TeasasTips

Getting sick shows us how fragile we are; how fleeting life is. One bout of high blood pressure, pneumonia or even the measles can take you out. It can make you pray like you've never prayed before. And it can make you look at things through a different lens. Funny how trauma causes one to be introspective and spiritual. However, at the root of a medical event is fear at its fundamental best.  We are this complex human machine which is fragile and subject to break down at any given moment. The body can completely shut down leaving your loved ones and friends to funeralize you. Or it can break down in parts giving you a chance o repair what's weak or the alternative, face the eternal music.  Like a car that needs brakes or a motor, your body can become worn and tired from abuse and misuse and it responds in kind. Doctors may try to fix it or maybe they just use sick people for lab experiments? They try this medicine, run that test, just to see what works, o...

They've been tearing us apart from our men folk since they first brought us here on those slave ships.  We didn't ask to be brought here, as a matter of fact we were kidnapped. Maybe because we don't pick cotton from them anymore, and they can't make us slaves again, they don't need us anymore. Like we don't matter. Yet they've found other ways to enslave us.  Poverty, incarceration, homelessness, subpar or non-existent means to education are some of the ways they tighten the ropes around our necks. They shoot and kill us like stray dogs, all while denying our Civil Rights. No one understands how the sins of 400 years still haunts the black folks of today. We don't even know why we wake up feeling great despair, anger or just out of place. We don't have a chance at building a family when our men are jailed for 30 or 39 years based on a lie. Or murdered before they become men thus destroying another branch on the ancestral tree.  Everyon...

She left the office in tears. Tamala couldn’t believe what she just heard. It felt like her whole world had caved in on her. The job she held in such high esteem had turned on her like a wild, unfed tiger. At her age she wouldn’t find employment easy. No matter what her skill set was. All she could think about were the friends she’d made, the experiences she’d shared. Now it was over all because of her boss. Tamala had been out of work for a year now. Being unemployed had seriously eaten away at her savings. If she didn’t find work soon she’d be forced to file for unemployment and food stamps. Tamala was too proud to do that. She was raised to work for what you want. Don’t take handouts, only quitters do that. Her family was strict and self sufficient. There were no exceptions. You either made it in  this life or you didn’t. Tamala was embarrassed to ask for help. She didn’t want anyone in her family to know that she was unemployed so she kept up the faç...