no dog in that fight. I am talking about historical wounds that keep us at the bottoms of every social-economical statistic in North America and how to turn that around..

So please don’t debate.

I have no interest in you agreeing or not.
This is a theoretical framework for those of us who are committed to healing and thriving together, emotionally as well as economically, to begin to heal.

Please don’t post any hateful comments on my platforms. I’m committed to healing Black Love. This is a substantive sharing. Not sensational. It what I am teaching doesn’t resonate with you, go quietly away.

I’m not your teacher.

AND if you are fed by this word, this life affirming word, let me hear from you in the comments below in the spirit of love and dignity. I promise to respond.

I love you,

Dr. Venus