"Happily Ever After..."

Disney fucked me up.

Well...not just Disney, but fairytales in general. They fucked up my generation.

Besides them teaching girls to look past the physical and accept a man for who he is - despite whatever he did to deserve his consequence (ex. Beauty & the Beast), and teaching boys that they will always get or deserve the pretty princess in the end, there is this matter of the "Happily Ever After..."

It's not that I believe a Happily Ever After is not achievable. What I do believe is that we have completely romanticized the idea of what it really consists of...

We have this notion that "Happily Ever After" is supposed to be our favorite meal and our favorite outfit with the love of our life and our perfect kids all living our perfect lives with Kanye's "Good Life" as the soundtrack day in and day out.

Nah, fam.

It's more like leftovers paired with these-are-the-only-clothes-I-have-that-have-been-washed plus I-guess-I'll-tolerate-this-asshole-for-a-little-while-longer with an infinite playlist of church songs or positive music playing in the background that kicks off with Hezekiah's "I Need You to Survive" or Kendrick's "It's Gone Be Alright."

Yeah.

That.

THAT is what "Happily Ever After" really is. It's being on the spectrum of alright. It does not mean that every day is perfect or happy. It means that we are in a place where we can appreciate the good things that DO occur, even if they seem to happen less often than they did at the apex of alright.

Yeah... 

That.

"Colorblind"

"I DON'T SEE COLOR" - self-proclaimed non-racist white person's proverb.

This phrase bothers me SO MUCH.
Maybe because it's an enigma. I don't understand how a person can not see color. Even the vast majority of medically colorblind people can distinguish between colors on a limited spectrum.

Although I believe most people that use the colorblind phrase say it from a "good" place - implying that they treat everyone the same - it really serves no benefit to anyone other than the on-looker to white-wash everyone. To not see color is to disregard the race/ethnicity of the people you interact with. How incredibly problematic. It translates to, "I can only respect wholly people that look like me."

Unfortunately, I only saw the world in black-and-white for a majority of my life. Growing up in rural Mississippi, I wasn't exposed to much ethnic diversity (socioeconomic, either, but another story for another day). My high school graduating class was almost exactly 50% white and 50% black, so maybe what bothers me is when I see some of the people from my hometown say this.

The kicker
We had black and white homecoming maids.
We had black and white class favorites. The ballots were divided in to white boys, white girls, black boys, black girls
Our proms were segregated.

They did not integrate prom at my high school until 2007.

No BS. This was really going on. I graduated in 2004. When I tell friends about my high school experiences, it sounds more like I graduated in 1964.

People were discussing the after effects of Jim Crow while we were still fucking living it! Amazing!

How could someone that I attended this high school with not see the clearly demarcated racial lines drawn between us?

Granted, I saw them then, but not as boldly as I do now. How could the school system allow such atrocities to take place unless they WANTED it. There were forces at work that my adolescent brain could not comprehend until now. I knew that it wasn't right, but it was our norm.

*aside: These "forces" are the reason I believe #JonathanSanders - an unarmed black man that was choked to death by a white police officer in my home county - will not recieve the justice he deserves. I encourage you to read his story*

We were being conditioned to see "Separate, But Equal" as okay. Everything back then was categorized:

"You're my best WHITE friend"

"He hoops pretty good for a WHITE boy"

"She's smart for a BLACK girl"

"BLACK guys don't dress like that"

etc.. 

Beyond thankful to get out and become slightly cultured. To this day, I still want to divide and categorize races, but now that I'm cognizant of it, I attempt to do a better job of not doing so.

The whole "I don't see color" thing makes me think of one line from the Charleston AME mass murderer's manifesto:

"Black people are racially aware almost from birth, but White people on average dont think about race in their daily lives...."

I actually agree. You're less inclined to be aware of something - in this case, race, if it does not negatively affect you or change how you approach certain situations (e.g. being pulled over by a police officer).

Do not choose to be unaware. Acknowledge that you can see race. Embrace what you see. Do not let it affect how you treat them. Maybe then, we can become a nation where people are truly judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin.

I Only Date Superheroes! ....NOT: Mr. Good Shit

I am not a shallow person. I will at least entertain a guy that is not physically "my type."

*cue Mr. Good Shit*

Went to a bar one night during the NBA Finals to watch the game. A guy sat down next to me, ordered his drink, and asked me how the game was going.

"It's kinda fucked up." - me.

He laughed and proceeded with the "Get To Know You" questions: What's your name? Where are you from? What do you do? And so on...

He was in his early-30s (retracted several details) working towards his doctorate.

Nice.

Wasn't my type physically, but you know...don't judge a book.

We exchanged numbers before I left the bar. Went out a couple of times. Had a coffee shop discussion about the state of the world, our young black counterparts, personal histories, and such. 'Twas quite pleasant. *+1 for the ugly dudes*

The next time we went out was to celebrate an award he received in his program. Told him drinks were on me. 

