Come Vibe with Me: Show Your Homies You Care

By
A photo of a bouquet of lavender flowers and a white carnation. In the background is a mirror that shows the reflection of other plants and records in a sunlit apartment
These flowers will always remind me of the sweetest Blue Moon.

I lost my voice a bit last week and I couldn’t be more grateful for the reason why. Last Saturday I gave away care kits to celebrate the blue moon to Black women, femmes and non-binary babes in my community.

The kits were filled with things that I love that bring me peace, protection, and joy. Plants, beautiful floral bouquets, skincare products, candles, herbs and so much more. I wanted to give them away to spread tangible joy and love to those who are often expected to do all the work, take all the pain, and expect nothing in return. I wanted to show that I care and on top of all that — I selfishly wanted to be around my own people.

I wanted to safely share myself, give my love and just have a few cute, quick kikis with a bunch of random niggas like I normally would be. It’s great to have a diverse crew of homies but it is also completely ok to want to be around people with whom you have an unspoken understanding.

You know when your party starts and even though all your friends are perpetually late you still worry no one is going to come? That was me, filled with nerves and talking myself off the ledge behind my mask and then it happened. The minute the last rose was tied to the gate behind me a bunch of beautiful black babes came down the Chicago alley where the table was set up, the sunlight soaking them through the trees and Solange serving as the soundtrack to their struts.

I was soaked in Blackness and loved every minute of it. As they picked their bags I would laugh and shriek loudly with some, I would cry as I heard some of their stories of missing community, I social distance bopped with others when a song came on that called for shimmy — it was glorious.

The importance of community and taking care of my own is something I was taught by my parents as a kid. They reminded me to always do it from the heart, it will be obvious if you’re doing it for clout or something more. When the day was over and my voice was gone, I clicked through my IG stories and cried. In giving from my heart, the universe paid me back tenfold and gave me sweet memories that will get me through 2020 and last long after.

In the words of my favorite digital space Ethel’s Club — care for your homies.

If you’re able to be around your own, I hope you don’t take that community for granted. Make dinner together, scream and laugh with each other during your next streaming binge, bask in each other’s greatness, and appreciate the safe space you are for each other.

Happy Sunday bbs,

Shelli Nicole

Y’all Come Look at This

I, and my millennial-aged dollars, love YA books and Rachel Charlene Lewis over at BITCH has 9 for me to read this November.

Ancestral magick is real and Krista White introduces us to a few Black witches who are sharing their magickal practice online to help us tap in.

Che Scott-Heron writes about the critiques against Black Americans who chose not to vote during this election.

Youtuber, Influencer and all-around babe, Shalom Black walks us through her skincare routine which zooms in on skin concerns like scars and dark spots.

Earlier this week them launched a new ongoing series with Eva Reign entitled In Bloom. The series highlighting all that it means to be Black and trans in today’s America.

Letitia Wright, John Boyega, and Director Steve McQueen look stunning in the latest issue of The Hollywood Reporter and they are discussing McQueens’ anthology about Black, British life, Small Axe.

Our Black and Bougie (sometimes problematic) favs from TV/Film get an analysis from Karis Pierre over on gal-dem.

Yo, Have You Seen —

A still of FKA Twigs with braided red tinged hair standing behind a wall revealing only half of her face. The Still is from her music video "Sad Day"

Sad Day

I’ve been a fan of FKA Twigs since she made the short with Spike Jonze that made me want to give Apple even more money than I already have.

I came across the short for her single “Sad Day” while clicking around on Hulu. In the short, directed by Hiro Murai, who I’m familiar with from Atlanta on FX, her late-night visit to a Chinese takeaway spot takes us on a beautifully dope six-minute adventure.

Watch the short here

Community Love

This week we have a dream support hotline for Black dreamers all through the diaspora, an opportunity to support a much-needed Black queer travel guide, and not one but TWO coat drives to support. A few other things are on this week’s bulletin board too so click through and share!

Click images to enlarge.

starting a dream suppport hotline where black people can call in and share their dreams with us, we will interpret the dreams and share our interpretations alongside sound and music in a radio show format. 📞⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ✨How does it work?✨⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ 🌀give us a call at 914-810-3918, leave a message, and we will interpret your dream. We will record interpretations as a part of a radio show that will be broadcast monthly
Brave Space Alliance will be operating an autumn/winter coat drive for the LGBTQIA+ community within Chicago while prioritizing Black, Brown, & Indigenous members who are Trans* or Gender-nonconforming. Community members will be allowed to pick up items on Saturday, November 14th from 1 pm to 6 pm on a first-come-first-served basis at our office located at 1515 E 52nd Place, Third Floor. If you have trouble finding us please contact the following number: 872-333-5199.
HERBAL ✿ MUTUAL AID ✿ NETWORK An herbal medicine drive for Black People seeking support due to the ongoing crisis of racial violence + injustice ⁣⁣ ⁣⁣ DM hman.love to get your free supplies. We will ship to you ASAP. ⁣⁣
We will be investing $1,000 into 40 business owners operating as a restaurant or food vendor.SHARE, APPLY, DONATE - @dishroulettekitchen First come, first served. Personas indocumentadas pueden aplicar.
We are calling upon community, especially those who work with brands and PR’s, to see if you can donate some jackets to the winter coat drive. We want to give them new coats, coats that keep them warm, coats that are as closely matched to a style that they want, coats that don’t cause further dysphoria, coat’s that they choose. Please share wide
Black Queer Travel Guide is a registered CIC and the long-term vision for the organisation is for it to support local queer charities and organisations around the globe, create hubs for Black queer activists and community organisers to share resources and eventually even retreats catered specifically for Black queer people. However, in order to get there, we need your help. We’re crowdfunding to help with the initial costs of populating and moderating the web app, hiring an app development team to build the native app and more. The full cost breakdown can be found on our GoFundMe page - link in bio. Please consider donating to this crowdfunder to help create more options for when we travel and for us to feel a bit safer doing so.

Sunday Sounds

When folks came to pick up their care kits from me last weekend, and were chatting and dancing while waiting in line, I looked at them and missed community more than ever before. This week’s playlist is filled with “I Miss You’s'” — there’s an “I miss you to taking over aux cords in cars and playing songs that no one asked for,” an “I miss you to turning a 4 AM bar into Black girl karaoke,” and an “I miss you to happily singing loud and off-key with a group of my homies.” I miss you… see you soon?

Autostraddle cannot exist without the generous support of our readers. We're running the fundraiser through March 29th! We're out of immediate danger...but we had to ask...what if we could survive for longer? Will you help?

Go to our Fundraiser!
Related:

Shelli Nicole

Shelli Nicole is a Detroit-raised, Chicago-based writer. Her work has appeared in Bustle, HelloGiggles & Marie Claire. She is terrified of mermaids and teenagers equally.

Shelli has written 260 articles for us.

5 Comments

Contribute to the conversation...

Yay! You've decided to leave a comment. That's fantastic. Please keep in mind that comments are moderated by the guidelines laid out in our comment policy. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation and thanks for stopping by!