LOVE

CAN YOU STILL LOVE ME IF WE DISAGREE ON SOME FUNDAMENTAL LEVEL?
Love is one of life's basic principles of effective living.
We must love each other, even as we hate deplorable behavior. It takes discipline.
So now, what of your neighbor, or the driver who cut you off on the freeway, the teacher you cant seeme to please, or the head of the NRA?
I don't know about you, but my body is made up of dna that was born in a place known to be the very womb of the human race...
I am born into this world from a sacred origin, and there is no deed, no offens, no ill word that can sully my holy title!
I am God's child, my very atoms passed through vessels of the spirits of my ancestors, born of the land Africa, thus so am I!
My ability to love, be loyal, be honorable, be responsible, work hard, be honest, do not depend on the actions of others.
I manifest these things because they represent that sacred identity in me, the pure that transcends this body and its mind engine.
Do you see your reflection? In the darkest of battles, love is the sharpest of swords, the atomic neutralizer, the great peacemaker.
Today, and every day, I encourage you to LOVE.
Yourself, others, no matter the situation, let your actions be lead by love.
Tomorrow? Honesty.

Where's My Compton Sweatshirt? (the mother diaries)

sorry to those of you who won't understand the intra-ethnic nuances of this post... and to those who don't know me, i promise you that i will only go gangsta to protect my child.  i promise.   wouldn't you?


SO, the pyrate had a run-in with some fellow african-american boys at his very suburban middle-class neighborhood school last week before break started.   they approached him aggressively and got in his face and wanted to fight him.  for no reason, and despite the fact that they are all about a foot shorter than him, and none quite as fit.

well... a few weeks earlier they were taunting him and saying he "wasn't black".   yeah.   the pyrate is of african, native american, and german decent, and has a private school education the first 6 years of his school career.  he listens the most to bands like deathcab for cutie, rage against the machine, nirvana, and nine inch nails and lately he's stuck on playing leadbelly songs on his guitar... repeatedly.  he's also a science buff, a skater, and a bit of an afro-punk.  this gets him a lot of grief in public school.

 so, anyway, these kids walked up on him.  he had a few choice words (of the intelligent sort... rattled off the names of some very impactful people of african decent that they could not identify and then asked them who wasn't black...) then kept walking.  so last week, they took it further and walked up on him and got in his face. the pyrate says they were close enough that he could feel their breath.   he told them he was not going to fight them and walked away.   they yelled after him a bunch of epithets varying from white boy, b*tch, p***y, and other things.  he kept walking.  these boys are all smaller than him and he could have easily taken out a couple quickly and then scared the others enough to leave him alone, but he walked away... like a shaolin monk.  lol...

later that day, in the gym locker room, they watched and waited as he was changing clothes for gym class, and as he was pulling his gym shirt over his head one of them hit him very hard open handed in the center of his back... hard enough to leave a mark.  the others broke into laughter as he winced then shouted at them to never touch him again.  then he finished changing and walked away... like Dr. King, Jesus or Gandhi would.   he is not traumatized this time because he thinks their motivation is ignorant.  (he's been raised with a strong education about who he is ethnically... so that's much easier for him to deflect emotionally than say... being called gay.)

anyway,  the incidents have been reported, but the proper school authorities were already gone for the day when i was able to report it.  i'm proud of my son.  he's a much more confident and courageous kid than i was at his age... or than he was a few months ago.   we had actually had a good laugh about whether or not he thinks of himself as black.  he raised his 12 year old fist and grinned at me with the biggest nerdy grin.   i said, "say it loud!"  the pyrate said, "i am black and i am proud."  just like that... no conjugations like james brown did it.  like the black nerd scientist, afro-german, punk-pyrate, skater boy that he is.   so all is well.  i plan to be very proactive day one back to school after the break with the proper school authorities.  perhaps a conference with the kids parents, and i will press for middle school version of justice.  so all is well.  no trauma.

excuse me a moment. (but if a muthaf*cka EVER lays a hand on my son again... little wanna-be gangsta suburban fools might get to meet his momma who is straight outta COMPTON.  the pyrate's people roll DEEP! )  BWaaaaahaaaaaaa!!!    
*Not really, ....but I'm just sayin'....


i am the type to love a good rant when it's appropriate.  i could rant thoroughly about this issue and the surrounding issues of race relations within a culture.  you see this world wide, and not just with african americans.  but there is a very deep seeded culture of tension between different so-call groups of african americans... based on the color of skin, texture of hair, economic status, etc... that dates back to the times of slavery when the slaves were divided depending on whether they worked in the house or in the field.  they were pitted against each other in many very subversive ways.  

