Pressure to Conform

it's been a while, I have been swamped with work and class. But I have taken a huge step since my last post...
Just this Saturday, I chopped off all of my perm, and with this exposing of my true self I came face to face with the parts of the dominant beauty standard that I was still holding on to.
I am ashamed to admit this, but deep down, throughout my entire transitioning period, I was a bit relieved to see how wavy my newgrowth appeared. I wasn't quite that "nappy". Well boy didn't God deliver me a surprise on Saturday afternoon. The stylist handed me the mirror and I was just as kinky as the next person. And now I am glad to have to face my own brainwashing head on. Otherwise the process was incomplete. Otherwise I was a hypocrite to every other women I encouraged to do the same.
Now I am dealing with it. First few days feeling quite unpretty. Dealing with the idea that my hair weeds out all of the brainwashed men that would have approached me before, making dating even harder. But I set out to do something much bigger than all of that superficial crap. I must say, it was nice to meet me on Saturday.

Police Brutality

Just as I am researching the movement for the abolition of prison (please look it up), I find that in march a man from my hometown was beaten to death by police after a car accident!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A car accident! Interestingly enough, the example I was given for reducing the dependency on police was from a woman who fought her instinct to call the police after a car accident. Rodney Wilson is dead, and I hadn't even heard about it. I researched it and most of the news came from a blog. This system is a mess. It's time to be done with it.
Research people research..... Critical Resistance 10, Rodney Wilson, 3 men beat by cops n Pennsylvania...
Now that our media is failing us, we have to educate ourselves. Thank god for the word of mouth. Rodney Wilson,you have made up my mind, I dedicate what I do for this movement from now on to you!!!!!

Kristin Butler's Suma Cum Loony

http://media.www.dukechronicle.com/media/storage/paper884/news/2008/05/15/Columns/Summa.Cum.Loony-3371900.shtml
I have tried to blast this article on the Chronicle's comment page, but that wasn't enough. And as a poster said, the writer is deteriorating strides made to connect the two schools. Any disdain students at NCCC and residents of Durham held for us before, has just been increased. Though I am sure that the writer and most of her supporters could care less. Here are JUST A FEW of the issues I see bursting in between the lines
1. Can you say hypocrite? As if our students hold perfect behavior everyday outside of class. With the massive consumption of alcohol by under age drinkers, the drug use, the unreported, on-campus rapes, the racism that's bubbling beneath several surfaces... The cheating!!!!!!!! Come on
2. I am still amazed at how many people gloss over the wrongs admitted to: the racial slurs, that hateful email...(Not to mention I am curious why this mostly white party ordered up two black strippers)
3. These issues mentioned are not that simplistic. I wasn't planning on going there but as one poster added in response to the semen, how likely is it that there were only team members at that party? Is it possible that she just confused who was on the team? The evidence found, the main one I remember, the broken nail (what did she break it taking her clothes off)
4. Generalizations. Not trying to separate the two individuals from the rest of the school (because I don't think they are bad people at all and do feel that they have earned their degrees), but if you feel that you must, this is a good example of a small group having to represent an entire institution- including all of the people who work there, attend there, and hold degrees. And now you have added to our generalization. Sad enough I have heard rumors that your editors only publish articles that fit their dominant opinions (I hope that isn't true). This article wouldn't make me so angry if I had at least once seen one from the other side of the fence. The views of Kristin and students who share them are ever present. Where are my views? Here on this blog I guess.

