The Wild Tangent August 4, 2009

So, I broke down and watched The Hot Mess of Hotlan Real Housewives of Atlanta.  I wanted fights and beat-downs and shenanigans.  The show is what it is, so of course there was some ghetto in it, but I wanted fireworks.  I was slightly disappointed…until the last eight minutes!  Nectar from the hood gods.  There’s a ghetto heaven and it has a candy lady and somebody’s cousin braiding hair on the porch.

This morning, while chatting with my boss about the most talked about five minutes of last night’s episode (Sheree’s run in with the party planner for those who don’t know), he said, “I wonder how much of that is staged?”  Now, in all fairness, I consider 90% of reality TV staged, and that’s being generous.  Part of the reason I avoid most of it is simple:  Reality TV distorts reality.  Unfortunately, even if that scene was 100% scripted, we also know that it is 150% plausible.

Black people, show of hands, how many times have you had an incredibly similar experience.  How many times have you had an unnecessarily combative encounter with a black person in a supposedly professional setting. At a time where we argue whether or not we are in a post-racial society, nothing speaks more to the progress that still needs to be made more than black folks dealing with other black folks.

Over a year ago, my most esteemed colleague blogged about the challenges faced by his own wife in her professional environment, and all I could do was nod my head, sip my coffee and give the Sista Girl “Mmmm Hmmm.”  I’m going to say something that is hard for some of you to hear.  As a black woman in a professional environment, I am subject to harassment for no reason other than the fact that I am a black woman in a professional environment.  I believe that it is hard for some of you to hear, because it’s hard for ME to type it.  And this harasssment is almost invariably at the hands of the men I consider brothers.

Basing it on personal experience alone, there is a certain type of brother (NOT ALL) that will get in “just us black folks” mode, and make you wish you didn’t know them.  There was an occasion where my boss (white) and I were having a conversation with a coworker who is a black man (we’ll call him “Grumbles”).  While my boss was there, he was pleasant and charming and pronounced all of his “eeeee’s and arrah’s.” The tone was pleasant, amiable, and had all of that “we should be working but to hell with it” camaraderie that you need from time to time to break up the work day.

My boss went into her office and the brother hung around.  He got glassy eyed and talked about how attractive and nice she is (both facts) and how he would love to take her out to dinner, get to know her outside of the work environment, etc.   I told him that if he thought she would be responsive, he should ask her.  He then asked if that’s how it works with me, and I told him yes, if I’m interested in a guy, then I would want him to ask me out.  He then got this lecherous look on his face and said, “So what if I asked you what color panties you had on?”  He got the gas face, and I busied myself with work.  Undeterred, he said that I should make it a point to visit his place.

Now, I enjoy a cordial relationship with almost all of my coworkers, but I had long since dismissed this dude as lame.  I’m not a fan of workplace dating in general, and this cat was definitely did not inspire the desire to break that rule.  My boss gets crab cakes and stimulating conversation.  I get “what that thang smell like,” and a booty call coupon.  Pass.

I believe I would have taken it personally if he did not have a reputation of mishandling all of the sisters in our office.  I’ve even witnessed a certain degree of familiarity with a sister who actually ranks higher than my bosss, that he would never have expressed to one of her white counterparts.

Don’t get it twisted and think it’s an “us v. them” mentality when it comes to white women.  My boss had NOTHING to do with his inappropriate behavior.  I understand that black men feel that when around black women, they do not have to be “on alert” and to an extent, that’s fine.  But for those that cross the line into disrespect, there’s another issue entirely.

And why don’t we tell?  Guys make the rules, so you can’t believe that the proces of subverting the “boys will be boys” mentality will be made easy.  We face the typical stigma faced by all marginalized people (in this case, women) who speak out against ill-treatment.  But as black women, as we have made strides professionally, so has the notion of “The Angry Sista.”  So we have the additional potential of being charged with keeping a brother down or suffering from the “crabs-in-a-barrel” mentality.

So my question is, how can expect for others to respect us, to not profile us, to not aarrest us in our homes, if we can’t be respectful amongst ourselves.  I’m not going to address all of the issues, because we know it goes both ways, but we’ll start here:  Talk to a sister in the work force that you respect; your mother, your sister, a church member.  You’ll be surprised to find that she more likely than not contends with a similar situtaion.  So for the brothers who respect their sisters, thank you from the bottom of my heart.  For the ones of you that are caught up trying to prove something by being knuckleheads:

THE BLACK WOMEN AT YOUR JOB ARE NOT YOUR CONCUBINES!

Thank you.

*drops the mic*

The Me I Keep July 21, 2009

Moreover, I have boundary issues with men.  Or maybe that’s not fair to say.  To have issues with boundaries, one must have boundaries in the first place, right?  But I disappear into the person I love.  I am the permeable membrane.  If I love you, you can have everything.  You can have my time, my devotion, my ass, my money, my family,  my dog, my dog’s money, my dog’s time — everything.  If I love you, I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts (in every definition of the word), I will protect you from your own insecurity, I will project upon you all sorts of good qualities that you have never actually cultivated in yourself and I will buy Christmas presents for your entire family.  I will give you the sun and the rain, and if they are not available, I will give you a sun check and a rain check.  I will give you all this and more, until I get so exhausted and depleted that the only way I can recover my energy is by becoming infatuated with someone else.