it infuriates me when the prejudice goes on in either direction, from either side.  it is all hate and has nothing to do with solving whatever is really bothering those who are hating.    but you would think in this day and age this would be all but just an memory of attitudes of the past.  obvioiusly not, when 12 year olds are taunting each other with such ethnically slanted crap.   then there's the association between so-called affluence and sexual orientation which is completely unrational and makes no sense at all.   we should be teaching our children wisdom and not hatred.  but where are our wise men and women???  when i discover them, i keep them near, use them as role models with my child. 

i have a lot of connection to what the pyrate experienced with these boys.   something similar happened to me as a kid and i didn't shake it until my mid to late twenties.   the trauma can run deep.  children... most children have self images that are still forming in their middle school years.  the behavior of these boys says a lot about the climate of the schools nowadays and of the homes that children come from.  it is dangerous behavior that can scar for life.

so, knowing what i know, i added that last bit in parentheses because parents who teach their kids to hate, to judge, to label, to bully, to insult, to be violent, to be angry, to be anti-social, need to know how the parents of your children's victims feel when they find out your child is committing crimes agains their child.


woe to you and your children.  woe to you, because your child might slip up and behave this way with a kid whose parents are NOT as civilized as i am....  who are not as much of anti-violence hippie as i am...  they might slip up and attack a kid who, unbeknownst to them has also been brought up in hateful violent environments who was taught that to kick some idiot ass if anybody messes with them.  they might slip up and attack a child who is already fragile and injure them in any of a myriad of ways, unfolding an onslaught of charges against your child and you, that will force you to reconsider the error of your ways.

these boys will face any of a series of possible punishments when they return to school in january... the school has a no tolerance policy and have expelled kids for being in a group observing one from the group attacking a victim... and on their record (the kids in the group... spectators who were with the attacker) goes a charge of gang violence because of the group intimidation element.  

so, woe to those parents... and if you're not sure if your children are happy, well adjusted, self-respecting and respectful of others, then maybe you need to get to know your children better, or woe to you as well....

Black Girls, Can We Talk? A rant about hair.

I've had it.  I've had it up to here.  Yes, here.  Can you see where I'm marking the air with my hand? High above the ends of my big crazy fro?  That's how over the whole discussion of hair, I am.  There are some things that just should be done with and exited as resolved, but we cling to the fake controversy as if controversy is our one true treasure left to hold on to.  Why do we discuss this as if we don't know better?

Did you see the movie Good Hair?    Let me say first, I am not anti-straight hair, and that I enjoyed the movie.  I did laugh.  Up until a certain point.  You see, at some point it is not at all funny to hear a woman (of any color) say that they feel they must spend exorbitant amounts of money (often money they cannot afford, sometimes money that would be better spent in other ways... perhaps on getting some ethnicity related therapy of some sort...) to use dangerous chemicals to straighten their hair, or attach someone else's hair (usually much longer and of a genetically incompatible texture) to their heads, because they think it will make people feel more comfortable around them.... in other words, naturally kinky, nappy, curly, frizzy hair is somehow socially discomforting to the general public.  I don't find it at all entertaining to hear women talk about how they are willing to burn holes in their scalp for the quest for straight hair because straight hair is accepted by the general public as more beautiful.


I have a 27 year old friend who wears wigs... that make her look like she's got some serious issues.  She hates her real hair, thinks it's ugly,  because she does not know what to do with her hair and hasn't taken the time to figure it out.  27 years old... wearing wigs.

Listen, I'm an artist.  I love variety.  I love self-expression and creativity... and I have been known to use my hair to exercise both of these.  I have a wig that I adore.  It's a Betty Page style wig.  I don't sport it often.   You may never even see me in it.  It's just for fun.  It's not an image corrector.  You get what I mean?  Everybody knows I spend half the year in braids down to my buttocks and that those purple, green, blue, red, yellow, and fuschia braids, dreds, and twists are not my natural hair.   But I'm sure you also know darn well, that I'm not doing that to make ANYBODY more comfortable with my appearance.   I'm not concerned about whether or not anyone finds my hair to be unfamiliar, strange, unruly, wild, anti-conservative.  I think my hair makes that perfectly clear.   But this kind of self expression is a whole other subject that perhaps I'll touch on at another time.

I want to state my position regarding self mutilation, economic self-oppression, and the act of surrendering to a centuries old degradation of who I am as a woman, and further as a black woman, and I have several points that I want to make in that vein.

