Return to
Joy
SDMNews wants to remind Black San Diegans to SMILE! Come back to the things that bring you joy! What does it feel like to be a Black person in America in 2020? What does it feel like to be you, right now? Whatever your answer to these questions are, it is without a doubt that we all need joy in our lives. To return to your joy, or to find things that bring you joy is to heal yourself and your communities. What are some things that can bring joy into your life? The simple things always take precedent. Going for a walk and hearing birds chirping, smelling the flowers and green shrubs. Spending time with our families, laughing, and loving on each other. You do not need a lot of money or time to do something that will put a smile on your face, and it is a blessing to make others smile with you. Joy will not solve all your problems and it is not a quick fix for dealing with change, embracing the things that make you feel good remind you that there is a reason to move forward. There is no right or wrong way to feel joy, and like happiness it is something you experience. Not a destination.
Joy & Happiness “There is no path to happiness, happiness is the path� Happiness is too often mistaken as some far-off place that we will get to one day if we do the right things in the right timing. This does not leave room for you to feel happy If you are always searching for happiness. To some people joy and happiness can mean very different things. Happiness may feel temporary or based on events external to who you are. Joy may feel like an internal sensation, a feeling you have achieved once you have come to certain truths within yourself. Both perspectives are valid, and still there is more to experience. Joy and happiness work simultaneously at helping us achieve bliss in our lives. Bliss can be temporary or long term; it is all based on what you want and how you choose to get there. Happiness reminds us that there is always another side of life. It is what we come back to when life gets challenging and overwhelming at times. Joy can transcend happiness in your life, or they can exist equally. Regardless of where you place them, they function to keep you on the path to living. Do
The San Diego Monitor
RE-BRANDING
3
BLACK AMERICA
It is Break Time — Resting & Healing in the Black Family With everything going on in Black America, there needs to be a space where Black people can let go and come back to themselves. The Black family is one of the most important social structures in the Black community. Beyond the roles and responsibilities imposed on us by capitalist America, there is magic in the relationships shared between Black parents and their children, elders, and other loved ones. Sometimes our families consist of people that we have chosen to associate ourselves with. A chosen family may not always consist of blood relatives but holds the same significance and support. When the Black family is healthy and balanced the home is a space where rest and healing can be achieved. Reflect on the current dynamics in your home. The relationships you share with the people you call your family and what you bring to the table in those relationships. How we show up in the world reflects the relationships that we have in our home life and how healthy those dynamics are. What can you do today to bring balance to your relationships and your home?
Making Home a Safe Space A safe space is a space where you feel comfortable being yourself – your FULL self. Is your home a safe space?
Is change welcome in your home? Does your family feel safe being themselves? Exploring themselves and sharing that process with you? Can you do these things for yourself? Healing is a very personal process, but it is not something that we always have to do alone. Isolating ourselves from the people we love makes healing seem like a part of our journey that we want to avoid. Having support systems that understand your boundaries or who you feel safe communicating your needs with changes the way that you embrace healing. When we make space for people to be their full selves it creates trust and strengthens the bonds shared. Unlearning old ways of supporting the people we love is not an overnight task, it takes dedication and commitment to bettering the relationship. Certain beliefs and practices that we embody contradicts the way that we really feel. To align our behaviors with our true values and principles puts us in a space to see ourselves clearly. Taking space to reflect on who we are allows us to address the parts of ourselves that are working for us and those that are working against us.
Healthy Boundaries & Space It is not reasonable to expect the people you love to want to be around you all the time, and sometimes you just want to be alone in your own company. Taking healthy space in your relationships creates an opportunity for clear communication about what you need and how the people you love can support you. Continued pg. 8
Hair Love to Young Love Matthew A. Cherry’s exciting new deal with Warner TV, HBO Max has confirmed an order of a 12-episode season of a new 2D animated television series called Young Love, based on Cherry’s animated short film, Hair Love.
The widely beloved Hair Love won writer-director Cherry and producer Karen Rupert Toliver (executive vice president of creative at Sony Pictures Animation) an Oscar. Additionally, Cherry was recently invited into the 2020 Academy Class.
