Advocate – …on the B.L.

11… Black Writers I LOVE

February 10, 2020 RaeAnna

wp-1581366815475 — The Travelers | The Water Dancer | How to Love a Jamaican | A Raisin in the Sun | The Palm Wine Drinkard | Infidel: My Life | I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem | Passing | Half of A Yellow Sun | Homegoing |

Some of my favorite books are written by black authors. The first book I read by an African author was The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola. It completely opened my mind to a new voice, culture, and world.

Black authors have done more to open my mind than any other demographic. I would not be the person I am today without these authors, their stories, the characters, and the challenges they gave me to face in the mirror and the world.

1. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie… I’ve read all of her books, and they are amazing. Americanah is absolutely stunning. I can’t recommend her enough. She has a uniquely African, American, female, human voice, which creates empathy and understanding by bridging the differences and finding the commonalities.
2. The Palm Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola was my gateway book. Before it, I had always gravitated to the European classics. Tutuola opened my eyes to a more diverse world of literature, and I’ve never looked back. It’s an amazing novel. You should read it.
3. One of the first novels I read by a black woman after discovering Achebe was Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. It is an incredible novel, and I fell in love with Hurston’s prose. She was incredibly talented, witty, and amazing. Anything she wrote is gold.
4. A few years ago, Yaa Gyasi was all over the place because of her debut novel Homegoing. It is absolutely worth the hype. I love the book and reviewed it, here.
5. Ta-Nehisi Coates is a great writer. I really love his essays. They are incredible and insightful. 2019 saw the publishing of his first novel, The Water Dancer, which I’ve just read and I’m in the process of writing a review.
6. The playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, is best known for A Raisin in the Sun, a play depicting segregation in Chicago and the Black Americans living in it. It was the first play by a black, female author performed on Broadway.
7. Alexia Arthurs has an amazing and unique voice. I can’t wait to see what else she brings into this world. Her collection of stories How to Love a Jamaican is wonderful. I reviewed it, here.
8. I love memoirs, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a phenomenal memoirist. She’s had a challenging and tragic life, but she overcame it and created good in the world through her activism and writing. I highly suggest any of her memoirs, but Infidel: My Life is particularly incredible.
9. I recently discovered Nella Larsen and her novella Passing. It was published 91 years ago, but it still holds so much up in today’s world and provides insight into the days of years gone by. Read the review, here.
10. I read Moi, Tituba, Sorcière… Noire de Salem or I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem by Maryse Condé in college. Some of the scenes in the novel have stayed with me ever since. It’s an amazing and heart wrenching novel in the original French and just as powerful in the English translation.
11. Regina Porter’s debut novel The Travelers is fantastic. It’s an amazing snapshot of American history. I reviewed it a few months ago, here.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Black History Month 2020

February 1, 2020February 1, 2020 RaeAnna

Happy Black History Month!

Holy crap. I can’t believe it’s February already. I feel like I haven’t done anything productive this year. Oh well, there are still 336 days left to turn this shit around.

Back on topic:
There are so many amazing heritage months during the year. Every year, I try and focus on one or two because I can’t focus on them all. Damnit! The very first year, I spent February celebrating black women for Black History Month. (Last year, I focused on Asian American Pacific Heritage Month and LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.) It was wonderful. On Instagram, I talked about a different amazing black woman every day, focusing on lesser known movers and shakers throughout history. I only read books penned by black women. These women are/were incredible. They have been the backbone of this country for centuries. Well, not just this country, but that’s a much longer story. They deserve far more recognition than they have ever gotten. For as much as I knew before that month, I learned so much more. It started amazing conversations, which I would have never had otherwise. I expanded my mind and my heart. I love being a nerdy blogger because my focus is on educating myself and pushing others to do the same. I read books about a variety of things from memoirs by comediennes to novels to nonfiction. You can’t know something until you know it, and there was so much I didn’t know. There is so much I don’t know. It’s why I keep reading: to educate myself, to be better, to do good in the world.