Met at the restaurant. Everything was going well until he randomly interjected into the coversation, "It's been over 45 minutes, and you haven't cursed."

Me: "Oh....? You've been timing it?"

O, how pissed I was! Mostly because he should have stated that he disliked my use of profanity... Partially because when we first met, my first sentence to him included the past tense of "fuck," but he still decided to ask for my number. Out of respect, I would have made a valiant attempt to censor my language.

Whatever the case, I gave him a 5 minute grace period and then went THE. FUCK. IN.

After a few minutes of profanity laced dialogue from me, he made another snarky comment about my language. I ignored it and salvaged the remainder of time we spent together.

The check came...

Yes, I told him the drinks were on me before we went out that day. However, we had ordered food as well. So. The check sat between us for a few awkward moments... Not really certain how long it was. All I do remember is that this man did not make a move toward it at all. He did not acknowledge its presence. I don't think he even flinched.

Let it be known: I had no issues with picking up the check in its entirety. There is something unattractive, however, about a man not attempting to take the initiative to at least offer to cover his part.

I spared him, and paid the check. Closing ramblings followed, along with a departing hug, and a subsequent decline in contact after that date. Our regular conversations dissipated into highly infrequent "Hey, how are you?" texts from one party and a non-response from the other.

Then one day post a "Hey, how are you?" text, he hit me with the "Send me a pic" text. Busy at work that day, I looked down at my phone in mild confusion as to why he wanted a picture of me after all of the random bs we seemed to subject each other to (e.g. my profane language, his broke-ass tendencies). My debate on whether I should send him a picture or not was cut short by my work duties, which ultimately decided for me that this was not the appropriate time.

Two hours after I got off work, he texts me the ellipsis (...); in this case, it stood for "Whassup with that pic tho?"

I resolved to send him a pic from Facebook. We weren't FB friends. It was my profile pic, so obviously I thought I was cute in it.

This negro responds, "Keep going"

Okay... At this point I have confirmed my suspicions that he is hoping for a provocative photo. An intrepid negro, he was. I deflected and told him we could trade a pic for a pic. Seemed fair enough.

He sent me a pic.

The picture highlighted all of the things that made him physically unattractive to me. My eyes cringed.

To save face, I told him it was a nice picture (referring to the megapixels and overall picture quality), and I was sleepy and that we would have to continue another day. Here, "I'm sleepy" served as a euphemism for ".....eww." I just knew this was an acceptable cop-out. I was trying to be as cordial as possible.

BUT NO! This is the response I received:

"Stop playing. I know you got some good shit in yo phone."

*record scratch*

FIRST OF ALL^*

*universal foreward to "reading" a person; the overture to a song you do not want to be the subject of; I had to lean into the computer when I typed this because this section is dedicated to Mr. Good Shit

YOU DID NOT ACKNOWLEDGE THE FIRST PICTURE I SENT YOU. 
The picture I sent you was "good shit," and you failed to compliment or even comment on it. Matter-of-fucking-fact, if we have not had sex and/or are in a relationship, any picture I send you is a good fucking picture as far as you need to be concerned, Mr. Good Shit.
If I send you a picture in a baptismal robe, you need to tell me I look like an angel.
If I send you a picture of me in prison, you need to tell me I would make a cute inmate on OITNB.
If I send you a picture of me in the hospital with an IV in my arm, you need to tell me I look strong and that I'm going to pull through.

WAS THE PICTURE YOU SENT ME YOUR GOOD SHIT???
You shaped like a souffle.
You should be casted as Spongebob in the biopic of his life.
You look like you belong on a pottery wheel.
You look like a loaf of banana bread. Yeast face ass.
And you have the balls and the gall to tell me you know I have some good shit in my phone? Oh okay...
If that was your good shit, you didn't deserve the picture I sent you in the first place.


However, I KNOW I'm not the same venomous bitch I once was because I did not send any of that to him. I simply responded with:


Yes, I do. Good night.



Thank God for growth.
Part of me hopes he reads this blog post, though.

I Only Date Superheroes! ....NOT: The Narcissist (Entry 1)

Ran across this journal about a month ago with a picture of various male Marvel comic book characters centered between the words "I Only Date Superheroes." Being a lightweight comic book fan, I bought it. Then I had this great idea. I can use this journal to document all of the ridiculous encounters I have had with males over the years and rename my journal "I've Only Dated Superassholes!"

I won't blog all of my entries. This is a test-pilot of sorts, to see if my less than savory experiences will at least bring someone else joy.

