I wanted to talk more about my experiences as a biracial black person in America and offer some reflection on where portions of my family went wrong in teaching us about our identity. I've talked about my background a lot. My mother is a white identified Cuban and my father is black from the south side of Chicago. My mother went wrong in a lot of ways, but particularly in her failure to understand or educate herself about race. As an adult, I understood it as, she never needed to. She had the privilege not to. For me, I never had a choice. We would talk about race and she'd talk at me sideways, or around it; she never needed to acknowledge race, but I always did. It didn't matter to anyone that I had a white mother and nobody ever asked; my mother educated me less. She preferred for my siblings and I to live in a bubble, but when we lived in Chicago or South Florida, that bubble bursted. Race, and that lack of true teaching, followed me for many years. In elementary school, I struggled with identity issues. I wondered why I didn't "fit" in. I was smart, almost too smart you could say. My thoughts were fully formed like an adults, so I could never just "be." I was always wondering why I was different, always carrying that on my back. As a child, I looked around me and saw that black people were treated differently. I didn't have to be taught that; I experienced that. This struggle to fit in was exacerbated when I tested into the gifted program. My 3rd grade teacher --- a black woman --- saw my potential and I'd never felt more seen and heard, but in 4th grade, I was targeted by my peers and alone. There weren't a lot of black kids in gifted and they isolated us a lot from other children. I started to think that I had to go to a school for people like me, and that lead me to Herbert A Ammons Middle school, an IB Magnet school that taught me everything I'd come to know about the world. You see, Ammons was 20 miles away and filled with wealthy white kids. I suddenly became aware of the fact that I was a black, poor kid and I didn't want them to know. My father was sick at the time, but always educated me about who I was and where I came from. One time, my father showed up with my baby brother to my honors society induction. I was a top performing student and his support meant everything to me, but I remember them looking at my dad, then me, then my dad, then me. Silence. They said he looked scary, imposing, rough around the edges, but my dad was gentle, supportive, funny, and kind. I didn't understand at the time that my peers were scared of him because he was black. I didn't understand my apprehension and fear around these wealthy white kids from the suburbs was because I was taught to believe that they were more important than me because of the structured, systematic racist system that we live in. At Ammons, I encountered some of my closest friends. However, these nice white kids never understood that racism isn't just being nice to black people, it's not treating them with microagressions and subtle, insidious comments. It's the understanding that some things --- intentional or not --- are incredibly hurtful. I had friends comment on my hair, saying I was so smart...for a black girl, was I adopted because my mom looks white, and what's it like in the hood. My best white friend even introduced herself by saying she'd never met a black person before. These comments, while "innocent" are the systemic, hurtful, subtle, "polite" racism that people need to get uncomfortable about, because that's the racism that we have no choice but to endure. A friend of mine wore a confederate flag bracelet and didn't know why it was wrong. It was very hurtful and I was quiet about it. I won't be quiet any longer. It's time to reclaim our voices, enter spaces, and challenge the system. We can do it, I believe it. Remember always that #BlackLivesMatter.

#BlackLivesMatter

For the past couple of days --- months even --- I've been in a state of reflection. I don't post on social media a lot because I don't feel completely comfortable on the platform. I'm a very reserved person. I've always been quiet and shy, even online. However, I really wanted to share my thoughts about something that's heavy on my heart, and that is the constant death of black people by the hands of police officers. Whether it's Breonna Taylor, who lost her life while sleeping or George Floyd, who was suffocated and choked to death. I remember Trayvon Martin, because we were only four months apart in age. I remember his death hitting me hard, because we were the same. Growing up, I was a kid with many enduring aspirations. I grew up in rough neighborhoods and saw things firsthand. I saw community, I saw relisilence, I saw and experienced poverty. I saw how the police treated us --- those that lived in the poorer neighborhoods, compared to our weather white counterparts. If we called the police, it would take them at least two hours to come. At least. I remember navigating the streets by myself and with my older sister. We were both precocious and street smart; we had to be. We rode the bus together, we walked around what most deem "the hood." During that, we were never shot, robbed, accosted, or injured. The police though, everyone was afraid of them. I was raised to fear the police. I didn't know why, but I just did. It was like a sixth sense. My father -- a black man standing at six foot one and weighing 240 pounds -- taught me everything about the world. He was a man who was intimidating in stature, but wise and warm in demeanor. People were scared of my dad for no real reason, I'd thought at the time. My dad was kept out of buildings and treated differently, and so was I. You don't and can't explain the feeling of being targeted by police until you're targeted by police. It's not something that you can learn or ever comprehend. I've been stopped on my bicycle by police, who held me for an hour because I forgot my ID. The entire time, I felt really scared. I didn't want to be arrested. I didn't want to be hurt. In certain situations, you never know what's going to happen to you, and you can't know. You could be polite and things just escalate. You could wear a certain jacket and walk around, but people will think you're stealing. This hits a lot of people hard because we've all experienced constant, systematic racism. It's not always blatant, and sometimes it is. #BlackLivesMatter is a wail of agony for some. Many just want their voices heard. We're all tired of what's happening and we want real change. We want to feel safe; we want basic human dignity. It's time to listen and understand that #BlackLivesMattter.