I push a very intersectional feminist agenda. I didn’t have a huge following back then, but I knew from the beginning I wanted to use whatever my platform was to showcase incredible humans of diverse backgrounds and voices. Not to speak for them, but be a channel for which their voices could be heard or realized or found. It’s hard to know something you don’t know, which is why I try to showcase the divergent world in which we exist. It’s so easy to be caught in our own bubble, but outside our bubbles, a world seethes with an indescribable amount of individuality and intersection. We are all humans. Our existence is uniquely our own, but it also overlaps in so many fascinating ways. We are more alike than we are different. But it’s impossible to experience the unique overlapping of humanity trapped in our own spheres of being.

That first year blogging and Instagramming was enlightening. Racism exists. It’s rampant. It’s horrible. It’s everywhere from our grandparents to the media to our own internal bias. For as much love and support as I received, I also encountered a great deal of dickweasels. I lost over 500 followers because I was highlighting black women. I heard “There are incredible white women too,” or “What about black men?” I wasn’t saying black women were better than anyone else. I was saying we, as humans, are all beautiful and fascinating, but let’s bear witness to an overlooked and left behind and oppressed group of people because they need and deserve love and acceptance and have the right to be seen. I may have lost 500 followers, who I didn’t want anyways if I’m being honest, but I gained over 1,000 new followers. I heard so many comments of support and awe. It’s not about the followers; it’s about what those numbers represent. Hatred exists in the world, but I have found kindness and compassion weighs heavier. People want a better world. People want to do better. People want to grow. People want to give and receive kindness.

This year for Black History Month, I’m not just focusing on women. I’m reading books by black authors. I won’t be highlighting a person every day because honestly, it was a lot of work and research, and my job has been keeping me very busy lately, and I don’t have the time. I truly wish I did. I hope to expand my mind and those of everyone who cares enough to follow along on this journey. I’m still completely baffled people care what I have to say, but if you’re listening – in this case, reading – I will be using my voice to raise awareness and advocate for change, peace, kindness, love, acceptance, tolerance, and a beautifully colorful world. Although, I try and do this all the time, so Black History Month really isn’t all that different than any other month. It’s just a more one directionally focused month.

So far there are only seven books on the list, but I might try and sneak an eighth in there since there are eight book review days in February. If you haven’t noticed, I post every Tuesday and Thursday. Send me your recommendations if you have any!!! What I’m reading this month:

The Black Book
Dapper Dan by Daniel R. Day
How to be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi
The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Becoming by Michelle Obama
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Charged by Emily Bazelon (It’s not by a black woman, but it does talk about an issue that affects the black community at much higher rates than white people.)

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

TANK XING

November 1, 2019 RaeAnna

I took this picture on Camp LeJeune because the Tank Xing signs are hilarious. To me. They may not be to you, therefore, I think you have no sense of humor. At first, the picture was taken as a joke because what else could it be. I immediately sent it to my best friend:

TANK XING on Camp LeJeune in North Carolina.

Kelsey So you’re a tank now.
Me Yes I am.
Kelsey Well alright then.

The more I got to thinking about it, the more the analogy seemed appropriate.

I might not look like much, but I feel like a tank. Battered, bruised, scraped up, seen a battle or two, but still kicking. Indestructible but not always for the best.

There’s a saying “We’re called survivors because not all of us survived.” It’s true. So many people die at the hands of their abusers. There was a time when I wondered Is this the day I die? Surprise, it wasn’t, but I genuinely questioned it for many years.

I look at my body and see pain. A man dug his fingernails so deep between two of my left ribs I can still feel the divot every day when I put lotion on. There are still scars on my arms from where I scratched until I bled after bed bugs ate away at me for months. Stretch marks line my thighs and hips because maybe he wouldn’t rape me if I wasn’t a size zero anymore. Worry lines spread across my forehead every morning after I wake up from being haunted by memories every night. My body paid for college. This body has been seen and used as a vessel with the sole purpose to serve and service men.

