Dangerously Doing Too Much | A 2022 End Of Year Reflection from Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson

shot by @carolinecavalcante.ph

So here we are. 

I waited until the last minute to write this [not by choice] but the “happenstance” of life made sure I lived out at least 363 days of the year before I came to any conclusions. Sure, I am writing it now but I have been thinking about it since October, because at that point of the year I was through! I mean DONE! Feed up! Over it! I had already come to terms and accepted that THIS was what it was.

Is that vague?

Oh stop fussing. We will get there. [ Just admit it. Your nosey Lol. You will get random pics & videos of my year to look at while you read so your attention span will not fizzle cus I wrote a novel LMAO]

---

2022, had to be lived.

It had to be lived with contemplation, irritation, affliction, and scrutiny. Now this is not to say there were not any moments of rest, delight, comfort, and applause. Those moments are the blessings that carried me on to the next day. They pushed me into fight mode instead of flight mode. . . They kept me grounded. But see, joy for me is a byproduct of responsibility. I carry my load and thus I carry the highs and the lows that come with it. My burden is MY burden. But somehow I have been lifting weight that is beyond my load without making any gains.

& that’s where we find my mutha-flippin problem.

On December 10th, 2022 at a “work” related event mid-conversation I blacked out, fainted, hit my left eyelid on a wooden ledge, collapsed to the floor, and had what appeared to be a mild seizure [Yes, I said mild like that makes any difference smh]. When I came to, I was calm and very much alert while most of the people around me were frantic because of the blood gushing out of my face. It was a freakin’ spectacle.

A spectacle that as shocking as it may have appeared to most, I knew exactly what had been the cause. I had dangerously been DOING TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH. 

Again, the burden of that is mine but it is one that I am not insane enough to keep carrying.

Everybody repeat after me: “I’m choosing me. This time, next time, and EVERY TIME until the last time.”

[& trust, I will not be bothered if you do the same.]

This year I was called passive aggressive by a very close friend [Are we still friends?]. Passive Aggressive as in, “a pattern of indirectly expressing negative feelings instead of openly addressing them”. The “trope” was followed by listing all the emotions I had confided in her [just weeks before] that I had been experiencing with my mental & physical exhaustion, including: stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, and anxious. To then posture with a verbatim, “. . . idk but your attitude has been a bit shitty as of late. You should unpack that.”

So here I am calling out for help, while providing help [I won't put nobody's personal business on blast with the details] to then be told, “unpack that”. Yikes! 

Had I not said to the world and all the people contributing to my stressful load [my family, my partner, my colleagues, my friends, my staff, my self], “I no longer have the capacity to do that”, or “I don’t have the time & resources to do this”, and ofcourse the hated, “Please, do this thing you agreed to do how you agreed to do it, so that I may also do my part without having to do yours”??? 

I did. Many times.

Not from some extrinsic hierarchical pedestal that upholds systems of inequity and disenfranchisement. Not to stroke my ego because I hold some capitalistic moniker that says I’m in charge. Not to cause harm that can not be repaired through time, practice, and self accountability but with a stance of human respect and experience in spaces many of them have yet ventured and I was never guided through.

Unfortunately, whatever I was communicating [no matter how clear and logical it had been to me] was not working. 

Where this year's word was intentionality, it was served with a push to rationalize this urge to be useful [the thing I have always considered my purpose of being]. As I ridiculously recited, “You can not pour from an empty cup”, I was pouring out way too much champagne to those who just really needed water, and didn’t necessarily need it from me. [I was not eating right, my insomnia was at an all time high, my energy was depleted, I was not drinking enough water. Ya girl was moving blind off faith!]

As transparent as I have been learning to become, most people don’t want to hear my truth. The truth is that as much success as I am experiencing, as much joy doing things outside the box has brought me, as much love from within and from others I get to bask in, there are some core situations that are messing with my peace, livelihood, and stability. 

Like. . .

• Being denied a home loan because your socioeconomic upbringing & ethnicity, when you have 2.5 streams of income, a 720 credit score, with all your finances in good standing [Tuh, this is America]

• Being debilitatingly sick 8 times in one year and then developing chronic fatigue [It’s extra nasty out there. Wash your hands & take your vitamin C. I have a 3 year old so all germs on me Lol]

• Someone attempting to rob you in your place of business and then coming into your office building to find a strange man sleeping outside your door [This is the trauma caused by people just trying to survive. This is not a them problem. This is not a me problem. This is a WE problem. WE are failing our people]

These are just a few examples of where my year could have collapsed under me but instead I just pushed on. Saying yes, showing up, doing my best, and giving my all.

