Birthday/Christmas List (by request of NICOLE)

Because Nicole has NO idea what I want for my birthday or Christmas, I'm making this list to give her options (LOL!). Both "holidays" are relatively close (December 6 and December 25), and, since roughly 2002, the weeks around these two dates are so jam-packed with school and work obligations that I never have time to plan anything for myself. And thus, here is my wish list:

1) Adult Swim in a Box: absolutely fantastical!




2) Black Amethyst Body Wash, etc. : I <3 this stuff....as do men :)




3) Carol's Daughter "Recipe for Smooth and Shiny Hair": Smell the Black Vanilla first and ask questions later...if you know me, you know that I'm a little obsessed with my hair. Perfect gift, lol :)



4) Itty, bitty purse Bible: I'm tired of lugging my 10-pound Black Jesus study bible to church and Bible study. Help a sister out!



5) Any Christmas movie or set...especially this one, lol:



6) I absolutely LOVE this collection, but I don't own it: Langston Hughes's "Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz" (1961)



7) Any kind of funky jewelry, especially nose rings or earrings: Time to dress my head up now; the hair is gone!


If all of this seems unreasonable, wine is also great. Or you can chip in for my next month of asthma medications. Happy holidays. And happy birthday to me :)

Um...Relax.

Since I was trusted to handle small non-digestible objects by my parents all of 25 years ago, I've been a huge Barbie enthusiast. German Barbie never did it for me, but Christie was my girl! Me and her, and eventually Kyra, the east Asian Barbie buddy, became best pals. I never looked at them in all of their size 0, waist-length maned, perfect-skinned glamor and thought any less of myself. Now, with the generation of children witnessing Oscar the Grouch being relegated to a recycle bin and "Veggie Monster" (not our cookie-craving chum) raiding the local garden, there's the complaint that black Barbies are too European featured--their hair too straight, their noses too narrow, etc...things that African American P.C. police have come up with to launch attack on America's beloved lady doll. So now, Mattel responds with this:

http://www.racewire.org/archives/2009/11/barbie.html

Now....the fact that this doll comes with a straightening iron could be a problem. But I feel that black women (and women in general) get a little too riled up on the issue of Barbie. While there is complaint about how black Barbies were just Barbies painted brown, I never had a problem these brown plastic women (aside ...from the fact that all her clothing fit strange) because they looked like someone I'd seen before. For example, the picture they include of "Colored Francine" from 1963 resembles my grandmother's style when I see old pics of her (slim, long straight hair (always too fine for a 'Fro), brown, narrow facial features, etc)

With the complaint for fuller hair and features, black Barbie opponents amongst women of color are failing, as well, to realize that we are all diverse, with varying hair preferences, hair textures, and bone structures. It is due time for a dark and lovely doll with some beautifully curly hair (oh but that's been done by Mattel--Shani, 1990s--I had that doll; did you?), but I don't see why Christie has to go to the wayside because she's not "black enough".

And as a matter of fact, scratch that point about the straightener being a problem. Nowhere in the ad, I'm sure, does it say "Straighten Grace/Trichelle's hair so she can be beautiful/get a job!". It is a CHOICE; she can stay "natural" if the girl who adopts her wants too. That's pretty forward thinking to recognize the VARIETY of beauty present in the black community. I'm done lol

On the subject of stupidity....

Some time ago, I realized that I would never accept any woman who chose to attach herself to my either of my brothers, including my dog. I've been all the wiser for it.

I've even told him verbatim, "Don't bring any of these women around me unless you put a ring on their finger (left-hand, fourth digit)." I meant that sh-- like I've never meant anything else. And I mean everything I say. Unapologetically.

And with that, to the sleazy and easy women of DontDateM-----T----.blogspot.com, I warn specifically of two things: 1) Get some self-respect/self-confidence and accept YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY for foolishness and lack of concern for your own well being, and 2) stop being a groupie sl--.

From Columbus to Ann Arbor to Muskegon, from 1998 to the present date, I mean this with the depths of my soul. My brother is a musician, he has the gift of gab (yes), and he's intelligent and charming and ...etc, whatever you all see in him before you decide that he's come to save your wack a--es. Do realize that, of no excuses, he's also a touring performer, he's a young man with the world ahead of him--a world that includes many different women (including some of you all in the past)--that gives him the opportunity to run freely until he feels it suiting to slow down and pick a life partner. If he didn't choose you, go back in line and wait for the next man picking, since you don't know how to go for self, appreciate your own worth, and find someone who will respect you.