TANK XING | Shirt | Skirt | Sandals | Watch | Sunglasses

This body is mine. I had to sell it to learn I had dominion over it. A right to it. I am allowed to say who can touch it and who cannot. My body is a reminder of the men who believed they could take me because they wanted me whenever, wherever, and with as much force as they wanted.

This body is a tank. It has been through war and survived. In so many ways, I feel indestructible. I have been through so many things and come out alive. Maybe not victorious, but I’m sure as hell not the victim. I am the culmination of all my experiences. In a lot of respects, I have had a very good life. I have found love, belonging, worth, happiness, and adventure. There are a lot of good days, but for all the good days there have been bad years… I have been raped, beaten, manipulated, controlled, and abused. I am haunted by my past, but I’m still fucking here. I have not given up, though I have tried.

I’m sturdy.

I’m strong.

I am a tank. So get out of my way. I’m crossing here.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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In My Own Words, Lifestyle

I Am A Servivor

October 12, 2019 RaeAnna

“Just another career-obsessed, nail-biting, manophobic, hell-bent feminist she-devil.”

I hate the title survivor.

I’m not a victim. Not anymore. I was a victim when it was happening. But after…

There isn’t a word I’ve found to resonate with my broken pieces. And I’m a words-person. Silence. Nothing. Guilt. Solitude. Shame. Numb. Lost. Broken. They’re not titles I can put on a shirt or a sign to identify myself as one of many in a march. They are feelings. The feelings that have never left me from the moment his hands first touched me with violence in their intent.

I never say, “I’m a survivor,” or “I survived.” I can’t. It feels like a lie. It would be a lie. I didn’t. I did not stand up as the same girl he held down. I didn’t survive. Rape is murder. He murdered who I was. Every time killed a part of me.

The closest I’ve ever come to finding a way to describe myself is “raped,” but people don’t like that. If people have to face humanity’s ability for violence and destruction, they want to see someone strong and owning it or broken and hiding it. Survivor. How happy. How uplifting. What a positive spin on a tragic epidemic. It’s ignoring the actions that were survived. Focusing on the survivor having survived. Past tense. It happened. It’s done. Let it go. Move on.

Survivor. It’s a bow to wrap up a present we don’t want to open. We know the gist of what happened. Some hazy sort of violence. No specifics needed; that one word says it all. It tears down the facade we’ve so diligently constructed, letting people in just enough for them to know there’s a dark past but not enough they actually know a damn thing. Survivor: say the word. People get a sad look in their eyes, “I’m so sorry.” But stop there. It’s a bow to wrap up the story people don’t want to hear.

Ignoring the story, the nitty gritty of it, is its own kind of violence.

Putting people at ease, letting them remain in their comfort zone is easy, kind. It does not facilitate change. If people are comfortable, they’re complacent. Change comes from agitation rooted in pain and suffering. I don’t write about this because it’s fun to dwell in the dark pain of someone’s choices to destroy my mind and undermine my identity. I write because I was raped. I was raped for years. I was beaten. I was abused. I was shared. I was torn. I was hurt. I write because too many people can say the same. Some say it. Many do not. Silence is a virtue. I don’t have that virtue. I had no voice for so long, but I have one now. I tell my story to make people uncomfortable. I tell my story because it is time for change. I tell my story because it has helped people, opened minds, changed minds, softened minds, and made people angry. I tell my story because I can. Many are not able to because of pain or circumstance or they’re no longer alive to tell theirs. I am still here. A broken, tired, angry, hurt version of who I used to be. I did not survive, but I am still here.

I have been writing and blogging and processing in various ways for almost a decade. In college, I wrote under a pseudonym about being a stripper to pay for school and food and a roof not because I was ashamed but because I didn’t know what my future was uncertain. After college, I started a blog to talk about my life and how I struggle to pick up the pieces of my soul. A few years ago, I started …on the B.L., and it quickly grew into something real with a following. I haven’t kept my past or advocacy separate from this, but I haven’t focused on it either. It’s been present by quiet. But no more. This is the driving force behind everything I do. Creating change. My story, as painful as it is, keeps me going.

