Yolo Akili
@YoloAkili
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(He/Him) Non Binary. Founder & Executive Director @_beamorg #HealingJustice #HottieHealer all original tweets and opinions are my own!
Los Angeles, CA
Joined October 2009
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I really hate how suicide prevention month every year is reduced to “check on your friends” and not universal health care, to defund the police, accessible mental health services, and peer support programs. That analysis is so corny.
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Fam. HIV is a virus. like the Flu. like Corona. It conveys NOTHING about the worthiness, practices or “morals” of the person living with it. The HIV/AIDS pandemic reflects the failures of public health. Your HIV stigma reflects the failures of public heath education. PERIODT.
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So many gay men don’t see their judging, fat shaming and viciously critiquing women’s bodies as problematic. Not sure why men think being gay gets you a pass for misogyny.
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Just because it wasn’t forever, doesnt mean it wasn’t magic. I want to challenge us to hold sweetness as sacred and not let our desire for forever erase the beauty of what was or is.
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Replacing “marginalized communities” with “intentionally exploited communities”.
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There is a power in saying “ I made a mistake” , “I didn’t think things through” or “i failed with this.”
So much freedom in honoring our failures fam.
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I remember being at a party in DC w/ppl WAY above my income bracket. They were having this convo about dating that was hella colorist & I jokingly said “Ya’ll sound like some Jack & Jill shit” & the room fell silent. Turns out some of them were? Chile i was never invited again😂
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Therapy once a week doesn’t cut it. You need peers who reinforce the behaviors you are trying to learn. Work environments that cultivate manageable productivity & work boundaries. Access to food & medicine monitoring that helps support ur body’s regulation. We need more.
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Unspoken expectations are the building blocks of resentment.
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“Folks don’t like nobody being too proud or too free.” - Alice Walker
When we see someone live free of the shame that was forced onto us, for many the compulsion is to continue the pattern by pushing it onto someone else. Standing w u & sending u much love Chloe💜
@chloexhalle
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My loves, it is not always that you have a “big heart” and people exploit you. It’s often that you have a big heart, you deny your discernment, and are led by people pleasing behaviors and a fear of being disliked. Your big heart is not to blame fam. Your lack of boundaries is.
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Lying is a protective strategy and common coping mechanism. People who use it as a primary life tool are often struggling with deep shame about who they are and their choices—that sometimes stems from learning to lie to be safe at an early age. It goes deep.
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Universal healthcare is a great way to prevent suicide.
A higher minimum wage and affordable quality housing is a powerful mental health intervention. Access to clean drinking water undoubtedly reduces anxiety.
Most of the interventions we need are structural.
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Anti-blackness has taught us to have empathy for everyone except ourselves.
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Abolishing the mental health industrial complex does not mean abolishing healing. It means ending psychiatric jails & violent psych wards. Ending the use of diagnosis for pathology&criminalization. Accessibility. Creating new systems that don’t rely on racism & eugenics to exist
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Too often when our people disclose they have suicidal ideations they are stripped naked, tied down, isolated from family members and over drugged and then we wonder why folks are scared to share about their mental health. The psychiatric system has not made it safe to share
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Even worthiness is such a capitaist concept. Why do we have to be “worthy?” That’s why I love the concept of immanence. it means by virtue of being here we deserve dignity. Respect. That we are the divine and the divine is us.
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In our workshops instead of toxic masculinity i have started playing with terms. I have been calling it “colonial white masculinity” and baybee it has had some Black men SHOOKETH. I don’t think we have done a good job of helping Blk men see that link btw whiteness
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I only have country hood home training I be missin the boogie “we live in elitism” social cues.
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Just a reminder: Some of us, especially Black folks in this country, are not able to enforce boundaries with work because boundaries often mean violence, retaliation or not being able to eat. We do not live in a world where saying “no” is always equitable or safe.
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We need a museum dedicated to Black trans, gay, lesbian, and bisexual history. We have so much history in this country that is not collected and carried anywhere. Our contributions are immeasurable.
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Reminder: “Self care” is not some miracle quick fix for structural violence.