As my boyfriend (as in actual and 6 years and counting--not imagined...or one-night stand...or constant obsession, as some of you all have experienced according to your little blog) stated once, it is time for you ladies to "Get the red mushroom and grow the f--k up". I shouldn't have even heard about your little blog, nor should I have lowered myself to addressing your internet tirades and petty jealousies. I can list names of all of you, but I won't; that would be embarrassing, wouldn't it? Actually, yes, for me; reading your stories and knowing the SOURCE(S) of all of this bunk, you've done enough to embarrass yourselves ;)

With this said, please get a job. Find a hobby. Keep your legs closed. Stop googling him and his lady. And stop googling me for my email....I'm a hacker; I KNOW when I've been searched hacked or "included".

And leave my brother to find his own happiness while you hopefully find your own. Being a vindictive b---- can grow to suck, I imagine.

Peace be with you.

Ummm...

It would be awesome if people stopped googling me. My network tells me these things,...stalking ain't wassup.
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Feeling the Foo Fighters right now...

I'm really <3 ing this song currently....




I’ve got another confession to make
I’m your fool
Everyone’s got their chains to break
Holdin’ you

Would you born to resist or be abused?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Are you gone and onto someone new?

I needed somewhere to hang my head
Without your noose
You gave me something that I didn’t have
But had no use
I was too weak to give in
Too strong to lose
My heart is under arrest again
But I break loose
My head is giving me life or death
But I can’t choose
I swear I’ll never give in
No, I refuse

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
You trust, you must
Confess

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Oh...

ooooh,oh,oh
ooooh,oh,oh
ooooh,oh,oh
ooooh,oh,oh
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
The life, the love
You'd die to heal
The hope that starts
The broken hearts
You trust, you must
Confess

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

I’ve got another confession my friend
I’m no fool
I’m getting tired of starting again
Somewhere new

Would you born to resist or be abused?
I swear I’ll never give in
I refuse

Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?
Has someone taken your faith?
Its real, the pain you feel
You trust, you must
Confess
Is someone getting the best, the best, the best, the best of you?

Keysha's Top 10 Sexy-Flexy Songs

Setting the mood with a special someone? My recommendations, with brief notes....

1) "I Want You" - Marvin Gaye

Nothing or no one says sexy quite like Marvin Gaye did. "Let's Get It On" and "Sexual Healing" are obvious choices, but this one says it all.

2) "Juicy Fruit" - Mtume

A theme for chocolate lovers everywhere, lol.

3) "Time of the Season" - The Zombies

One of my favorites hippy jams. Be honest, if a guy came to you with this song (albeit in the 1960s-70s) you'd be all over it, lol.

4) "Closer" - Nine Inch Nails

Just listen to it if you haven't. It's a special, animalistic kind of sexy.

5) "Stars" by Kindred the Family Soul

Commitment is sexy. Period.

6) "All the Things" by Joe / "Not Like This" by Calvin Richardson

Woman-stealers!! But their bravado and confidence in their snatchability comes through extra sexy in these songs. G'won then, boy. G'won then.

7) "Can U Handle It?" By Usher

I like a challenge.

8) "Soul Sista" by Bilal

Brings out the "earthy ho" in me, lmao.

9) "So Far To Go" by Common

The Dilla "Shining" version. I like.

10) "At Last" by Etta James

If this song doesn't get you in the mood for love, you may be emotionally dead. I'm just saying.
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Because I stalk doggies...

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Naked truth...

What colors would you have for your wedding? What flowers?

What would your song be?
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Polar Bath!!

A random scene we witnessed while at the Detroit Zoo last Saturday...

Baking Cakes!

Adrian's 25th birthday cake, as made and conceptualized by me and painted (with chocolate and frosting) by my sister Miah, the resident artist. The yellow coat and his eyes and the donuts are made of marshmallow fondant. Yum!
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Things That Make Me Happy in WestMass---My "Chocolate Drops!"