I hate the word survivor. I don’t feel like I survived. I feel like I just didn’t die; though, there were years I wished I had. I like the word servivor. I’m using my story to serve others by creating change in whatever way I can.

I am a servivor.

I will stand tall. I will stand firm. I will tell my story. I will serve.

In My Own Words, Lifestyle

Pride 2019

June 25, 2019June 25, 2019 RaeAnna

Rainbow Dress (So many compliments and linen!) | Heels | Belt | Purse | Hair Clip | Watch

The fact we have to have a month to bring awareness to any population of the world is shitty. I truly wish the world was a loving and accepting place full of kindness, but it isn’t. Which is why we have African American History Month in February, National Women’s History Month in March, Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month in May, National Hispanic-Latino Month in September, National American Indian (cringe) Heritage Month in November. This month of June is Pride Month to celebrate all our LGBTQIA+ brothers, sisters, and gender nonconforming family members.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family and church where sexual orientation and gender identity were nonissues. My parents wouldn’t have cared if I came home with a girlfriend. When I was young, the church I grew up in created a mission statement accepting and welcoming people of all identities as God’s children. Two places where seeds of hate and ignorance could have – and for so many are – sowed, I was given examples of acceptance and love. People are who they are. I have always believed and will continue to believe sexual orientation and gender identity are a part of who a person is and cannot be changed, though they are often far more fluid than people realize.

Pride month is important to me like all the other months celebrating the beautiful diversity of humanity. I have known out LGBTQIA+ people my entire life. (We all know them, we might not be aware, though.) I remember my parents explaining to me, at four or five, why our family friend brought another man instead of a woman to dinner. The conversation went pretty much like this: Mom/Dad, “Instead of falling in love with a girl, he fell in love with a boy.” My reaction was along the lines of “ok.” Totally scarred for life. Just kidding. I loved him, he loved a man. Cool. When I was 15 and a freshman in high school, my mother asked me if I was gay because I had no interest in boys. It wasn’t a big deal, but it was a question. I was not a lesbian then, and I’m not now. (Although, my sexual preferences are probably more fluid than I had thought possible at 15.) People I knew came out at all ages around me. In college, I knew a ton of gay, lesbian, and bi kids; there were even people transitioning. On the first day of class, one of my classmates introduced herself and said she was transitioning and would prefer to be addressed with the pronouns “she and her.” I went to a very liberal school, and everyone had a nonreaction of “cool.” She was a she, and no one cared or made a big deal about it. It wasn’t really until after graduating from college, when I ran into homophobia or transphobia along with a lot of other phobias based on rigid and outdated ideas of how people work. I knew they existed, but it seemed like it should be a thing of the Ozarks where there is a lack of teeth and running water.

Dress | Heels | Belt | Purse | Hair Clip | Watch

I’m all about Pride because everyone should support people embracing who they are. I’m also all about Pride because I have two gay cousins, who I love very much. I have friends who are LGBTQIA+, who I love very much. I want them to be able to inhabit the world with the same rights, protections, and abilities to be who they are and love who they love as their straight, cisgender neighbors without fear of violence or persecution. The world is changing; not nearly as fast as I would like. Marriage equality has been passed in my lifetime. It’s a huge step forward, but there are so many more to go.

Falling anywhere on the LGBTQIA+ spectrum or not on it at all is fine by me. I don’t care either way as long as you are a good person. My opinions are my own, and I would never push my own opinions and feelings on other people. I may not know a great deal. I do believe acceptance, kindness, and respect should be given to all people because every person is deserving.

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20190624_184709 — Rainbow Dress (literally the best) | Belt | Purse | Heels | Watch | Hair Clip |

Books, NonFiction

Tomorrow Will Be Different by Sarah McBride

June 15, 2019June 15, 2019 RaeAnna

Worth a Read Most Definitely
Length 304
Quick Review Sarah McBride is a transgender woman active in politics living her life to the fullest. I was in happy and sad tears the whole book!

