I can hardly call my arrival into 2025 a welcome. But welcome to 2025 nonetheless, Beloveds!
I made my way into the new year surrounded by mostly Black queer women in the home of my friends Kya and Trae, a stunning Black lesbian couple and dynamic artists. Kya made us wayward queers greens, black eyed peas, cornbread and turkey sausage on the side of course for the plant-based girlies in attendance. A meal I didn’t expect but was incredibly grateful for considering I’m very far away from home and my mother’s cooking in a city where if there is food at the kickback, it’s never anything worth eating. Kya to be under the age of 50, it was very tasty! Proving yet again that the Black family traditions are safe with the multi-media artist/archivist gays.
New Year’s Eve is my favorite holiday. Second to Black History Month. So I had to bring an offering to this grown folks New Year’s Eve Party.
A gluten free hibiscus pound cake with a dark cherry brown sugar glaze in the shape of heart and finished with a powder sugar dusting. I walked into the 1920’s treehouse-like apartment holding my cake safely tucked in my baby blue cake carrier in one hand and the hand of my lover in the other.
It was a perfect gathering.
Moments before midnight and the debut for 2025, Trae gave us paper, crayons and markers. She then began to guide us through writing down our intentions for the upcoming year. She informed us that whatever our hearts called us to write down were not dreams or wishes that we could only hope to come true.
These intentions were already ours.
They already belonged to us.
They were instead something like declarations. Personal proclamations meant to be because we took the time to say so.
She directed us that when we really believed them to not only be real but absolutely possible, we were to sleep with our tiny manifestations under our pillow, burn them, and go about our living.
The new year came as promised. I pressed my lips against my love as she pressed her lips against mine and I welcomed in 2025. Grateful, loved, and ready.
What felt like a few short days later, the fires began to blaze across Los Angeles. Threatening more than the forests and shrubs among the hills. The flames jumped onto mansions that made the headlines and through the Black generational family homes of Altadena that sprinkled our social media timelines. Even sooner after that, Donald Trump, a known white supremacist was sworn in as the President of United States of America for the second time after defeating the over-qualified yet morally imperfect Vice President Kamala Harris. During this klan meeting of an inauguration, I was in the bush of South Africa by way of Johannesburg. On my first journey to the continent where I didn’t feel at home even once most due to having to comfort a predatory narcissist that managed to slip out of the states. Black and gay but just as dangerous because of her proximity to communities that are already global political targets.
These experiences of joy, care, escape, fighting, and the fact that this ain’t my first rodeo in such precedented time, bring me to my first piece for Toxic Femininity in 2025.
Who will survive America?
I’d like to believe that it might very well be The Strict Bitches!
When I think about what actually got me this far into a life that I love because I’ve found a way to love myself, it all started with saying “no.” Specifically, being mindful about my reasonings for saying no and being uncompromising in my actions following my no unless I’m given a really good reason to say yes!
I know. Being strict might not be easy for you or a characteristic you’ve even thought to aspire to develop for yourself. Especially when the word is overtly used to describe people who are actually just mean and violent. Let me try to paint the picture of what I mean through telling you how and why now more than ever, you should become a strict bitch.
Assume everyone is going to waste your time. Whether they mean to or not. The world is taught to undervalue, use, manipulate, and steal the precious time of Black women. I personally believe wasting the time of Black women to be a founding principle of capitalism. As a strict bitch, you must aggressively protect and honor the time you have. Create multiple reoccurring moments or dates throughout your life that are planned for, unmovable, and sacred to you. For example, I can’t be reached before 11am PT everyday of the week. Most people aren’t paying me enough or managing my time well enough for me to casually answer the phone or take a meeting before 11am. I built this luxury of time for myself into the top of my day because that’s what I wanted. I wanted to start most of my days spending my time on me and taking care of my needs. This year I use that time to wake up at 6am during the week, go to my gym, come home to shower, eat breakfast, read and journal before I have to lease out my time to anyone else. So before anyone can start wasting my time, I’ve already spent a few hours giving myself the world.
Develop a standard of care and taste. Then commit to what you like.
This is how you start to add the razzle dazzle of aesthetic and performance to being a strict bitch. Expect for your standards of care and taste to expand as you grow and age. As you have more life experiences, you will begin to strengthen your standards off of those experiences. Take note of how you are treated and what you enjoy or hate about each interaction. For example, if my mom pays for something in cash, she expects for the cashier to count her change out in her hand. On a few occasions I’ve watched my mother place a hard earned bill into the hand of a cashier and they have placed her change on the counter. And without hesitation my mom responds with “Oh no, ma’am. Pick my change up and count my money in my hand.” As a child, I loved waiting at my mom’s side as she paid for our goods just in case this moment of correction occurred. I smiled every time because I know that’s right! This is probably why I love watching Black women stand up for themselves to this day! When you develop a standard of care and taste, you also create a system of accountability for communicating those standards which ultimately teaches people who to treat you.
