Emily Ryan-Brown

Here’s a favorite go to when I want to write, or sometimes when I worked the midnight shift and needed to concentrate and work on something.
Now today as I am doing something I have not done in years, structured homework (smile), reflecting back on this beautiful background music from ​‪@relaxdaily‬

1 week ago | [YT] | 1

Emily Ryan-Brown

Recognizing for the sake of noticing, nothing else follows unless there’s some sort of buildup

3 weeks ago | [YT] | 6

Emily Ryan-Brown

You no American You my culture You need to claim my country now
Some Peoples Names, Roots, and Who Gets to Define Individuals that Have Constantly been erased
Lately I’ve been sitting with a question that keeps showing up online and offline:
Who gets to tell certain American people in America who they are?
For a long time, many of Americans were handed labels one didn’t choose. Some of those labels came from the government, some from schools and churches, some from our own communities trying to survive inside a system that punished some of us for naming ourselves correctly. Our grandparents and great grandparents were often forced to tuck parts of their identity away just to stay alive, keep their families together, or avoid losing what little they had.
Because of that history, our identities are layered. Some families hold memories of being on this land for generations before certain labels existed. Others carry stories of ancestors brought here through the slave trade. Many of us hold both, along with pieces that have been forgotten, erased, or misrecorded.
So when people today say, “I don’t identify with this label,” or “My family always said we were this,” it’s not always about shame or denial. Sometimes it’s about trying to reclaim something that was taken, or make sense of a history that never fit neatly into one word.
At the same time, we’re living in an era where strangers feel bold enough to jump online and tell you who you are, what your bloodline is, force fake testing that clearly says, they are not absolute scientific truths, but are instead statistical approximations and what you’re “allowed” to claim. They do it with jokes, with mockery, with words like “pretend,” as if your family’s story is a meme. And just to hear and witness those evil laughs after spewing this disgusting dirt is despicable. That kind of gatekeeping doesn’t create unity, which is another reason I personally stand strongly on, no blind unity. It just repeats the same harm alot of people have already survived, being told, over and over, that our own testimony about ourselves doesn’t matter.
I want to be clear: I’m not talking about every person from any group. I’m talking about certain attitudes and behaviors, those who thrive on stirring conflict, who speak down on others all day, everyday, who enjoy demeaning someone else’s sense of self. That spirit can show up in any community. And whenever it does, it causes damage. Which is why it has become so important to know thy self and stand firm and tall on who and what you know you are without manipulative gaslighting gargling.
There is also the wound of colorism that many of us carry from childhood. Some of us remember what it felt like to be singled out, lighter or darker, based on how we looked, not who we were. Daggers coming from many angles. Instead of directing anger at the system that created those hierarchies, one can and have sometimes turned on one other. Those old scars show up in today’s conversations too, making it even harder to talk about identity without people feeling attacked.
What I’m interested in is something different:
A conversation where one can honor the complexity of our histories, without shaming one another for how an individual name themselves.
A fairly decent human being can:
•Acknowledge that labels like “Black,” “African American,” “Native,” and others have been used in ways that don’t always match people’s actual ancestry or lived experience.
• Recognize that family stories are not always documented, but that doesn’t mean they came from nowhere.
• Encourage people to research, document, and explore their lineage, without humiliating them in the process.
• Call out disrespectful behavior without painting entire groups with one brush.
For me, this is about dignity.
It’s about saying: I have the right to explore who I am, to talk about my family’s past, and to choose language that fits my reality, without being laughed at, accused of pretending, or told I’m “less than” or “afraid to acknowledge” for not accepting someone else’s version of my identity.
Some people can disagree without dehumanizing.
Some people can ask questions without ridiculing.
Some people can correct misinformation without trying to break someone’s spirit.
Most of all, sometimes, some people can remember that all of this, like names, labels, categories, was never meant to be more important than the people behind them. Some of our ancestors survived enough. The least some of us can do is talk about identity in a way that honors their sacrifices and protects each other’s humanity, well some. (erb)

2 months ago | [YT] | 5

Emily Ryan-Brown

2 months ago | [YT] | 3

Emily Ryan-Brown

2 months ago | [YT] | 5

Emily Ryan-Brown

“Being ‘late’ in life is not the same as being dead in life.”
But our culture often tells older people that their job is to shrink, stay quiet, stay useful in the kitchen, or fixing others car’s, etc, and let the younger generation dictate what “counts” as meaningful
Resilience:
Being able to adapt and still see yourself as someone who matters, is one of the key ingredients in what psychologists call “successful aging”

