Man vs. Animal

Yesterday while walking from my car to a friends door, i saw a snail in the street. The snail was actually trying to cross the street. It was late and the streets were kinda damp, so this was prime snail time. He was chugging along, with a sense of determination that I immediately respected. But, he was a snail crossing the street, very slowly. I feared for his safety. Should I help the poor creature? Should I disrupt his natural stride by picking him up and placing him on the side walk? Or leave him alone? I honestly stood in the street for a few seconds and thought about it. It would really suck if I came back out and saw snail parts squashed in tire tread pattern. Then I thought, it's not my place. People often times try to 'help' nature or animals...what do we know? I certainly didn't know where the snail was headed, I just knew what direction he was headed in. People should let nature be, stop getting in its way and if that means letting a cat stay in a tree or letting a birds nest stay where the eggs can get eaten, so be it. Man should mind it's business. I let the snail be, and when I came out of my friends house, he was gone. He finally got to wherever it is he was going.

PS, saw a movie while at friends house. I don't have the strength to talk about it. Lets just say if you ever enter into a ménage trois, draw up an contract. Things can get ugly.

Eh....I'm so done! Again

Every year I go through this, twice a year. I'm so sick of my hair. For the winter months I wear it straight for the most part and for summer, in braids...of a sort. As we near spring I'm sooooo sick of having hair. I don't know what to do with it, I'm tired of dealing with it and sick of seeing it straight and flat in my mirror. eh.

I recently moved to Cali from out east. The pressing comb is loved out here. And that was a shock considering the pressing comb isn't used anymore where I came from. Who uses a freaking pressing comb since the invention of the flat iron?? Anyone? Anyone? The answer is, EVERYONE IN CALIFORNIA. lol. Even the vocab is different. They say, "Press and curl", I say, "Iron out". Then, they look at me crazy. Being new here, I don't know where to get my braids done either. I don't know if they know how to do what I want. Another thing about the east, the variety of natural hair styles seen out and about is huge. Not in LA. I see dreads and micros, saw kinky twists in a shop window, but I don't wear those. Blah... I guess I'll fly home, get my hair done, come back and have to teach someone to do the retouches.

Oh well, such is life.

Black Media Evolving, Please...I Hope

I would like to take a moment to talk about my new favorite channel, TV1. I watch it on Direct tv, but I think it's available on Comcast also. This new network has everything, talk shows, cooking shows, great reruns and gospel on Sundays. It's also the first black network I've seen since BET. I've heard about a black family channel, I but don't watch to much family programming. Brief network descriptions.

TV1 is the next generation of black televised media and I'll be so bold as to say, much better than it's predecessor. I never liked BET. Even when I was 15 and suppose to like tv with little or no depth, I didn't like BET. All this network does is show videos and comedy shows. Black music is an important part of our culture, but goodness...how many time can you here, "Holla!" or "OKaaaaayyyyy!!" before you feel as if you are watching a mentrual show? BET has a show called,
"Lil Kim: Countdown to Lockdown" following the final days of Lil Kim's freedom before she goes to jail for perjury. What the hell!? Who's idea was this? (and why she's in jail and R. Kelly still roams free is for another post, and yes there will be one)

BET, on some occations lifts up, or highlights some of the worst aspects of black culture. An example being the 'thug' culture. Yes, it exists. Yes, it's part of who we are as a people. But do we have to fly the thug flag on high, every weekday 7pm-6 central? All the while chanting, "Pimps up, hoes down." That's not good. That's what I would call, putting your buisness in the streets, dirty buisness. I feel well within my rights to ask, again, "What the hell?". BET has gotten internation attention for being so bad. An article was written in Canada questioning the network. But at the time, they had no other sources of black entertainment for television. They were kind of stuck, and I guess so were we. But not anymore!!**does small jig**

One of my favorite shows is 'TV One on One' with host Catherine Hughes. She has great guests, and she isn't a stupid interveiwer, asking questions we've heard answered before. I love her and her show. Over the weekend I caught two other specials on TV1. The first about the decendants of slaves in South Carolina, the other about blacks and plastic surgery. Good stuff.

I just want to leave the reader with a little something that prompted me to write this post. It's a clip from The Boondocks, a show on the Cartoon Network. You can watch the whole episode or click the fast forward to 18 min 20 sec in. It's the last bit that makes you question the messages we are receiving and sending out.

Who Is Julian Bond?

A few years ago while watching the NAACP awards Julian Bond was recognized as the chairman of the NAACP, and stood to receive a round of applause. I didn't think anything of this announcement, but it stopped my aunt in her tracks. She stood in the doorway and said, "Julian Bond, I thought he was dead." And I replied, "Who is Julian Bond?"

There has been talk about where our next generation of great black leaders is going to come from. I ask, where did the last generation go? Those who survived the civil rights movement of the 50's and 60's and the drug epidemics of the 70's and 80's are still around, but they are like walking ghosts. The imprints they have left on our society can still be felt, but their voices are no longer heard in the mass media, or the classrooms. It's as if they are the voice's you hear in the wind, but can never quite place.

When I asked who Julian Bond was, and my aunt snapped out of her daze long enough to answer. She told me he used to be at the right hand of Martin Luther King Jr. Anytime she heard about King or saw him in the news, there was Julian Bond. She also referenced Ralph Abernathy. Which nearly got another, 'who?' from me. "When King got shot, they all ducked." She said. "The next time I heard about Abernathy, they were announcing his funeral." It's sad that a broader telling of the roles held and people involved in the Civil Rights Movement isn't taught. Maybe someone should do a mini-series, like Roots or something. Start from the Bus Boycott through till King Day. The series could cover everyone from Malcolm X to Bayard Rustin, up until Al Sharpton and Barok Obama. Because you rarely hear anyone ask, "Kunta Kinte, who's that?"

This, I hope will be an ongoing post, where I highlight a huge figure in black history, that hasn’t been getting much mass media air time over the past twenty or thirty years. I give you, Julian Bond.

"Shut up, just shut up, shut up!”

Whitney, Didn't You Almost Have It All?

Von:
No, we won’t shut up, we won’t!! WHAT HAPPENED WHITNEY? The “drug den” photos, betrayal by a close family member, and the deafening silence (re: clearing her name) from her PR camp. Am I mistaken or have I missed their statement about Whitney’s sister-in-law being the true crack whore, and her falsifying the photo and story to get more money for crack since the Whitney and Bobby couldn’t be bribed? WHERE IS THAT STATEMENT!! It’s so much more enjoyable to make fun of the apparent troubles and downward spiral of someone when you still have a lot of wiggle room in the facts department...

Mel:
I, I...don't really know what to say. I mean, what is there to say, I mean. Damn. It's been a long time coming. Like watching a plane crash, just watching it fall from the sky, ever so slowly. Half of my person feels bad for her family and the other half of me is saying, 'You can take the girl out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the girl.' Damn.

It's the end of the world, bitches!

We thought we'd start our blog before it all goes to hell. :) **we're joking** no we're not.
Here is our evidence:
Hasidic Jews are rioting in the streets setting fires.
Female pedophiles are raping boys left and right.
A black serial killer (the sniper from D.C.)

This blog is dedicated to the exploration of where we are going as a country and more specifically as a people, and by people we mean black people. And by black people we mean elitist, bourgeois, reasonably educated, afro-conscience people. And by that we mean us. :)

Welcome!