i don’t fully know why

but i’m really having a hard time believing that h-town &; jodeci really made a song together.
even though there’s videographic proof. ::sigh::

in no particular order, i blame the following for this shit here: trey songz, crack rocks, the death of gerald levert, the recession, waffle house, spectacular smith of pretty ricky, bad weed, the prison industrial complex, reaganomics (why the fuck NOT? that’s where crack rocks came from!), autotune, charlie wilson’s comeback (because these fools forgot that they weren’t ever on his level), jahiem (yeah, i said it), the good black man shortage myth, zane, malt liquor, crown fried chicken, fruity loops, & motherfucking blackplanet dot com. i would sue for damages, but as a black woman in america, i’ve learned that my complaints are usually only heard by those who give a damn to begin with. that’d be YOU, blog reader(s). all twelve of you.

& while we’re on former 90’s r&b starruhs, let’s take a gander at what aaron hall is doin w/ himself these days, shall we?

who dresses in their easter best to whisper to dogs?
is he using this $ to buy more suits?
note that there are no black folks letting this man into their homes. why? cuz we KNOW about aaron hall’s fool ass already!
his german sounds like his vietnamese sounds like his farsi sounds like his spanish. i’m just sayin.

now i have to watch coming to america to cleanse my mind. i hope it works.

a colored girl’s love letter.

(i was gonna write a letter to tyler perry, but i’ve decided against it.  for now, anyway.)

so i’ve been thinking about tyler perry being at the helm of this major motion picture adaptation of for colored girls. and i’ve been reading the choreopoem itself over and over again.  and something i’ve come to realize as a result of this development is that when there’s an adaptation of an original work, lots of things get changed and moved around. i think the “pass” he gets is that he’s going to adapt the choreopoem. which means to me that we’re likely to get the storylines of the women, but with some serious redux. since TP’s subject matter almost exclusively involves heavily dysfunctional black women & men, we’re gonna get the essence of crystal and beau willie brown. we’re going to get the concept of the latent rapist bravado piece, but maybe never the idea that it is never the victim’s fault.
it would pain me incessantly to see this choreopoem turned into an episode of jerry springer with a dash of church music thrown in at the end.  it seems that lots of women i know feel the same way — it would be so tragic to see something we love so deeply turned into yet another reason to hear oleta adams’ “many rivers to cross” or mariah carey’s “fly like a bird” in the context of something that really reduces the black woman’s experience to its lowest common denominator.

so i’ve been thinking about that, too. what is this film adaptation going to look like? is it going to follow the same basic archetype as his other films/ plays (emotionally damaged black woman/ women finding redemption after much pain and strife… with a heavy dose of jesus h. christ for upliftment)? according to the ‘dream cast’ article from broadway.com (linked above), the narratives of the ladies will be incorporated into perry’s own script that leads them to ‘the colored girls center’. i, personally, see lots of his tried-and-true storytelling methods. i feel like that’s a really bad idea, given that most of the impact that for colored girls has (in my experience) comes from the very fact that it is a CHOREOPOEM. not a scripted play with a set and huge cast. not a scripted film with a plot. because linear storytelling, though it can be impactful, is not in tune with how most of us reach our epiphanized selves. at the end of the piece, is there not the mantra of “i found god in myself/ and i loved her/ i loved her fiercely”?  what about that? knowing that most of tyler perry’s viewership identifies as christian, are we going to discuss the divine feminine in this movie? i doubt it. so, i’m pissed.  i think it’s apparent from this piece written by stacia on postbourgie that the concern of colored girls fans is very real, and definitely not imagined or overblown.

an idea i’ve wanted to do ever since playing “lady in green” back in my freshman year of college is to do a series of colored girls readings.  it could be really simple. dinner, cocktails, the reading, then a discussion with notes and feedback forms and stuff.

i will do this. in philly, in nyc, in dc . . . where ever.

interested? email me. sechitatgmaildotcom with colored girls dinner party in the subject header.

thanks.

peace.

i’m not really good at this.

naming names, dates, times, events, etc.

i just know that militants are not the same as children playing on rooftops.
i know that if neutral parties are telling us that the news stories lie about casualties, & aid groups can’t get in, then it is not about anything other than massacre.
women & children
robocalls, telling the ppl that hamas has abandoned them . . .

