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It’s been a beautiful week of rest and connectio

It’s been a beautiful week of rest and connection with cherished family and friends and Babe. She absolutely cracked me up this holiday! She and my mom crossed a threshold in their relationship. Babe used to bark at her on sight—like Pavlov’s dog. But Babe found her favorite place in the world—right next to Mom—while she and I binged on season 1 of #thewire.

Btw, The Wire, yo!! Literally incredible!! We just finished season 1 last night. Diving into season 2 next. The writing is unlike anything else I’ve seen. First aired in 2002, season 1’s pacing and plot twists bear no resemblance to the formulaic “thrillers” that crowd our streaming platforms today. Where our screens are splayed with gratuitous violence today, The Wire often leads us to the moment when that stock character would usually die and chooses instead to use the moment to reflect on or reveal the world we live in. The Wire is deep, yo! And this is just season 1! I know that part of the awe-someness of this series is the meta-story. Over five seasons, the writers paint a layered and complex picture of how power moves and how it is corrupted in city governments.

I leave this week grateful for down time with family and friends, grateful for Babe, grateful for my church @aecst1792 and grateful for great storytellers. 🙌🏾🙏🏾👊🏾

Reposted from @freedomroad.us For many of us in

Reposted from @freedomroad.us

For many of us in the United States, Advent is cheery boxes full of samples. There are cheese advent calendars, wine advent calendars, chocolate advent calendars, and so forth. They tend to contain 24 little cardboard windows to punch out and retrieve the morsel of the day, but these overpriced cardboard concoctions represent capitalism's takeover of an ancient tradition.

Advent actually begins in November. If you practice Celtic Advent, you begin forty days before Christmas on November 15th, a practice mirroring the forty days of Lent. Most liturgical traditions in the west observe Advent as the four Sundays before Christmas, equaling approximately four weeks. Advent wreaths are commonly used to mark the progression; lighting one of four candles that line the outer circle each Sunday. An additional candle is lit after sundown on Christmas Eve. Named the “Christ candle,” it sits in the center.

Advent is not about cheese, wine or chocolate. It is about waiting in darkness; waiting for light to be born into the world. It calls us to prayer, repentance, and preparation for liberation and flourishing.

Advent is a gift to us all in dark and divided days. Let us be intentional as we approach Christmas this year. May we resist commercialization. May we light each candle a symbol of our deepening commitment to the light and liberation of Brown Jesus.

#advent #decolonizingtheholidays #advent2022 #brownjesus

Repost from @freedomroad.us Today, people across

Repost from @freedomroad.us

Today, people across the country gather with friends and/or family to sit down, overeat and give thanks. But of all the holidays that we need to decolonize, Thanksgiving is the hardest to redeem.

It was born from a supposed shared meal between colonists and the Wampanoag people in 1621, but according to an article by Moonanum James and Mahtowin Munro at UAINE the first official “thanksgiving” was proclaimed in 1637 by Governor Winthrop after the return of men who had participated in a massacre “of over 700 Pequot women, children, and men.”

Thanksgiving has been used to sanitize and white-wash an horrific history of genocide—an erasure that continues to this day in the form of broken treaties and promises. For example, Congress still has not seated Kimberly Teehee, who was selected in 2019 as the non-voting representative from the Cherokee nation. The Cherokee nation has been promised a delegate since the treaty of New Echota in 1835. Today, three years after the current delegate’s selection and nearly 200 since the treaty promise was made; the Cherokee nation is still waiting.

The atrocities perpetrated by our colonizing nation through forced boarding schools, the handing out of smallpox-soaked blankets, the massacres of the Pequot, the Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek, and the Lakota at Wounded Knee are hidden from many of our historical texts. In the same way, mid-20th century flooding of North Dakota’s Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara nation land and prolific toxic dumping on Native reservations evades newspaper headlines today.

A progressive politico was recently quoted in the New York Times likening the midterm election results to “escaping the massacre at the Battle of Little Bighorn.” That battle was not a massacre. It was a Lakota and Cheyenne victory against those seeking to massacre them. It was Indigenous resistance; framed as a tragedy. Why? Because the stories we tell have been written by white men determined to preserve the myths of inherent white male goodness, white male rightness, and white male rule. …

Continued in comments 👇🏽

#thanksgiving #decolonize #decolonizingtheholidays

Grave yards used to freak me out. I mean I avoided

Grave yards used to freak me out. I mean I avoided them like I avoid zombie movies—just not havin’ it. But on Saturday, after my writing group (shout out to the Global Writers Group!) mom and I piled into the car with my dog, Babe, and went in search of the new grave stone my mother bought for my Great Grandparents, Hiram Lawrence and Ella (Fortune) Lawrence. They rest next to their three children—my Grandpop, Junius, and his two siblings.

