— Erin Van Vuren

Portrait of Black Madonna 1987, by Benny Andrews

I just want to not feel sick

Plunging in, making decisions, fear

Sooo, yeah. I need help selling my car.

First, let me give you the backstory.

The little Honda Accord I had for the past 3yrs broke down on me last year and instead of fixing her, I sold her and got a newer, bigger car through Carmax. I needed it for my business and growing family. My Honda couldn't keep up anymore.

Since getting this car, it has had several major issues with it. First there was an oil leak, engine leak (which required special parts and trip to Volkswagenville), the front head light went out, and I had to have the whole engine replaced. Did I mention that it was 2011 Volkswagen Tiguan with only 67k miles on it and I got the car in September and all of that happened over course of the 4 months of me having it? And I only put 10k in miles on it.

I put almost 80k on my Honda in 3yrs which was 10yrs older and already had 108k on it. Like, come on now. This car wouldn't have as many problems with it if they had actually done maintenance on it before giving it to me. When I first test drove it, I noticed an oil smell and mentioned it to the sells person but they didn't nothing about it.

If I had been using this car to commute to work from where I live to San Francisco, it would've broken down even sooner. There were no warnings for when the engine broke down. I had one day with the engine light on and the next day, homegirl was rocking so hard that when I turned off the music I was still bumpin' like the sickest beat was being played. That's not supposed to happen. An engine on a 2011 car with only 77k miles on it shouldn't have needed a whole new engine replacement.

In January, it took me over 20 days to get the engine replaced. It almost cost me 2gs but after talking with a supervisor, I was able to get everything handled. I was still out $450 and bunch other money I lost due to losing my car but she was finally fixed.

Months later I had to deal with AC going out which, thankfully, that was misplaced hose. I got the oil done and filters changed in May and no other signs that the car need maintenance or repairs. My Honda was very vocal and would tell me the second something was off.

This car is like, "Ayye, you got 5 seconds to get somewhere before I explode."

And now she's doing it again. The check engine light is on, EPC light is on, and the back rear headlight is out and I've barely been anywhere! This car has a turbo engine and I legit was late dropping her off for repairs because she wouldn't go above 40mph without shaking hella bad.

I can't keep doing this every few months because of their negligence. Paying repair fees plus a $450 deductible on top of insurance and the car note. This car is costing me more than it's worth. She needs a complete overhaul. A total inspection to deal with her issues. I'm tired of dealing with the aftermath of their subpar care of this car. She deserves better.

I still owe 15gs on it due to interest (my credit was low when I got it). And that's all I'm asking for or close to that. It's a lot and I'm working on save up for it but I need help. I tried contacting corporate about it but they just keep redirecting me to a local office that can't do anything other than offer an appraisal on it. I wanted to exchange cars since this one is a hazard but they won't budge. They take no responsibility for the fact that their workers didn't do their jobs. And I know for fact that they didn't do anything because I know someone who worked there when I got my car. They didn't even clean it like they said they would.

I'm willing to work with them but they don't care that this car is about to put me out of my house. Or worse, it breaks down unexpectedly again and I crash.

I appreciate anything you can give. I seriously hate doing this but I don't have any other options. Please reblog if you can't donate anything.

My PayPal is email is [email protected] and my Venmo is url AaajCharles

Please and thank yous all around.

P.s I also plan on repaying folks when I have the means.

Saidiya Hartman

Using government data and scanner data from retail stores—the bar codes that get swiped at Target, the produce codes that get punched in at grocery stores—Xavier Jaravel of the London School of Economics found that from 2004 to 2015, the prices of the products purchased by the bottom income quintile increased faster than the prices of the products purchased by the top income quintile. As a result, low-income families experienced an annual rate of inflation conservatively estimated at 0.44 percentage points higher than that of high-income families.

The trend is small enough to go unnoticed year by year. For a given family, it might mean shelling out just pennies more on a grocery run or back-to-school shopping trip. But such changes compound over time, wedging apart the welfare of struggling households and flourishing ones. Rich families get competitive prices on organic groceries and athleisure and better-and-better electronics; poor families end up paying more for worse-quality alternatives.

Jaravel suggested a mechanism behind the finding: Rising wealth and income inequality mean that richer people have ever more disposable income, creating a market incentive for retailers to cater to the needs of lawyers in Chicago and tech analysts in Boston over child-care workers in the Mississippi Delta and part-time retail workers in California’s Central Valley. More firms catering to well-off consumers means more competition for those consumers means more product innovation and product choice for those consumers, as well as suppressed prices. Fewer firms catering to low-income consumers means less competition for those consumers means less product innovation and product choice for those consumers, and increasing prices. [...]

Inflation inequality has not filtered into government calculations, at least not yet. “These patterns are all very, very strong,” Jaravel told me. “But you can’t measure them with the standard data that the Bureau of Labor Statistics has, because the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn’t keep track of spending patterns within these very detailed product categories.”

But new research from Jaravel, along with Christopher Wimer and Sophie Collyer of the Center on Poverty and Social Policy at Columbia University, suggests that it should. Accounting for differential changes in prices would bump up the 2018 poverty rate by 8 percent—adding 3.2 million people to the ranks of the officially poor, and 836,000 people to the ranks of those in deep poverty. According to standard government measures, the real household income of the bottom quintile fell 1 percent from 2004 to 2018; using the new, inflation-sensitive accounting, it fell more than 7 percent.

Y ahora que estamos juntxs, 

ahora que sí nos ven ♥

damn, i like the thought of the festivities of Nejapa, El Salvador but I cringe every year cuz I think someone is gonna die of severe burns. 

Really good short film, tho. Props. 

Pakeezah (1972)