Oh, and if I've dated you in the past....don't be shocked if you come across a story about you. On the bright side, no one knows I'm referring to you except for you! ;)

I'll spare you the prelude I wrote in my journal and delve directly into my first entry:

The Narcissist

He was tall, dark, and (by several other women's standards) handsome. I mean.....he was aight, I guess. 

His head was rather large. A physical attribute that is undoubtedly a foreshadowing for the single woman that exchanges contact information with him.

We only had one date. It wasn't really a date... More like we were just existing in a room together at the same time. If that's what you want to call a date.

He invited me to his place to watch a Lakers game. RED FLAG NUMBER ONE

Not so much that he invited me to his place for our first chance to truly exist in each other's presence. He was a freaking Lakers' fan! I knew then that this was not going to work.

Against better judgement and as an advocate of my own curiosity, I went anyway.

His house was a complete bachelor's pad. **retracted the details just in case some of yall wimmin have been invited to the house of this same foo**

He offered me Jack and Coke. Of course, I accepted. I would need liquor to get through watching a full Lakers game with a Lakers fan. Thank God and whatever secondary-deity that may or may not exist that I did. Ninety-eight point three percent of Lakers fans are obnoxious. This is a known fact. But this guy didn't piss me off by talking about how great and mighty his team Kobe was.

Ten minutes of unmemorable conversation had passed when he felt the need to show me a picture of him and his friends at an event they had the night before.

That's koo.

"Ya'll looked nice."

Then he showed me again. 

And again.

And more times.

Each subsequent time, he had cropped out one of his friends on each side until only he remained, standing in the middle of all of his glory looking exactly. the fucking. same. as he did the first time he showed me. 

I had never been so annoyed in my life.

Around "Look at this pic now," number 5, I was fiending* to watch the game.
*http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fiending 

Yup. 

Me.

The anti-Laker. Wanted to actually watch the game without having to gaze upon a picture of this muthafucka every 37 seconds.

Oh yea...important fact. There were 10 total people in the picture, at first. And I had to look at each freshly cropped photo.

I stuck it out to the end because back then I was polite (stupid) and figured I wouldn't have to deal with it anymore after he fully gratified himself by being The Uncroppable.

Wrong.

After mutilating that group picture pixel-by-pixel, he apparently became comfortable enough to show me EVEN MORE pictures of himself. I could not take it anymore.

"If you show me one more picture of yourself, I am going to beat your ass. I told you that you looked nice the first time. And again. And again. You look exactly the same! Shit..."

Unlady-like, but effective.

We managed to transition back into more unmemorable conversation after that, and I left with no intentions of ever returning. As I look back on that night, I can only thank God that it was during the pre-selfie era.

Thank you, God.

Black Women Can't Take a Compliment

My title stems from a response to a question posed on Facebook about why it seems like white men and men of other races do not approach black women.
Mind you, all of the responses were from black people either spitting second-hand info on why these men do not approach black women or making assumptions about what these non-black men think. Soooo.....nothing was accomplished.

In a moment of clarity, I realized I hadn't known how to accept a compliment at face value until within the past year or two. And now to ineffectively segue into something completely different than what you inferred this blog would be about:

It would be more appropriate to say I didn't know how to internalize compliments rather than I didn't know how to accept them. (IMO, this is an issue common to women in general.....not solely black women) Accepting the compliment was actually the simple part:

"Thanks! :)"

Afterwards was always weird tho. I'd spend the next few minutes attempting to decipher the nature of the compliment instead of going on with my damn life.

• "Was he/she serious?"
• "What motivated him/her to say it?"
• "Does he like me because he said it?"
• "Was he/she saying it to be funny?"...and a hunnit more questions.

I've probably spent a collective year or two analyzing dumb shit. Too bad they don't award an Associate of Science in Analytical Dumb Shit.

My tendency to over-analyze sometimes attests to my insecurities.
Life experiences breed insecurities.

Growing up as super ultimate tomboy of the world, I gave nil fucks about how I looked. In high school, I started to care a little. Not enough to dress a certain way to fish for those compliments, though. I didn't require them...not as far as looks were concerned, anyway. Being the "pretty girl" wasn't a part of my social identity. I was the token tomboy/nerd at the cool table. I was mommy's future doctor - not her future model. Getting complimented on grades or some sports achievement was all I ever needed.

There are a few different instances that reiterated my role at school was not being the pretty one. I shall spare the details because it sounds a whole helluva lot more depressing saying it out loud than how I perceived it when it happened.

To transition from being thought of by others in that specific mindset to being referred to as some synonym of pretty was quite fucking weird. There would be an "Oh. Okay." moment.

I was especially taken aback when my best male friend who isn't good enough of a friend to CALL anymore labeled me as "sexy" for the first time.

• "Was he serious?"
• "What prompted him to say that?"
• "Is he being funny?"

This was brand new to me. That wasn't how I visualized myself. So hell yea, I had qualms about the statement.