Notice how these tips are building an environment of respect? Yea, you deserve that. You also have to fight for this type of simple humanity in a society that is dead set on snatching up your basic human rights through half thought out executive orders and policies. It is much harder to fight for your right to dignity on the macro level if you don’t know how to command respect in your everyday life.
Let’s keep going…NEXT UP!
Keep your promises to yourself. You are your priority and responsibility. This is a fact. Not just my Black Queer Feminist agenda. It’s also a cheat code to being an excellent friend and community member. If you are routinely breaking promises to yourself, do you really think you can be impeccable with your word to the folks around you? Girl, absolutely not! We’re not being noble or as helpful as we think by giving away care in place of adequately caring for ourselves. You’re actually just making a life out of abandoning yourself. Instead, be a strict bitch who if you say you’re going to do something for yourself, you do it! Get familiar with how it feels to follow through on you. When that feeling gets deep in your system, you’ll know how important it is to do the same for others while also setting the standard for how it should be done for you.
Don’t play about your friends, loved ones, and values. To take it a step further…your chosen family or the people you spend the most time with should reflect your values. Listen, if you want to hang out with a bunch of evil ass people who treat people bad as hell and have to say shit like “that has nothing to do with me!” all the time, then that’s your business. I personally can’t take it and I had to learn that the hard way especially once I moved to LA. You get to choose who your people are and I like choosing. As my good friend Jasmine reminded me this week, we are in a time where you absolutely must know who you are fucking with and who is fucking with you. During a revolution, you do not want to be surrounded by iffy people whose morals and manners move around depending on who is in the room. Also, life happens to everyone and we never know what’s about to hit us from day to day. If we're going to survive in an anti-Black patriarchal society, we need to get used to standing up for our friends and supporting them when they need us. I hope you are building a life alongside people who can hold you when you can’t hold yourself. And I hope you don’t hesitate to do the same for them during good and bad times. What I know for sure about myself as a strict bitch is that I’m willing to fight. I’m so slick with my words that I haven’t had to raise my fists in years. I’m always happy to give my words and writing to the people in my life who need to stand up for themselves. And I don’t mind because I believe in standing up for my people as they are also in the practice of standing up for themselves. I love a “read this and tell me if I’m wrong” type of request. Because most times, you could actually go harder.
My final piece of advice to you if you should decide to take on the protective calling towards becoming a strict bitch: If you really want it, work to give it to yourself. Now, if you want to take the easy intellectually dishonest out of context approach and only apply this note to over-consumption and bad spending habits, I’m not going to be able to stop you friend. But I need you to know I mean the big things of quality and importance. And this is coming from your sister who has yelled “TREAT YOURSELF!” at the checkout for at least two Hanifa Black Friday sales. This is also coming from your sister who stopped going out for a month and half to completely focus on learning how to drive at the age of 32. Which was NOT easy at all!!! When I was burnt out on working in politics and over living in DC, I also made a way to comfortably move my entire life across the country to Los Angeles and re-center my career on being a writer and multi-media artist. Basically, once I decide what I want, I step out of my way and begin the work to give it myself. As a strict bitch, I maintain that I’m always worth the time and energy.
As you embark on your strict bitch journey, or if you’re reading this as a way to honor the strict bitch that already lives in you, remember to have balance in all things. I hold tight to one exception for all of these rules– keep an open heart for the people you love and who really love you.
Our New Year’s resolutions under relentless fascism, climate change, war, and ongoing anti-Black propaganda have to be different. It can’t just be about shrinking yourself to be skinny but building yourself up to be strong and take up more space in your life. Or addressing your shame and fear of poverty by facing your money trauma so that you can have a clear neutral view of growing your finances. I also suggest knowing your boundaries and how to stand up for yourself so that you’re not afraid to work with the people around you. Above all else, learn how to forgive yourself quickly and love yourself deeply when you fall short of what you know you’re capable of. These are just a few of the things I’m thinking about as I make myself comfortable in 2025. I’m also clear that all of my efforts will require me to stop worrying about being likable and pleasant every second of the damn day. I’d rather choose myself and be a strict bitch than survive off of whatever crumbs this world leaves for me. I hope my words make space for you to consider doing the same.
Happy New Year and Black History Month Family! <3
As THEE strict bitch, I support this message
I’m excited to be joining the Strict Bitch community, thank you!☺️🙏🏾