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As someone who has struggled w/ wanting to be here, it wasn’t just depression, it was financial hardship, assault, inaccessibility of mental health support, ableism, racial trauma—We don’t just need someone to check on us we need to transform the WHOLE goddamn country
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Instead of responding with: “Don’t panic” or “Calm down” Let’s try:
Yes. This is frustrating and difficult.
I hear you.
How can I help?
What do you need that we can address in this moment?
Telling people to deny their distress in a pandemic is NEVER helpful.
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“Your boundary need not be an angry electric fence that shocks those who touch it..
It can be a consistent light around you that announces:
“I will be treated sacredly.”
-Jaiya John
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Just a reminder friends: You don’t have to date compulsively. If it’s not bringing you joy you can get off those “match” apps & off the anxiety hamster wheel of “must be partnered because__”. There is so much joy in the world. You can make it without that construct
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Sometimes I wake up & have to remind myself: “There is nothing wrong with me. I have patterns to unlearn, new behaviors to embody & wounds to heal. But there is nothing wrong with the core of me & who I am. I am unlearning generations of harm and remembering love. It takes time.”
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Over the last month folks have been asking me if there are grief support groups for Black men who have lost their wives during childbirth. 😞
I haven’t found any, and our team is at capacity, but I hope someone applies to our most recent grants to do this. We need it badly.
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The fact that we are all even functioning, at any level, given the levels of dysregulation and distress is just..
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We confuse “being enough” with “being in alignment”.
We are always enough. But the job, the partner, the opportunity may not be in alignment w/who & where we are. And that alignment is not that something is wrong with us. Its that its not a fit for what we or they need/want
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Reminder: Don’t assume your capacity is the same as everyone else’s. What overwhelms you does not overwhelm everyone. Where you are at with ur self regulation skills is not the same space as where others are. Be mindful not to project ur capacity (or lack of it) onto others.
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I believe we all have internalized racism, transphobia, misogynoir, ableism. The question for me is never do i have those things, but instead— in my life, behavior and choices— how are they showing up.
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Emasculation is such a strange concept. I once dated a guy who told me “I needed to let him be a man” and I was like “How Am i in control of u being something u supposedly already intrinsically are? It makes no sense Otis.”
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Hey. I think you may not know that Black Lives Matter was founded by two Black Queer women. Or that Angela Davis is a lesbian. We are everywhere and fighting for us all. Its often Black straight folks who are often only fighting for themselves unfortunately. ☹️
What does the lgbt do for the black community that doesn’t revolve around gender and sexuality? Do y’all advocate for reparations? Do y’all advocate for financial literacy? What about housing policies that hurt black families? Do you advocate for better political representation?
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We need more conversations about how hard it can be to live here. About the honesty of how so many folks are overwhelmed, suffering in silence and need to feel authentic connection and need holistic support to maintain.
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So bored with capitalist fantasies of being super human, hyper productive, possessively partnered and emotionally invulnerable. It just ain’t real ya’ll.
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Chile when she started peeling back those paintings and there were several layers of other paintings of women i scrumpt
#MeaCulpa
😂😂😂😫
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It needs to be studied how ridiculous and wildly incompetent whiteness can still be taken seriously
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We have become so comfortable with poverty, with Black folks in distress; that when a Black person says I have no water or food- no one thinks- “lets get him some water and food.” No, instead someone thinks- lets put him in a chokehold.
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Sometimes we want our parents to take ownership for things they aren’t ready to. Because to take ownership would shift the way they see themselves and the narratives they have created to cope with their choices. Align your boundaries accordingly.
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Relationships change because people do. What if we honored those transitions instead of trying to force and hold on when its clear the spirit/energy isn’t there anymore? Honor what is fam. Forcing permanence is often a pathway to heartbreak and pain.
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@JosephTheyThem
U sweet but nah they were in a high rise building and all (reportedly) made upwardly 300K+ they literally were above me😂😂 jkjk
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Many of us don’t realize we are traumatizing people because we already have normalized such a high baseline of harm and violence in our own lives. Be mindful friends.
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Reminder: instead of asking children (or adults) “whats wrong?” When they have a difficult emotion try asking “whats going on?” So they don’t equate emotions like sadness w/being “wrong.” This framing pushes so many to dismiss their feelings to present as having it all “right.”
