Should I be Shame?

Today, feeling too vulnerable, too exposed and too unsophisticated, I took all of my offensive, ridiculous, shameful postings off this blog and saved them in a word document. I'm starting a new project in my career and I don't want my colleagues to see the deep recesses of my psyche. So, I deleted any evidence of that, represented in my rantings. Funny, right? I don't give two shits about the rest of the world exposed to my psychosis, however, I'm more concerned with potential colleagues. How does that work? It's easier to expose oneself to the world of people whose faces one could not remember than be shamed, however temporarily, by an acquaintance. Well, I digress. I didn't want my rants to be judged by my coworkers and prevent me from accomplishing a great step in my career. I never gave a shit about a career before...
In the process of taking down my posts, I began to read and couldn't stop. I had recorded instances in my life about which I had completely forgotten until I began to read. I read my post, "A Date; An Evaluation" and had not even recalled that guy until now. It's almost two years later. At the time I wrote that post, my feelings were hurt and my ego was bruised. It was my first real rejection. When I thought about it after I read it, I understood that that flighty relationship wasn't meant to last anyway. My experiences in dating, to this point, have brought me to that realization. In two years, I evolved in so many ways with regards to dating, but reading that post brought up feelings for me that I felt at the time. WOW. And when I read "My Nephew Thinks He's Michael Jackson" and I think about how my family is just getting him on the right track, now. Not to mention that Michael Jackson is dead. I thought to myself, "how could I delete this stuff?" I can't. It's like I was reading my past, written at the very moments my past was formed and how lucky I am to have felt passionately enough about it to record it, right then. To me, these posts, this blog, is better than a diary. Banality is absent (at least to me, call me a narcissist). It's better than telling or relating a story because the facts don't become lies and there's no hiding my reality, not even when it was negative. Everything on this blog, is how I felt at the time I wrote it and the feeling, the energy that comes across through my words and your reading it, while they might not be the same, will affect you as it has me already.
So yeah, I took everything offensive down and put it back up again. I did change a few "abrasive" terms to be PC, but the content remains and so shall the story. Even if I'm the only one reading it.

OM…God?

Originally Posted on 11.14.2010
Okay, I've officially succumbed to the social bullshit humdrum. Yes, I've become a tweeter. WTF? I thought I was too deep for this shit. I used to make fun of people on twitter, updating their bullshit statuses after they ate a banana or just fucked somebody's broke ass, toothless baby daddy in some Podunk black or white town in the heart of bankrupt America (i.e. somewhere in the Midwest). Man, I feel more exploited than that "Hide ja kids, hide ja wife" nigga with that dirty ass red bandanna. Well not really, at least that nigga was on TV and blew the fuck up for a week on YouTube. You sellout! And your sister was supposedly raped, yeah fucking right. But still, I'm no different and if confronted with the opportunity for a week of exposure, I'd probably do the same with my silly ass friends. Actually thinking people are interested in what I have to say is a punch to the gut to me. I can't help but to ridicule and deride myself over the decision to join Twitter. It's not even as if I'm disillusioned as to think I will be different and garner a mass of people following my posts and reading my lips as I text the latest tweet. I can't even say I joined because I"m genuinely intrigued by social media and the development of social technology over the past decade. I have 200 friends on facebook and most of them are so restricted that they can't even see my updates or photos. I don't even have a profile pic listed for random searches. My shit is official. Really, I don't even like facebook. It's a nuisance thinking of witty bullshit just so people can say "like" it or comment "Awesome, me too!" Who gives a fuck? Still, I succumbed to the pressure of my homegirls to join this bullshit "networking" site all on the strength of how funny they think I am after I've been drinking and smoking joints for 3 hours. I suddenly become hysterical through their true blood eyes and slurred speech. So yes, if you're wondering, I did it for my ego. Under an alias however. I wasn't as grandeur as to put MY name on this, believing it would boost my intrigue just a lil bit. Actually a friend and I set it up as a forum for salacious but local gossip and one-liner opinions from our respective social crews. And while all of our friends' stories are hell-fucking-larious to us, I doubt that anyone else would find our conversational meanderings as funny as we do. In fact, I predict that we will have absolutely no "followers" on twitter and even our close homegirls, from which our content derives, will even look at our page. Our skandaloshow (tweet and retweet us ;) will probably fizzle out in 3 months. I'll put money on it.