It was profound to be in the presence of Hiram and Ella. Hiram passed a decade before I was born and Ella joined him on the other side when I was just one year old, so I have no memory of her. But standing at their gravesite, after years of researching their lives, I felt like I knew them.

As Babe bounced, giddy in the rich grass, I spoke out loud to them: “Hi, Great Grandpop Hiram and Great Grandmom Ella! It’s your Great Granddaughter Lisa! And Hi Grandpop and Uncle Marshall and Aunt Sis! I love you all so much!

“Great Grandpop Hiram and Great Grandmom Ella, I wrote about you and your lives in my book, Fortune. I hope you feel honored by my words. Thank you, both, for the lives you lived. You laid the foundations for my own.”

They literally did lay those foundations. It was Hiram who owned several homes in the marshy community of Elmwood before the city snagged the land claiming, #eminentdomain. It was Hiram who I felt cheering me on from the other side as I contemplated buying my first home in the neighborhood he relocated to in South Philly. “If I could do it then, you can do it now,” I heard him say.

And I could.

#fortunebook #ancestors #resilience #howtolive #gratitude #legacy #homeownershipmatters

Dear God, Forgive us for the ways we have sinned

Dear God,

Forgive us for the ways we have sinned against you by crushing, erasing, silencing, diminishing and gaslighting your image on earth … in thought, word and deed.

Forgive us for every word, spoken and unspoken, that has led to a world where violence against the image of God is
More common
More acceptable
More brazenly justified under the framework of war.

Oh God, on this day of mourning and anguish, please comfort and protect the LGBTQIA+ community—especially transgender women of color. Protect them, most of all, from people who claim to follow you.

Amen.

#clubq #transgenderawareness #nomoreculturewar #prayer

Photo credit unknown (From @koaa_5)

My convo with @michelleferrignowarren on the Freed

My convo with @michelleferrignowarren on the Freedom Road Podcast will drop in December. It was straight 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🙌🏾. Tonight join me for a #kitchentableconvo that will give us a taste of that feast!

Tonight, we’re going to talk about #jointheresistance and #allthethings

Click in @lisasharper for this #iglive convo at 7pm ET!

See you soon!

“On Wednesday, November 16, 2022, the City of Ph

“On Wednesday, November 16, 2022, the City of Philadelphia will welcome individuals seeking asylum who were bused from Texas. As a proud welcoming city, we will greet our newly arrived neighbors with dignity and respect. City agencies, Office of Emergency Management (OEM) mass care partners, immigrant leaders, and immigrant-serving nonprofits are working together to welcome, assist, and provide support to these individuals and families.

We want to acknowledge the generosity and compassion we have already seen from residents and community partners since we were alerted to these individuals arriving in Philadelphia. Below is more information about how you can get involved and help Philadelphia’s newest arrivals.

How you can help
Donate to the Welcoming Fund
The City of Philadelphia’s Office of Immigrant Affairs and the Mayor’s Fund for Philadelphia have launched the Philadelphia Welcoming Fund to allow Philadelphia residents the opportunity to contribute to local efforts to welcome immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers arriving in Philadelphia.” (Philly.com)

Give at link in my stories.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to do a happy-dance for #democracy!!!

Catherine @cortezmasto just clinched the Senate seat in Nevada!!!

That means the Dems won back the Senate!!!! And democracy will live another day in the USA!!! Hallelujah!!!🙌🏾🙌🏾🙌🏾

We’re still waiting to learn if control of the House will shift to the GOP or stay with the Dems. We won’t learn that till next week (at least), possibly 2-3 weeks from now.

In the meantime, #letsdance !!! 💃🏾💃🏾💃🏾

And let’s get @raphaelwarnock over the line to secure a Senate with real ability to do good for our country.

#election2022 #democracymatters

My cousin, Caesar Weekes, is an American #veteran

My cousin, Caesar Weekes, is an American #veteran who fought in Vietnam and Desert Storm. Now, he has returned to duty (so-to-speak). Caesar created this billboard and planted it in his front yard!

Here is his message:
I am a Black man in #georgia.
I value honor.
I value integrity.
I value trust-worthiness.

It is not enough to push just any Black man into higher office. That man must be worthy of the office. That man must be honorable. He must be a man of integrity. He must be worthy of our trust.

“I don’t want Hershel Walker representing me!” Cousin Caesar said. “He is not worthy. That is why I support @raphaelwarnock in the #georgiarunoff!”

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