Why Tahyira? See below

Election day in the United States for our next President is on Tuesday, November 3rd. I advise you to vote. As I’m jotting down current stories to provide evidentiary support for my theories in this article, I feel really sad about the state of my race as well as my entire generation, kind of the whole damn world at large honestly. This past week I decided to disengage a bit. I’m pretty vocal, but because of that, I know I need to hard-pause my mouth and open up my ears. I listened to the CEO of Goya Foods promote Donald Trump as a leader that we need. The week before, randomly, I went to the grocery store, and I bought these dry Black beans in a plastic bag, like no real label beside the grocery’s in-house label.

I thought, hmm, maybe I need to learn how to make Black beans myself so that I can extend my culinary steez. I bought them, and I burned them, but I’m learning. I only ever used Goya Black beans, and I started eating these beans from Chipotle. He thinks Trump, the man who said Mexicans are rapists, the dude who said the Mayor from New York was doing a bad thing by painting BLM on 5th Avenue, the one who put up a Muslim country ban as his first initiative, is a good guy. Sorry not sorry, these CEOs don’t speak for the majority of us here living in America. Only you can, that’s why I need you to vote. Down South, more importantly, we cannot allow leadership in America to reflect un-American values. If they think a statue displays more of our historic challenges then a man being murdered on camera by a citizen on police paid for by said citizens, then we need a serious change in major ways.

Okay, but so what Tahyira?

That’s where you come into play. There are so many ways young Black millennials can up struck this election, and in part, the entire country from the economy, to urban developments, to mental health. Y’all may judge me, Kanye is the closest thing we got. I know, I would never in my right mind vote for him, but that’s just it, I’m no longer in my “right mind.” Kanye West openly speaks and has very public manic episodes. He goes on a grandiose high and starts a choir. He says he’s a MAGA fan, then enters the race to defeat Donald. That’s a lot of Ye. But when you study folks with bi-polar disorder or more commonly manic depression, you can find these are very normal symptoms. Our collective mental health is almost near the Kanye level.

We don’t get our episodes played out in a big Keeping Up With The Kardashian’s sort of way; ours is more silent, and much more deadly. If you are suffering from anxiety or sleeplessness since the pandemic, you should reach out to a mental health pro for some tips and coping skills. It is always okay not to feel one hundred percent yourself at times, but mental health in the Black community has not been handled at all in America. It’s our job to make it serious.

Being a first-generation business owner like many of us find ourselves these days, scrambling to compete on Instagram for a sale, the balancing act of working a full-time job, raising a kid, and finding time to research and build your brand, is a lot of pressure. I mostly feel like I’m all alone trying to build this big building. I’ll say maybe the past seven years has put me on floor three. Yup, seven years to build three floors. It is all about the process. The other way we help our community and our local leaders are by joining in. As a business owner, there’s a responsibility of giving back to the community in a nurturing way.

You’ve Been On Unemployment A While Now, Still No Business? C’mon son.

The COVID-19 crisis changed the way we interact with our neighbors, classmates, and patrons. It is the perfect time for uneducated Black wannabe business owners to take notes. Everything is in the news these days, from the Treasury Secretary giving out stimulus payments to big corps, to unemployment being hit hard from every state, now more than ever we need to go back to our ancestral ways and make our own, everything. If there was a segregated Bank of Black America, would you open an account? Our relationship with money and the community must change immediately. You pay local taxes, and then you need to know why a police officer killed an innocent person. You pay State taxes, and then you need to email the D.A.’s office to find out why the police officer has not been charged with the crime. We all pay in the Federal government, but as we learned in real-time, it’s your Governor, Mayor, and City Council’s that make decisions that directly impact you, your family, and your neighborhood.