There Is No More White Culture

So I was sitting in my room today thinking about my love of exploration and different cultures when my freshman Intro to Anthropology course popped in my mind. Franz Boas immediately was the first person I thought of, and I thought of my anthropology professor speaking, passionately, about the different cultures of the world. I remember how enthusiastic she was about his exploration in Alaska and the remote "tribes" he "discovered" (kinda like Christopher Colombus discovered the Native Americans) and how groundbreaking that was. Then I think of the Nuer tribe, who were "undisovered" by Europeans until the late 1940s and whose civilization was so diverse and progressive, that they had to questions it's validity by brutally "studying" their culture until the Nuer tribe was forced to disband and abandon their traditions. In the midst of my aimless pondering, I had to question our new cultural indenties. The coming of the internet not only made it easier to pay bills and chat online, it also created a much more integrated global society where video chat and Facebook puts one in the same environment as a mate thousands of miles away. I think about my Italian and Portuguese friends, whom I met overseas, and how easy it is for me to communicate with them on my computer. No more letters or phone cards to call internationally. All I have to do is login to Gmail or Facebook or Skype or iChat and they're there, in front of me, thousands of miles away. I can absorb their culture, their environment, their frame or reference or, more simply, their mood at the moment due to technology shrinking the atmopshere of communication and thus meshing the idea of "culture".
I can't help to wonder if the idea of "culture" is fading with the larger ideologies of pop culture, the internet, and fashion trends that represent progress and "democracy". Then I think of Arizona and their recent decision to make it legal to ID someone who looks foreign, or Mexican. I can't understand it, not only because I'm on the side of the Mexicans returning to a land that they possessed long ago (if there were Native Americans, I'd say the same) or that I'm a patriot, but rather the culture of the immigrants will, almost surely, mesh with the dominant culture of entertainment. It's not like these Mexican immigrants are stealing jobs (cause there are none) or that they're gonna negatively influence "American" culture (cause you can find E!, Cosmo or MTV in any country). It's really that they're gonna brown the country. So I guess I'm saying to all the tea baggers, self righteous American patriots to get a clue. That white boy shit is dead.

On Tha Edge

So, yeah. I love my sister's building. Last night I came up on the M100 bus. I was headed toward the subway when the rum I had been drinking smacked my face and pulled my feet toward Smiley's, the corner store that sells loosies (single cigarettes). Of course, since I was well on my way to being tipsy, I grabbed a smoke for 75 cents, bumping into a fine tendah who was doing the same; smoking the poison! Anyway, I light my cigarette, still in the bodega (I think smiley prefers that so people don't walk out with single cigarettes thus alerting the ever-present police of of his illegal tenders.) Smoking, within 5 seconds, intensified my tipsiness to drunkardness and I stagger out of the bodega. Geez, I thought, I'm fucked up! I decide then and there that I will NOT take the C train or the A for that matter. Fuck the train; it was so sunny and warm and I had flip flops on for the first time since last summer. I definitely did not want to go underground in a crowded, dirty, dank, dark ass subway station and squeeze onto the A train. So I waited at the bus stop but I forgot how EFFING long the buses take and I ended up waiting 20 minutes for one bus. There were hella buses that passed and read NEXT BUS PLEASE which just got me in a rum rage. There was a Mexican dude waitin with me, but I turn around and see him 3 blocks up the street, preferring pounding the pavement than being disgraced by public transit in the hot afternoon. He rather WALK, then wait. I follow suit and take off toward the train station but, lo and behold, I see a M100 bus on the corner. I run towards it only to be rejected by the bus driver; it was too full...but I was gonna ram someone to squeeze my ass on there but homeboy wasn't having it. "Next bus ma'am, we're full!" First reaction; DO I LOOK LIKE A MA'AM JACKASS? Second: Fuck this stupid, fucking bus I've been waiting over 20 minutes for you to tell me NEXT FUCKING BUS! Luckily, there was a bus behind the full one that was full too but I'd be daaaaamned if they rejected me from this one. I didn't even wait for the bus driver to say anything, I swiped my card and sidestepped an old lady, sucking on a hard candy producing a mess of saliva down her chin...GROSS!
I made it to 155th and to the EDGE! I was excited that my sister's neighbors were having a potlock. THere is always something jumping off in her bldg. There's a wonderful Ethiopian community of sisters, husbands, cousins and brothers. They're always acting uber-Ethiopian but most of those guys grew up right here in the U.S. of A. I love them anyway. Nicole was there, hookah hogging and tellin me to "fall back lil' homie!" I was the youngest one there but shit I'm grown. Big Time! JB was up in there (my special partner in crime) and I had him rollin in the kitchen. There was this guy (whom, turns out, my sister fooled with much to her dismay) who was dancing in the living room to some song...I will say it was "Gimme" by Abba just to relate the ridiculousness of the man's proposition. So, JB and I were sitting in the kitchen, bullshittin and chillin when LAME-O guy yells from the "dance floor", "Come on JB, show me your MOVES!" while he steadily pop and locks his way around the lonely dance floor. I think JB might've turned his head 2 degrees in homie's direction, then I said "Who the fuck is the corn ball?" and we fall the fuck out. We continue to clown until he locks his ass OFF the dancefloor. We continue to laugh in his face. It was the best! I hope he wasn't offended, but I didn't (and still don't) really care. My sister was running around, watching sports with the fellas. Salaam, her gym buddy, danced in the kitchen the whole night, free and light! There was even Richmond there, a chick who was visiting, not part of the Edgecombe community, but still there to kickit...it was a great time!
Well, I love the Edge. Last night was a partyin potluck. I was in bed by 2, up by 7 and writing by 8, to share this excitement with you.