Tomorrow Will Be Better by Sarah McBride looking over the National Mall in D.C.

I believe change happens when people are moved by people’s stories. There is power in a story. Sarah McBride opens up in Tomorrow Will Be Better about her story as a trans woman, a person, a wife, and an advocate. People are more than one adjective; they’re many. Sarah is more than a trans woman. She is a woman with a beautiful, uplifting, and heartbreaking story. If you read this without being moved you’re a gargoyle. I was in happy/sad tears the entire book.

The book starts with a forward by Joe Biden, which is very touching.

Sarah McBride grew up in Delaware and is a “stateriot.” I just love that term because I feel a little bit like a stateriot for my home state: Iowa. She fell in love with politics at a young age and worked on the governor’s campaign before graduating high school. In college at American University, she won student president. Before her senior year of college, she came out to her campus as transgendered. The university embraced her for who she really is. To officially mark the birth of Sarah, she threw a party asking everyone to bring things to fill her brand new closet. (This is such a smart idea! A complete wardrobe change is expensive. Especially as a woman.) After college, she stayed in Washington D.C. working for trans and human rights. She fell in love with the man who would become her husband. Tomorrow Will Be Better is an apt title for a book full of hardship dripping in hope.

The book focuses on two major parts of Sarah’s life. The fight for trans rights in Delaware and her journey with her husband, Andrew.

Tomorrow Will Be Better by Sarah McBride | Dress | Heels | Hair Clips |

Sarah fought and helped pass the marriage equality bill in Delaware. In an unprecedented move a bill to include and protect trans people was passed a month after the marriage equality bill. Sarah was an integral part of passing that bill and bringing other trans people to Delaware’s Congress so their voices could be heard. I remember hearing about this in the news, and it was moving then.

Sarah and Andrew fell in love during her senior year at AU after meeting at a White House dinner. They dated for a year, when they found out Andrew had cancer. Sarah stood by and helped him through the journey. It is a heartbreaking story proving the power of love.

More than anything, I appreciated Sarah’s honesty and her voice in Tomorrow Will Be Better. Being a white, trans woman is a unique perspective. She went from being perceived as a white man with all the privileges that implies to living as her true self, a woman. The experience was incredibly jarring, “I never realized just how disempowering, unsafe, and unsettling it would feel to have a stranger assume they were entitled to comment on my appearance or my body.” The implications of being a woman in the world and being a trans woman in the world are complicated and ultimately dangerous. Transphobia combined with toxic masculinity are dangerous.

Trans rights are incredibly misunderstood if they’re understood at all. For the people who do accept people for who they are, it can come as a surprise the absolute lack of right trans people have. For the people who don’t accept them, it’s (hopefully) from a lack of education. Sarah explains the hurdles trans people face and how it compounds when they are not accepted, a minority, in poverty, etc. Sarah explains so many aspects of the trans experience without anger or judgement. She is patient and kind with a general attitude and hope that Tomorrow Will Be Better. She touches on privilege, names, documentation, medical awareness, and so much more.

This is an incredible story. Sarah McBride is an inspiration. I highly recommend the beautiful memoir, Tomorrow Will Be Better, to anyone who wants to learn, feel, and strive for hope.

Memorable Quotes
“”If we cannot change our college, then how can we expect to change our country.””
“There is a unique kind of pain in being unseen.”
“Somehow society manages to treat women like both a delicate infant and a sexualized idol in the same moment.”
“I felt a moral responsibility to use that privilege and those relationships to subvert the power of prejudice.”
“For many of us [trans people], though, we are reluctant to give out that information because it often becomes weaponized against us, invoked instead of our chosen name to ignore and deny our gender identity.”

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Barnes & Noble | Buy on Book Depository
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Title: Tomorrow Will Be Better
Author: Sarah McBride
Publisher: Three Rivers Press (Penguin Random House)
Copyright: 2018
ISBN: 9781524761486