• But when I needed a break, I did not pause.

• But when I needed to say “hell no”, I tried to compromise.

• But when I needed to be given grace, I did not demand it.

I knew better & I didn’t do better because I felt useful. 

And that failure is my own. 

I say all of this to get to a place of yearly reflection that is not just a list of triumphs [because I could do that. I did some dope sh*t that I’m really quite proud of *does one of those corny “I’m feeling myself” dances*] but to really vocalize that something has to shake B! Things absolutely must change.

It literally took me getting bust upside my head to sit my a** down. [Okay, energies that be! Yall not about to play with me. NOTED!]

So in 2023 & for as long as they apply the following are up for debate, dismissal, and eviction:

• Leadership: I never wanted to be a leader but I have been called on to that journey. It is an obligation I don’t take lightly and I know why this has been asked of me and not another for this season of life. I note that there are traditions of leadership that I embody but there are even more that I do not subscribe to. This is because there are some systems that are traits of colonization, patriarchy, and inhumanity. I will not speak the language of my oppressor to my people. I will not continue to repeat methods that have failed those that needed it most. I will not ask of you what I am not willing to do myself. I will lead where my experience gives me expertise and I will follow where I need knowledge and guidance. If you do not respect my approach as a leader, I do not take it personally. This mission is just not for you. 

• Friends: I am a lifer. Not a situational deflection. You owe me nothing, and thus I owe you nothing. Not a phone call, not a check in, not a visit, not a like. What you offer me I will appreciate with or without acceptance. What I offer you, you may take or leave without judgment. When we cross paths I will honor the moments we share. When we are apart I will value the memories that involve you. You don’t have to solve my problems, be my moral compass or even agree with me. All that I ask is that you respect my agency over me. [It's a swinging door]

• Love: Me first. I love MYSELF first. I will love me wholeheartedly so that I can love others the same. I can forgive & love deeply. I can experience & love without holding a grudge. I can have loved wrong and still learn to love right. I am growing love and I am living love. This year was full of reminders that love, even when it is not contained in a pretty bow, can keep your soul alive. [To the love of my life & soul tie, Thanks for pouring into me the love I needed to get me through Papi].

• Business: CopyWrite is going to be different. Progress is uncomfortable and those growing pains come with growing expectations. We can’t come to every event. We have children to raise. We can’t review every song. We got bills to pay. We can’t interview every wave maker, there are others who need a voice. Communal greatness is not complacent #SupportTheLocal. CopyWrite filled a void. CopyWrite changed the narrative. CopyWrite archived history. CopyWrite has plans. You coming or nah?

• Extra: I’m not afraid to be wrong but I am damn sure not afraid to be right. I am afraid to give up before I am out of time. Let’s see what happens. “If they said I did it. I DID IT.”

So 2023, let’s ride it until the wheels fall off!

Love & All Things Urban,

Lexi S. “I’m resting” Brunson 

Editor-in-Chief of CopyWrite Magazine

CopyWrite Magazine "IN THE LOCAL" | Getting Geeky w/ Geekset Podcast

CopyWrite is “Getting Geeky”!

Our new homies at Geekset Podcast, Deuces, Bacardi, & Didge joined us at /CW HQ to talk about #AllThingsGeeky. 

Check out what we learned about their up and coming project The Black Geek Documentary,  “Blerd” culture, and how even when you're publicly a Stefan, there are things that still make you Urkel.

Interview w/ Lexi S. Brunson, resident Geek & Editor-in-Chief of /CW

Learn more at https://www.geeksetpodcast.com/

The Creative Collective Panel [moderated by Lexi S. Brunson Editor-in-Chief of CopyWrite Magazine]

It’s the Black History in the making for us!!! We are excited to announce that our Editor-in-Chief will be moderating The Creative Collective Panel during Black Lens Black history month kick of event.

As Always Lexi will be using her own creative experience to ask thoughtful and engaging questions that will definitely help us understand each other a little better.

#SupportTheLocal

Learn more at:

https://mkefilm.org/black-history-month-2022-milwaukee-film

Have we Blossomed? [A reflection on Carvd N Stone's first documentary "Blossom"]

Have we Blossomed?