A Date; An Evaluation

So what's going on? Why is dating such a difficult thing for a black female. And I'm not even THAT picky. I met this guy a few weeks ago walking to the A train from my sister's house. He was very nice looking, cocoa brown, straight teeth, argyle sweater. I was like "Whoa, uptown!" I know what you're thinking. Why should this excite me the way it did; let me elaborate, a little, on my community. I live in Harlem. There are plenty of good looking brothas around my neighborhood. Plenty! They might even have good conversation, nice cologne and pressed clothes, but ask them about an email account and it's all shits and giggles from their end. So when I see homeboy, I'm like wow, he looks like he has email. He reaches out to me by commenting on the cigarette in my hand. "You really shouldn't smoke", he says. "I know, I'm quitting." I respond. It was my first smoke in 3 days AND I was tipsy, but no excuse! Anyway, we get the chattin and he has great convo so we exchange numbers. Of course we hang out for a few weeks and everything is gravy. He meets me after work, I help him with his job hunt, we watch Zodiac like 80 times. Let's just say the last few weeks were chill. No funk. Now, it gets tricky. I know he's been recently frustrated with his job hunt. He commented to me several times how he "hates having no money." I know how he feels; it took me seven months to find a 9 to 5. And I ain't the type of chick to berate brothas for being trifling and all that hooplah because that's some entitlement, resentful shit that I can't get down with. I'm humble and I share. So, the last few weeks I've tried to be as encouraging as I could. I know people are broke. Shit I'm BROKE and I HAVE A JOB. So I digg his situation, ya digg? Anyway, out of the blue, homeboy starts fakin on dates. He says he'll meet me after work like he's done numerous times but around the time I get off, he cancels. Now I know we've been kickin it for a little less than a month but it's been like everyday so it was a little intense...so anyway, the dude starts canceling and I can't figure it out. Eventually I stop calling and he doesn't call either. So that's where it left off...weird, I thought. I can't seem to figure it out. I'm not the one to stress over dudes or even give it that much thought, but I can't help to wonder...hmmm, what's up with homeboy?
My friend just started a blog and she had a posting on there that relates her experience with one dude at a club one night. Long and short of it, he calls her and her "kind of black women" stuck up because they expect too much from a man. I know we're all familiar with the Angry black woman bullshit that manifests from a period of time where black women were, in fact, angry with black males. I know we used to be resentful of interacial dating and the negligence on behalf of black men and rightfully so. But I just don't be trippin like that because I ain't stuntin what everyone thinks, I occupy myself with what that one black male thinks...but I remember. I'm 24; I recall Queen Latifah being like "who you callin a bitch? U.N.I.T.Y. That's a UNITY!" but I can't really say I feel angry with brothas. I don't feel anything of the sort actually. I ain't trippin off your financial status or your educational history. You got good convo? Good. You read? Excellent. You like to have money in your pocket? Even Better. Love ya momma? I thought so. Me? Well, I did go to a great school and I've lived overseas and I can say I look pretty damn good, but I ain't goin shun a nig for not going to school or not having a job or having crooked teeth. Seriously, it sounds shallow but so many sistahs do it. So, back to the point at hand, I wonder what happened with homeboy?
Some chicks can't figure out why the ugliest bitch in the room got dudes flockin to her. It's because of the confidence that she exudes and the non-judgment that she represents. No one wants to be judged and berated, especially by their mate, so I can understand where woman get verbally mushed because of these "standards" of a black man needing to have a job, straight teeth, nice clothes, great convo, no criminal record etc. They say they're not asking a lot but relative to the plight of black dudes (1 in 3 having a criminal history), it's not likely they'll find this guy and if they do, he's probably married...sorry.
So I'm just saying, I'm not a stickler, but I still seem to have dating issues. Don't get me wrong, finding a man isn't the problem; finding one ready to deal with me is. My guy friends complain all the time that if they could just find a chill chick, they'd be good. Either they're full of shit or deluded...or maybe I'm the crazy bitch...

