Sylvhem @Sylvhem@eldritch.cafe

remember the 500 miles email thing? http://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles

Ah yes my friend, Mechanical Nicholas PhD

Or as I like to call him

Dr Robot Nick

So I'm out here its nearly 3 am and I'm dissociating out of my mind and uhh I love ivy

Anyway, I'll keep being aggressive and hostile and an asshole because people reconsider their behavior when they think I might call them on their shit.

I literally have never seen a non-black person be called aggressive and hostile which is wild to me because yall go out of pocket when we've been taught our whole lives to tame our anger to keep us alive.

Any time people like us, who are black or who are seen as effeminate, refuse to be walked on and demeaned and disrespected, we are seen as combative, aggressive, hostile, and "starting shit." And no one but us seems to question why that is.

Ultimately, after being exposed to ridicule and isolation and admonishment for being "aggressive" and "hostile" and "an asshole"

What's the worst that'll happen? I might as well claim it.

After all, people think again when I speak up. Being "aggressive" gets results. Fine, you want me to be the asshole? I'll be the asshole. Whatever.

And this becomes so apparent in all of my relationships where I'm the funny asshole who might go off

Why?

Because I speak up?

Because I will defend me and mine?

Being protective and vocal and forthright makes me an asshole?

Why isn't every other protective and vocal and forthright person an asshole?

I will return whatever energy you're giving off.

So if you try to shut me down, if you decide you wanna be disrespecting and demeaning, I will clap back.

And somehow the clapback is aggressive but the disrespect and demeaning that pushed me there is not.

And I'm supposed to be punished by being branded aggressive.

When a white man gets praised for being bold and standing their ground and "well-said".

And then it became a waterfall of moments of every single time I've been called aggressive and combative and hostile and scary.

For what?

Speaking my mind? Being honest? Refusing to be intimidated by power and being outnumbered and dainty sweet little women crying at the first sign of someone not putting up with their abuse?

But here's the thing--

What made me hostile? What made me aggressive?

Because I said, "This is harmful and not okay and it hurts us"?

How is that aggressive?

How isn't appropriating and bullying my people not considered aggressive and hostile?

Why was I the aggressor and they weren't?

And when I spoke out about how it wasn't funny, how it made us (the 10 black folks) uncomfortable, how it was demeaning and disrespectful in a scene you wouldn't even have WITHOUT US, I was told I was aggressive and hostile and combative.

And I was outcast. And isolated.

Because I wouldn't go along with their bullshit.

Anyway, as expected, the hip hop scene to people means you have to look and act and speak a certain way.

And with hip hop originating in black and brown improverished community, it has a "look" and a "talk" and an aesthetic.

So I was surrounded by rich nonblack Asians trying to sound black and dabbing and dressing like the afro-boricuas of my broke ass neighborhood. For fun. Because it was funny.

I used to be a dancer. I was a hip hop and modern dancer at my university, a choreographer, and a featured member of two dance crews.

In a community that was predominately Asian.

Yes, I was in a hip hop scene dominated by non-black Asian folks. In a community of over 150 dancers, there were 10 black folks. That's it. Yes, we all knew and hung out with each other because it was just us.