L to R: Fierce, Fancy, Fabulous, and Feisty on our Boston excursion

I wish I could take them everywhere with me. I knew each one of them from separate walks in my Amherst life. However when we all came together, the sparks just flew. I LOVE Y'ALL!! :)

Now, if I could only get Miah, Shardonay, and Jackie to Amherst, we could be like the Justice League...but hotter, funnier, and chocolatier. Lol!
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Blankie Making!!

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Lovers

It doesn't matter where you've been or what you're doing, but where you're going and coming. This mallard had the good sense to go back home at the end of the day.

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Dear friend,

There are good days and there are those bad ones. This wasn't one of the best. No reason; just because...

People say my face is easy to read; illiteracy must be running rampant recently. Actions should speak louder than words, though my laughter may seem indecipherable. I'm not emo, just emotional. Today.
I couldn't begin to tell you why, but I can tell you how it feels. The mind is no place to dwell for the lonely at heart; a lot of people don't understand the pull of this vital "organ". Regardless of what you may think, its feel reigns supreme. "Lonely at heart" is no representation of loneliness itself, for that I am not. But there is a disconnect I feel between my self and my world...that is beyond my words.

Then it begins, the little things you've never noticed, like the way my right foot caresses my left when I'm moved beyond words (usually to tears) or the constant changing of things to hold my attention (or yours) or the writing...

And it all may have nothing to do with you. Maybe I'm just writing because I knew you'd read it.


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Moo Moo goes fishing...

A little piece of home.
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Why my dog is the "ish"

He checks his Facebook all by himself.
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Things that make me happy in WestMass...Lake Wyola

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It Begins! A Black Power Summer....

( Prepping for the Prospectus and Dissertation, Spring 2010)

If you know me, then you know I like to have my ducks in a row before I do anything. ANYTHING. That doesn't inhibit my absolutely charming randomness, but I like my shit to be tight at the end of the day, careerwise.

Anywho, here are some books I'll be working my way through this summer:

Secondary Works:

1) "New Thoughts on the Black Arts Movement", Lisa Collins and Margo Crawford (Dr. Crawford is awesome!)
2) "The Black Arts Movement," James Smethurst. (Smethurst rocks!)
3) "Wrestling With the Muse," Melba Boyd (Amazing woman and mentor)
4) "Waiting 'Til the Midnight Hour", Peniel E. Joseph (Nice guy)
5) "After Mecca", Cheryl Clarke (Brilliant)
6) "Black Power", Jeffrey Ogbar

As you can see from many of the above descriptions, I have a lot to live up to :-)

Primary Sources:

1) "Black Power", Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton
2) Collected/Selected poetry of Nikki Giovanni, Sonia Sanchez, Don L. Lee, Amiri Baraka, Jayne Cortez, Larry Neal, Gwendolyn Brooks, and others
3) "Rebellion or Revolution?" Harold Cruse
4) "Black Fire", Amiri Baraka and Larry Neal
5) "The Black Woman", Toni Cade Bambara
6) "Soledad Brother", George Jackson
7) "Revolutionary Suicide", Huey Newton
8) "The Wretched of the Earth" and "Black Skin, White Masks", Frantz Fanon
9) "White Man, Listen!", Richard Wright

...The list continues...I'll try to post some book reviews. If you all have any suggestions, hook it up!!

Until then, I'll continue to complain about Amherst, which currently smells of hot-ass cow.

Later.
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What I did on my last day as a second-year graduate student....

1) Finished final paper for Politics in Haiti and Cuba class @ 5:10am
2) Woke @ 10:15am
3) Rode to Connecticut with a friend to meet our girl at the airport and do lunch @ a Cracker Barrel, noon-3pm
4) Turned in my final paper @ 4:30pm
5) Graded student papers @ 5:30pm
6) Called Adrian to cheer him up @ 6:30pm
7) Bought books in celebration of my freedom!
8) Dinner with Nicole @ 7:30pm
9) Bed...

Feels like I'll sleep tonight for every hour I lost over the past nine months of teaching and learning.

This feels good.
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This is how lame Amherst is:

Really? And this is at a children's toy store. What kid wants to play this?

Lamer than this would be the depressingly white girl, surrounded by her white friends, wearing a shirt, with an Afro-ed sister on it, that read:

"The Only Cool Girls...Are Black"

Get me out of here. Please

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In the midst of this DEPLORABLE paper...