this is all designed to destroy them, and for what?

to assuage the guilt of the rest of the world for standing idly by when camps were built to kill jews en masse?
to spill blood on land that’s meant to be holy? for what?
when they’re all gone, what are you gonna do next? start firing at someone else?
the right to exist has nothing to do with a right to destroy other people. i’m sorry.

like i told bfp the other day, i feel more than i think about it & i daresay you’re a chickenshit if you don’t.
all that academic shit, all the historical citations and shit just give you a reason to be detached from it
because you know you could never sit idly by and watch your children and your neighbors’ children die by the hundreds. because you know, full well, that your comfort would no longer matter if you sent your nine-year-old to the store on an errand and he came back to you only in the pieces discernible from the bits of other folks.

i
don’t
fucking
like
this
shit.

public pressure. if you wouldn’t dare advocate this shit in your own back yard, don’t advocate it in someone else’s.
all i want to do is scream because at the end of the day, this is about fighting over land that’s important to everyone & really belongs to no one at all.

get into this: links 05 january 2009

first, cara @ the curvature’s series on yoko ono.
part 1
part 2
part 3

i haven’t yet read the whole series, but i’m loving part 1 so far. cara also has generally outstanding feminist analyses of all kinds of stuff, & i really appreciate her writing.

next up: lauren @ faux real has an awesome chicken pot pie recipe! with a few tweaks, this could be adjusted to meet almost any dietary need. om nom nom.

my first exposure to “barack the magic negro,” via karas @ postbourgie.

the latest from the ever hilarious boondocks bootleg team, on youtube: black jesus is the cure. (this shit is funny. if you don’t laugh, i think something’s wrong with you. period.)

omi drops yet another gem.

a discussion overdue.

may these links fuel your thoughts & push you someplace new.

my slap a motherfucker button is being pressed.

hard. because of this.

“i’m afraid if he wins, the blacks will take over.”
really?
word?

you think “we” (like every black person is secretly united against your white asses and anyone who could possibly undermine our goals of world domination via newports and malt liquor) are waiting with baited breath for obama to win so we can come out in droves to destroy your pure christian nation of amber waves of grain and virgins? like, the second the inauguration ceremony ends, this man decides to paint the white house black for real? is he gonna pass a mandate that the new endangered species is listed as the educated black man? the fbi’s ten most wanted list is changed to list folks who owe barack and/ or michele obama over 500 USD? are the darkies gonna take to the streets in celebratory dance like the big liberation scene in the wiz? oh, waaaaaaaaaaaiiiit. i know now: the bald eagles will all be caught and deep-fried like so many thanksgiving turkeys, then served on the lawn of the white house on paper plates w/ ronald reagan’s coffin as a table. it’ll be the takeover dinner.

“the blacks” are as varied in opinion as “the whites,” “the latinos,” and every other group in american society. some of us are for him. some of us are against him. others are undecided or not voting for either of the big-party candidates. ridiculous. dry that shit up. secondly, a good number of “us” are not thinking about you in middle america. we, like you, have normal and everyday concerns: bills, food, family, jobs, etc. i hate to even discuss my similarities to such simpletons, but we’re all having very human experiences right now. nobody has any fucking money. you’re worried about ppl who look like me taking over this country? booboo kitty, people who look like you have not been doing a bang-up job, i don’t know if you’ve noticed. the system doesn’t effing work — who gives a hot wet fuck what color the top dog is or isn’t? would the sheer pride of seeing “one of us” in the white house automatically mobilize ppl who identify as black in such a way that we decided to just magically pull it all together and start . . . doing what?
what does ‘taking over’ even entail?
exactly.
simple asses.

and i won’t address the “muslim thing.”
i refuse to discuss what seems to be the prevailing anti-obama (or decidedly anti-democrat, possibly even anti-black) song & dance: these niggers got student loans and took too long paying them back! um, i’m sorry — i had one loan and that was because i quit school after a year and a half. do you know how long it took me to pay it off? about 3 years, and i didn’t even go to the ever-expensive harvard or yale. this is so dumb. are those who criticize michelle and/ or barack obama aware that the FAFSA is for everyone? are they aware that havard’s law school site itself discusses the extension of loan repayment for graduates who do not go into six-figure jobs straightaway? come on. this is just plain ridiculous.

