Today's Moment in Deliciousness

*sigh*

Turns out to be true!

i hate you.

Dear Motorola Q:

if you had guts, i would hate them with the fires of 1000 hells.

if you had a soul, i would put a curse on it, damning it for all eternity.

if you had friends, i'd tell them all you stole all their money and gave their moms clamydia.

if you had bones, i'd pay someone to break the ones in your legs with a lead pipe.

i'm leaving you and i'm not coming back.

my ex was so much better than you that i honestly can't even remember why i chose you!!!

drop dead, you battery life sucking, non-qwerty working, bluetooth dropping piece of antiquated crap!

and take that bitch ass charger with you!!!

Halloween man...effin Halloween. Part II

what a predicament! some of my favorite retailers are making it very difficult to give them my hard earned money because they have decided to sell a costume that i find amazingly offensive. well, that's what i call it. Fox News calls it "fantastic."

it's the Illegal Alien costume sold by Target, Walgreens, Toys R Us, Meijer, and Amazon.com. it's product description is:

"He didn’t just cross a border, he crossed a galaxy! He’s got his green card, but it’s from another planet! Sure to get some laughs, the Illegal Alien Adult Costume includes an orange prison-style jumpsuit with 'Illegal Alien' printed on the front, an alien mask and a 'green card.'"


not to be outdone, Halloweenexpress.com has it's own version, complete with big black mustache and baseball hat:

"Mask Includes: Almond eyed, latex, UFO look alien with large black mustache and baseball cap attached."

Halloween used to be fun, right? i mean, i think so....although i recall as a little kid going trick or treating with a classmate who's costume was a "hobo." at the time, we all loved her costume. but there's no way in hell i'd dress my kids up today as a homeless person.

what's so funny about being homeless?

it's turning into one giant exercise in affirming Kyriarchy, where different groups (angrily at times) assert their right to power and privilege over other groups. a clear example of this is the response i received from the woman who wanted her daughter and herself to dress up as Geisha for halloween. She stated she was african american and believed it was totally different for a non-black person to dress up like a black person than it is for a non-asian to dress up like "O-Ren Ishii".....

wait.

i have to take a moment and address this because everytime i think about it i feel like i have a chicken bone in my chest:

O-Ren Ishii....

WASN'T GEISHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

don't go trying to play 3 card monty with one of my all time favorite movie characters of all time!!!! you said Geisha, not O-Ren Ishii! and if you think they are one in the same, that further illustrates the problem!! (ahem).....where was i?

oh right. Kyriarchy.

Halloween is a tough one....can't we all just dress up like ThunderCats?

HALLOWEEN....HOOOOOOOOOO!!

Think Progress

My Ecdysis

Racialicious

Bacon, once again, is the answer

in case you haven't heard, a Florida couple is in police custody for making the lady-moron's 8 year-old daughter suck on a bar of soap for 10 minutes. the child apparently said a "naughty word" and was made to suck the soap by the gentleman-moron (lady-moron's boyfriend*), which caused an allergic reaction that these morons didn't get treated for several hours.

if people aren't going to get over the fact that now, in 2009, we can't do the things that were done to children in the 50s and get away with it, then i would hope they would do some research in the matter and come to an agreeable solution:

it's a win/win! the parent feels like they have delivered a tried and true punishment...that's basically an unthinking and useless exercise in brute force...and the kid gets a delicious bacony snack.

if they'd used this soap, she wouldn't have needed police intervention! she woulda needed some biscuits and jelly!!

* for the life of me, i cannot understand how a woman lets her boyfriend do some foul shit like this to her child. something like that happen to one of my kids, it's going down.

well, i'm glad somebody finally said it!

no no, not the "rock bottom" part. the "damn she looks old as hell" part!

Halloween man...effin Halloween.

(click to enlarge)
it took everything in me to say it that nicely.

BREAKING NEWS

the "white bitch" buying drugs from Redman in one of his videos is Brett Ratner's mother. So says Brett Ratner. Also, black people say the darndest thangs! and PS: the plural of "my man" is "my mans."

in a related story, a unsuspecting black woman in Charlotte, NC felt the top of her head explode while trying to watch the VH-1 Def Jam Hip Hop Honors....

And it didn't help that Cam'ron was his neighbor

this is why old folks move to retirement communities in Miami.

