I’m battling with myself over whether I should call corporate on one of my managers. A few weeks ago I started my shift and asked one of the girls in leadership what she wanted me to do since they were rearranging the section I was assigned to be in. She told me to just find an area and straighten up while they were doing the major stuff up front. As I was walking away the actual manager told me that she had a job for me. She wanted me to take some shirts that were previously folded and hang them up. There was a cart near the table the shirts were on and I asked the girls if they were using it so I could just wheel this big pile of shirts over to our fitting room and grab hangers there. The manager, I guess, got agitated, picked up the shirts, threw them in my face, and said “Just take them in the back and put them on hangers!” I’m not sure what her deal was and I was too in shock to see what everyone else’s reaction was. I don’t know if she was stressed out about all the work that needed to be done. I’m not sure if she actually meant to toss them (cause I caught them in my arms) and it came off more aggressive than she intended, and I’m not sure if I’m actually making excuses for something that’s inexcusable. I’ve been sitting with this for a few weeks and am not sure what to do. She is kind of a hot head and I’m afraid if I say anything she’ll make my time there worse. I’m equally afraid that if I do say something that nothing will be done about it at all. I already have another job, but that alone won’t make ends meet so for now I need this job as well. I had an interview for another job earlier this week that I’m hoping to get, but for now I’m not sure how I should even handle this situation. On top of this incident I have another manager that likes to talk down to me like a child and treats me like I’m stupid. Actually a few days before this throwing shirts in my face incident happened I stood up to this other manager and told her not to talk down to me when I’m only doing my job. I’m only assuming she informed the other lady and possibly her revenge was to throw something at me. I’m proud of myself for not having went off yet, but I don’t know when that breaking point will come. I’m leaning more towards the decision to call corporate, but I don’t know. I really don’t want to bring race into it, but the only other people I’ve heard to have problems with these two ladies are the few other black women I work with. I mean, the county this store is located in is the one where John Crawford was shot and killed, so the racism doesn’t shock me, but at the same times it does. All I want to do is my job and I want to do with well, but I can’t do it if I’m being bitched at, monitored heavily, having things thrown at me, and talked to like I’m a complete idiot. *sigh* I just want to be rich so I can open my own business and it will be a business where I treat my employees as my equal and like decent human beings.

        Is it possible to have someone’s presence make you incredibly angry? I swear every time I’m around my grandmother I’m just so fucking angry. Like I love her because she’s my grandmother, but that’s the only love I got for her. She spent so much of my childhood making me the black sheep and putting my cousins above me and now I’m just filled with so much anger towards her. Like a blinding rage. What makes it worse is if she does something that triggers me or says something that’s completely offensive and I call her on it, she never apologizes. She’ll make excuses or divert the conversation, but she never apologizes for anything or takes responsibility for her actions. She has no concern for how this might affect me at all which let’s me know that I’m not shit. Never have been in this family and never will be. I feel like this feeling I have towards my family is abnormal cause I was never abused or anything like that so why the anger? But I just feel like I’ve never mattered and no ones actions has proved me wrong in that.