i won’t dedicate much more time to this, as i need to go to bed.

but i genuinely do hope that the scales begin to fall from folks’ eyes. if not immediately or in time for election day, then soon enough that they are able to save themselves from the madness that has engulfed this land.

but what do i know?
i’m just polishing my illegally obtained gun so i can “take over” on inauguration day.

do not look a gift horse in the mouth

do not look a gift horse in the mouth
do not . . .

fuck that
these white ppl who live somewhere in my building or the building next door (same landlord, same big ass back yard) decided they wanted to celebrate the full moon this morning
. . . at 5
before sunrise
by climbing up and down the fire escape with beer and food and shit

why the fuck are you thisclose to my bedroom window
yelling “yoooo” to your friend
like it’s 5 pm
like you’re the only motherfuckers who live here
like nobody matters except you

fuck you
fuck your over privileged, bratty sense of entitlement
i called the landlord
i hope he tells you to stay your ass off the fire escape up here unless there’s a fire, especially since you do not live on my floor
fuck you
fuck you
fuck you
i hope you fall and break your leg or drop your iphone
or get locked out of the building and nobody comes to help you and you get stuck out back w/ the gangs of raccoons and possums who dominate the trash cans in this part of the city

*exhale*

i prayed for this apartment
i work hard to keep my rent paid
i just took a serious blow financially trying to get in this joint
i will not allow some inconsiderate dickhead white boys to fuck it up for me
i’m (totally not) sorry
but i gotta pull your coattails on this one
it is not okay to abuse the amenities of this property
not as long as you have neighbors like me
and the next time you have a loud balcony party i’m gonna let the cops into the yard
cuz thursday nights are not the same thing as friday nights. dickheads.

this morning’s rant was brought to you by our sponsors, the full harvest moon, the impending autumnal equinox, and fela kuti’s “water no get enemy.”

file this one under f.

for massive fail as well as fuckery deluxe.

no.

nkotb & new edition? i quit. just cuz they’re from boston and maurice starr managed them, it doesn’t mean this shit needed to happen. it’s painful. noooooooo, lawd, WHY?

on: r. kelly, demons, black folk, and gordon gartrell radio.

1) omi gave me the impetus.
2) phonte drove it home here. among other gems, he said ‘the same power structure that says cops can put 50 bullets in a nigga is the same one that tells entertainers it’s okay to piss on lil black girls.’ YUP.
3) that motherfucker is guilty any time his damn attorney offers the ‘little man’ defense as what’s supposed to be a legit means of proving innocence.
4) i’m glad this has actually made it to trial. really.
5) anyone who puts the fault on that little girl would probably have let the motherfucker pee on their grown asses. being in awe of celebrity, being impressionable, and being just plain uninformed of one’s own power are not exclusive to kids.
6) in the first episode of the boondocks, huey asked tom dubois ‘do you know the extent to which niggas love r. kelly?’ and at this point in time i can say: the love was underestimated. it seems like ppl are looking for reasons for it to be okay. it ain’t.
7) i don’t think white ppl give a damn about it. and probably wouldn’t unless it was a white girl he’d peed on. see: kobe.
we can’t forget aaliyah. we can’t.
9) the whole trial appears to be a zoo. not a sex zoo. just a regular ass, dysfunction-on-parade zoo.
10) most ppl who talk so much about sex and god (and rarely have subject matter that deviates from either) are mentally damaged. see: bizzy bone, marvin gaye (AND his daddy, i’m sure).

ain’t this some shit?

(fyi — if you want a tour of the hood, you don’t even have to fly to rio for me to take you on a few. philly’s got plenty for your perusal.)

Firm in trouble for slum tour with a twist

RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) – A Rio de Janeiro tour company could be in trouble for giving tourists too intimate a view of life in the city’s notorious slums, including photo opportunities with drug gang leaders.

The Brazilian city’s tourism chief said on Monday that the company, Private Tours, could be stripped of its license after a report in Sunday’s Folha de Sao Paulo newspaper that it had set up meetings between traffickers and tourists.

The paper sent a reporter disguised as a foreign tourist on the 4-hour, $55 tour of Rocinha, the city’s largest slum, that included visits to the “bocas de fumo” where traffickers sell drugs to Rio residents.

