DeliaChristina

DeliaChristina, 1 year ago to random

I really want to lift up the mods of the SFBA instance: @cd24, @Ingurido, @jeffkibuule

I, a Black woman, have had a marvelous experience on Mastodon because these mods don't play. For being a place-specific instance, SFBA has a very clearly expressed value system and it's reflected in the mods. They are proactive, even-handed, and respectful.

I wish others on #BlackMastodon and through the #BlackFediverse could say the same of their instance mods.

DeliaChristina, 9 months ago to random

Re: leaving Twitter/X (and this toot is for my #NonprofitComms folks out there):

I led my team through an exercise the other week. I asked them to rapidly list all the reasons we've heard from internal stakeholders why we shouldn't leave Twitter.

They generated a list of about 10 reasons.

Then I asked, one by one, if these statements were TRUE.

And it turns out, only 2 were true AND relevant:
Yes, we have our largest following on Twitter
Yes, connecting to Twitter is still a primary way online advocacy happens.

But even these had serious caveats: Is our following growing? No (the opposite has been happening since the Musk acquisition). Are our advocates using Twitter for advocacy? No. Are electeds engaging with us on Twitter? No.

One by one, the excuses made to stay on Twitter/X were knocked down. There is seriously no REAL reason to stay there.

No evidence-based reason, that is.

DeliaChristina, 2 months ago to random

Just a reminder that what we are all experiencing, witnessing, feeling - NONE OF THIS IS NORMAL.

That's all. A little bit of permission for you to trust yourself when you think, Is it me? Or is the world extra bonkers right now?

It's not you, baby.
It's the world.
It's the powerful and those who want to be Power-adjacent.
None of it is normal or right.

Off to do laundry now.

DeliaChristina, 8 months ago to random

I'm kinda ok with men looking at me with Benson and backing off.

Over the weekend a tik tok was posted from a young Black woman in the hospital. One side of her face distorted with massive bruising and swelling. A man had asked for her phone number and she refused. He picked up a brick and smashed her in the face with it while the men watching did nothing.

This incident has been the focus of BlackTok all weekend. Black women were generally in team #ThisIsWhyWeCantTrustYou and Black men split between 'we need to do better' and 'I don't know you so you're not worth protecting.'

Which is a hell of a take. Wow.

I won't get into a long thread about #misogynoir but it's real (and there are fantastic Black women writers on it) and the analysis of it shines a bright unflattering light on the ways internalized white supremacy and toxic masculinity (sort of related) poison potential heterosexual bonds between Black men and women.

As I approach 54, I'm growing more ok with my impending invisibility.

#BlackFeminist

DeliaChristina, 5 months ago to random

Also, congrats, Mastodon.

I saw one of my friends reference her Bingo with Henry Kissinger and I came here FIRST to confirm the news.

You made it.

You're now a place where I can confirm shit the way Twitter used to be.

DeliaChristina, 1 month ago to random

Getting older needs a handbook.

Like, my body really does not move and recover the way it used to. I never noticed that my gait is all effed up. I never paid attention to my hips and back (outside of shenanigans). I never worried before about mobility and about how to keep it...mobile.

Youth enables ableism. You just think everything is going to work the way it always worked.

But getting older ...oof. If the body is a temple, this temple needs some assistance. The roof is leaking, the gutters are clogged, the doors are hanging wrong, and the hinges are all squeaking.

It's a paradigm shift.

#Aging #MiddleAgedStiffness

DeliaChristina, 7 months ago to random

An unhoused guy came up to me at Philz and asked for something to eat. Automatically, I said no.

I picked up my coffee and went back to my seat.

Then I stopped. WTF, Delia. I just spent nearly a grand on my dog's ears yesterday. Didn't blink an eye.

So I motioned him over and put in a mobile order for him.

WTF. Fighting the creeping dullness of disregard and cynicism is hard.

Compassion is also hard.

#Today

DeliaChristina, 5 months ago to random

Y'all folks who aren't in nonprofits.
You have NO idea how npos below a certain size build their staffing models. (And it was a shock to me, too, because I came from corporate before I was in nonprofit work.)

Most nonprofits begin with an idea. They're like start-ups.

'Hey, kids! Let's end poverty!' (for instance)

So what does that founder do? They bring on other folks who also want to end poverty - i.e., program folks. And, little by little, the nonprofit grows from there - on the program side. Yeah, they take care of the tax required things, too: Board, bylaws.

But the primary energy is around mission delivery.

Infrastructure + operations are absolutely secondary.

Why? Because there's no incentive to invest in it.
Why? Because donors believe the myth that every dollar going into a npo needs to go into programs. Leaving crucial infrastructure and operations absolutely starved.

(we call this the starvation cycle.)

DeliaChristina, 1 day ago to random

I'm not gonna jump in on that thread about 'all men' but I am gonna say this:

While it's true that not all men do X, it is absolutely more true that patriarchy socializes ALL MEN to accept or be blind to certain truths about their position, importance, and relevance in the world.

Almost everything all men think of as 'natural' about their status in the world is not, in fact, true.
It was crafted through oppression, suppression, and violence.

It is also true that it takes an enormous amount of deliberate de-conditioning to throw off patriarchal thinking and praxis.

Those for whom 'not all men' truly apply (which is a small enough number to be sad and pitiful) know this to be true.

And so do the rest of us.

DeliaChristina, 5 months ago to random

MSF/Doctors W/o Borders has been a very clear, steady, and consistent voice about the on the ground situation in Gaza. The healthcare crisis. The humanitarian crisis. The wanton death and destruction.