Trump pretends he has absolute power like a dictator that he is desperately trying to become, but his power is more check then let’s say, Andrew Cuomo, the Governor from New York. And it makes total sense; his decisions affect the global landscape. Americans are not popular around the world the way they’d like to promote it in-house, people don’t want us because of our leader. I’d like to introduce you to a man I don’t love, but the only man you can vote for, and his name is Joseph Biden. I follow and adore Symone Sanders, she’s the Black chick that normally claps back on CNN. She was a huge Bernie supporter at one point, and I guess she played the role of Democratic surrogate in the first years of Trump in the left media. She is now the Senior campaign advisor to Joe Biden. Work Symone! In her book which I haven’t fully finished (I’m really bad a finishing books, but I’m working on it hehe) she talks about all of us, the woke ones, getting involved and how it may seem intimately, it may feel like our skin doesn’t belong in that playing field. Still, she says it’s the only way we can level it. Level up? Equity matters. I have that on my Instagram bio, equity — making it fair for everyone to win. I tell all the Karen-like trolls on Twitter, equality been achieved honey, with all the civil rights laws, we want equity now. We want it, so every single person with an EQUAL advantage, we don’t push the finish line because we don’t like the skin colors leading the pack. That means we get up on the Netflix and Chill vibes, organize our communities, and mobilize our ideas. Dreams don’t work until you do is a very real ideology.

Breaking Down The Black Within Joe Biden, Part I

Because he’s my guy, I wanted to help break down the Black I found in Joe. Firstly, even under the eight years of Obama, he was one of my favorites to watch. I found that Barack had to be extremely mindful during speeches and public appearances, the cool white guy just rolled on through. White privilege is real, and we see it every day. It’s the same thinking that leads to Kanye being perceived as crazy, and Trump is as legit as his Chinese owned buildings. We as Blacks have also been living with white privilege in our realities, and some of us don’t believe in ourselves because of it. “Oh, that’s for white people,” is a comment I hear a lot in the hood. What does that even mean? His wife, Jill, is a smart cookie. Dr. Jill Biden has worked as a healthcare professional and stood side by side with Michelle for eight years, with class and grace. She never let anyone disrespect the President and First Lady when she and her family were also putting themselves at risk. Y’all know they wanted them, Black people, out of their house. It’s admirable, possibly why that was Trump’s first assault, Hunter Biden.

Leave these kids out of it. Then again, Ivanka tweeted something in Spanish to promote Goya, so it’s like anyone’s fight at this point. I never got why people opt to attack someone’s family when they run out of assaults of their actual target. That could end in November if you vote for Joe. Does anyone want to live in a Nazi-esque version of Trump’s America? Where the Karens and Kevins will be empowered, and we will be enslaved, again? Not me. I voted for Hillary Clinton, and I cannot believe we are still here. Recently, both Joe and Hillary were guests on Joy Reid’s new prime time MSNBC show, The Reid Report. I love seeing Black women hold the torch to political power, don’t you? They both wished her congratulations and explained how important it is in November for everyone to vote.

I’m asking you as a friend at this point

As you can read, I’m trying my best to convince you. Please help us. Please help yourself. I want you to see the power, Michelle Obama so freely talks about, the voting power of Black Americans is literally like our meal ticket. I get how it feels like your vote is coveted and simultaneously not important, at the same damn time, but let’s think about it this way, what do you have to lose? Your healthcare, your sanity, your freedoms to travel to other countries safely, your happiness? Yep, the World Happiness Report placed us here in the U.S. as the most unhappy around the World in 2019. Our decline began around January 2017, the same month, Trump was inaugurated. Coincidence? Perhaps. But maybe not. Maybe you feel hopeless. Maybe you feel defeated. Maybe you feel powerless….

I’m taking mine back on November 3rd, will you Black Americans join me?

About Tahyira Savanna: Tahyira is a lifestyle journalist and writer.  Her interest includes human stories and introspection.  She interviews everyday people doing their part to make our world a happier place.

Follow her on Twitter @TAsterisk and Instagram @iletthegoodtimesroll