To Be Or Not To Be... A Problem

Lately, I have been expressing my views more and more, and the result ,lol, hasn't been too pleasant. I've been accused of being a racist, the result of someone not liking what I said on the school newspaper blog and googling me to find out about my intent to participate in a reparation demonstration. I have lost a friend, her choice not mine. I have been called a republican, that one kind of got to me lol(yet their senseless explanation- that I don't really want change because I want to change this completely around???? made me feel better). With the reactions I have been getting and the words that pop up when you google my name, sometimes I wonder how it will affect me later. Will I lose the opportunity to work with a great employer. Coupled with my new "political statement" growing out of my head (Glamour Magazine told a room full of lawyers to leave the political hairstyles, aka the afros and dreads, outside of the courtroom. I can admit I was a little shaken, BUT ONLY FOR A SECOND! Yeah for two seconds I allowed my mind to slip back into colonization, then I woke back up. If a work place won't allow me to express myself completely, I DO NOT WANNA BE THERE! It will be their loss. Especially as a layer, I plan to put my heart into my cases, I will not sugar coat or dim down anything. No more suffocation. No more hiding the covers of my books (Yes I did so for bell hooks Black Masculinity) for fear of someone stereotyping me as a crazy radical or crazy feminist. I am radical and I am a feminist, still learning but still one. And if that makes people nervous then I am sorry for them.

My Air

Every time I bite my tongue I feel like
That thing I was trying to birth
that drops hard in my stomach
Something heavier than me
It hits bottom and begins to expand
Bursting throughout my small body
I feel it creeping to my throat
It hits my mouth, where oddly it all started
But its already been surpressed so it grows
Taking air from me
Blocking all hopes of breathing
Now I know how Qua’daisha’s mother felt
As she stumbled hopelessly in search of her daughter
but was overcome by the loss of air
Passed out before she could make it
No matter how hard her heart pulled
Outside forces caused her body to fail
Her Qua’daisha lied there as her singed soul,
Only ten years old was carried away by angels
Or maybe she did wake to search for her mother
Cried in a corner as her mother laid air-less
Far away
My Qua’daisha is in danger but not yet carried away
And what am I doing
I’m suffocating myself

King Kong?

Had I not heard about this photo in its current context (with all this King Kong discussion, I wonder if I would have realized. Taking a class on black popular culture (a name somewhat misleading considering it seems to be about black masculinity in the media) I am struggling with deciding how consciously these decisions are made. It's obvious that it looks like the huge black beast was about to run away with the poor damsel. At least she's still smiling. Especially since there is a stereotype that black athletes move on up and date white women. I find it hard to believe that the directer of the shoot planned to fit the black male stereotype, but if I was the director I would have considered the possibility. When Lebron walked on that photo shoot that director should have been fully conscious of the black male's type cast in the media. Especially since that was the black male to ever appear on Vogue! Come on, not only is it long overdue but could you at least do it right. There is no excuse. With the damage that these images create, there is no room for "I didn't know"'s.

To some members of the gangs at home

Sweet brown baby probably played in the streets the day before
Made her mom a mother's day card
Looked hopefully toward the summer
When school would be out and her days would belong to her
Probably knew to duck when bullets flew
Or maybe her mother kept her indoors most of the time
Like my mother did
Safe in the refuge of home
On walnut ave where I used to skip track practice
Around the corner where my cousins lived
Lil Qua'Daisha, ten years old asleep in her bed
Didn't wake up when the smoke covered her head
Mother passed out before she could save her love
The product of her womb
On mother's day, a mother lost her motherhood

Second time you burned a house, complete with children, to prove a point...
I am not talking to all of you, just the ones responsible. No one loves you more than I. I always give you the benefit of the doubt. I don't stereotype you. But what the fuck did she do to you?
Part of the reason why I didn't come home is because I feel helpless. When I told one of you that, all he said was I would be safe, no one would bother me. It's not about fear. It's the fact that I do not want to pick up another news paper and hear about another child who's face was blown halfway off by a stray bullet, or another execution, another father hit with a bat, another classmate murdered, another high school valedictorian who can't deliver his speech because there is a target on his head... I am running from the feeling of responsibility. I do not know what else to do yet. Thank you for bringing out my cowardice.