Hair Love, the adorable Sony Pictures Animated short film, follows a Black father who is tasked with doing his daughter Zuri’s hair. The reason this story became so popular because it’s a beautiful representation of intimacy between a Black father and his daughter. This is what the people want!
“It’s a privilege to continue our partnership with Matthew Cherry, who has a gift for tapping into meaningful stories that touch our hearts. I personally can’t wait to collectively laugh and cry with the Young family,” Toliver added.
Behind the Scenes “The all-new animated series Young Love expands on the family introduced in Hair Love. Filled with comedy and heart, Young Love is an honest look into the world of the Young family – including millennial parents Stephen and Angela, their daughter Zuri and her pet cat Rocky – as they juggle their careers, marriage, parenthood, social issues, and multigenerational dynamics all while striving to make a better life for themselves.” Shares HBO Max Productions.
Now, they are still super early in the TV development game at this point, so there is no scheduled premiere date yet, but we will keep you posted! Read more at https://thegrapevine.theroot.com
Cherry, who created the series, will also act as co-showrunner along with animation vet Carl Jones (The Boondocks, Black Dynamite). “I am beyond excited to continue telling the story of Stephen, Angela and Zuri and further explore the family dynamics of a young Black millennial family we established in our short film Hair Love as an animated series,” Cherry said in a statement. “Couldn’t ask for better partners in Sony Pictures Animation and HBO Max in helping us get Young Love out to the world.” “Hair Love struck a chord that is still resonating deeply with audiences of all ages,” Billy Wee, SVP, Original Animation, HBO Max added.
https://www.facebook. com/noelia.aquino.248
The San Diego Monitor
5
Difficult conversations in the black community It is time to speak unapologetically to Black America’s emotional wounds Wizdom Powell, is a Ph.D., associate professor of psychiatry and the director of the Health Disparities Institute at the University of Connecticut in Farmington. Her theories around racial battle fatigue, a reality for many Black Americans, calls for a commitment to radical healing by the wider society. In the United States, July 4 marks the formal adoption of the Declaration of Independence by the Continental Congress in 1776. It is well known that while America was embracing this conceivably unifying social contract, almost all Black Americans were still enslaved. These cognitively dissonant realities have been the subject of numerous essays, books, speeches, and artistic expressions. Extant writings focus largely on Black Americans’ espoused conflicts over commemorating this now more than 242-yearold holiday. Although these works detail important sources of conflicting feelings about July 4, they inadvertently reify stereotypic depictions of Black Americans as less patriotic. But perhaps more troubling than these single stories is their tendency to mute, obscure, or pathologize collectively experienced racial battle fatigue, which lies at the root of Black America’s presumed disaffection for July 4. Racial battle fatigue among many Black Americans is likely at its peak after months of required physical distancing, mounting and disproportionately higher COVID-19 deaths in their communities, and the recent killings of Black community members.
The combined impact of COVID-19 and racism is brewing what is described as a lethal force of mental health syndemics — or the social patterning of co-occurring disease conditions across place and time. By itself, COVID-19 has all the ingredients of a trauma pandemic in the making — the overwhelming sense or experience of threat, uncontrollability, death, and extended periods of social isolation. However, the kind of racialized violence spurring the entire world to unanimously proclaim Black Lives Matter has trauma-inducing properties all its own. In fact, the American Psychological Association devoted a 2019 special issue to exploring the manifestations, mechanisms, and impacts of racial trauma or the biopsychosocial symptoms and responses associated with acute and chronic exposure to racebased stress, injury, life threatening events, or violence ending in death. Emerging evidence further affirms that bearing witness to racially violent events online can produce trauma symptomatology among Black and Latinx adolescents. There is also a litany of clear and convincing scientific evidence that racism, in all its perverse and myriad forms, negatively affects psychological functioning and well-being. Black Americans are emotionally exhausted. According to Dr. Helen Neville and colleagues, radical healing is a collective approach to addressing the root causes of emotional injuries leading to poor health outcomes. Continued pg. 9
The San Diego Monitor
SDMNEWS Must Read
6
•
Campaign Filings and Responsibilities
2020 CA Census Guide
•
Candidate Intention Statement
•
Campaign Contribution Account
Table of Contents
•
Exceptions
Section 1: General Information (PDF)
•
Additional Filing Information
•
Initiative and Referendum Qualification Requirements
Section 3: Candidate Filing Information (PDF)
•
Candidate Qualifications and Information
• Required Filing Fees, In-Lieu Signatures, and Nomination Signatures
Section 2: Nomination Requirements (PDF) •
Presidential Candidates
•
United States Representative in Congress, and Member of the State Legislature Candidates