The Voter Suppression I Witnessed In Florida

I don't really talk about politics on this Tumblr, but there's something weighing heavily on my spirit since yesterday. Yesterday, I voted in the 2018 Florida mid-terms, and voting has always been something that I've been very passionate about. I'll never feel like my vote doesn't matter, because all of our votes matter, especially in a race like our Governor's race was. Ron De Santis, or whatever his name is, won by less than 1 percent. Yes, you heard that right. He won by 0.7 percent of a percent, and it's frustrating to me because yesterday I witnessed what is called voter suppression.

Basically, I went to my polling place with my voter card in hand, and my license. There weren't a lot of people there, but the atmosphere was tense. Upon going inside, I was given a receipt and told to wait for specific instructions in case I got something "wrong." The woman in front of me -- I remember her being young, with faux locs and a kind smile, but she seemed stressed. To the side of the room, the elections officials sat in a circle, talking quietly amongst themselves. At first, I figured it must've been because it was later in the day and they were gathering their results, but I quickly realized that something was up. The next woman was a kind, grandmotherly type. She asked me if my address marched exactly to my voter card and I assured her that it did, and then she let me go. The next woman was supposed to tell me what to do. When I asked her if I had to fill out everything, she looked me dead in the eyes and said "you really should, and it's important that you do. There's been many people who haven't been able to vote today." I nodded, but found that odd. What did she mean a lot couldn't vote? But again, things would become abundantly clear in the next twenty or so minutes that it took me to fill out the four page ballot.

About two minutes into filling out my ballot, the first strange thing happened. An older white woman began to complain that many people were coming in to vote, but their names had shown that they had voted already. This is when the circle of election officials for louder. The man with dreadlocks sat up straighter, and expressed that he had been having that problem all day, and that it was worrying him. The woman began to grow angrier, saying that she felt like they were blocking people from voting because many weren't even sure how their names got on this particular list, or when. And while this conversation was going on, an older black man of about fifty or sixty walked in. He was insistent on voting, but his address didn't match the address, which he insisted wasn't changed and wasn't what he put on the paper, and the election officials there understood, but said protocol was that they had to submit an address change and call the mayor. Or he could go to the nearest polling place, which was at a middle school about five miles away. This man didn't have a car. I'm not sure if he got to vote.

Once I finished my card, I waited behind a woman for a bit. She was a short black woman who appeared nervous. For some reason her address was wrong and literally mid way through voting she rescinded her vote and left. It was so abrupt that it caught me off guard. After that, I did vote, but there was only one machine working at the polling place, as the other mysteriously stopped working. But once I voted, I realized that really, I'd been the only person in that twenty minute timeframe that had successfully voted, and it's bothered me tremendously. The elections officials were stressed, mad, and knew something wasn't right. I know it's bold to say an election was rigged, but how else can I explain what I witnessed? It felt like there were all sorts of regulations that made it difficult for the most vulnerable people to vote on note only the mid-terms, but various things in our state that actually could make things better. I am writing this because I can't be the only one who experienced this, and it makes me angry that the new Governor won by 0.7 percent when I saw people be turned away, when I heard elections officials say names said that a person voted when they didn't. This type of stuff makes me want to be more active, so that I can tell people what's really going on, because that election result was not right.

New story, but contains spoilers. Based on 9x05.

5 "Couples Goals" Marriages That Began As Affairs

A lot of people are under the impression that "Dandy" would make Danai and Andy horrible people. But did y'all know that these couples began with while one person was married to someone else? Now you do.

1. Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson

2. Dwayne Wade and Gabrielle Union

3. Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward

4. Matthew Rhys and Keri Russel

5. Johnny Cash and June Carter

Dandy: The Psychology of Willful Blindness

Danai Gurira/Andrew Lincoln or "Dandy" as some call them are as obvious as the day is long, but I've noticed for quite some time that people tend to ignore the obvious elephant in the room with these two. That elephant? The obvious attraction between them and the inappropriate aspects of what is deemed a "friendship." People who are into them or curious about them are deemed weirdos simply because we refuse to twist ourselves into a pretzel to defend something that we would never defend if this were the "real" world with "real" people. That lead me to wondering why exactly that is. This lead me to a book called "Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril (public library)" by serial entrepreneur and author Margaret Heffernan.

This phenomenon is actually quite common in the human psyche, and I'll break down the how's and whys of that for you now. The first point the book examines is how “we could know, and should know, but don’t know because it makes us feel better not to know.” A lot of times, we do this, mostly because digging actually causes discomfort and most people dislike things that make them truly uncomfortable. For example, many people will know their partner is being unfaithful; they will see the signs, they will go through the messages, but they will not explicitly bring it up and when they do it's because they're already done. Why? It's because sometimes we know the truth, but we don't like the truth and we choose to believe the lie because it feels better. With Danai and Andy, I feel like a lot of people do think that these two are perfect beings. And in stan culture, celebrities are infallible deities deemed "problematic" if they show their flaws. It's a harmful way to view people, who are multifaceted, complex, and imperfect, but alas that is celebrity culture.

Furthermore, this goes into what people believe they are capable of. In most people's minds Danai Gurira is an esteemed playwright, a constant champion for human rights, a feminist, an activist, and all of that is true. Danai Gurira IS one of the best people in the world, but she's also human too. She's capable of all the things that regular woman are capable of, and that doesn't make her lesser than us, it just makes her like us. That's true of Andrew Lincoln too, who most have placed into an almost unrealistically perfect box of perfection. He is the perfect father, the perfect husband with the perfect wife, and he's incapable of anything that would make him less than that. Andrew Lincoln is the ultimate "unicorn" to some, and it's clear that some are okay with self inserting or sexualizing them to fit their fantasies, it's unheard of that he may be attracted to his coworker. This also doesn't take away from the wonderful human being that he's shown himself to be, the caring leader, the hard worker, the person with the biggest heart, the most generous actor, it just adds to that. He has many sides to him, which should make him more human. But that's where the willful blindness comes in. In some people's eyes, "Dandy" shatters the illusion. It turns perfect husband and father into deadbeat adulterer that doesn't love his family. It turns selfless feminist activist into homewrecker. But both of those things are narrow minded and simple characterizations of two very good people, who possibly went about all of this in the right way, and couldn't help the feelings that developed. That's the way I choose to see it.

With that, I leave you with this quote from the book:

"Whether individual or collective, willful blindness doesn’t have a single driver, but many. It is a human phenomenon to which we all succumb in matters little and large. We can’t notice and know everything: the cognitive limits of our brain simply won’t let us. That means we have to filter or edit what we take in. So what we choose to let through and to leave out is crucial. We mostly admit the information that makes us feel great about ourselves, while conveniently filtering whatever unsettles our fragile egos and most vital beliefs. It’s a truism that love is blind; what’s less obvious is just how much evidence it can ignore. Ideology powerfully masks what, to the uncaptivated mind, is obvious, dangerous, or absurd and there’s much about how, and even where, we live that leaves us in the dark. Fear of conflict, fear of change keeps us that way. An unconscious (and much denied) impulse to obey and conform shields us from confrontation and crowds provide friendly alibis for our inertia. And money has the power to blind us, even to our better selves."

Throwback: Andrew Lincoln recounts trip to Ghana to see VSO teacher and childhood friend Laura Smith

For any of the fans out there of Andrew Lincoln, I found this is an interesting tidbit from about his trip to Ghana in 2002 to do volunteer work. His childhood friend Laura Smith worked there as a teacher.

ANDREW LINCOLN

Laura is the daughter of my mother's oldest and greatest friend from South Africa. Both my mother and her friend left South Africa because of apartheid and became exiles. Laura is my mother's namesake. We lived for 10 years of my childhood in Hull. Laura's family lived in Sunderland and we'd see each other all the time. Our families were very close.

