~Gagging Blacky
...basically, black women have been silenced with regards to issues in the black community. If you disagree, that just reaffirms my thesis of the silencing of the Black Woman. We need to speak the hell up! I'll espound for a few...:
~During the Civil Rights Movement, black Women's rights were often placed on the back burner (beneficiary: the black man)
~During the Women's Suffrage Movement, BLACK women's rights were often placed on the back burner (beneficiary: the white woman)
Issues from current research (i'm guilty of ignoring a few of these myself): Domestic Abuse, Rape, (we don't speak up or report these issues enough; therefore neglecting the issue altogether) Kidnapping, Murder (whether you know it or not...there are tons of missing black women/children...we don't get that much media coverage), STD's and other infections, Teen pregnancy (awareness on such issues should be raised and dealt with)
...I'm working on a poem on this aspect too....stay tuned!
{research in progress...}
Labels: ain't that interesting, black folks, social issues, women
M.O.M -- Cupcake talk
MUSINGS ON MARTA
...well technically we weren't on the bus yet. I have to cross some railroad tracks to get to the bus stop. The train decided to come, so I had to wait for it to pass, and dag on it, it made me miss the bus. A chick comes over...looks to be younger than I am...maybe 19 or 20...4 open-faces on her grill (two at the top and two on the bottom)
...she asks me what time her bus was supposed to arrive. I tell her her bus should be coming because I just missed mine. She tells me she's on her way to pick up her meds...I ask for what...she tells her diabeties are "fucking" with her, as she termed it. I grimance at her language. A woman with a 5 -year-old is nearby. I notice a book in her hand...asks her what school she attends. She tells me she doesn't attend school. Said she dropped out a while ago. Said soon, she's going to get her G.E.D. She asks me what school I attend. I'm kinda ashamed, but I say GSU. She asks more questions, like what's my major...stuff like that. Again, I'm ashamed. Guess I don't want her looking at me like I'm bougoisie (sp?) or saddity or something. She then asks me where I work. I just say "downtown" and leave it at that. She procedes to tell me about the book in her hand...told me I should read it. Said it was a biographical text by a woman named Cupcake Brown. Told me the woman was just like her...orphaned, raped, drug experminetation...and turned her life around. Told me the book changed her life...that this is her 7th time reading it. I tell her I'm working on a few projects myself. Told her about my poetry, my essay, and my fiction. She gives me props. Tells me I should do it. I feel pretty good inside. I ask to read the synopsis of her book. She lets me.
FROM BN.COM
There are shelves of memoirs about overcoming the death of a parent, childhood abuse, rape, drug addiction, miscarriage, alcoholism, hustling, gangbanging, near-death injuries, drug dealing, prostitution, or homelessness.
Cupcake Brown survived all these things before she’d even turned twenty.
And that’s when things got interesting.
You have in your hands the strange, heart-wrenching, and exhilarating tale of a woman named Cupcake. It begins as the story of a girl orphaned twice over, once by the death of her mother and then again by a child welfare system that separated her from her stepfather and put her into the hands of an epically sadistic foster parent. But there comes a point in her preteen years maybe it’s the night she first tries to run away and is exposed to drugs, alcohol, and sex all at once when Cupcake’s story shifts from a tear-jerking tragedy to a dark comic blues opera. As Cupcake’s troubles grow, so do her voice and spirit. Her gut-punch sense of humor and eye for the absurd, along with her outsized will, carry her through a fateful series of events that could easily have left her dead.
Young Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor, partying like a rock star, and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. She stumbled into gangbanging, drug dealing, hustling, prostitution, theft, and, eventually, the best scam of all: a series of 9-to-5 jobs. But Cupcake’s unlikely tour through the cubicle world was paralleled by a quickening descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine use, till she eventually found herself living behind a Dumpster.
Astonishingly, she turned it around. With the help of a cobbled together family of eccentric fellow addicts and angels a series of friends and strangers who came to her aid at pivotalmoments she slowly transformed her life from the inside out.
A Piece of Cake is unlike any memoir you’ll ever read. Moving and almost transgressive in its frankness, it is a relentlessly gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contem-porary urban life and survived it with a furious wit and unyielding determination. Cupcake Brown is a dynamic and utterly original storyteller who will guide you on the most satisfying, startlingly funny, and genuinely affecting tour through hell you’ll ever take.
