when issues are forced

yesterday, i had a conversation with a friend and asked her if she'd created any new year's resolutions. she said no, she hadn't. i stated i hadn't either and settled on the fact that i didn't really think i needed to make promises to myself to change anything.

then today, a few moments ago actually...i took a reader's survey on a blog i read regularly. question number 8 crystallized the wackness of my existence right now:

(click to enlarge)

so apparently, all i do regularly is watch tv, drink wine, surf the web, and die a little bit everyday...i'm in desperate need of a life overhaul.

damn.

and i thought things were going so well...

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!!!

well, i'm glad somebody finally said it!

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

i saw you.

i saw you yesterday afternoon, standing on a bus top with a young girl and a baby in a stroller.

you stood out because you both looked pretty young. she looked extremely young and you seemed to be in your early 20s.

you two were talking about something. i saw you walk over to her and get close to her face with yours while you talked. i saw fear cross her face as you started walking towards her. i noticed you walked pretty quickly, closing that small distance between the two of you.

and i saw that the baby was sitting there, taking it all in.

as the car passed, i didn't look behind me to see what happened next. i was afraid i'd end up committing to memory something that i couldn't do anything to stop.

and so, i chose to not look.

how many times have we seen something that wasn't right and just chose not to see it? because we decided we didn't want to get involved, we were busy, we didn't want to get our checks cashed by some deranged woman beater. there are plenty of reasons and excuses why many of us don't get involved.

but choosing not to look doesn't mean that person didn't get hit, didn't get intimidated, or wasn't made to feel small and helpless.

i wonder how many other people driving down this busy street in the middle of the day chose not to see anything either.

My Archetype Precedes Me

i went to lunch today with a coworker at an indian restaurant. this is one of our favorite restaurants in our city because the food is fabulous, the decor of the place is really cute, and the price is always right. so as we sit down and continue our conversation, we are joking and laughing about something. the waiter came over and laughed and laughed and laughed as well. then he looked at me and told me "you are very funny."

odd.

i'm pretty sure he didn't understand why what i was saying was funny since it was specific to a topic my coworker and i know about. and he wasn't a party to the conversation, so he couldn't have gathered the meaning by context. and yet, here he stood smiling eagerly in my face telling me i'm very funny.

and this continued throughout lunch. he would come by the table with water refills or to see if we needed anything, he'd make little comments to me about how funny i was if he saw that we were laughing. so very FUNNY!

and it didn't matter who had said the funny thing which caused us both to laugh; he would look at me and tell me i was funny. SO VERY FUNNY!!

during my trip to the restroom, he informed my coworker that she looks JUST LIKE a former neighbor of his....even told her the neighbor's name....and then asked her if that was HER name.

and this is one of the many reasons why some of us are pissed so often: nobody likes to feel like they are a fuckin template. do you see that i can't even go to lunch sometimes without being reminded of my station, based on what someone thinks they know about you because of your race?!

see this type of prejudice is really tricky. i am aware that his intentions were not to offend or make his customer's uncomfortable. he was merely demonstrating that he has accepted certain notions about other people of color as the gospel and was trying to relate to us based on those notions. i am positive that were i to have reacted negatively to what he perceived as compliments, then i would have downshifted from Funny Black Girl to Angry Black Bitch.

and if i'd asked why i was so funny, i would have been Crazy Black Bitch.

but while he was flailing about trying to relate to us, he didn't understand the shift within me caused by his words. because frankly, while i like being a funny black girl, i did not want to be The Funny Black Girl Archetype.

i just wanted some tikka masala, shit!

black "canadians"...an exercise in redundant redundancy....part I

i read an interesting blog post a few moments ago that blew my mind. in it, the blog author discussed how and the possible reasons why some white people call black people "Canadians." now, the idea alone that "white people call black people Canadians" was confusing enough.