2 months ago | [YT] | 5

Emily Ryan-Brown

If Everybody Wore the Mask
I’ve been seeing these videos and posts:
I was scrolling,
and there they were on my screen again
a train car full of matching coats and hidden faces, so nobody could clock who they are
moving like a secret club in public.
They say it’s a “protest.”
They say it’s “free speech.”
But the energy feels old,
like the hood just learned a new fabric.
And my mind took off……
What if one day,
everybody decided to step in? To just silently join in
Same coats.
Same masks.
Same quiet march down the subway aisle
but this time,
the bodies inside that uniform
look like the whole planet.
What would happen if people from every race and background, when they saw that, decided to join in, not because they agree, but as a kind of statement?
Same clothes, same masks, same covered faces… but a completely different mix of people.
Not just Black folks or “minority groups,” but everybody stepping up, and stepping into that same formation.
Expressing and showing the belonging of all of us
every race, every religion,
every “type” of person ‘they’ like to put in boxes
and suddenly the system remembers
how to be afraid.
I imagine that car,
packed with difference in the same disguise:
A German grandfather
next to a Jamaican mother,
an Italian student
next to a Bangladeshi nurse,
a American Black veteran,
an Asian artist,
a Pakistani cab driver,
a Jewish teacher,
a Muslim engineer,
a Hindu Indian instructor
a Filipino saxophonist
a Mexican seamstress
a Non-Bigot White electrician
a Irish landscaper
a Jewish jeweler
a Muslim chef
a Christian journalist
a No Religion at all photographer
a African jazz singer
a Haitian philosopher
a Puerto Rican poet,
and all not listed,
all moving side by side,
All these stories,
all these histories,
wearing the exact same outer clothing.
No flags.
No slogans.
No symbols of hate, love or in between.
Just a moving mirror,
asking one question without a word:
“If it’s allowed for them,
is it allowed for us?”
Same train.
Same masks.
Same clothing.
Different faces.

So my thought is:
Nothing further follows, besides a peaceful night before bed.
Peace,
Emily

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2 months ago | [YT] | 4

Emily Ryan-Brown

Sometimes some Peoples feel threatened by someone who won’t hand over their mind, body, and soul.
When one refuses to hear one’s whole story.
They hear two words,
feel their world shake,
and decide well, they’re the problem.
One may give them a whole analogy,
the “everything” one might be saying,
but they grab one sentence,
twist it,
and build a case against them.
Not because you, she, he, me, may be wrong,
but because we all came out similar, but different
from what they were taught at birth.
from what their mother said,
what their pastor preached,
what their friends repeated
until it became law in their head.
When one may never look into oneself,
It becomes easier for you look out to the crowd.
It becomes normal for you to chase group thinking,
It becomes a requirement to copy and paste language,
It becomes approval as oxygen.
You talk the way everyone talks
so you never have to hear
your own original voice.
And when somebody like me
says, “No,
I won’t give my soul,
my mind,
my body
to the public for free,”
that sounds like rebellion!!!!!
My boundaries feel like disrespect
to people who only feel safe
when everyone thinks the same.
My self possession
feels like violence
to people who were trained
to hand their power and inner strength away.
Understand this:
Once you become strong enough
to reject what doesn’t belong in you,
to fight back against what people
try to plant in your mind,
body,
and soul…
you stop being easy to manage.
You become a mirror
they don’t want to look into.
A living reminder
that they’ve never met themselves.
So they tear you down.
They call you “too much,”
“too harsh,”
“too different,”
because your freedom exposes
their dependency!!!!!
But I am not here
to be a product of your programming.
I am here
to be a protector of my inner ground.
My mind is not a community garden
for every opinion to grow in.
My body is not a public park
for people to run their games through.
My soul is not a group project
that needs your grade.
If my strength threatens you,
that’s not my attack
that’s your awakening.
I won’t shrink my truth
to make your teachings comfortable.
I won’t dilute my spirit
so your group can stay unchallenged.
I honor my inner ground.
I guard my own calm.
And if that offends you,
then my existence
is doing what it came here to do. (erb)

2 months ago | [YT] | 2

Emily Ryan-Brown

People are so often gullible when they’re starving to be loved or picked. They see “10 signs you’re wife/husband material” and rush to comment, “That’s me! Pick me!” without ever asking, “Who is this person to grade me?”
If you don’t live by the same standards you’re putting on other people, your “material” talk is manipulation, not wisdom.
A lot of this content plays on insecurity and spiritual language to keep folks performing for approval, while the creator and/or community leaders enjoys clout with no accountability.
My rule is simple:
If you don’t deserve the respect you’re demanding, or you don’t give the respect you’re asking for, you’re (O.T.D.) out the door.
I’m for mutual trust, communication, and accountability, not labels that only benefit the person doing the judging.

2 months ago | [YT] | 3