It said the traffickers told the tourists stories about their time in prison, described the life of a Rio drug dealer, and would then pose for pictures with their guns — as long as their faces were not photographed.

Rio tourism chief Rubem Medina said the firm could lose its license if the story was accurate.

“It’s not necessary to do this kind of tour in Rio; there are a lot of wonderful attractions,” he told Reuters.

Pedro Novak of the Private Tours firm acknowledged that he ran that kind of tour but that “I’m not the only one.”

Several companies have for years offered tours of the city’s more than 600 slums, offering tourists a controversial alternative to the city’s beaches and an insight into the lives of the more than 1 million people who live there.

The slums, or favelas, are largely controlled by heavily armed drug gangs with names such as “Red Command” and “Friends of Friends” that fight each other for control of the lucrative cocaine market.

(Reporting by Stuart Grudgings; Editing by Todd Benson and Vicki Allen)

i’m confused.

at first, i thought that there’d only be snippets of nas’ assertion that everyone in this country now qualifies as the n-word. but i found a video clip!

& yeah, i can more or less see his argument — particularly in post 9/11 america. the way the government watches us, the way our info is sold & tracked. i totally get that. none of us is safe; each of us is victimized. it may not be fire hoses & dogs, but there’s always something.

but yo.
that thing about black peoples’ right to vote expiring? last i heard it wasn’t true. there’s at least one statement from the department of justice that clarifies what the voting rights act is all about. i don’t know where that ish comes from, but if it comes from the same places that those damn “pass this on to heal little melanie’s eyebrow cancer” emails, then i’m gonna be disappointed in nas as a grown person. grown ppl tend to check facts before they start running off at the mouth about things like that. if someone can find me something to back up what he’s talking about, i’ll appreciate it. in the meantime, i think it’s another bullshit urban legend.

i don’t knock the john lennon reference, kelis . . . but i still, for some reason, want you to shut the fuck up. i can’t explain it. i used to like kelis a lot. but since her second album went unreleased in the states & her third only had one hit (milkshake, y’all) i feel kinda like she dumbed herself down in the name of making herself ‘relevant’ to the ppl who’d buy her shit: teenagers. bad move. but that’s another post for another time.

no way.

70 degrees in january?
you’re playin. i must be dreamin. lord have mercy, it was simply glorious out today!

of course i was out until almost 10 pm.
of course i took a cab home ($11 well spent!)
& of course . . . i’m still up. frontin like i don’t have a 10+ hour day at work tomorrow.

but i had to be thankful for the weather. i had to share that. i’m so rejuvenated by it, even if it is dark at 5 pm every day.

if snitches get stitches, then sew me up.

megan meier didn’t deserve this. i don’t care what happened between two kids — if a parent gets involved, it should be to end the drama. not turn it into some torturefest that ends in suicide.
i applaud the (anonymous) mother who told the truth.

outside of that, i’ve nothing to say, really, except this:

rest in peace, megan.

out of pocket in atlanta: shawntae harris.

hitting people upside the head with bottles of rum? really?

the most organized thoughts i could immediately muster about such a report are best reflected by miss jalylah burrell in this post on she real cool (i still wish i’d been clever enough to conceive of such a blog title, even after 2 years of reading). a quote:

Simplemindeness leads too many to believe that certain bodies are immune from perpetuating isms. People of Color, Women and/or LGBTQ’s identities do not endow them with progressiveness and sometime they can be as vigilant as the mainstream in instilling perpetuating and maintaining the strictures that incongruously tightly circumscribe their lives.