Tupac, Juice, and "I ain't shit"

Watched this movie many times, but it wasn't until today that this quote deeply saddened me. Previously, I saw a young black murder discussing how low he was. Now, I see a young black man and a strong symbol of hiphop, telling the world that he ain't shit, and ain't never gonna be shit... Telling the world that he doesn't give a fuck. Telling the world that he will decide whether or not his friend is ever gonna be shit. How many times have I told the world that I ain't shit and that niggas ain't shit... I did it just the other day as I changed my away message to "Fuck niggas, get money." Yes I said it. Mad at one black man and condemned them all... Guess I still have some growing to do.

Plastic Surgery

Bullshit!!!!! I have heard the best excuses...that it makes you feel better about yourself, that it saves you from the cruelty of others...WHATEVER! Instead of spending all of this money to make people "beautiful", instead of making plastic surgery into a humanitarian effort, how about we spend that money on changing the world's obsession with superficial characteristics. Stop falling for this bullshit. And now people have the nerve to write a book for children to help them cope with their mother's plastic surgery. It's called "My Beautiful Mommy". Please don't put our children through that. What in the world is happening to ourselves?

Sean Bell

I tried. I tried so hard to read several newspaper articles in order to pin down the truth. That way I could remain unbiased. I dont know if the testimony summaries I read confirmed what I believed or if my vision was too clouded still. I remembered the morning that his face was on the cover of the newspaper. I remember why I cried. It was just as my conciousness was waking up. I cried for his fiance, who lost the love of her life before one of the biggest days of her life. For the rest of the family. I tried to decide what really mattered. I tried to put myself in the place of the officers, to decide what I would have done. I tried to give them the benefit of the doubt. But then I wondered, what was it that made two officers feel so much more threatened than the others that they had to pull the trigger so many more times than everyone else. I wondered if I had a gun, would I remember whether or not I pulled the trigger, emptied bullets into a human being. I wondered if I was afraid and was anouncing to a "dangerous man", how loud would I scream to make sure he knew I was an officer. My answer, loud as hell. Everyone on the block would know I was legit. No eyewitness would have a doubt. If someone was "chasing" me with a car my ass would be too busy running to shoot. And I wouldn't turn my body on autopilot, I would know what was goin on. More questions, how many crime scenes are messed over, was this one taken care of so sloppily because of its nature or is that the routine procedure. How could they not find any sort of recklessness in this case? Why aren't reasons, detailed explanations, given in cases like this? Why aren't we rioting? Why aren't I rioting? What do I do know? My heart will break the day my little brothers are pulled over by the police. Don't they see that its things like this that make us streotype, hate, and fear them. I hate them for the way the treated me once. They make me nervous with their presence. What am I to do?

Pat Buchanan: A Brief for Whitey

By Patrick J. Buchanan

How would he pull it off? I wondered.

How would Barack explain to his press groupies why he sat silent in a pew for 20 years as the Rev. Jeremiah Wright delivered racist rants against white America for our maligning of Fidel and Gadhafi, and inventing AIDS to infect and kill black people?

How would he justify not walking out as Wright spewed his venom about “the U.S. of K.K.K. America,” and howled, “God damn America!”

My hunch was right. Barack would turn the tables.

Yes, Barack agreed, Wright’s statements were “controversial,” and “divisive,” and “racially charged,” reflecting a “distorted view of America.”

But we must understand the man in full and the black experience out of which the Rev. Wright came: 350 years of slavery and segregation.

Barack then listed black grievances and informed us what white America must do to close the racial divide and heal the country.

The “white community,” said Barack, must start “acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination — and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past — are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds … .”

And what deeds must we perform to heal ourselves and our country?

The “white community” must invest more money in black schools and communities, enforce civil rights laws, ensure fairness in the criminal justice system and provide this generation of blacks with “ladders of opportunity” that were “unavailable” to Barack’s and the Rev. Wright’s generations.

What is wrong with Barack’s prognosis and Barack’s cure?

Only this. It is the same old con, the same old shakedown that black hustlers have been running since the Kerner Commission blamed the riots in Harlem, Watts, Newark, Detroit and a hundred other cities on, as Nixon put it, “everybody but the rioters themselves.”