Laura is younger than me, so when I was six or seven, she was three or four, and she was a bit of a pest. She loved my older brother in particular and we used to tease him about it. I've a terrible memory of my childhood, but one of the things that sticks in my mind is playing with this toy that Laura had. I remember being a bit jealous because we didn't have that toy. Another is having curries with her and her brother. Her dad was a curry fanatic. He'd worked in development in Africa, so I suppose it comes as no surprise that Laura has gone to work out there.

When my dad's work changed, we moved to Bath and we saw each other less often. Our mothers, though, are like sisters, so we always got detailed reports on what each other was doing. Laura came to see me in a production of a Jonathan Harvey play in Manchester. It was lovely to meet up but it was an after-show thing and we didn't really catch up properly.

And then, when I was doing Teachers, VSO contacted me. I'm ambivalent towards doing charity work because I always think it looks really crass - the quote unquote celebrity coming along and la, la, la, la, la. My mum gave me a stiff talking to though, and said it was my responsibility as someone who is part-South African and as someone who had got to a level of notoriety to do something. And that was when she said, "Oh, by the way, Laura's out in Ghana with VSO." That seemed to give it some relevance, a reason why I should go there.

So I said, "Yes, let's go to Ghana." It all slotted into place. It was one of the most intoxicating trips I've ever been on. Laura was in the remotest part of Ghana. You can't fly there so it is a three- day trip by Land Rover across country. And then there was Laura, in a Ghanaian outfit, an integrated African woman, teaching and coordinating programmes on HIV/Aids. She'd learnt the local dialect. What she was doing was amazing. The little girl I had known had grown up. For me it's the greatest strength of VSO. People evolve hugely when they're volunteers because they do so many things.

Laura had a real peace about her, a calmness. You could tell that she loved the country and its people. Almost as soon as I arrived, she made me play football with a local team, all of whom towered above me. And then we got drunk. She brewed this stuff, pitto, in her own distillery. It is made out of millet corn and is really strong. The next day she took me into her school and I watched her teach.

One of the nicest things was that no one had seen any of the programmes I'm in. Laura and the others are doing something so much more important with their lives. Being there refreshed my African blood. It's half of my history.

LAURA SMITH

Andrew's mother and my mother grew up together in South Africa, came to Britain together and married British men at the same time. So we all grew up together. While our mothers were cooking or chatting, we'd play in the attic. I was talkative and troublesome and my clearest memory of Andrew is him pulling me into line. He made me cry at least once. He shouted at me for tormenting my little brother.

When they moved to Bath, we'd visit. But as we grew up we were getting on with our own lives. I was studying in Manchester and went to see him in a play. I wasn't surprised that he was an actor. He was always theatrical, but I was a bit taken aback that he made it his career. The characters he has played are often very different from him. And now that he's famous, it doesn't tally with the Andrew I know who is anything but arrogant. He's very like his mother. They both have big hearts and care for people.

The first thing I heard about Andrew coming to Ghana was not via my mother but in an e-mail from our country director saying that Andrew Lincoln wanted to meet Laura Smith. I was amazed and a bit apprehensive. I hadn't seen him for a few years and wasn't sure if he'd be the same or if all his success would have changed him. I'd hardly known him as an adult and here he was coming all this way to meet me. It took until about two minutes into our reunion to work out that he was just the same.

He's mad about football, so I organised a game with a local school. It was blazing sunshine and I was worried about the effect of the heat, but he found some trainers and got on with it. He gave everything I suggested a go. I've been here for about two years and it's easy to forget how overwhelming it can be for someone who has just arrived. Andrew coped fantastically. He went through all the Ghanaian protocols - being presented to the chief and the headmaster - and found them interesting. He spoke positively to everyone he met in the school and in the HIV/Aids programme.

He'd brought out a photograph of me, him and his older brother when we were children. Andrew had a David Cassidy T-shirt on and a terrible 1970s haircut. I didn't look much better. It gave everyone in Ghana a good laugh. n

Today is VSO's World Teachers' Day, a chance for teachers around the world to make their voices heard. For further information or to find out more about VSO visit www.vso.org.uk

"Beautifully led by Mr. Lincoln, who is just - I always tell him, I think he hatched from an egg. Because I have never come across someone who’s more consummate an artist, a gentleman, a leading man, a leader, and who just is so selfless and kind and celebratory of everybody." - Danai Gurira on Andrew Lincoln Credit to @alyssagisme