•
Nomination Documents – Nomination Papers and Declaration of Candidacy
•
Signatures In Lieu of Filing Fee
•
Signatures In Lieu of Filing Fee and/or Nomination Papers
•
Ballot Designations
•
In General
•
Write-In Candidates for the Office of President
•
Write-In Candidates for Voter-Nominated Offices
8
The people who have the capacity to support you will understand that you taking space is not an attack on them and they will not take it personal. For those that have a hard time understanding, it will not benefit you to disregard what you need to make them comfortable. Be assertive, stand your ground and show them that its okay for them to do the same. “We cannot simultaneously set a boundary and take care of another person’s feelings” Taking care of yourself makes you better prepared to provide support for others. There is nothing that you can do for anyone else that you have not done for yourself. Self-care, self-love, and self-compassion all bring us closer to giving to ourselves first. Setting boundaries is central to caring for yourself because it allows you to communicate what you need to feel safe, heard and seen. Boundaries can seem scary for people who are unclear on what they need and unsure of how to set boundaries for themselves. Leading by example and communicating what you need creates space for others to feel safe in doing the same. Bringing Back the Love The Black family is a space where love can grow into the most beautiful and nourishing force. We must bring the love back.
The San Diego Monitor This means reminding the people we love that we love them for who they are, not for who we expect them to be. Unconditional love says, “I love you as you are right now. I love you for who you were yesterday. I love you for who you will become tomorrow” With a love this honest and transparent we can feel safe being ourselves, we can communicate what we need and open ourselves to giving and receiving love freely. Love welcomes the healing that we must do in ourselves and that which needs to be done in the people around us. What you choose to put out is what you will get in return, when you cultivate unconditional love for yourself it radiates from you. Claiming it After you heal and rebuild yourself continue to do the work to better the relationships that feed you on your journey. Giving appreciation is reciprocation. It is a reminder to those who are always there for us that their energy is valued. The most important thing to do is claim this new power that you have restored in yourself. Tell yourself thank you and do not be afraid to make this a habit. Whenever it is time to take a break make sure you have everything you need to come back stronger.
Such an approach suggests that the healing work should be shared. It affirms that the emotional well-being of our nation is judged largely by the emotional well-being of people operating at its margins. Radical healing is village work that recognizes that our fates are linked intergenerationally, and if we refuse to do the work, our children’s children and their children will be forced to. Applying a radical healing approach is also about subjecting mental health systems and processes of care delivery to forensic examination and posing the question suggested by Dr. Camara P. Jones, “How is racism operating here?” It means taking a critical look at the diagnostic tools we deploy in the provision of mental healthcare. For example, psychologists of color have long lamented and offered solutions to address the lack of racial trauma recognition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the reference and diagnostic tool widely used by mental health professionals in the U.S. Radical healing is about naming and claiming America’s sordid history of weaponizing Black mental health during enslavement and beyond. Enslaved Black people who dared to flee plantations in search of the warmth of other suns were diagnosed with “drapetomania” and other mental health conditions.
Radical healing means acknowledging that the seeds of Black Americans’ mistrust of mental health providers are rooted in centuries of medical malice and racially biased care. Black Americans are not hardwired to deny emotional pain, delay seeking mental health treatment, or self-medicate in the aftermath of racial trauma or stress. These rules of disengagement are prescribed and proscribed by systems that often pathologize Black Americans’ quest for physical, spiritual, and emotional liberation and feign confusion when concerted acts of resistance to traditional mental health care are mounted. Truthfully, Black Americans might find it a bit easier to lean into July 4 festivities if they could do so without implicit societal expectations that fiercely demand emotional suppression and moving on from and forgetting the past. Of course, we know from studies on emotion regulation that habitual emotion suppression often backfires, leading to even more pronounced negative mental health outcomes. Research that appears in the American Journal of Public Health found more pronounced depressive symptoms among Black men who experienced racism more frequently in everyday life but endorsed beliefs that they should keep emotional pain to themselves. Undoubtedly, Black Americans have a history of relying on faithbased institutions for mental health support. Black Americans would rather take their troubles to the altar than to a therapist because they recognize our nation’s complicity in their emotional silencing, “caping,” and covering.