Because he's six.

the bad news just keep on rolling out over Falcon Heene and his crazy-ass lying dirt-dog parents the apparent hoax perpetrated upon us all by his parents. as we all know by now, it all started falling to pieces when, during a family interview with Wolf Blitzer, Falcon responded to the question of why he didn't answer when he heard his parents calling his name: "you guys said we were doing this for a show."

when he said that, it seemed like everyone in the family was frozen. even The Crickets, who usually live for these moments of sudden silence, were too shocked to rub their little dry-ass legs together.

and the reason Falcon told the truth is because Falcon is a little kid and he hadn't been told what to say in response to that question.

the next day, in an attempt at damage control, those Wacky Heene's took their Calvacade of Crazy on early morning shows, trying to convince everyone that Falcon answered that question the way he did because he didn't really understand the question. Meanwhile, Falcon noisily vomited into a Tuppeware dish throughout.

on live TV.

so now the predominant news story of the day is The Balloon Boy Story Was a Hoax. everyone is talking about what kind of man Richard Heene is, that he'd use his child to try to get publicity and notoriety, noting that the first phone call he made was not to the police or fire department: it was to the local media.

the family's attorney even went on the Today this morning and stated that arresting the parents in front of the children and media would be "child abuse." But, when asked if perhaps using a child in a hoax and dragging him around for interviews with anyone with a microphone might also be considered child abuse, the lawyer decided that would be a call he'd be more comfortable letting child protective services make.

but that's the story we all really need to be talking about: how this all has affected Falcon. the kid who was too little to keep the lie going and was under so much stress afterwards became physically ill during yet another round of television interviews in which he parents used him to LIE TO EVERYONE AGAIN.

the dad jumps out as completely narcissistic. and not in the "ooohWEE he sure is vain" kinda way.

no, i mean in the really crazy kinda way.

we know what Richard Heene has been saying to the cameras. what is he saying to his children when the camera's aren't rolling?

The Kid's Alright...right?

one of my favorite bloggers has a post about little Zahara and her near constant state of hair-craziness* on her site that reminded me of a conversation I had recently with a friend.

we both know of a white couple who has adopted two african american children. oh, they take very good care of them, keep them clean, well-fed, and active in their schools and community. however....the hair situation is alarming.

up until about a year ago, the little girl's hair always looked dry, tangled, and close to matting if it got hit with  the briefest breeze. and the boy....the boy's hair stands up in these uncombed, uneven little spikes of curls and kinks....kinda like

it is irritating.

speaking for myself, when i see black adopted children who have been adopted by non-black parents with badly kept hair, my first thought is to judge the parents as unwilling to educate themselves on black haircare. as if black hair is this massively mysterious entity that suck you in and ruin your hopes and dreams.

it's not Event Horizon, it's a child's hair.

and the really unfair thing about the situation is, when i see a child who is well cared for in every other way but her hair is neglected, i read that as a type of neglect.  yay, hooray, bully for you, she's got clean clothes, she ate 8 times today, and goes to a exclusive private pre-school and is currently fluent in French.

why does her hair look like this?...especially when you always take the time and care to present yourself in a well-kept (and stunning) manner when YOU leave the house?

so, i'd like to share just a few tips with caucasion parents of african or african american adopted children. together, we can get this right!

1) there are 70 kabillion hair salons specializing in black haircare. go to one. if you don't have any black friends, ask a black coworker with children what salon they'd recommend. the point is this: if your kid had crooked teeth would you let them walk around with picket fences in their head or take them to an orthodontist? exactly. there's no shame in admitting some knowledge is outside your paygrade: take.your.child.to.a.salon.or.barbershop!

2) have you heard of this newfangled invention called the internets! the internets hold an amazing amount of information concerning proper haircare, healthy haircare products, cute hairstyles, and just tips in general about black hair. POINT.CLICK.THE.MOUSE!

3) black hair might look really strong but it's very very fragile. don't try to comb it dry, don't comb it with a rattail comb, and for the love of all the good in Narnia, do NOT use vaseline on it. no one is interested seeing your kid walking around looking like a greasy cotton ball.

all that being said (and all joking really, truly, aside) i wonder why.......

why is all the scorn heaped upon angelina jolie for the "state" of Zahara's hair when Heidi's kids wear their hair in much the same way? is there some kinda Coochie Pass** in effect?

ah, well. there will always be critics of Zahara's hair not matter what. and i would imagine that for quite a few of her critics, there will be a sigh of "well it's about damn time" when or if she decided to straighten her hair when she's older.

i'm sure many white adoptive parents of children of color believe they are being unfairly scrutinized by people of color when it comes to how they care for their children's hair. and i can admit to a serious degree, it is unfair.

but we didn't start the fire.