The question is one I would like you to ponder as you continue to read this reflection.

CopyWrite Magazine was recently invited to see Carvd N Stones first documentary project "Blossom". The journalistic piece previewed at Milwaukee Youth Arts Center, with the help of Alderwoman Milele Coggs on December 14th, 2021. The project featured Mikel McGee, the owner of 414loral, a florist shop in the heart of Milwaukee's Bronzeville Culture & Entertainment District.

The documentary was a micro-capture of how Black entrepreneurship in Milwaukee is possible, though the idea of the project was to show business elevation despite pandemic impact. As it showed McGee's recollection of her story [a very positive one indeed], and small anecdotes from her staff, it also triggered questions [for me] about community we don't often ask publicly.

Questions like:

When an individual in our community has a craft that brings joy, how is it celebrated?

What defines Black Entrepreneurship in Milwaukee, and who does it have to benefit to be acknowledged?

What is the media's role in expanding what stories should be told? Or, What is the community's role in supporting their local [no-conglomerate] media?

Is being seen more important than creating systemic impact?

Are wins, wins without communal validation?

Is quality a prerequisite for success? Or can that be negotiated?

What is a local media maker's responsibility to another local media maker? 

Blossom may be a niche story but the fact that it exists adds to a larger narrative. It's a community story. A community story of how one Black Journalist [Stone], received a grant, and used it to tell a Black business owners story [McGee], and asked a public official to help with its showing [Coggs], then in turn invited their community [Me, a Black Journalists? Us? Ours?] to see it. 

The narrative was even further pushed forward with a talk back panel discussion with Mikel McGee (star of the film), Tonda Thompson (owner of She Slangs Wood) and Corey Fells (co-founder of Black Space), that unfortunately I couldn't stay for, but am sure had nuances of hope and rhetoric of change we strive to suggest.

So to return to my initial question, "Have we blossomed?", is to suggest we think about how we pour into each other as a city and a people. Have we grown out of the idea that we can not build community or businesses alone? Have we cultivated enough relationships to suggest that the foundations we have made may have been watered by many? That when we break ground it gives seeds a chance to grow. 

It's nice to see that there are flowers being given [all puns intended] to those who are just at the start of their journey's and I hope that pushes more flowers to be given [maybe more documentaries?] to those who tilled the soil.

Lexi S. Brunson

Editor-in-Chief /CW

Juneteenth Celebration Press Interview w/ Vedale Hill

/CW Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson spoke to lead artist for the Juneteenth Mural in Milwaukee WI, Vedale Hill, on how art elevates the holiday & its history.

/CW

Enough of a Woman | Poem by Lexi S. Brunson [Editor-in-Chief]

Enough of a Woman

I have been balancing without footing since the day I was created.

Chiseled from both flesh & dreams.

Perched on ideas that do not suit my fancy but instead interrogated my ability.

A cry for help

An internal struggle for redemption

in a place

no reparations shall be given.

[the strong woman's complex]

I will not snark at my uprising

of an upbringing.

For I was forged from something fierce.

Feminism at its own demise and womanizing at its most vulnerable. 

They thought I'd be the best of my bread.

I was loved from tip to toe.

I knew lust before it kissed me.

Pleasure

before it slid into my deepest depths. 

Heartbreak before it had a name. 

It was enough.

In the midst of it all I had been chosen to carry the burden to bare life.

So I would find grief in my induction into the club of red-rush between my legs.

A monthly celebration of my ripeness, that would follow with grief of misogyny.

I was upset that my gender was political. 

A statement of sexualization that I could not fight without wounds.

I could no longer be ANYTHING

I wanted to be.

[they call me woman]

I had hips, thighs, breast and an aura trained in swift battles of gender equity, pimpin, stubbornness, manipulation, and survival.

I was a dormant weapon in a fight I didn't know existed.

She was enough.

In time I was deemed ruthless. 

A temptress untouchable. 

A prize to be won, a purity to be kept.

The thought of wearing white to my matrimonial casket was torture.

I had to be dominant or be stepped on.

I navigated space with only the memory as guidance.

I had to hold my head high as if losing my paternal link had not broken me.

I had to hold my shoulders square like not having my brother's bond did not mar me.