They are trusted messengers and their altruistic mission gives them a LOT of goodwill and credibility.

[Moreso than the Red Cross, I think.]

The IDF attacking them in this way is telling and is not doing anything to sway global public opinion.

But, frankly, I don't think Israel cares about public opinion anymore.

GottaLaff, 4 months ago (edited 4 months ago) to Ohio

This shouldn't be a thing, but...

👏🏻 #Ohio woman who miscarried on home toilet is not criminally liable, grand jury says #legal #WomensReproductiveRights https://apnews.com/article/68145b3044b3cc61017b71a97f7cc036

DeliaChristina, 1 year ago to random

On the BART this morning (6.30 am), Benson and I got on a car with a guy having some kind of mental break on it. He was loud, talking and shouting to himself. He made weird sounds. He was disruptive.

And you know what?

No one killed him.

Benson and I gave him a wide berth; I kept an eye on him in case he tried to approach my dog.

But he was alive as he rode the train.

The mentally ill, the indigent, the broke down folks - they all deserve to survive a train ride.

Jesus christ, America.

#blacklivesmatter

DeliaChristina, 6 months ago to random

Girly lunch was slightly tense.
Bestie said shared she's been feeling some kind of way about Global Events.

It's so complicated, she said.

I made some neutral noises and listened as she walked a fine line between not being Zionist, but repeating their talking points, and saying what's happening is terrible but Gaza brought it on itself.

Me: Well, in about 3 months all this will be moot. Gaza will be wiped off the map, and the people with it, and then the West Bank will be next. That sort of eases the complexity quickly, doesn't it?

Her: [silence]

Me: Because in the end that's all that matters. We can debate fine points all we want, or not. We all know what the Nakba was. We all know what was not supposed to happen in the west bank. None of that really matters now. In the end, a people and a region will be obliterated. When it happens I hope folks will have the intellectual honesty to call a thing a thing. Because I will.

I had three mimosas.

DeliaChristina, 7 months ago to random

For most of us, if not all of us, there is literally nothing we can do to stop what is happening in #Gaza

But the very least we can do is be a witness to what is happening and to see it CLEARLY.

Because when this is over (whatever 'over' will look like), the Powerful will tell us that what we saw was NOT what we saw. They will try to erase the fact these people existed and had a right to exist. They had a right to be free.

They HAVE a right to be free.

I'm overwhelmed and overcome because there's only so much trauma we can bear. But WE, here in the U.S., are bearing nothing compared to what our Palestinian neighbors are bearing.

To look away is a comfort+privilege.

DeliaChristina, 6 months ago to random

oh hey.

it's officially my 1-year anniversary in the Fediverse.

I've had a great time!

The nimby vibe is definitely less nimby by now. Folks have been cool with me doing my social media thang here (it hasn't really been much different from my old content on then-Twitter -- except more longform.) And it doesn't raise my blood pressure.

All around, a WIN.

DeliaChristina, 3 months ago to random

Half the U.S. can't afford rent.

But the economy is doing 'better'.

Something is wrong here.

DeliaChristina, 4 months ago to random

On the drive to Napa this week with Bestie, she said something like, As bad as things are, we have to admit some progress has been made.

[We were talking about racial equity in the U.S.]

I turned in my seat and, Do we? Do we need to admit that? Or do white folks need to admit that?

Do not have me as Your Black Friend if you cannot stand in my hot kitchen. Because I don't care if you're a Bestie. I will smack you with the Truth Stick.

We don't want effing 'progress.'

We want the way the world works for YOU to work that way for US.

Oh, your kid gets picked up for smoking a joint at school but let go because he's a 'good kid'? Great. Treat Darius the same way.

Nothing more.
Nothing less.

DeliaChristina, 4 months ago to random

#MLK #BlackMastodon

I'm prepping my own MLK content today. I've moved away from the whole 'let's hold hands and sing Kumbaya' Dr. King. He was radical and I like that King because that's what is needed.

DeliaChristina, 4 months ago to random

I'm really curious how many white folks in the fediverse have any close BIPOC friends.

Like, work pals don't count.

These are folks who have let you see the inside of their homes, you know whether or not you have been invited to their cookout, and you know how to reach a member of their family in an emergency.

(All my Besties know how to reach my sister or dad and/or have met them.)

Like, are you a Mark or a...Karen?

DeliaChristina, 9 months ago to random

I'm a few paragraphs in on that Black women+menopause article and already I want to slap the medical profession.

Medical folks really cling to their racism and sexism, don't they? Like, they hold them close like a lover.

DeliaChristina, 4 months ago to random

Man.
I used to follow some cool folks on Twitter.

Academics, activists, historians, writers, policy analysts, labor organizers...I was smarter because of them.

Sigh.

Oh well. It took me nearly a decade to curate that follower list.

It'll take me some time to do that here. But I'm getting there.

DeliaChristina, 23 days ago to random

I swear, having a Black president literally made America go insane.

When I think about how utterly wiiiiild everything is, I think, Hm, what was the catalyst? What was the thing that made half this country go completely bonkers?

Barack Obama.

DeliaChristina, 4 months ago to random

I heard @ImaniBarbarin once say that the most dangerous place for a Black person was a healthcare facility. Add a disability and the danger to Black people increases.

This poor man.
https://press.coop/@Independent/111729190903935823

DeliaChristina, 15 days ago to random

Don't even get me started on that new Bumble ad.

DeliaChristina, 2 months ago to random

This made me so mad i couldn't even finish watching. Saved it though.

#FranceCanSuckIt #WhatFranceDidToAfrica

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPR3nJvmx/