Read more at https://www.medicalnewstoday.com
Giving Black Motherhood a New Feel For so long, Black motherhood has been depicted as a laborious effort rather than a majestic experience. Two Black mothers, who also happen to be entertainment industry titans, have created a platform that flips that depiction while cultivating a safe space for Black mothers to revel in. Model and actress Tika Sumpter joined forces with Laugh Out Loud Network’s EVP Thai Randolph to create Sugaberry and The Suga podcast. Sugaberry.com and The Suga officially launched on March 22, only days after Los Angeles issued its “Safer at home” order. Now more than ever, moms may especially find themselves yearning for community while under social distancing orders. Sumpter said she hopes that both avenues offer a sense of community, which is well-needed during isolation. “The purpose of Sugaberry is to engage and celebrate modern brown and Black moms. We want this group of women to be at the center of important and fun conversations. Our mission is to always indulge our Sugaberry communities with every interaction. We want the sisterhood to feel cared for with viable resources,” Sumpter said. “Sugaberry provides a space for modern brown and Black moms to cultivate community as well as expert product recommendations and meaningful content in the form of editorial on Sugaberry.com and our podcast, 'The Suga,'” she said further.
Throughout history, there have been countless examples of white supremacist and capitalist systems exploiting Black mothers. More recently, a CDC investigation uncovered that Black women are 300% more likely to die during pregnancy than white women. These kinds of stories and statistics that seek to bring awareness to Black motherhood are informational but uninspiring. One of the major differences in the intention behind the content provided by Sugaberry and The Suga is an emphasis on amplifying the lightness and joy that reflects motherhood and the culture at large. “Sugaberry is one of the few brands dedicated to celebrating Black moms. For so long Black motherhood has been depicted as a state to be endured vs. a journey to be enjoyed,” said Randolph. “Yes, we are strong and enduring, but we are also sweet, joyful, triumphant and deserving of care. One of our key points of difference is our focus on the sweetness and commitment to creating a safe and indulgent platform that caters to Black moms.” Additionally, their platform operates in a space that understands that Black moms are not a monolith. The Suga and Sugaberry feature “perspectives and experiences from and for modern moms of color.” Sumpter and Randolph are especially excited about having nuanced or taboo conversations not often openly discussed within communities of color, but that should be. Read more at https://blavity.com/
11
The San Diego Monitor
Your Place is Here - California Senate Okays ACA 5 On Wednesday, June 24, the full California Senate voted 30-10 to pass Assembly Constitutional Amendment 5 (ACA 5), an initiative to overturn Proposition 209 and reinstate Affirmative Action in the state after 24 years. The constitutional amendment will now appear on the general election ballot in November for voters to decide whether to approve it or not. Assembly-member Dr. Shirley Weber (D-San Diego), chair of the Legislative Black Caucus (CLBC), and Assemblyman Mike Gipson (D-Carson), co-introduced the bill. It is among the legislations deemed a priority for the CLBC in 2020. If voters approve the amendment in November, California will join 42 states that allow equal opportunity programs that support women and minorities. “What your vote means today, in supporting ACA5, is that it would allow not just the 115,000 who signed a petition in opposition to it,” said Sen. Holly J. Mitchell (DLos Angeles), a member of the California Legislative Black Caucus on the Senate floor before the vote. “It will allow the 40 million residents to have the opportunity to weigh in. So, colleagues, we must be affirmative in the action we take to bend the arc towards justice.” ACA 5 moved through both houses of the state legislature without much friction. On June 10, the full California Assembly voted 60-14 in favor of the bill before it moved to the Senate.
Although ACA 5 has increasingly gained widespread support across political, cultural and socio-economic divides in California, some of its staunchest critics remain vocally opposed. The California state Senate has the power to take a strong stance against racism and allow Californians the opportunity to vote to restore affirmative action and create a more fair, just and equitable California,” the letter stated.
WWW.SDMONITORNEWS.COM