by virtue of that same simplemindedness (as it belongs to others, not so much this writer), i think she makes black lesbians look bad. if you’re the only reference point that some folks have for an entire group of people, you are an ambassador, whether your ass wishes to be or not. people are stupid. just like being the only black person around will get you some bullshit in all-white “liberal” or “inquisitive”circles, being the only lesbian (particularly around some strongly heterosexist, queerphobic black folks) will get you some bullshit. there’s a culture of exclusion among black folk as is, incidents like this (whether largely publicized or not) seem to be the carte blanche that these closed-minded folks need in order to justify hate. the same way black men in hoodies, timbs, the “wrong” sneakers/ jeans combo, etc. aren’t allowed into certain night spots because of what someone “dressed similarly” may or may not have fucking done in that same night spot or a different one. i’m not justifying acts of exclusion, but i definitely see that side of those behaviors. if you’re an inside-the-box thinker, what else are you gonna think? “she’s a lesbian, she’s black, she’s kinda butchy so i guess i can expect that from kinda butchy black lesbians.” thinking in a line is dangerous. even when the linear thinking is based on lies & exaggerations. call me crazy, but that’s just what i think. people are that dumb, unfortunately. sometimes, we give others ammunition through our convoluted, negative behaviors. i don’t feel like it’s okay to assume that one person should represent all folks who can be classified in that group (at the same time, i’m not terribly keen on identity politics & classifying folks in the first place) . . . but i guess my disturbance is that behavior like this certainly doesn’t help anyone who struggles for the rights of a group — black folks, women, the LBGTQ community, poor folks, etc.

doesn’t she have any kind of fucking home training? you just hit motherfuckers in the head with bottles of booze (that i presume she paid for, cuz who the fuck is giving her irrelevant-to-current-music ass any freebies?) when you have a problem with them? from what i read in jalylah’s blog, & other random bits of celebrity gossip/ news i’ve heard she’s got some stunted social growth/ anger management/ alcohol consumption issues. to paraphrase katt williams, if folks say the same exact shit about you for 20 years, it’s true. that is, her behavior from what i’ve observed/ heard is congruent w/ someone who has some issues they need to work out. homegirl needs to put the bottle down for more reason than one, i’m willing to bet. no matter what someone says or does to you (short of threatening your life with action or words), you as a grown ass person probably need to learn to walk away. & you definitely don’t come at them after the fact to assault them. fuck that. unfortunately, it’s not even really about home training. she might not have ever adhered to anything her caregiver(s) ever taught her. sad, but true.

maybe i hold women to a higher standard. maybe i hold black folks to a higher standard, & therefore lean on black women extra hard. but ultimately, this incident is so telling! it says so much about the way we internalize the colonization of ourselves & our ancestors. if she makes you mad, hit her. if she rebuffs your advances, she’s a worthless/ good-for-nothing/ funny looking/ tacky whore/ bitch/ skag/ heifer/ ho . . . & if she dare speak back, show her who’s boss. this is something i’ve seen from butch lesbians as much as i’ve seen it from hetero-identifying men. i don’t give a fuck, anyone who feeds into the gender constructs (regardless of biological sex) is susceptible to the comfort of what being a man or woman will get you in this society. maybe that doesn’t make sense . . . what i’m speaking on is what i’ve observed with my own eyes, what i’ve felt in my heart of hearts. there are women running around here thinking they can play the part better than a bio male can within the same social constructs, & that is dangerous. not because i believe gender roles are static, but because in this place we call america those gender roles are rife with oppression. because they are misleading & create a space wherein domestic abuse is okay, wherein it’s okay to dominate your partner simply because it’s what’s “supposed to happen.” carrying around & perpetuating the fucked up attitudes/ behaviors that you’ve been exposed to isn’t suddenly made okay if you’re not in a heterosexual romantic relationship. sorry. essentially, mistreatment of another human being is supposed to be wrong all of the time.
*sigh*
i lost my train of thought. but i think that’s enough for now.

i’m expecting someone who doesn’t respect my stance to come attack me in the comments box . . . because i’m supposed to forgive her class status (before becoming a wealthy/ famous rapper), blame hip hop for her acting like that, & give her a pass because i’m a queer black woman myself.

right.

oh, hell no.

wtf?

i’m kinda, like… flabbergasted.

please feel free to engage me in discourse in the comments, okay?

there is so much wrong here. so much.

it goes deeper than

just hating one’s job. sometimes, the job manifests its destructive nature in how employees are treated. this post from yearning mice on fire more than explains the indoctrination that large companies (& even government entities, like the one where i work) drill into the heads of their employees. there’s a comply-or-die attitude that lots of employers seem to have. i’ve seen it everywhere from retail/ food service to non-profit environs.

this reflects exactly how i feel about the job i have now. really.

thanks to tenacious one for posting the link on her blog. (i’m digesting that transpolitics post. good GODDESS, it made my brain tingle!)