* i happen to think Zahara's hair looks cute. or maybe it's the face. i'm a sucker for a pretty little girl with natural hair.

** what i mean to say is some type of hierarchy of parenting where a birth parent of a child with black hair is given a pass on the hair situation while an adoptive parent of a child with black hair isn't?

BREAKING NEWS

Barbara Walters said she is believes black women relax their hair to look more like white women.

meanwhile, Barbara keeps getting plastic surgery to look like Madame.

Something I Can't Get My Head Around...or...a decidely unfunny post

thanks to the generosity of a friend, i was able to read the book Push, the story of Claireece Precious Jones and her struggle to learn how to read.

well....that paragraph is like trying to describe a christmas tree by only talking about the 3rd ornament 2 rows from the bottom.

actually, Push is about a young girl who struggles with the horror of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and the hands of her mother and her father. A father who ends of dying of AIDS...but not before infecting Precious with the virus.

and not before causing two pregnancies, one resulting in a child with Down's Syndrome.

and i'm not even going to go into Precious' knowledge of and reverence for Louis Farrakhan and Harriet Tubman, her disdain for dark-skinned blacks, and her lack of awareness of the hypocrisy of these thoughts...

this is by and far the most devastating read i've tackled in quite a while. i thought Back Roads was a toughie, Push threatened to completely crush my mood as i fought my way through the stream of consciousness style of story-telling and it's graphic, horrifying accounts of abuse.

reading this book opened my eyes in a lot of ways. it reminded me that survivors of this type of abuse are walking around, some functioning, some still struggling, but among us. when i debriefed the book with the friend who loaned it, she said she didn't think she knew anyone who had gone through the things in the book.

but probably we do. we probably all do. the story is right there under the surface.

i thought about Tiffany Wright, Keara Hess, and Mackenzie Phillips, all victimized, the crimes committed against them making the news within weeks of each other.

i thought about the case in Alabama in which the husband, father, Preacher killed his wife and hid her body in a freezer for several years after she caught him sexually abusing their daughter.

Roman Polanski's distasteful attempt to get everyone to forget that he orally, anally, and vaginally raped a 13 year old girl after giving her alcohol and Quaalude. (really, Whoopi? are you serious?)

and then today, this comes out.

i don't know what the answer is. can parent education fix a person so broken they'd damage a child in this way? can court-mandated therapy? why are there so many men and women who see children as sexual objects and prey upon them??? and why are there so many apologists lining up to go to bat for the adults mistreating children.

Precious often asks why those terrible things had to happen to her. Why the schools didn't teach her, why her mother abused her, why she had to have two kids by her father, why one had Down's Syndrome, why she had to have HIV.

i don't know how to tackle this issue but i do know just thinking about it isn't going to solve the problem. it's not going to affect a change. but maybe if more people keep the physical and sexual abuse of children on their radar, maybe if more people start speaking out against it instead of acting like it's either not happening or the child victim's fault...

well, then maybe we can finally make a difference.

National Association to Prevent Sexual Abuse of Children

BREAKING NEWS

Beyonce made this expression one too many times....

and her face stuck like that.

Postsecret strikes again! or...my sunday morning headdesk moment.

i saw down with my coffee and pulled up Postsecret, hoping to get some chuckles before starting my day.

instead of secrets that gave me shits and giggles, i read this:

a couple of questions immediately came to mind:

1) why do racists continually blame their racism on the other person?

and more worrisome:

2) what does it mean that the writer chose a stock photo of 2 small male children to illustrate how working in law enforcement "makes" him or her racist? they aren't doing anything sinister or anything needing police intervention....why THAT photo?

3) if someone in law enforcement is expressing racism and using a photo of children to illustrate the point...well, now how is that supposed to help foster confidence in the police?

keeping it real: if someone wrote a secret with a picture of two young girls and said "working in the sex crimes unit of my police department has made me hate women"....as a woman, i'm gonna be alarmed on many, many levels.

in my local town, whenever there are local stories of crime in which the perpetrator is black, you can find many many MANY comments linking the crime of that person to his (and my) race. yet, when you have instances in which the perpetrator is white (coughDAVIDCRESPIcough!), you don't see the same linking of the action of the man to the white race.

i don't feel like anyone should give the writer of the card props for being brave enough to be honest. it's like i told a friend a few years ago, "you don't get a pat on the back for being honest when what you're saying is some ol' bullshit!"

Today's Moment in Deliciousness with a side of Why So Many Patterns???

Derek Luke you remind me of one of those commericials where the people looked like plates of food.

I call it Chocolate Raspberry Kidney Pie.