Vapid Expanse

Okay, for real ya'll. I'm not tryna joke on people or nothing but, seriously, BLACK PEOPLE, WE NEED TO START READING MORE. Now, I don't have many friends or enemies for that matter. I keep to myself, show peace and love to most, and do me. I enjoy working out in the mornings, chanting by morningside park, listening to the rustle of the tress on quiet NYC mornings...Yeah, I be doing some hippy shit. Maybe that's why I read so much. It started long ago, I think. When I was 10, my family took Amtrak across country and I began reading seriously then. I read Goethe at 13...not to toot my own horn, but damn, that's pretty fucking good. So anyway, I'm getting off point. I get tired of talking to the few friends I have and discovering that an overwhelming majority of them don't read. AT ALL. The news reel on news channels? Nope. Online newspapers or journals? Nope. Books, novels, shorts, newletters? Hell naw. I mean, they don't even read the fucking free papers. But let me mention BOSSIP or some other ignant ass shit, and omg, their eyes alight and they start spewing "facts" on celebs like they live next door and shit. Sometimes I stare and think, don't you ever want to REALLY know what's going on in the world? Where do you get your information if you don't read? Their sources thus comes from the most unreliable source. Television. They can spit off Drake lyrics quicker than they can name the Speaker of the House. Eruditeness at best for them is citing Newt Gingrich. No I shouldn't say at best but that's like a step up...FUCK, sad state of affairs.
I can't speak for other people except the ones in my sphere. I don't mean to target black people particularly, but my interactions with my black friends and their lackluster depth is quite disturbing. Not to mention that most of these niggas went to college so I find that kind of abstruse (some may also argue, validly, that my use of Nigga is regressing our advancements but I feel like I don't care what those people think because that is a trivial argument that spuriously draws attention to an issue that has a feeble impact on progression.)
But, seriously, I would like to see some more young black people reading. Read anything. You can start off slow...Eric Jerome Dickey maybe. He writes like most dudes rap--plastic baggies & drugs, killin haters, knockin off hoes et cetera. Or maybe you'd like one of those Midnight Love books...whatever your preference, I just encourage you to read. Open your mind, expand your boundaries. You'll be a better person because of it.

Oh Bama, You're Just Too Much...

Yes, I'm still mad giddy over him. I love this man! Obama, of course, is the shit. I was sort of surprised at myself when I went to upload another post and discovered no info on my man. Now, I'm not one to get overwhelmingly involved in politics, but homeboy has made me get up and pay attention. Recently, he's overturned so much bullshit that Bush enacted, including enviromental legislation (firing CEOs, pushing the GM merger with Fiat for the production of enviro friendly cars, firing old EPA directors etc.), healthcare reform (I'm still getting emails from tha boy Mitch Stewart and his ceaseless campaigning to call legislators and push for healthcare stimulus package), and finally, shutting down this fear tactic, Guantanamo Bay, media jargon that began in a fearful, early 19th c. America in order to generate profits and spending on behalf of Central Banks and coorporations. Needless to say, Obama's had a lot to deal with. A shit ton of bricks is what he inherited, not to mention, the ever-crumbling economy. I can't help to think that maybe he won't be able to fix all this. What if he fails? But after so many questions, and so much MSNBC and CNN watching, I resolve myself and relax. The fact is, I don't want him to fail for numerous reasons (chiefly, because I want another minority president and I don't want white folks using the excuse that Obama didn't fix shit although shit was already suprememly fucked up when he got the job). But the reality remains that he has so much to do in so little time that even if he continues on the overturning path he's on now, the results of his tutelage might not be recognized in many years, and, I think people (conservative media) will say, that my main man FAILED! I just don't think that's right. I mean, of course it ain't right. I'm gonna continue to stick by him, however, regardless of the haters out there. I say to them, you just mad cuz a black man's the ruler of the world. It's about fucking time.