I discovered something interesting about Cuban hip-hop. It, like hip hop movement in several other world circles of youth, drew it's influence from African-American artists in the late 1980s and the 1990s. However, this Cuban music also had the musical influences of salsa, son, timba and other Afro-Cuban melodical forms to add to its art and relevance to the Cuban youth.

Like its American brother, Cuban rap, at times, also serves a political function, as Sujatha Fernandes writes, giving a voice to voiceless black youth in a post revolution/"post-race" Cuba. But a major difference between our rap and theirs comes from the distinction between what is underground and what is commercial.

While "underground" implies a revolutionary tinge and "commercial" obviously emphasizes material gain and wealth, the cultural outsider to Cuban rap would be surprised at which form would be more meaningful to black Cubans. Cuban underground rap, Fernandes writes, is often more likely to fall into the fold of "revolutionary" art, that is, art that does not emphasize racial disparity - after all, Cuba is the only nation more "post-race" than the United States (my nose just grew 5 inches) - nor challenge the socialist government. On the other hand, in the midst of socialism and what some see as economic deprivation, Cuban commercial rap presses the need for poor black Cuban youth - typically composing the highest numbers of the unemployed - to hustle in order to make ends meet. There's no chance for conspicuous consumption, because as one rapper notes commercial and underground are all the same in Cuba because there is no market.

What a tangled web we weave...

Still reading.
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Blogging instead of doing a final=FAIL!

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An Introduction

Aside from the people, .....

I HATE IT HERE.

Amherst is just one of those places that you don't go for any extended period of time. For a summer? Sweet. A weekend? Even better. A month? Doable. Any length of time longer than a month is just pushing it.

Several factors may contribute to my disillusionment with this area. I'll just begin with one.

I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan - one of the blackest cities in America, purposely. The white flight of the 1950s-1970s basically robbed me and my generation of any real meaningful interactions with middle-class white Americans and those ethnic/"racial" others that they let into their fold. Unless we crossed 8 Mile Rd., or drove west on Michigan Avenue long enough to be engulfed in suburban whiteness, my family and I (outside of my parents working) had little to do with any groups of people outside of city limits when I was a kid. I appreciate those interactions with people of different ethnicities because, with prime-time television and local news outlets telling you, an impressionable 10-year-old, or what have you, that all non-black people fear and hate you and here's why.... , those real-life instances with diverse connections across cultural and imagined racial lines gave me a chance to learn about and love people unlike me and more importantly correct and be corrected about false assumptions about race.

Amherst is a different story.

This place touts itself on diversity and liberal politics and, most importantly, "tolerance" - the worst kind of 'ism (though it grammatically isn't an "ism", it is). Everyone here protests something, even if they have no clue about the people, thing, or concept that they are protesting for. It seems to be the "en vogue" thing to do. And it is not always just white people here - though, since people of color make up less than 10 percent of the population, it almost always is. Do not get me wrong: I love when people are willing to learn about other cultures and jump in whole-heartedly to explore what it means to be a part of someone else's world. I love genuine interest and diversity of thought, habit, and interaction from people who are shaped by their environments. Voyeurs and posers, however, piss me off. People who rock dashikis, lock (not "dread") their hair, are regulars at salsa and reggae nights, learn how to play the talking drum, rock the mic from time to time at the local hip hop shows and still, STILL have the nerve at the slightest opportunity to call out "you people" (of color, not always black) for simply being. More than once have I observed or heard first-hand the instance of "tolerance" being tested by a simply suspected person of color by a "liberal" white person here. First and foremost, the concept of "tolerance" implies inadequacy of the group being tolerated. So, though these people are interested in dressing as I dress, embracing the cultures of my African, Latino, Hispanic, and Afro-American brothers and sisters, and dancing as we dance, we are still just to be tolerated?

Get the fuck out of here.

Amherst has the potential to be a great place to raise a family and have a quiet, prosperous life - if you can overlook all the bullshit. Detroit has its issues - major issues - but everything is out in the open, has been for more than half a century. Amherst is in denial. The Jason Vassell case and the local reactions to it speak volumes to that point: . When this place gets over itself, maybe I'll get over being here.


Until next time....