When it came time for me to talk, I wasn’t sure which parts of my past to tell, which to keep secret, and which to pretend never happened. Uncle Jr. had already seen the welts on my back, so he wasn’t too surprised when I told them about some of the physical abuse I endured at Diane’s. Everyone else hit the roof, except Daddy. He got really quiet and started balling and unballing his fists.
I continued my update. Experience had taught me that adults have trouble accepting the idea of children having sex. I decided that from then on, that part of my life never happened. I picked up the story by telling them about Fly, the Gangstas, and getting shot.
I was dying for a cigarette. So it seemed a good time to announce that I smoked cigarettes and weed.
After a moment Sam looked at me, smiled, and handed me one of her Marlboros. I preferred menthols, but beggars can’t be choosers. I kicked back, took a long drag, and closed my eyes.
Daddy and Jr. were silent. They seemed a bit shocked and unsure about how to respond.
Well, Cup, Jr. said, it’s a little too late to be trying to raise you now. But those cigarettes will kill you. And weed will only lead you to stronger drugs.
He didn’t know how right he was. But for me, it was too late to be worrying about stronger drugs the only worrying I did was whether I could find a connection to get some. So I just smiled, nodded, and took another hit off my cigarette.
The eerie quiet returned.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~**~*~*~~
...the bus comes and the nameless female runs across the street. She holds her book up before bording. I smile...nod my head...and wait for my bus to come..
Labels: ain't that interesting
Bra or no bra?
Ladies...quick question: Do you sleep with a bra on?
...I've been asked this question by more than one person, and was given the WTF look with my "most of the time" reply. I mean, what's wrong with sleeping in a bra? Am I outta the loop and living in the 60's or what? I thought they did the whole no panty no bra thing back then. Without a bra, my chest starts hurting, and my twins are not that big. So my big tiddied cousin's chest should hurt 10X worse that mine without a bra. Yet, her goofy ass still flaps her twins around at night without one. I'm sorry, but I don't like my twins to be a flapping around without support. The only way I'll sleep without a bra is if all of my bras are dirty, which will never happen, because I have a gazillion of them. Or, I take that back, once every blue moon in the Summertime, when I'm extra hot. Momma never told me how to do the bra thing *shrugs*. When my little pecans started growing, I continued to sleep with that trainer bra on, up until now. The bra is staying.
...so quit looking at me like I'm an oddball.
Labels: ain't that interesting, can i get an "Amen"
Sagging Tiddies -- "I need a ride or die chick" -- We're own our own on this one ladies
[ok, i'm back]
...support (hence the sagging tiddie reference) for black women's issues lies within black women, for the most part. Unfortunately, we've been divided, and thus, a hatred now exists between the light sista and dark sista. Critiquing issues with Cocoacentric thought proves to be beneficial; however, because of the hate that exists amongst us, it is difficult in getting the flipside from a lightskinned perspective. You may be thinking by now that all these dividing concepts will not do any good, which I don't deny, however, they are relevant in MY hypothesis. Its not that hard to form your own by the way.
There needs to be a revolution. There needs to be a global sorority existing amongst us. Only after this occurs, will the black woman advance in society. Yes, I am fed up with this shit....yes, we need the black man to become our "BRAS"..to support us on some shit. Yes, I think black men are scared to support us (closeted feminists),...yes we've been on the back burner for too fucking long and its time to focus on some of OUR shit...or at least focus on man/woman issues collectively. We have a history of supporting racial issues, how 'bout some fucking support with gender issues?
[on the soap box]
Labels: black folks, social issues, women
The Color Complex -- "Ya'know it's hard out here for a Colored Girl"
"Cocoacentricity"...a scholar by the name of Molefi Asante came up with this concept of "Afrocentricity", which is basically looking at things from the point of view of blacks--not necessarily with a superiority complex either. So, I kinda borrowed this idea, and introduced "Cocoacentricity", which is the critique of black issues from the point of view of a dark-skinned sista since we always get left out....feel me?
...aiight so...for observational purposes, i'm investigating why certian stereotypes exist amongst us...as well as testimonials, and personal anectodes. For example...:
~Patriarcial Nation: The Definition of Beauty
~Chocolate girls are loud & ghetto....light skinned girls are prissy ...(Martin's "shananay character"...Jamie Foxx's character, etc)
~Chocolate girls are independent....light-skinned girls are gold-diggers...
(light girls are favored and spoiled....dark girls are forced to fend for themselves, etc)
~Over-confidence vs. Low Self Esteem...which is worse?
~Dying to be represented: The mistake of the video ho
...and other topics and issues that happen to make their way to my little notebook.
[i'll be back]
Labels: b, social issues, women