Macon D writes in his blog, "What we have here is an example of a phenomenon that I've noted before, that of "whispering the word 'black.'" In certain situations, some white people use "Canadians" to refer covertly to black people when they think they shouldn't use another word. That other word probably isn't "black people" or "African Americans," but instead, a "worse" word. A more overtly racist word."

how is it possible that i have made it 36 years and have never heard that this is an expression used by some when they want to be slick and not use the N-word?? have i been sheltered? is this a regional thing?

have i actually every heard this euphamism before and just assumed the people talking were really talking about Canadians!?

i'm really conflicted about whether or not i'm angry, sad, or just resigned. i'm gonna work on this one a few days and blog back...

Tea Baggers taking to the streets April 15th!!

i found this nice little gem earlier today on Crooks and Liars. i had no idea how much fun tea baggers are. there's an extra warm spot in my heart for the dude who, while talking about Obama, almost said "criminal record" rather than "college record."

*sigh*...he's so dreamy.

Do You Know what You Think You Know?

about a year ago, i had a conversation with a friend about the oft-reported stats regarding black women and the chances we have of marrying and having children compared to other women of other races. the stats we discussed, of course, were pretty grim. Yet, my friend in all seriousness said "yeah, but i don't know if i even believe those numbers. who's to say they are accurate?"

whaaaaaat? what is this crazy theory to spout? question STATISTICS????

her statement led to a greater conversation about how the "negro condition" is more usually viewed through a lens of dysfunction rather than positivity and how people just accept the negative information as if it's gospel. this week i was made aware of an amazing example of this phenomenon in action.

how many of us have heard the statement "In the United States, there are more Black Men in Prison than there are In College?" and how many of us have said to ourselves and others "That's a Shame and We MUST Find an Answer to this Problem!"

now what if i told you that that particular "fact" about black men is based on data which was skewed?

what if i told you that, using comparable data to include other variables other than just race, the ratio of black men in college actually overshadows those in prison?

"The numbers in question from the Justice Policy Institute report come from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and the National Center for Education Statistics. The report indicates that there were an estimated 791,600 black men in jail and prison in 2000 and a count of 603,032 in college in 1999. Mr. Morton agrees with the jail and prison number but asserts in his blog that the more reliable U.S. Census Bureau reports that there were 816,000 black men in college in 2000. In the film, he makes comparisons using the same data sources for 2005 and states this number to be 864,000. Furthermore, he argues that it is bad practice to use the entire age range of black males when making these comparisons, because the age range for college-going males is generally 18 to 24, not the 18 to 55 (and up) range of the jail and prison population. Viewed this way, the ratio of black men in college compared with jail and prison is 4-to-1."
- Michael Strambler (Baltimore Sun)

now what i'm not going to do is get into the possible conspiracy theories that could explain how and why the popular "fact" came to be part of our everyday knowledge. but i do find it curious that something as simple as drawing comparisons between two groups which are not exactly alike, something that would get a freshman called to the carpet in an entry level college statistical analysis class, could get past data analysts and peer reviewers.

and i find it sad that most of us accepted that information as fact as soon as we heard it. many of us didn't even bat an eye and thing to ourselves "now what a minute!"

it's caused me to take a second look at many facts i have internalized throughout my life. and it's made me committed to not just accepting negative information as unequivocal fact just because it's supported by statistical data which may or may not have been manipulated to support the fact!

i'm not saying i'm going to turn into a homeless, deranged conspiracy theorist. i'm just saying: i'm gonna look a little bit deeper from here on out. and i invite you to do the same.

be kind to yourself.

...and stop wearing high heels, too.

word.