-Asia Aneka Anderson

This weekend was definitely a triggerpalooza weekend. Every weekend I feel like shit because of my grandmother. I think that woman is doing more damage to my mental health that anything in my life. I want to be there and supportive of her since my aunt passed but I’m so close to just telling her that she really needs to set up an appointment with a therapist or grief counselor because I can’t be around her anymore for the sake of my own health. We’ve all suffered a loss and we all have other things we’re going through, but we don’t have to be asshole to each other.
        Every weekend I have to hear her body shame other people, say unnecessary homophobic or transphobic things. Hell even this weekend we were watching a “Say Yes to the Dress” episode and there was a lesbian couple. The first words out of her mouth are “So who’s the man?” I told her “Neither. Men have penises and they have vaginas. You’re old enough to know that part of the anatomy.” That was completely unnecessary. Like why do you have to bring it up all the time? There was no need for it at all. And why say something like that if you know that I’m pro anybody being happy? Why insist on saying things that you know will upset me? Because fuck my feelings, that’s why. If there’s anything I’ve learned from the women in my family is that my feelings are invalid and my thoughts are even more invalid. I mean nothing to these people. Yet, I try to be supportive solely because they’re family. If this was anyone else I would’ve told them to kick rocks ages ago. I try to educate this woman nonstop. We’ll be out in public and she’ll make some negative comment on a persons weight or appearance. I have to keep reminding her that you don’t know what hell someone may be going through and the last thing they need is to hear someone like you, who happens to be no fucking prize herself, talking negatively about them. Haven’t you caused too many people to feel bad about themselves in your own family? Stop spreading your hate into the world. How can you call yourself a Christian and be so judgmental of others? It’s like it must take a piece of her soul to say something nice about someone or to not saying anything at all.
        What triggered me this weekend is my mother, my grandmother, and I were out running errands and my mom’s phone went off while she was driving. I answered the phone for her and it was my father. If you’ve been following me for a while you know he’s a drug addict and I’ve pretty much lost more than all respect for him. Anyways, he called her to tell her he was at a friends (drug buddy’s) house, which was weird that he felt like he had to call and tell her that. Usually when he tries to cover his tracks before they need covering it’s because he’s up to no good. I’ve become used to this behavior and it’s all just predictable to me know. Well, when I hung up my mom asked who it was and I said “Who else, but you’re favorite crackhead.” My grandmother, or course, had to put in her two cents. “What did you call him?” she asked me. “Crackhead.” She kept badgering me not to call him that. Technically, she’s right. He’s not a crackhead. He pops pills and does heroin, but heroinhead doesn’t have the same ring to it. She kept saying that was my father and that I have to still respect him, blah blah blah. I’m sorry, but I’ve seen my mother struggle too much because of him. When I was younger I was all set up financially to go to college until he drained my bank account dry when I was a kid. I cried myself to sleep for years because of him. As I got older, and before I knew for sure that he was doing drugs, I would lend him money because he would somehow always be broke and I had the thought always hanging over me that what if he were to overdose on the $20 I just gave him and how was I going to live with myself if that ever happened. I’ve watched him be rushed to the hospital tons of times. I was up all night worried from another state when he had a stroke. I was devastated when he almost died. Now that I’m back home I’m pissed that I see him and his friend do drugs in my mother’s house. I’m pissed that I see her struggle to pay 90% of the bills and yet he seems to have trouble paying the only TWO he has. I’m pissed that he does drug deals in front of our home. I’m even more pissed that I wasn’t pissed long ago and chose to be an enabler for years. So it triggered me to hear this woman tell me how I should feel. You don’t know the fucking hell I’ve been through and you don’t know what the fuck is going through my mind. It took a lot for me to get to that point. When I asked him to get help he chose to insult me while I was begging and pleading with him. So if he doesn’t give a flying fuck about me and my mother then I don’t have to give a fuck about him. Period. The first time he ever went to the hospital (not for an overdose, but because his drug use and smoking has damaged his heart) was back in 2007 and that was the time he almost died. Several times a week since then I would have nightmares of seeing him in a casket. A year ago, when I finally saw him for what he really was and that he was no longer my father, those nightmares stopped. I haven’t had one since. Don’t get me wrong, my dad was a great person, but the person that was my dad no longer exists. He died years ago and it took me a long time to see that.
          As my blood my grandmother should have been willing to listen to and understand that instead of trying to guilt me into feeling bad about that. Caring for someone who refuses to get help is a lost cause and, again, for my mental health, I can’t entertain that and his lifestyle. It’s already caused me too much hurt and I refuse to keep being hurt and disappointed by him. Just because she stood by my grandfather, who was a violent alcoholic who would beat on her and the kids, doesn’t make you someone who respected a man because he was the father of your kids and husband. It makes you an enabler. I’m not going to go as far as saying that makes her an idiot, because that was a different time, but in all honesty, it does make you an idiot in my opinion because, I don’t have them now, but I wish somebody would put their hands on my kids. So all I’m saying is just because she stood up for someone who was an addict doesn’t mean my mindset is the same. Family and friends of an addict are victims too and you will not make me feel guilty when I’m the one being hurt in the process. A grandmother should be the person that you should be able to talk to about those things and get advice from. Not mine. I have to teach her on how to be a decent human being so how in the hell is she going to be someone that I talk to about this?
        I just cannot tell you how upset this made me and why she kept fussing back and forth with me on something I live through. Every weekend I say that it’s my last weekend going over there, but for some reason I feel guilty that I even entertain that idea. She wants me to go to church with her soon and I know 100% I’m putting my foot down on that. I refuse to go to church with someone that does the least Christian things ever. I know and am prepared for the guilt trip attached to me saying ‘no’ and I know I’ll be fussing back and forth on that one alone since my mother never has my back when other people are involved, even if she agrees with me. I have to do something and I have to do it in a way where I’m not triggered because I kept thinking of ways to kill myself on Saturday and I can’t have that keep happening every weekend. She’s my grandmother and I love her but I can do without seeing her for a very long time.

-Asia Aneka Anderson 2015©

Seriously, Spotify

        So I was enjoying a little music on Spotify while I was working out today and I heard an ad that completely ruined my mood. It was an ad that suggested to celebrate black history month by listening to hip hop artists like O.T. Genasis and Flo Rida. There was a third artist that was mentioned, but I was so shocked by the first two I didn’t pay attention to who it was.
      
         First off O.T. Genasis is known for a song about how he loves and sells cocaine.

and Flo Rida is just a trash artist and I’m confused as to why he still has a career, but I digress.
       
        There are so many hip hop artists that could’ve been used in that ad. Spotify could’ve used the opportunity to promote up and coming hip hop artists as well as well known artists that actually represent the positivity or speak on social issues within the black community (Kendrick Lamar, Kid Cudi, Childish Gambino, Schoolboy Q, The Roots). After all that’s what black history month is about. It’s about the people who preach equality, change, and progress. To me it seems as though Spotify just picked anybody that was black versus using people that would actually fit in the category of “celebrate black history month” and they scraped the bottom of the barrel on this one. Instead of going the route of promoting influential hip hop artists they went with whoever represented a stereotype in hip hop music, and that stereotype is to glorify drugs, money, and bitches. Not all hip hop music is about that. The only thing that terrible ad was missing was Igloo Australia to bring that racist ad full circle. Black history month is about the black leaders and underdogs that fought for our equality and respect and the people that continue to do so. So, Spotify maybe you want to rethink what celebrating black history month really is and change that ad up a bit.