The Brighter the Picture

Before I start, this was an entry I started back in December 2024, and when I found it again, I had to finish it with what I was first ready to make into a fresh entry.

This is also going to be heavily themed towards the black community. Especially the blerds (“black nerd”), to which if a previous entry wasn’t a clue, I am one.

It takes a lot for many of us to stop believing in the voices that tell us to keep your head low, and not be so different from others in our community.

Memories of being told that I “speak so well,” being called an Oreo or “the whitest black person” someone has ever known, or even being told by someone that they couldn’t tell that I never saw jail time, come to mind about that.

So much of it can be blamed on someone’s upbringing to think that it is the way we should be seen and talked to. Not just by others, but to ourselves even after the people planting mental seeds like that are gone.

And it’s even worse when it comes from older black folk that may have or had an equally unhealed community to lean on. This includes their family experiences that could have them do the same discarding behavior to the younger generation without any care.

Because of this, the goal post about “being Black” keeps being altered depending on who you sit with, and who wants to sit with you, whether you choose to defy the social order, or do your best to hide who you are to fit with people that may not even like themselves, and they keep you around to be an insecurity dump.

If you don’t do things like play spades, can’t recite a cipher, don’t care much if at all about sports, or you have reservations about even saying the “N-word,” you’re cut off from a division of the collective.

You’re not “Black enough” to matter to them.

This isn’t the time for divisions based on the ones mentioned.

Because no matter where we go, someone’s bound to see our lives as a stain to their own existence, and choose to “cleanse” the stain, if they can’t control how it presents itself.

And this is a case where, while I have reasons to know this activity isn’t entirely exclusive to Black people, it’s a way to state that we’ve been in pain, no matter how we mask it, and it deserves to be shared in every way we can.

It is also a chance to say that even the similarities of pain with other races can be the bridge to relate and react in the name of unity for ourselves, and run offense and defense to our opponents.

That includes our own who’d rather tap dance for massa’, thinking they have a chance to come up next to them that doesn’t involve rope and a tree.

I can speak to that because I’ve been there. On the clock, in art collaborations, hangout sessions where I’ve been the spot in a cup of milk.

That experience is rich with patterns that had to be broken in myself before saying anything about it publicly.

For every few it repels, it’s attracted those in and outside of my race who have also given fingers to the person behind the curtain, the monster behind the mask, and especially the ones in the “high castle.”

There are many solutions to this that I can speak on, but right now it’s about releasing frustrations, and this isn’t even all of them.

It is enough, though, to let anyone that even read this far know that anything I say about things on a universal or exclusive case like this post is, will be based on lived experience while absorbing other perspectives.

I can’t say that I started sharing my thoughts as long as I have just to cement myself into echo chambers. But how I am received in what I share has also given me education and proof that the world can be better with my review of it.

And if not the physical world, then the one inside of me has benefited greatly from it, most of all.

Kingston Priest

I was set to write an entirely new post to close out the year, until I found this list of things I learned in the then-four years of the healing journey.

It makes sense to share it now. Knowing me, I may still write that post, but seniority rules, and all.

1: Love is best when it’s unconditional

2: Never compromise for other’s comforts.

3: You’re not a speed bag for anyone’s insecurities.

4: Don’t treat people like a speed bag for your insecurities, either.

5: No matter who leaves who, grow so much that one’s return is met with peace.

6: Healing can hurt, but not as much as stagnation in a painful place.

7: Progress in silence but give exclusive access to the trusted.

8: Research trauma bonds. When you find yours, be better than their sources.

9:  Whatever you call that voice of reason in you, listen carefully.

10: Hold yourself accountable to any wrongs you’ve done.

11:  Make time to laugh, count blessings, and share your wisdom.

12: “You are most equipped to help the person you used to be.”  – Dr. Dharius Daniels

Kingston Priest

I have been doing a lot of work since my last post. The majority of it involving myself turning the ABC series* into a set of short videos.

This time, with ME being on camera narrating the entire thing.

Some of you already know how I look. Others are still showing up even after stating in a previous post that I am Black. In hindsight, it mattered to say that when this entire blog began, but that’s something to explore another time.

Being on camera for the series speaks to a lot of other work I’ve done in the past and present. It helps to show there’s another person of the global majority willing to dive into mental health discussions in a different and artful way.

In no way is it going to be perfect. Doesn’t need to be.

As one content creator stated, “perfect is the enemy of good,” which lines up with another belief: “finished, not perfect.” It’s something that any artist can mirror match themselves with, like I have have in starting the blog, alone.

But I will be satisfied in its completion.

– Kingston Priest

*The blog version of the series will be available on the pinned post to this page. Follow all the hyperlinks from there. Normally it’d be hyperlinked, but the AI mod has told me “don’t do that” the hard way once, already.

Humanity has gone through an endless shift in progression versus degradation. Small steps forward, and leaps backwards. In smaller cases more than the larger ones, it can be a long-lasting opposite.

And the two most dominant sides that inspire these shifts seem to have one thing in common: They know their reasons to believe that their side is right.

In matters of comfort and tastes in small things like media, dessert flavors, and sports teams, yes.

But certain topics deserve to be deal breakers.

Topics where lives are threatened and taken. Either by a collective, an individual, or by one’s choice to “opt-out” to not endure the pain any longer.

The global shift that has occurred in the last few days has either been inevitable, or sped up to create something that, in the near or far future, will make sure this does not happen again. How, why, and when, are matters that will be determined by the right people.

While the negative side has come out stronger than ever, the hurt yet hopeful masses have regrouped and said “enough.” They’ve drawn their lines in the sand to the point where glass is made.

Their boundaries have become stronger, while connecting much deeper with like-minded people to fight through the pain and/or numbness.

While news of repercussions has come out in small doses to those choosing a hate-filled path, for now it only changes who the next easily accessible target is. The calls for action against them have already begun, either in grassroots or invasive ways.

Or, to quote the late Biggie Smalls, “the ski mask way.”

Whatever these divides cause in the long run, it’s good to be on the side that has seen behind the curtain long enough to know how to sweep up its own mess, if only to avoid having the other’s messes weigh them into submission.

That’s what they want. And we will not have it.

–Kingston Priest