– Elizabeth Gilbert - eat, pray, love

The first time I read that, I cried until I curled in a ball.  I cried because this skinny white girl, whom I had never met – who, at first glance, I couldn’t imagine that she wore the same KIND of shoes as I, much less walked a mile in them – summarized my personality (and ergo, my dilemma) to a tee.  And the thing is, I’m not just like that romantically; with family, with friends, with homeless people on the street.  I’ve been known to give a person the sandwich out of my hand, the drink out of my cup, 50 cents of the last dollar in my purse, the earrings out of my ear, the shoes in my trunk…anything.  You need a ride from West Bumblefuck because your man decided to show out in public, I’ll pick you up and peel off when he decides to try to punch my window in.  (True story:  Big Pimpin – RIP – jumped the neutral ground; or median for you non-New Orleanians).   If I have it to give, it’s yours, because the truth in my life is that I’ve always been blessed with more.  And I don’t like being without, and I can’t stand to see others being without.  And when it’s gone, it’s gone (because nothing is endless), but I do my damndest to make more; more food, more money, more time.

More love.  There’s always more love.  And my love is a geyser.  And I’m boundlessly optimistic.  Loving you, is enough for me to decide that you are worthy.  Until you prove yourself unworthy, I put a pit-bull lock jaw hold on that feeling.  I’m not going to dismiss you based on what the last cat did, because the last cat is history and you are so now.  And I’m not going to let you wonder if I love you, because who knows if there will even be a tomorrow, so you have to know today…RIGHT NOW.  And, really, in real time, I guess it seems like a good idea, but on paper, it sounds so damned overwhelming.  It’s a safe bet that when you’re on the receiving end, it IS so damned overwhelming.

Dave Chappelle spoke comically of when keeping it real goes wrong, and I’m the poster child for it.  One male friend told me that for a homeboy, my frankness is funny and pretty spectacular.  For a dude that I’m trying to date, however, it’s too much.  Because:

I believe the less men know upfront the more they are willing to work at getting to know you.

And that stung, because I’m a rather transparent chick.  I’m not the hidden agenda girl.  If I like you, I’ve told you.  If you didn’t seem to be with it, you don’t have to worry about me telling you twice.  I’m the girl who will say, “Oh, by the way, I like purple and Junk Food t-shirts,” because I figure there are a million and one things on your plate.  Agonizing over a present for me doesn’t have to be one of them.  So my challenge?  I have to learn to be the study guide instead of giving away the test.

My other issue:

The REAL irony about you, to me, is that you act very much like a dude.  You think like a dude and you often say things that a dude would say.  I think cats don’t know what to do with you.

I never told my friend this, but when he said that, it really made me cry.  Reading it again is sort of getting me a little teary now.  Because when it comes to amour, I always feel like the lone acquaintance at a party of bosom friends. One wrong move, and the situation becomes, “Who invited her?”  Quite often, more often than makes me comfortable, I find myself being on the business end of a blank, “Um, so now what?” stare from the guy du jour that I thought was the bees knees.  Or at least I did, until he looked at me like  I was some ghetto unicorn where instead of a horn, a chicken wing grew out of the middle of my forehead.  I mean, it sounds really interesting, but where would you put it?  I was told that I need to “try reigning in this Camille Paglia/May West/Angela Davis thing you’ve got going on.”

And so, I’m going to do that.  No, really.  I’m going to do that.  When EVERYBODY tells you the same thing, they’ve got to at least be partially right, right?

So, I’m sifting myself.  Searching for the me I let go, and the me I keep.

Politics up in dis bish! October 23, 2008

Politics and this blog don’t really go together.  I make sure that I stay abreast of what’s going on.  I have my own opinions about what’s going on.  I hope that Barack Obama wipes the proverbial floor with John McCain.  I hope a moose tramples Sarah Palin, but not so that she dies.  I just want it to maybe crush her larynx so that she can’t say anything else.  Ever.  But at the end of it all, this is my take (and a halfway explanation about why I don’t really post political stuff here:

We live in a world (not only a country, but a WORLD) that is excessively corrupt and dishonest.  Money is what talks, and people that have it will always do their damnedest to further their own agendas.  Even the things we see and hear are what THEY want us to see and hear.  So I keep up with what’s current (there’s really not much “new” about the news) and leave it at that. I discuss it in passing with my friends and family, but, I can’t say that it’s a topic that I necessarily enjoy.  The other day I was talking to my boss, and I told her the type of thinker I am was, “whichever side of the brain that has nothing to do with organization and politics.”

Some of the time, I chastise myself for not having more substance; other times, I feel like substance is relative.  I think there are more than enough people that can eloquently wax political.  Some of them are in my links to the right.  I go to them when I need it.  I’m hoping that they come here when they need, uh, whatever it is that I provide.

The reason behind the video?  I’m just in one of those wandering moods. And it’s just a beautiful song.

Whenever John McCain calls you his friend… October 16, 2008

…someone clubs a baby seal.

I find myself challenged to organize my thoughts about this race, so this post will probably be concise.

There is nothing about John McCain that seems trustworthy.  He was the lesser of the conservative evils, but any human that puts the term “women’s health” in airquotes, as though the issue were as mythical as the cracken.  His insistence on using the term “pro-abortion” also stuck in my craw.  Being pro-abortion means you are an advocate for the destruction of humanity numbskull.  (I won’t even get into how many clinics these “moral” people have bombed.) Dare we even mention the Klan rallies masquerading as Sarah Palin speeches?  The balls it must have taken for McCain to attempt to scare up crocodile tears for John Lewis calling a spade a spade must have been so big he needed to sit in a wheelbarrow.

I’m sure that I will have words for this at a later date, but right now, I’m speechless.