“You Are Not An Artist…” #100Posts!!!
Said Every Person Who Doesn’t Understand Art is Just Math By A Different Name
One hundred fucking posts! This is so cool. It may not seem like a lot to you, but to me, it’s absolutely everything.
My first post was a post about Black Mental Health, and lots of people read that post. It was the most attention-getting post I’d ever written, and even though I didn’t get a ton of claps, lots of people commented on social media, thanking me, for speaking on Black Mental Health.
And I wanted More.
Each and every writer begs silently to get to 100 posts because they know that it’s a lot of work, and it feels like an impossible task.
In order to get to 100 posts, you have to have 100 different ideas to think about that people are actually going to want to read about and that’s not an easy feat because when you’re talking about mental health everyone else is talking about football.
My friend and neighbour often tell me that I have to think about the big picture, and I try to do that a lot but it hurts my head.
Everything from that post that I said, is something that I’ve set out to work on. I am now the proud founder and owner of Loud Mouth Brown Girl dot com where I speak on Black mental health regularly, where I share my journey and express the difficulties I face in a way that I hope is at least graceful and at most helpful.
So many truths have come out since then, both publically and privately and it’s been scary putting myself out there, having actual safety protocols like a fucking warrior to protect myself and others, and you know what? I’m fucking exhausted.
It’s not the kind of exhaustion that people who do physical labour go through, but it’s still to the bone, to the soul, and it still kind of feels good. There’s a lot of hurt under the last 99 posts, but there’s also been a lot of growth, evolution, new understandings, and new opportunities that have come my way.
Each and every day that I get to get up and write is still another day that I’m alive, and I’m only here because you keep reading my drivel.
For someone who now has 2 websites under their belt, one yet to be launched, 2 books, and now hundreds of access to the chance to use a voice that was denied freedom for too long, I just want to say thank you.
Thank you for continuing to read, thank you for continuing to inspire me, thank you @WEOC for existing, thank you Allison Gaines for being my sista, for being my friend, and for always encouraging me.
Thank you, Hal H. Harris and Arturo Dominguez and Johnny Silvercloud for setting the standard for Black excellence, and showing us that we can be as coloured as we have to be while educating the whiteness in ourselves and everyone around us simultaneously. Arturo, thank you for introducing me to Latin culture, for showing me how you see the world, and for being brave enough to speak up against a sea of “shut up.”
Thank you to every single person who picks up a pen, or a keyboard and decides to tell a story. The muses are clearly hard at work and you’re obviously listening, which proves that there is majick in the world.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall
