This song has been my unofficial theme song from the moment I bought I Am...Sasha Fierce and gave it a listen. Whenever I'm feeling myself and am getting ready, I cue it up to put me in the optimum frame of mind. My Twitter name has diva in it. My blog title has diva in it. I consider myself to be a leading lady in the way that I carry myself and the way I am taking charge of my life.
Getting from point A to point B in my new city, I'm able to listen to 3 different black radio stations. This is a far cry from living in Oxford where there was only one black radio station…..located in Memphis….where you had to hope a clear day would pick up that signal from an hour away. So I've been living it up.
There is this one song that comes on and leaves me with lots of thoughts EVERY TIME it comes on…..which is oddly not a lot. It's called Hater by Miranda Brooke. This goes on my list as the most honest song sung by a woman of all time. Well maybe of just 2011. Sometimes when we go through a breakup, women put on a façade. We are thinking about the man. We are just fine without the man. We don't care who he goes out with next. Yea, right!!! I can honestly say that I have felt just like Miranda Brooke. And this song makes me feel feelings like I'm going through that right now….and my relationship is fine!
Yesterday Jackson State University played Texas Southern University on ESPNU. Even living down here in the area, I decided to watch the game on TV rather than actually go to Veterans Memorial Stadium to watch it. You want to know why I didn't go? I didn't go because I like football. I don't think it makes good sense to pay any amount of money to watch mediocre SWAC football just to wait until halftime to see the bands play. This is why I make it my business to go to Atlanta every January to see the Honda Battle of the Bands (….that and to catch up with my Sigma Alpha Iota and Phi Mu Alpha family). While watching the game on TV, I realized that JSU isn't really all that good a football team. It's just that Texas Southern was so……BAD. I'm talking three fumbled punts by TxSouthern leading to three JSU touchdowns bad.
I said as much on Twitter….because I say whatever I'm feeling on Twitter. A lot of people on my timeline have stated previously that the integration of colleges is what led to black college football being so bad. I said, "you can't really expect top tier athletes to go into subpar programs just because they're black and this is a black school." Period. Point blank. Here is where the Twitter madness began.
"Catch 22. Top athletes go to other schools for the tv EXPOSURE. Dream=NFL."
To this I replied, "Great athletes come out of the MEAC all the time. They get their dreams fulfilled without the major TV exposure. You need a quality program first." Which is the truth.
"Only been a hs #guidance coun for 14 yrs, watched 5 AfAm go to NFL while 500 played in college. All 5 went to SEC D1 sch."
This one was a little easier to combat. I replied, "Sorry your experience led you see more than that. I'm a football enthusiast and can name more than 5 blacks from HBCU's that went to the league from last year's draft class. " There were 4 players that were drafted from HBCUs: Johnny Culbreath, South Carolina St.; Frank Kearse, Alabama A&M; Curtis Holcomb, FAMU; Kenrick Ellis, Hampton. Not only were these four drafted but TWENTY-FOUR MORE were signed as undrafted free agents as soon as the lockout ended. So miss me with that. I think I made her mad because I got these series of tweets.
"Sounds like you know ur ppl, but they don't know you. Prolly tv. Typical crabs in a bucket put'n down SWAC. B blezd. Self hate is the worst hate. I'm 2 pro-black 2 put any HBCU down. That's just me. Get there 1 day. Keep tryin."
This is when I logged out for the night. I'm a self hating black person because I don't like SWAC football. Are you serious?! How many people actually go to the game to WATCH THE GAME? Not very many. It's a band field show and a social event where football is played in the background. My parents both went to Alcorn State University. I've been to enough SWAC games in my life to figure that out. What do guys call it when a team is playing football and gets beat by three touchdowns? Give up? They call it GETTING SWAC'D! I wasn't putting down the schools. I just think the football is bad. That's my opinion. I'm entitled to that. What I need all these "pro-black" people to do is research and speak with knowledge about things they claim to love so dearly. I want them to stop getting so mad about other people's opinions that they do a smoke and mirrors routine to cover up their ignorance.
I am a black woman. I know where I come from. I graduated from the University of Mississippi and learned more about my skin color than I ever could have imagined. Get over yourself. Learn to see something past skin color. I also don't care for Ole Miss football and think that maybe we should join Conference USA…..but you didn't ask that…did you? For me to be such a self hating black person, I surely knew more about these young black men than she did. I go out of my way to know these things. I don't rest on a degree from a particular college or living in particular neighborhood to give me my blackness. I live in it everyday. That was not my first time hearing that….I'm sure it won't be my last.
I have written this blog post many times and put it back on the shelf (the shelf being my One Note blog notebook). Every time I sit on a decide not to post it, I get more to post about on the subject. So I figured why the hell not post it.
A frenemy is defined as "someone who is both friend and enemy, a relationship that is both mutually beneficial or dependent while being competitive, fraught with risk and mistrust."
Personally I can't stand these types of "friends." With the personality that I have, I am quick to cut people off when I think they have wronged me. Fake friends (that's the only thing frenemies are in my mind) are the first to go. PERIOD. It's okay to deal with these kinds of people when you are in high school. That's where these people live….and should stay. I thought that I wouldn't have to deal with these people post undergrad. Boy was I mistaken. As I've gotten older, I have taken some serious inventories of my life. There are people that I still hold close to me that haven't deserved a place there in a long time. Now I know that friends have issues and fights all the time….then kiss and make up. But there are people that I have been looking at with the severe side eye trying to figure out why in the hell they still matter.
#1: The "always desperately needy, but constantly missing in action" friend
Me and Number One have been friends since my sophomore year at Ole Miss. We were fast friends and things were really cool between us. She experienced some really trying times during the height of our friendship. It was during these times that the friendship got more and more one sided. I wasn't upset about it. Losing your mother and grandmother in the span of one year is pretty tough. Then it became "can I borrow [insert cash amounts here]?" and "can you take me here though my boyfriend lives with me, has a car, and won't?" I felt like I was doing this (which I would have done regardless) but whenever I needed someone to lean on….I got the crickets and the voicemail. She had to transfer to a school closer to home my first year in law school. We lost touch for about 3 years. We reconnected and I was happy to try to rekindle that relationship. I thought that enough time had passed for it to be a little different. We live about 20 minutes away from each other right now. When I told her I was moving to her area, she was excited. I called as soon as I got settled in to go out to lunch. What I got was, "can I borrow $20 dollars for gas until next week?" NEXT!!! My friends know what my money situation is like. My REAL friends would have at least caught up first before they asked me for money. Some things never change.
#2: The "I need a gaggle of female groupies" friend
I am a pretty quiet and shy person…..when I first get to know you. I'm pretty reserved til I can feel you out. But once you get to know me, you understand that I am anything but. Yet friend Number Two thought I was some kind of quiet flunkie. She was happy hogging up all the spotlight and attention in law school…..until she realized that her little flunkie (me) was the more likeable person. Then she did everything to try to make sure people hated me. Huh? NEXT! She still pretends to be my friend now, but I guess it's kind of tough to keep up a façade when Facebook wall posts go ignored.
#3: The "ultra-competitive" friend
This friend really wants to be you. They are actually okay to be around until there is a situation where you outshine them, have more knowledge than them on a subject, or are generally being something that they want to be. Most times you don't really notice it. I have had situations that no matter what the topic of conversation is they want to negate everything you're saying. Even when that stuff is wrong as two left shoes. I'm talking about how great Charming Charlie's is but she wants to make sure that nobody goes there because Icing and Claire's are still hot. I don't get it. NEXT!!
I'm 28 years old. The time for these people have come and gone in my life. I have culled my friend's list so that it looks more like Waiting to Exhale than Basketball Wives. I deserve to have people who care about me the way I care about them. That list went down to 4 last week. I like it.
It's summer time so you know what that means…….BEYONCE'S BACK!!!!!! Now I'm going to make a confession. I'm a bit of a Beyonce stan. I love almost everything that she does. I love her messages of female empowerment. I love how she creates trends. I love how she is a female force that doesn't back down in the presence of men. Oh yea….I love her music too. I also love the fact that every summer she does something that forces my fluffy ass back in the gym to lose my winter weight and that her music is a great workout soundtrack.
Somehow, Beyonce seems to catch heavy scrutiny any time she does anything. And the scrutiny usually comes from other women (big surprise here). I was lingering around YouTube and found this video.
First of all let me say that I like Nineteen Percent. Her vlogs and way of delivery are hilarious to me while saying a lot of things that other people just think about. However, I feel like she missed the ball with this one. These statistics and facts that she spouted off in this particular vlog are things that I think women should be aware of. By all means get the word out about discriminatory salary practices among genders in the workplace, sexual harassment, domestic violence, female infanticide in other countries, rape, and the all too common objectification of women. Women need to know what they are up against to be better activists. This video just goes about it the wrong way. She just complaining a lot. It's one thing to be aware of the many issues facing women. It's totally another thing just spout out a bunch of information with no solutions on how to fix it. AND it's a whole OTHER thing to blame these problems on another woman.
How is Beyonce a liar when it comes to this song? Is it so wrong to have a female empowerment anthem? Granted, I think this song is crap, but it doesn’t make me that angry. I never think that it is a bad idea to have little girls everywhere thinking that they can do anything and be anything that they want to be. The way to ensure that women will never transcend the station they are in life is to spout off a bunch of negative information at them and to discard any ounce of a positive message. Let's try this on for size. Let Beyonce do the entertaining and all of us caring women should do our part to help the younger generation not face the issues that prompted Nineteen Percent to call Beyonce out in the first place.
What do you think? Are songs like Beyonce's Run The World presenting an impossible message to young ladies?
(Forgive my image, I thought it was hilarious….and proved my point all at the same time.)
One of my biggest pet peeves is being dismissed. By this I mean having my thoughts or opinions cast off because the person hearing them thinks that I don't know what I'm talking about. What really bothers me is when men do it. Most of the time, it has an air of "Aww, how cute! It's a woman talking about ______." Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I am a football junkie. I eat, sleep and breathe NFL football (and NCAA football for the sole purpose of NFL scouting). I watch SportsCenter and NFL Total Access religiously. I also follow several teams on the Bleacher Report (link). Bottom line, I know my stuff.
Let's face it, most of my sports related conversations are with men because a lot women just aren't into sports (or they love basketball…which makes it worse). So the problem always comes when I'm talking about sports with men. No matter what I say men look at me like "what could you possibly know about sports, little woman?" This irritates me to no end!! Then not only do they question my sports knowledge, they start talking down to me like I'm a child. Being the person that I am, I never back down from a challenge. I just go there with them until they are blue in the face. What I've found out from these encounters is that there are two types of men.
A LOT of men that pretend to be football fans. They would rather discredit me as a woman than let me continue to chop their balls off while I kill them with my superior knowledge. These are the men that watch a few episodes of Sports Center so that they can be considered one of guys but don't know anymore than what Skip Bayless, Chris Berman and Mel Kiper told them. Deep down inside they are embarrassed that a woman knows more than them. These men make me laugh because I love to sniff out a fraud.
Male sports fans are generally sexist. Point blank. Period. These are the easiest to win over though. A woman with extensive sports knowledge is considered to be somewhat of a unicorn. Our purpose is generally served by making their lives hell when they are watching the game and making the best pre-game snacks (sorry ladies…..that's what some of us do *shrugs*). After 30 minutes of blank stares, I will have new male friend.
Boo Thang loves my love of football and stimulates my sports mind all the time. That I am thankful for….or he would have to go…..
Happy Black Girl Day!!!! I normally look forward to this every month because it is a chance to be absolutely positive about being a black woman. However, today is not quite a positive day for me. It's been hit or miss for two weeks, lol. That's why I have been absent. (Still working on this. Finding the balance has been hard.) I read Sister Toldja's HBGD post and realized that she was going through the EXACT same thing. Hooray for sisters in the struggle! Her post talks about the 5 things that she is most grateful for. I am going to follow her lead and do the same because I need to cheer myself up.
1. The boo thing: He is my rock in this time of trial and tribulation. If he wasn't here every step of the way with me, I wouldn't be this calm (....if calm was even a word that could describe me right now). He is the only person that really and truly understands me and I am grateful for that.
2. Life: This sounds like a PC answer, but I am really grateful for my life right now. I have done a NUMBER on my body the last 10 months or so. Pre-hypertensive, hypoglycemic, iron deficiency.....a 30 pound weight gain. Yet, I am still here trying to get this under control.
3. Friends: Real and digital. These people keep me from going insane on a daily basis. I am glad that I always have someone to talk to and to bounce my many ideas on.
4. The Internet: Job hunting and entertainment would be much more different without it. My cable and internet went out for 16 hours a couple weeks ago and I damn near went insane. Amazing how much I need the internet to live.
5. My Apartment: As much as I complain about my neighbors, the neighborhood and the management, I am really glad that I have a roof over my head that is paid for until I get my life together. I will be tons more grateful in July when I move.
So this is my Happy Black Girl grateful train. What are you grateful for?
(For more information about this celebration, check it out here!)
Happy Black Girl Day!!! Today's HBGD is special to me because it comes the day after International Women's Day. How could I not pass up a chance to celebrate womanhood one day and then celebrate the specialness that comes with being a BLACK woman the very next day. Can't beat it with a baseball bat!
My tribute today goes to the creativeness of the black woman. For as long as I can remember, I have always loved to read. From the age of 3, I was never separated from books for long periods of time. The library in my hometown didn't really carry books by black authors and the library inside my high school wasn't short stopping.....until my senior year in high school. I wrote an AP English paper about The Third Life of Grange Copeland by Alice Walker. To this day, it remains my favorite book of all time. This was the first time in life that I read a book for pleasure and was able to connect with the characters on a level that I never had before. Today I throw myself into Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, BeBe Moore Campbell and Terry McMillian to name a few. I love the intricacies of their writing. It makes me feel like a little piece of me is between the pages.
Today I started reading The Black Woman: An Anthology, edited by Toni Cade Bambara. It features poetry and essays written by black women on various topics. I think that everyone should pick it up. This poem stuck out to me within the first 15 pages.
Naturally - Audre Lord
Since Naturally Black is Naturally Beautiful
I must be proud
And, naturally,
Black and
Beautiful
Who always was a trifle
Yellow
And plain though proud
Before.
I've given up pomades
Having spent the summer sunning
And feeling naturally free (If I die of skin cancer, oh well -- one less black and beautiful me)
Yet no Agency spends millions
To prevent my summer tanning
And who trembles nightly
With the fear of their lily cities being swallowed
By a summer ocean of naturally woolly hair?
But I've bough my can of
Natural Hair Spray
Made and marketed in Watts
Still thinking more
Proud beautiful black women
Could better make and use
Black bread.
Did anybody catch the Super Bowl on Sunday night? Of course you did. It was the most watched TV program in history! I watch for the love of the game, but lots of people just watch it for the commercials. There was one commercial for PepsiMax that caught my attention. If you missed it, here it is for your enjoyment.
I laughed my ass off at this commercial. To me, it remains one of the best ones of the night (....well second to the guy sucking the Doritos cheese off the other man's fingers....but I digress). After I stopped laughed, I peeped in on Twitter and the reactions to that commercial were through the roof! The main thing that I kept seeing was that the commercial was racist and stereotypical. I thought my followers were on crack. Then I read all my favorite blogs yesterday and see the same thoughts.
Here is my impression of the commercial: Wife wants to keep Husband healthy. She does everything in her power to make sure he makes the correct food choices.....which in this case came down to down beating him up a little bit. Wife sees him looking too hard at another woman and tries to smash him with the can but ends up knocking other woman out. Husband sees that the police are probably coming and will Rodney King the shit out of them takes Wife by the hand and gets them the hell out of there before trouble comes. And they say Black love is dead. I thought it was hilarious. But there are SO many different nit picky things that others saw that I didn't....so I will address them here.
This commercial was full of stereotypes!! Ummm....yea. So is life. The way that most humans deal with people different from ourselves is based on stereotypes. Is it right? I don't know. What I do know is that stereotypes don't come out of thin air. They are based in part on the way a group of people act. If you don't want the stereotype, then you must work harder to fight it. Art tends to imitate life, so they had to get the inspiration for this commercial from somewhere.
Why does Pepsi have to act like all black women are angry?! Didn't you read the above statement? Art tends to imitate life. Case in point: This commercial was meant to be funny, but what was the overwhelming response from two-thirds of black women? To get very angry. Yep...I said it. There is a major problem when the only images that we see of black women in mainstream media are the angry kind. BUT we can't be mad when something goes mainstream that we celebrate in like company. One of my favorite bloggers, RiPPa, said it best: "don't we celebrate these images ourselves when we patronize NAACP Image Award nominated shows like, oh... The Real Housewives of Atlanta?" We love to watch Tasha Mack on The Game, the mom from Everybody Hates Chris, NeNe Leakes, and most of the women in Tyler Perry's plays and movies. We can't love it when it is made by us THEN turn around and hate it when white people see it and make it into a commercial. We all know that angry black sistah. She's your mom, best friend, lady at the church, boss.....and if you don't personally know any, it is probably you. To beat a stereotype, you have to stop being that stereotype.
Why did he have to make googly-eyes at the white woman? Why do they think that the epitome of beauty is a blue-eyed, blond haired white woman? Again....I wasn't paying that much attention to the race of the woman that jogged up. Since we are talking about stereotypes, the woman in that ad would have tried to hit her man upside the head with that can if the jogging chic was white, black, Asian, Latino, or a polka-dotted alien. Would it have been that big of a deal if all the people in the commercial were black? Probably not. The real issue to me is not that mainstream society sees the white woman as the epitome of beauty. The issue is that Black women have a hard time accepting interracial dating. The fact that a Black man could be attracted to a white woman still makes a lot of black women angry (there's that word again!). It still blows my mind to hear otherwise levelheaded black women go totally off (stereotype alert) when they see a black man out and enjoying the company of a white woman. It's 2011. We are supposed to be in a post-racial society (that phrase still makes me gag). Interracial dating should not still be something that sets us off (there I go again). I can admit that it used to bother me to see it, but once I got older and wiser I realized that it is hard to find love out there. I hope people find it with what ever color makes their hearts glad.
The moral of the story is.....lighten up. The ad was supposed to be funny. I'm sure that PepsiCo didn't set out to make this commercial a conversation piece. They just wanted to make 111 million people laugh. Well Pepsi....ha ha. I liked it.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 was a very monumental day for many people in the Black community because it meant the long awaited return on The Game on BET. That show has a cult following. I can honestly say that I was one of those 7.7 million people who were pins and needles to see the continuation of the story of Melanie, Derwin, Tasha, Malik, Kelly, and Jason. Then the train wreck show came on. BET (and of course the original writers who they said all came back....that fact that I question seriously) managed to turn The Game into fried chicken, Black & Milds, and a Maury paternity test show. Thanks! The show really broke down to these simple themes.
Melanie is still traumatized by the fact that Derwin has a baby with his ex-girlfriend, Janay. She goes behind his back and gives the baby a DNA test. Finds out the baby doesn't belong to Derwin. Derwin, who's attached to said 2 year old, doesn't want to know the results because he loves the baby. Melanie tells him anyway. Melanie then finds out that the test was wrong and holds back that information from Derwin. Classic Melanie move.
Malik is sleeping with his boss's wife. Steals his cousin's girlfriend from him because he wouldn't drive Malik home.
Kelly and Jason, still divorced, have issues because Kelly is using her divorce as a way to gain fame by painting Jason in a negative light.
And the crowd goes wild!!!! I was on Twitter during commercial breaks and noticed that my whole timeline was about the show. It was going so fast that I could barely keep up with tweets.
Meanwhile, BET premiered a brand new show, Let's Stay Together right after The Game. Let's Stay Together is described by BET,
"Love has no limit or boundaries when it's real. LET'S STAY TOGETHER is an updated, urban - romantic comedy that takes an unconventional look into the lives of five young, ambitious African Americans. The series centers on a married couple, an engaged couple and a single sister who all take courageous steps as they navigate life, love and matrimony."
My timeline became totally different when the show changed. Tweets were coming in by the dozens that resembled this: "Changes channel." "Let's Stay Together, January 11, 2011 - January 11, 2011." "I'm not even going to give this show a chance." This bothered me not only for the obvious reason (you know the reason why major networks don't give Black shows a chance is because we don't), but because of what it symbolizes to me. Why are we so quick to tune into a show that portrays us as drama-filled, relationship challenged people but don't want to give out attention to a show that paints us in a better light. I watched Let's Stay Together. It's actually a pretty good show. The couples have their issues, but they are solved within 30 minutes in responsible ways. The show balances comedy with issues that are apparent in every relationship.
In discussing this with the boyfriend and another close friend of mine, a bigger question came to mind. Does the way we allow ourselves to be portrayed in entertainment affect our real-life interactions? The answer seems to be a resounding "yes!" Some times it hurts me to my core to hear some women talk about how Melanie is always right and is always the victim. These are women that emulate that same behavior in real life. Sleeping with random men to get over the one they truly love. Holding men to an impossible standard that they wouldn't be able to handle if tables were turned. Being selfish. Playing the victim. Taking drama to their man's place of employment. They do all of these things thinking that it is right and it is validated on TV. These are the same women that are struggling to figure out why they can't keep a man. I guess they ignore the fact that Melanie is barely able to hold on to Derwin. I'm an equal opportunity stone thrower, so I am not leaving out the men in this equation. Men look at Malik and think it is okay to still live with their mother and be too dependent on their mothers well past 30. Or being so cocky that you think it is okay to sleep with your boss's wife for revenge. Or hurting your loved ones because they refuse to hold you up in stupid behavior is the way to go. Malik may be the quintessential playboy on TV, but some men haven't figured out that this is why the world is a lonely place for them as well.
I think that we are doing ourselves a disservice by not viewing and celebrating healthy Black love. With all the studies out there that show that a lack of examples of healthy relationships being the reason why there are so many single parent families and so on and so forth, why shouldn't we help keep Let's Stay Together on the air. What do you think? Do the antics of characters on TV validate unhealthy ways of dealing with relationship situations?
Happy Black Girl Day!!!! For everyone who doesn't know, Happy Black Girl Day was created by Sista Toldja. It is celebrated every second Wednesday of every month. Ever since I started reading The Beautiful Struggler, I have been on board for each occurrence of this wonderful idea.
Today I feel SO uplifted and proud to be a black woman. I watched the premiere and the encore of Black Girls Rock! that was shown on BET. That was the most uplifting thing that I have EVER seen on BET.....and I watch a lot of BET. This is mostly because this is not a BET creation, but a dream and vision from Beverly Bond and her Black Girls Rock organization. Here is a little bit about it.
BLACK GIRLS ROCK! Inc. is 501(c)3 non-profit youth empowerment and mentoring organization established to promote the arts for young women of color, as well as to encourage dialogue and analysis of the ways women of color are portrayed in the media.
Since 2006, BLACK GIRLS ROCK! has been dedicated to the healthy development of young women and girls. BLACK GIRLS ROCK! seeks to build the self-esteem and self-worth of young women of color by changing their outlook on life, broadening their horizons, and helping them to empower themselves. For the past four years, we have enjoyed the opportunity to enrich the lives of girls aged 12 to 17 years old through mentorship, arts education, cultural exploration and public service. At BLACK GIRLS ROCK!, young women are offered access to enrichment programs and opportunities that place special emphasis on personal development through the arts and cooperative learning.
By speaking to the next generation in their formative years about issues of self-worth, goals, and aspirations, the organization reinforces the message that young women need not objectify themselves or relinquish their autonomy. BLACK GIRLS ROCK! has boldly taken on the crisis of our female youth of color here in America head on and understands the need for positive self-images and a strong sense of awareness. WE SEE SOLUTIONS.
Wow, right?! The awards ceremony on BET gave shout outs to women and girls known and unknown. There were so many positive affirmations on this show that I was in tears by the end of the broadcast on Sunday and I had to watch it again last night. *sighs* Sometimes as black women you need those positive affirmations. Especially when everything that you see on TV about you is negative. I personally am not one of those weave wearing, tooth sucking, neck and eye rolling, loud, ghetto, welfare receiving, 3 baby daddy having, ethnic name carrying, uneducated women. Neither are the majority of my friends. We are proud black women out here striving for excellence. The world would rather that nobody knew we existed. I would imagine that it is hard for a young black girl to have dreams of grandeur about the life she wants to have with all the negative imagery around them. Hell....sometimes it's hard for me. By negative imagery, I am not just talking about TV, I'm really referring to the things you see and live everyday.
This organization seems to be centered in Brooklyn. My thoughts have been, "why isn't there something like this in Mississippi?" or "shouldn't something like this have chapters?" Then I remembered that one of Twitter friends, Kira, has an organization that is really similar called Why Not Wait? These things only exist because black women like her and hopefully me create them and hit the ground running. I would absolutely love to create a Mississippi based awards ceremony like Black Girls Rock so that our young women can get that same sense of empowerment that I am feeling today. The new thing that I have taped to my bathroom mirror is the Black Girls Rock pledge. I hope to live this everyday. Enjoy and HAPPY BLACK GIRLS DAY!!!
I am a Black girl. My life is important. I am the continuation of a history, legacy and tradition of powerful people. The lives of my fore mothers now have meaning through me. I stand today because of who they were.
I am a Black girl. My presence is essential. I am a demonstration of the past, an inspiration for the future and I represent the unlimited possibilities of the present moment.
I am a Black girl. I have a voice. I say the important things that need to be said. I do not waste my voice on gossip, slander or disrespect of myself, my sisters or other people. I know the power of the spoken word and I use my words wisely.
I am a Black girl. I know my worth. I hold myself in high esteem because I value who I am. I treat myself with loving care, respect and honor. I honor and hold sacred my mind, my body and my heart.
I am a Black girl. I am committed and confident. I am committed to a future that holds great possibilities for me, my family, and the world. As I move confidently into my next most appropriate steps, I am inspired by life and I inspire others.
I am a Black girl. I have a vision for myself and a vision for my life. It is a vision anchored in love, propelled by integrity and advanced by faith. I am committed to learning how I can improve all aspects of myself so that I will be the best me that I can be.
I am a Black girl. I am not intimidated by anyone or anything. I bow to no one and nothing save my Creator. I move with elegance, grace, and ease, effortlessly accomplishing all that I set my heart and mind to do when it serves my highest and greatest good.
I am a Black girl. My life is connected to a loving Creator who protects and guides me at all times. Therefore, I am humble and honorable; patient and powerful; focused and flexible; determined and dynamic; loved and loving.
I am a Black girl. I say it, therefore I am it!
I AM life overflowing!
I AM success manifesting!
I AM confidence in action!
I AM fearless and free!
I AM commitment that moves obstacles!
I AM inspiration unfolding!
I AM pure love!
I AM a Black girl and I ROCK!!
The name of the above video is called "Black Dating in a Hip Hop Society." I found this video while I was peeping around on Tumblr. I must say a HUGE thank you to eyedlethoughts for posting this. It truly made my day.
On to the matter at hand. While this video/cartoon was funny as hell to me, it does highlight something that is very real in the black community. Though I may be crucified for this, I am going to be VERY real in this moment. Here goes: SOME BLACK WOMEN GIVE US ALL A BAD RAP WITH THE DECISIONS THEY MAKE WHILE DATING!! *whew* It's out there now. (Who gone check me, boo?)
So this video/cartoon starts off with a woman and her boyfriend. He is trying to take her out. After making excuses, she tells him that she is living a lie and doesn't want to date him anymore. This is the following exchange:
Girl:I need a boss, I need a baller, I need a man like Lil' Wayne.
Dude:Yea...I don't have a lot of money, but I am in graduate school trying to improve my life so that I can improve yours.
She goes into great detail on how she needs and deserves Gucci bags and diamonds and how she can't be with him because he doesn't give her that. Towards the end of the video, the guy tells her that he is glad that he sees her true colors because he was going to propose that night and he just won the lottery. At this point, she tries to turn it around on him....telling him he must be cheating since he doesn't want to fight her and begging him not to leave.
Today, women are always talking about how there are no good men left. In actuality, I wonder how many men think the same way. People in general, not just women, are not willing to work and grind for the things that they need. They want someone else to do the work so that they can ride their coattails. So this video makes sense to me, no matter how sad the effects. Hip hop videos give the fantasy that some rapper/singer with lots of money is gonna scoop you up from your job at MickeyDs, tell you he has money to blow and you can throw it in the bag because you can have whatever you like. There are so many of those videos out there that I believe young girls actually are waiting for somebody to "save" them and buy them lots of high end trinkets.
I, personally, want Coach bags, Louboutins, diamonds, and fast cars. Isn't every woman's dream to have really nice things? My goal to get these things is/was very simple: go to college, graduate, get accepted to law school, graduate, pass the bar exam......wait til the money starts pouring in. I want to get these for myself! I don't want to be a Twitter trending topic to get nice things (i.e., #hoesfuckingfor Louis bags). Many times great men are passed over for the dumbest things. I would take a man any day that is going to school with a good work ethic and life plan who is currently broke over a man making fast money who isn't guaranteed to buy me the same things 6 months from now because he might be in jail. I have a lot of male friends who are actively weeding out the women who just want to benefit from their hard work. They recognize within 2 weeks when a woman wants them or just wants what they have. The ones out there trying to see how much they can get are put on the booty call list and are treated like crap.....immediately. Not going to let men totally off the hook though. There wouldn't be nearly as many of these women out there had it not been for SOME men out there trying to buy love and pussy. Yea.....I said it.
I was always taught that you get out of ever relationship the same thing that you put into it. In the words of Lyfe Jennings, "be the person you want to find, don't be a nickel out here looking for a dime." (more hip hop for you...) Instead of looking for a man to come and save you, save yourself first. Get out there to make things happen for yourself and I guarantee you will soon find a man willing to shower you with everything you ever wanted......if you even still WANT a man when that happens.
Today I stumbled onto a new "holiday" while I was in the blogosphere. I ran across Sister Toldja's blog and discovered that she created Happy Black Girl Day. It is celebrated every second Wednesday of every month. I'm not too late because this is only the 8th one. But I am glad that I stumbled across it.
Too many times black women have a complex about themselves brought upon by the many statistics that the media places out there about them. (Personally I don't take these things with a grain of salt for I am a hopelessly optimistic person.) Black women are too often too angry. Black women have a slim chance of finding love because the black man is either gay or in jail AND the ones that aren't either are just too dumb. (I'm not making this up.) I think that in today's society that it is hard enough to be a woman....but then to add to that being a black woman......things get a little bit tougher. So many stereotypes to overcome, so many pressures to get over. I wake up and thank God everyday that I was born a black woman. I wouldn't have it any other way. There is something about the inner strength of a black woman that makes me lift my head up high. I wouldn't be here today or be the woman that I am without the strength and courage of a black woman (I love you, Mama...RIP).
But today is a day to just sit back and take stock that is the beauty that is.....us. Happy Black Girl Day! Thanks to Sistah Toldja for such a wonderful idea.
Kathryn. 29. Leo. Law school graduate. In posession of a loudly ticking but heavily ignored biological clock. Moderate to slightly liberal independent leaning Democrat. (mouthful?) Job seeker. Girlfriend. Lover. Ranter. Lover of politics, irritated by the outcomes. Music fanatic. Lover of the creamy crack.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011 was a very monumental day for many people in the Black community because it meant the long awaited return on The Game on BET. That show has a cult following. I can honestly say that I was one of those 7.7 million people who were pins and needles to see the continuation of the story of Melanie, Derwin, Tasha, Malik, Kelly, and Jason. Then the 