[this is vulnerability]

I tried to find my way into the den of a wolf pack, because the testosterone smelled like comfort.

Here I would find a truth that was never meant for my eyes.

I was privy to information

that changed me

I was now loaded with arsenal that could never leave me blind

I could not unsee our curse

That behind closed doors their allegiance was never loyal

For every keeper

there were 3 throw away(s). 

For every forever

there were several for now(s).

I didn’t want to be loyal to a lie.

I didn't want to feel the pain of giving up tomorrow.

But I never betrayed the barriers

of their truth.

Until it I was sliced

by a double edged sword.

I had never been enough.

I had been cast aside

for and by my gender.

To perfect was my dismissal.

Intimidation was the poison.

I became unsuspecting wing man 

of fairy tales we publicly call goals

& privately envy.

[thus ignorance is bliss]

Ruined by options, I became an option.

A piece of a picture that had no frame.

A disregard of reality 

A word left unsaid

A speech tongueless

A happy home covered in happy homes, by way of a duck off's and funk off's.

Not a woman's woman. 

So my sisterhood would be stricken off the record.

Not a guy's girl.

So there is no ledger of platonic woe’s. 

Somewhere suspended between big cahonas & an intimidating cunt.

I suffered.

But that was not enough.

I would never bare title

So I made my own.

I would never hold rank. 

So they curse me as a martyr.

I spit back a five star general.

I bleed. Bucked. But would never fold.

It became the ego balance,

nature versus nurture.

A fight for the glory.

But my war had been started

in the womb of some other women,

in the sacrifice of some girls dreams,

in the blitz of some man's play.

Still I stand idol

Abusing my lineage

Willing to sign a peace treaty for the next woman's altar.

So she may never have to 

spill her own blood.

And yet still there leaves the question…

Is there ever enough of a WOMAN?

Lexi for /CW

Speak On It! REDESIGN OUR CITY!

Our Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson, will be presenting her knowledge on authentic creative community development and more!

Register to attend Here!

Thank you for being 365 BLACK!

We want to say thank you to all of our contributors to the 365 BLACK [Project]. Without your voices we could not make this reality happen! Our goal is to keep pushing the narrative of Black voices in creative spaces all year long in the hopes that the current BPOC spotlight is not trendy but instead becomes a normal thread in our worthy and multifaceted society.

Keep Pushing Y’all.

Lexi S. Brunson Editor-in-Chief /CW

---

Submissions will be up all year on

https://copywritemag.com/365-black-project

CopyWrite Mag Press Interview w/ Marquise Mays, Film Director of The Heartland (Short Film)

CopyWrite's Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson and Intern Tanasia Shaw, chat with director of The Heartland Marquise Mays about his new short film, Black Culture in Milwaukee, creating in a pandemic and more! This refreshing Saturday morning convo gives a glimpse into a narrative that we can no longer circumvent…

A space for Black Culture right here in Milwaukee, The Heartland.

Marquise Mays is a filmmaker and media scholar based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He holds a M.A from the University of Southern California and a B.A from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His work presents an opportunity for Black kids to be proud to call this place home. As an independent filmmaker, Marquise’s films have been screened nationally and internationally. Most recently, he worked as an Associate Producer on the Student Academy Award Winning Film, The Dope Years: The Untold Story of Latasha Harlins.

The Heartland, is a film developed and produced in part with Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) for  their inaugural Artist Activist Fellowship. At LIT, they focus on building a solid future that is young, Black, Brown and LIT. This year they have developed their strategy to include Cultural Organizing in order to shift culture by developing leaders, known as artist activists. Artist Activists use their creativity to speak truth, as well as move people to feel empowered to shift  culture and make systemic change. 

- via LIT (Leaders Igniting Transformation)

Learn more at @theheartlandfilm on instagram.

/CW

CopyWrite's Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson and Intern Tanasia Shaw chat with director of The Heartland Marquise Mays about his new short film, Black Cultur...

CopyWrite Mag "Personal Project": a tell-all interview w/ CEO | Editor-in-Chief Lexi S. Brunson (Copy)

CopyWrite presents its FIRST ever sit down with the CEO | EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Lexi S. Brunson (@thrudirtyeyes). Join us in an intriguing, intense, and incredible tell-all hosted by Carrie Mahone (@carrienoni_) and Imani Ortiz (@ortizus).

Click Here to Watch!