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The problem with so many of our analyses on mental health is so many have no critique of the DSM and the history of psychiatry as white supremacy— just accepting the current framing of mental health without question—when it inherently reifies ableism and racism.
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Black folks, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian folks— we carry so much in our bodies. The memories of terrors untold from ancestors long forgotten, the cyclical traumatic stress that stays hovering over our shoulders in this country. We need collective body rituals for collective trauma
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When I look at the numbers, I just don’t see how private one on one therapy is going to get us through this. We are going to need more group spaces fam. We are gonna need more community.
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The older I get, it seems everything I have ever learned about relationships is garbage. The more i accept that, the better my life has become. So many unions celebrated for longevity are rooted in an ability to tolerate large degrees of toxicity and co-dependency. Change it all.
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Colorism is a system. It is not just “we like light skinned people.” It’s 500+ years of being trained that lighter skinned people are more attractive/feminine/worthy as humans and the structural and psychological violence folks experience the farther away from white skin we are
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I really want folks to put some respect on therapy without degrading the real impact of peer support and peer/village/community care. Black folks historically have never gone to therapy in large numbers. Peer care and shared emotional learning/teaching has literally kept us alive
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Please remember the same people who brought you white supremacy also brought you your ideas of relationships which are built on co-dependency, control and ownership. Just like white supremacy has to be undone, so to does how we have learned to love.
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Sometimes it’s actually not that (men/people) don’t know how to talk about their feelings. It’s that they don’t know how to talk about their feelings while still maintaining power, control or selling u the perception they want you to believe. And that’s what is at the root.
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I don’t care what anybody says, Black folx across the country are doing some of the most dynamic, caring and innovative healing and wellness work in the world and I am so proud and grateful for every one and every bit of it.
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Hey fam, let’s make sure all these counselors we are hiring to replace cops aren’t just “counselor cops” i.e agents of the state hellbent on pathologizing our kids and feeding the school to prison pipeline through premature & incompetent diagnosis used to justify criminalization
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As we continue to protest for Black lives- let us not forget the reality that Black people living w/ mental conditions continue to be targeted, criminalized & overrepresented in both police violence cases & in prisons! Challenging Ableism is critical in liberating Black lives.✊🏾
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Grandma taught me “make sure everyone got a plate of food, but that don’t mean you gotta sit with em and eat.” And that remains a word.
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That psychology today article saying that men need to build more social, emotional and conflict managment skills to sustain intimacy has been what Black feminists have been saying for YEARS. And it goes for gay/queer men too!!
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If we really want to prevent suicide we might need to examine our cultural obsession with productivity and “success” and mean spiritedness and shade that attacks and belittles folks for not meeting these hyper capitalist ableist standards of being a human being.
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Treat yourself the way you would treat a 4 year old, delicate, sensitive child that you love. The shell may look older but the core of who we are is so often the same.
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Reminder: Being “sex positive” also means honoring consent. Not everyone wants to talk sex roles and dildos whenever you want too. Honor that folks can say “no” to joining certain discourse, and that isn’t about being sex negative. Its about consent.
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It’s truly wild how the Prince metaphor does work on older Black folks. As soon as i say like Prince folks be having legit aha moments😂
Me explaining non-binary and cisgender to my dad
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Your desire to *snap* someone out of their depression, or psychosis— may be more about your own discomfort & anxiety about controlling someones mental state. Instant able-bodied cognition can not be and is not the goal of peer support. The goal is to create communities of care.
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I often find folks behavior comes from three places: wanting to be loved, scared of not being loved or hurt because they didn’t feel loved. Looking at the world through that lens has given me so much insight into the human experience.
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Whenever I end a dating/getting to know someone dynamic, I often say “So I want to bring this to a formal close.” And my friends swear that is so savage. Lol. I am just being honest and letting folks know its a wrap and I’m good. I think closure and clarity is important🤷🏾♂️
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I know what its like to not want to be here. I have also supported so many Black LGBT folks helping them to stay. So many still left us. It never breaks my heart any less. I wish we had a better world for you Nigel. I promise to keep fighting for it. For you, for all of us.💔😔
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Just a reminder: Not all therapists are feminists. Some therapists will tell women they need to “let their husbands be a man” or “accept their role” or tell him to “man up” because feminism is not inherent in how many therapists are trained ya’ll.