If I wasn't already confused about my perception of myself as well as others perception of me (re-worded: as if I wasn't already lacking confidence), let's throw in the non-compliment of ALL compliments:

"You're cute to be dark-skinned."

Fuck you.

And my other favorite:

"I like your gap. It's cute."

That shit makes me want to make an appointment to Invisalign the fuck outta my teeth tomorrow. Even if the guy is being adamant... I still feel that way.

Though my self-growth was stunted for a while, I went on this self-discovery trip and figured out how to be confident despite my aesthetic - and internal - flaws. It was fucking awesome.

Stop digging for answers to compliments. They're not questions. It's someone acknowledging that they like what they see. 

Nothing more. Nothing less. 

(But fuck that "I like your gap" shit.)

There's nothing more therapeutic than sharing my insecurities with the world wide web. Be blessed!

The Butterfly Effect

Doing this from my phone so please excuse any grammatical errors in advance.

I've come to the conclusion that most negro males undergo a spontaneous metamorphosis from ho-nigga* to husband.
*ho-nigga: lowest form of eukaryotic organisms; an egregiously promiscuous male

There is no trigger (hence the word "spontaneous"). There is no "Aha!" moment. And I apologize, but you women that are convinced your man "changed for me" are WRONG. You may have been present DURING his evolution, but I promise you many-a-good-bitches went through the struggle before your man got to where he is today.

The ho-nigga goes along, performing his day to day ho-nigga activities. He can be found at your local bar/club - his natural habitat - or even at church. He is generally a nocturnal creature that thrives on "pulling bitches."

The more advanced ho-niggas are those that "look good on paper." He has a decent job, a vehicle, an apartment or house, a degree, good hygeine, and other things that look good on a relationship resumé. He has mastered the art of making each of his female friends feel special, to the point where they begin to develop feelings for the ho-nigga and even have thoughts that the better they treat the ho-nigga, the more likely they are to be promoted to being in a real relationship with him.

Quite the contrary! The ho-nigga uses these misconstrued feelings to his advantage. He is able to elicit different things from each of his different females - whether it be fellatio or fitted caps. On average, the ho-nigga fucks over at least 13 good, high-quality women before his metamorphosis occurs.

Then one day, the ho-nigga awakens and says, "Fuck all this shit. I'ma do right by the next female I meet."

And voilá. Magic.

Greek Daze

It's time to enlighten the wannabes on why it is NOT appropriate to proclaim the Black Greek Letter Organization they are GOING to join.

Too often for comfort, I see retweets of chaps (various ages) on Twitta that read, "I'm going to pledge (insert BGLO here)!" followed by slews of angry, verbal torch carrying members of BGLOs Chris Browning the fuck out of that poor chap's mentions.

It makes me feel some type of way.

Age plays a big part in who I think deserves blame. For those children 16 and under, I blame the adult BGLO member(s) in their lives. For those older - particularly those in college - I blame THEM. At that point, they are toofuckingold NOT to know.

Disclosure/discretion:

Believe it or not, there is a legit reason greeks become irate about people publicly saying "I am GOING to be apart of your org."

1. It's haughty to state your future entrance into something that you have to be CHOSEN and seen fit to become a member. There are (let me rephrase...SHOULD be) criteria to meet before joining. At the minimum, there is a GPA requirement, and prospects should be able to bring something to the table to uphold or better the chapter.
Looking at the quantity some of these lines.......some national boards make me wonder if they give a damn about a person's character versus his/her bank account. Fitting segue into numero dos.

2. Let's talk money. Membership is NOT cheap. Many prospects have to scrap to collect the amount necessary to cover membership fees (not to mention other miscellaneous costs, e.g. outfits, shoes). It humbles a muhfucka when they have to wait 3 years to join an organization because they did not have the finances to do it the first time around.

3. There is a PROCESS to undergo. Prospective members spend a significant amount of time learning history of the organization and participating in brother/sister hood building activities. This is time that could very well be spent doing other things. It's a sacrifice.


THE BLAME GAME:

As stated earlier, I blame old heads. Greeks with children, god-children, nieces, nephews, and so on get a kick out of the child repping their org. That's fine...to a point.

It's cute letting your baby set owt your org when they're 7, but don't be surprised when they do the shit for so long that they act like they been crossed the sands when they turn 17*. 
*Fuck yo' legacy

Same thing with auxiliary orgs. Not all, but some BGLO members over auxiliary groups have those children feeling like stepping/party-hopping is the crux of greek life, and being the best stepper in their high school group is going to grant them easy access into the organization.

HELL NO. 

Don't get me wrong. I said I was going to be apart of my org EVERY DAY from the day Spr. 05 probated until I crossed...
In the mirror...
To myself.

Simply out of respect.

But hey....that's just me.