Was “white racism” really responsible for those black men looting auto dealerships and liquor stories, and burning down their own communities, as Otto Kerner said — that liberal icon until the feds put him away for bribery.

Barack says we need to have a conversation about race in America.

Fair enough. But this time, it has to be a two-way conversation. White America needs to be heard from, not just lectured to.

This time, the Silent Majority needs to have its convictions, grievances and demands heard. And among them are these:

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.

Second, no people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the ’60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.

Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks — with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas — to advance black applicants over white applicants.

Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.

We hear the grievances. Where is the gratitude?

Barack talks about new “ladders of opportunity” for blacks.

Let him go to Altoona and Johnstown, and ask the white kids in Catholic schools how many were visited lately by Ivy League recruiters handing out scholarships for “deserving” white kids.

Is white America really responsible for the fact that the crime and incarceration rates for African-Americans are seven times those of white America? Is it really white America’s fault that illegitimacy in the African-American community has hit 70 percent and the black dropout rate from high schools in some cities has reached 50 percent?

Is that the fault of white America or, first and foremost, a failure of the black community itself?

As for racism, its ugliest manifestation is in interracial crime, and especially interracial crimes of violence. Is Barack Obama aware that while white criminals choose black victims 3 percent of the time, black criminals choose white victims 45 percent of the time?

Is Barack aware that black-on-white rapes are 100 times more common than the reverse, that black-on-white robberies were 139 times as common in the first three years of this decade as the reverse?

We have all heard ad nauseam from the Rev. Al about Tawana Brawley, the Duke rape case and Jena. And all turned out to be hoaxes. But about the epidemic of black assaults on whites that are real, we hear nothing.

Sorry, Barack, some of us have heard it all before, about 40 years and 40 trillion tax dollars ago.

Poor Girl from China

Since when do college students rise up to silence a fellow student who is protesting? That's a dumb question, one I won't even explore. I will explore the fat that China is dead wrong, for still investing in Sudan's government and for violating human rights in Tibet. To all who asked those who do not know much about the issues to shut up, I would ask them to never express an opinion nor vote unless fully educated on every issue. I am proud that people are beginning to protest again. No more self-policing. no more nationalism that manifests itself as blind compliance. Since when do games out weigh lives. I wish I had more of an affect in boycotting the Olympics, but I never watched the Olympics, it would not matter any way. Maybe I should by a shirt, and bitch slapp the first person to through something at me. Now that would be funny. I would tell them, "I just overstepped your human rights!"

If I Was A Rich White Man

I like to think that I am so righteous because my opinions support all of the oppressed, to think that I know all of the answers. Maybe I am right when it comes to my opinion. But today I wondered, what if I was a white man, with all of the privileges in the world. Would I still fight against oppression, easily question my own privilege, easily express disbelief against a society that has been telling me that I am perfect and I deserve all that I have all of me life? Would I try my best to maintain my position. How righteous would I be then? I have received a taste of privilege since enrolling in Duke. How have I handled that. Am I taking complete advantage of it, cause I am lucky to be here? Nope. Am I doing all that I can to create ways to help others like me get here? Nope. Am I doing all that I can to help others like me, who are already here succeed? I have not handled my privilege well. Guess I am on my way to being apart of the problem.

All they heard was nigger, Jeremiah Wright

First, here are a few highlight from Rev. Wright’s speech, to provide the context that is once again neglected:
• The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. “God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
• We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York and the Pentagon, and we never batted an eye.
• We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back to our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost.
• It just came to me within the past few weeks, y'all, why so many folks are hating on Barack Obama. He doesn't fit the model. He ain't white, he ain't rich, and he ain't privileged. Hillary fits the mold. Europeans fit the mold, Giuliani fits the mold. Rich white men fit the mold. Hillary never had a cab whiz past her and not pick her up because her skin was the wrong colour. Hillary never had to worry about being pulled over in her car as a black man driving in the wrong… I am sick of Negroes who just do not get it. Hillary was not a black boy raised in a single parent home, Barack was. Barack knows what it means to be a black man living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people. Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain't never been called a nigger. Hillary has never had her people defined as non-persons.
I support what Rev.Wright said, the true problem is that people get upset when you burst the “myth of America”. How dangerous is it to be in a country when you cannot criticize what is going on around you; the conditions that affect your family, friends, and loved ones? Yet Obama is in a position where he has to bend over and kiss a few asses. If he hadn’t he would have handed over the race to Hilary. Thank God I’m not running for President, I find it hard to bite my tongue and smile as someone puts their hand up my ass. There is no alternative to Obama, though a lot of people don’t seem to see that he and Hilary have platforms that are identical twins. So what’s the difference besides race and gender, the fact that Hilary plays the race card while Obama ignores the sex cheap shot.
I can’t decide if I should ignore the fact that he’s a black man that will enter the white house and leave all my black ideals outside on the sidewalk. Is he going to take the country as it is or still be able to call it on its faults? I think we got our answer during that speech. I guess I really am choosing the less of two evils. Deciding whether or not to accept this election as an “apology” for racism and all of its lasting affects, cause it may be the closest thing we ever get. Or should I tell them to kiss my ass and continue to live without it. Whoever gets up there will shuffle a few things around, but my optimism ends at that. Part of me hopes that Obama will get in there and say “Sike!”

Since people love to take things out of context.

"So I said to the members of the press, 'Why won't you go and look into what we are saying about the threats on Reverend Jackson's life?' Here the Jews don't like Farrakhan and so they call me 'Hitler.' Well that's a good name. Hitler was a very great man. He wasn't great for me as a Black man (See Hitler's attitude toward Blacks) but he was a great German and he rose Germany up from the ashes of her defeat by the united force of all of Europe and America after the first world war. Yet Hitler took Germany from the ashes and rose her up and made her the greatest fighting machine of the twentieth century, brothers and sisters, and even though Europe and America had deciphered the code that Hitler was using to speak to his chiefs of staff, they still had trouble defeating Hitler even after knowing his plans in advance. Now I'm not proud of Hitler's evil toward Jewish people, but that's a matter of record. He rose Germany up from nothing. Well, in a sense you could say there is a similarity in that we are rising our people up from nothing, but don't compare me with your wicked killers."
-Louis Farrakhan

BITCH

I used to hate this word. I still hate this word. I'm getting over it. I no longer want it to have power over me. To incite rage in me at it's sound. To cause me to step out of character and enter into a screaming match with random guy on Franklin Street. For this is, from Gayl Jones' Mosquito, what men call the women they cannot control. And I am uncontrollable. So call me a bitch, I'll respond, "Ya damn right and proud off it!"

"The shoes don't make the man, the child in the sweat shop makes the shoes." -Do you know what you are funding?

This phrase is a remix of something that people say, you know “the clothes don’t make the man, the man makes the clothes”, but truthfully, "the man" doesn't make the clothes "the man" outsources and pay oversea factories who uses abuse such as rape to prevent protesting and use horrible working conditions to keep costs low. These companies, such as Nike, claims that the conditions of the factories are not their responsibility, yet at the first sign of protests for higher wages or better working conditions, they pack up and find a new area where they can exploit new people for the same low price. If you’re gonna wear it, at least know where it comes from.

"Beauty" is officially overated

Not to sound shallow, cause I do not wish to add to make "beauty" sacred, but since beauty has become available in the store nearest you, isn't it time for it to be played out. The same way that name brand loose value when they become less exclusive, why value blue eyes when you can go pick some up tomorrow. Who needs to grow hair, it's available everywhere. Who needs genetics when you can go to your nearst plastic surgeon? So should'nt the value be going down by now? Isn't that the way it works? Why is this product still in high demand. Everyone can buy it, shouldn't we be moving on to the next fad?