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Overheard in L.A today: “People really be famous on instagram just for being lightskinned.” 😭
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Reminder: Your feelings are always valid. But your assessment of the situation, the context and the impact of your behaviors? That can be wholly inaccurate. And both can exist at the same time. Self Reflection is never simple.
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What is it within us that leads us to so quickly rush to shame a young Black woman about her body? What instinct drives u to do that? Who did that to you? Did it free you or just send you into shame?
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Underestimating the emotional weight you are carrying is a coping strategy that will set you up for self destruction.
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You can establish a baseline of respect and communication with partners-casual; longterm or otherwise— that affirms their humanity; respects your agreements and honors their feelings. You really can ya’ll.
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Just a reminder: That for every act of terror and trauma, in every Black community across this country, there are folks working to create spaces for healing, joy and love. Don’t let the news cycle or the think pieces erase them.Everywhere-work is being done ya’ll. 🙏🏾
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I hate when people equate mental illness w/the conditions that capitalism has created. People who say “all those homeless folks are the problem.” Instead of “this system that has created inequality & houselessness, underfunds mhcare & doesn’t have a live wage is the problem.”
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When Black women say “I need this for my mental health” and white owned institutions say:
“Your mental health is not more important than the labor and capital you provide to us.”
Yuck.
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So many of my folks who are activists & community workers are feeling like they aren’t doing enough.
So let me remind you that every heart u hold, every dime u raise, every meal u drop off, every tweet that shares info, matters.
We are grateful for you.
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This year, let’s please retire the “all you have to do is change your thoughts to change ur life” discourse. Some of us have bodies, brains, nervous systems & genetic realities that make that a-lot more complicated friends. More neurodivergent nuance for the work this year fam.
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The obsession with what makes a “real man” or a “real woman” is so tired. How about what makes someone centered in integrity? How about what makes someone empathetic and self reflexive? All this focus on empty stereotypes and colonial myths is why there is so much chaos
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Listen: This growing mens mental health movement; that does not have an analysis of male power, patriarchy and privilege- is making a direct pipeline to the conservative men’s rights movement. In a few years we are gonna feel it. Healing work without an analysis of power is
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Mental health tip: Protest until they fund free healthcare. Defund mental health systems that support the prison industrial complex. Antagonize until living wages are mandatory. Rebuke all policy and culture that calls for us to struggle, scrape & starve on a planet of plenty.
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The people in your life who come to you directly with tender but tough feedback; who don’t whisper off to the side with others but sit u down and say it thoughtfully face to face; those people are invaluable. Those people help you grow & keep you grounded. Keep those people close
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Anybody else feel like they are just now coming down from this last full moon? And wondering how the hell Scorpio’s just live emotionally under that energy on the regular? Good lord Its beyond me.
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Many of us use nurturing as a means of control to evade the vulnerability and fear of being cared for. Often its because there was trauma or distressing event that made us feel we could never trust someone to be fully there for us
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Irritability is up & I see folks picking fights, deflecting & more. It’s a rough time fam. if u can, try to check in w/where you are directing your anger about this political moment. It’s so easy to wage war w/ us when it’s these systems & this administration that has us on edge.
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You ever wonder what adulting would be like without the crushing pressures of capitalism?
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Embrace jealousy. Embrace insecurities. No feeling is bad or good. Every feeling is information-even the absence of feeling. No feeling makes us wrong. Like June Jordan said “wrong is not my name” and wrong will never ever be your name either friends
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How anyone can watch
@ava
’s
@WhenTheySeeUs
and not become a prison abolitionist is beyond me. There is absolutely nothing about the prison system worth saving.
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A late night reminder: you don’t have to produce, achieve or perform to be loved.
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All my organizers, healers, wellness and social justice folks: don’t forget to celebrate the small victories. Every meal given, resource created, person housed, wound healed, vision created. Yeah its a marathon but we gotta celebrate every mile marker if we gonna make it
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