Stay Tuned for a Surprise Paternity Test for his Girlfriend From Middle School!!!

the other day i overheard a conversation about the controversial art installations The Assassination of Barack Obama and The Assassination of Hillary Clinton by artist Yazmany Arboleda. the conversation centered around the outrage that someone would create what was supposed to be a work of art around racist and sexist images and words, using images of Obama and his children. particular outrage was expressed at his usage of that rhesus monkey don imus' words "nappy-headed hoes" with a photo of Malia and Sasha.

when the controversy first ignited, i went to the websites and looked at the installations. what struck me about them was the fact that the artist did not create these words; he used words which have already appeared in various forms of media and juxtaposed them with photos of the Obamas and Clintons. the outrage felt by the photos of Malia and Sasha should match the outrage we should all have felt when imus referred to the Rutgers girls in that way: they are someone's daughters too. and when that attack came out of nowhere against them, i'm sure they felt vulnerable, frightened, disoriented, and hated. as one must feel in the midst of an assassination attempt.

in my opinion, the point of the works is to show us that these words, actions, and commodification have the intent of stealing something from their targets; diminishing them, making them less, in a cowardly attack which seems to come out of nowhere.

since President Obama took office, i have been wrestling with how his image and that of the first family has been treated by the media. i've grown tired of the dancing Obama skits, of impersonators dancing to "single ladies" on ET, stories about how he's dressed, backhanded comments regarding his middle name...but CNN this morning took it to a whole other level:

the front page of cnn.com reported...because this is very important news....

Obama's Half-Brother Arrested on Charge of Marijuana Possession

now, knowing what we know about President Obama and his kenyan family, why exactly is this news? cnn themselves report:

"In his memoir, 'Dreams from My Father,' Barack Obama describes meeting George as a 'painful affair.' Barack Obama's trip to Kenya meant meeting family he had never known.

"The two men share the same Kenyan father. In the memoir, Barack Obama struggles to reconcile with his father after he left him and his mother when he was just a child.

"Barack Obama Sr. died in a car accident when George was just 6 months old. Like his half brother, George hardly knew his father.

"George was his father's last child and had not been aware of his famous half brother until he rose to prominence in the Democratic primaries last year."

i believe the same possessiveness and protectiveness which the people discussing the art installations felt is the same which i feel right now. understanding what it's like being black in america makes you aware of certain realities. one of those realities is that in the minds of many, you are already indicted: from that point on, it's just a matter of finding the corroborating evidence of guilt.

it's why we get followed around in stores, pulled over by police more often, looked upon with suspicion on the streets, accused of assault because we had the poor form to defend ourselves and demand respect.

it makes me pretty angry to see this happening to this President and the subjective media not even having the self-awareness to avoid it. but i think it answers the question posed a few weeks back by the same news organization: is the election of Barack Obama the realization of Dr. King's dream?

nope. not even close.

wake up call!!

one of my cousins once told me that if a person tries to tell you something about themselves, you should believe them. don't waste time trying to talk someone out of it, if they tell you they are bad news, take their word for it! they're not trying to be modest, they telling you what you're in for!

which brings us to this poor, misguided soul right here: christina raines, future victim...er.....wife of mr. drew "marriage is murder" peterson. read this garbage right HERE!

Peterson, 55, a former Bolingbrook cop, said he's eager to marry Raines, 24, even though he understands why her relatives may not be thrilled with the idea. "I will acknowledge 100 percent that I would have concerns if I were the friends and family of this young girl!"

well thank the LORD he isn't one of her friends or family members....what, what??

man, i hope she watches peterson's interview on nightline and changes her mind about some stuff, because he is trying to tell her something important!! otherwise, see you in the news, miss raines.

UPDATE: turns out she watched peterson's interview on nightline and changed her mind about some stuff!!! martin bashir just saved your life, halleluyer!

How much for a 90 year supply?

Farkitrol Mediazetabine OMG can help....

Facebook: the last and final straw

recognizing that domestic violence is never ever something to joke about*, i am pretty amazed at some of the things that finally set people off. in this particular instance, it was the fact that his estranged wife changed her facebook relationship status to single...

do you reckon he didn't know until then??

*unless of course, i'm telling you the always humorous story about the beatdown i administered to a certain someone who failed to feed my cat after i'd been away on a week long business trip.