1.  I am not my hair, as the lovely India Arie so eloquently put it.  How I wear my hair is MY business.  It is just as personal as whether or not I polish my nails, or use lotion on my skin.  It is just as personal as whether or not I like lipstick or prefer lipgloss instead.   NO ONE has the authority, expertise, nor ordinance... WAIT.  I DO NOT GIVE ANYONE  the authority, expertise, nor ordinance to decide how I will wear my hair.   I will not risk my financial health, my physical health, nor my emotional health to change how I wear it in the quest to lure a man, to impress a woman, and CERTAINLY NOT to thwart someone's racial, sexual, or classist prejudices against me.   The history behind this kind of prejudice is so deeply seeded that we don't even acknowledge anymore that it has anything to do with our choices.  But the truth is, the programming was established centuries ago, long before we of African decent even knew it was happening.  Back when people spoke of us in their faraway lands as if we were exotic, but nevertheless inferior animals, with strange and wild behavior, and physical appearances to match.   This image created in the land of barbarians and inquisitors... the land of slave trading and paganism...  When did we decide to adopt this as our own self-imposed image, that we might pursue, as one of our most invested endeavors, to change what we look like to change the minds of those who created that image?  

The irony amongst us is so thick you could not get through it if you tried.   Look at how we scoffed at Michael Jackson for the changes he made to himself physically.  We scoffed, as we looked at pictures in our favorite gossip magazines, while sitting our asses in the beauty salon chair for half a day, getting the hair of some poor girl in India sewn into our heads, or while our favorite hairstylist slapped that sodium hydroxide onto our hair to literally break down the molecular structure of the hair's strand, dissolve the interior bonds, and replace it with new, artificial ones, wincing as it sizzled on our scalps, spending our last dime... scoffing at Michael Jackson for trying to look white (which I can personally attest, because I was there, was not what was really going on with him...).  Same thing with how we scowl at women who get boob jobs, botox, facelifts and other forms of body mutilation for false vanity.  We talk all that mess probably the most whilst sitting in the salon chair mutilating our hair.  The hypocrisy astounds me!!!! 

2. NEWSFLASH:  Black girls with nappy hair have jobs.  High ranking executive type jobs.  Jobs as scientists, astronauts, doctors, lawyers, Ivy League university professors, philosophers, politicians.   Some of the most influential black women in the history of the world were black women with nappy hair!  Those of you worried about catching a man, black girls with nappy hair have romance, marriage, companionship, and I'm here to tell you we enjoy phenomenal sexual experiences just like our straight haired sisters... and in the cases of those who are still oppressed, I argue perhaps better because there's one less thing to be self conscious about when we're in that naked, vulnerable state! Our lovers can put their fingers in our hair, massage our scalps, grab a fist full in the throws of passion... You get the idea...   Black girls with nappy hair have friends of all colors, races, cultures, and creeds.  We are not all angry (though just like anyone else, we can be angered...), we are not all militant, and whatever we are, whoever we are, you canNOT assertain based on the texture of our hair.    (As you read this you might think I'm talking to white people here.  I might be talking to some, but I'm more talking to those of my sisters who are inflicting this oppression upon themselves by defending against this false stigma.)

3.  My mother started taking me to the hair salon when I was around 12 years old and I got my first permanent relaxer treatment.   Before that my hair was pressed into submission with hot combing so that it was easier to control and "looked good".   My mother spent hours to do this... once or twice a month.  Both me and my sister!!! Eventually she cut my hair off so that it would be easier to control.  The irony is, my mother is about 3/4 Native American Indian, and my hair is what they called "good hair" back in those days.  Compared to most, my hair was easy.  I just had a lot of it and it was easier for her to deal with if it was straightened, and that's just what people did  back in the day.  You only went natural if you were either trying to join the black panthers or you were a muslim or something.  Everybody else was straightening their hair.
In 1992 I cut off all my hair when I began training at the world renowned Vidal Sassoon Academy as a haircutter and stylist.... a UK based company with 4 academies at the time, worldwide... the most respected place to train in the profession.   They were not your average beauty school.  They had philosophies and standards above and beyond state safety and hygiene regulations and basic skill acquisition.  They had doctrine about what beauty was.   Beauty was a combination of inner qualities and the synergy between all of your outer traits.  In other words, each of us is made up of an architecture of physical traits that work together to make us beautiful in our own unique and natural balance.   They believed that if you had curly hair the ideal look for you would incorporate those curls, not torture them into mutation.   They believed that beauty was a matter of authenticity therefore if you're Chinese, don't try to look like an African, and if you're an African don't try to look like you're Chinese.  

4.  WOMEN!!  ALL WOMEN!!!  When will we wake up and stop this foolishness, starving ourselves, cutting ourselves, torturing ourselves, all in the name of so-called beauty.  This culture of beauty is perverse, shallow, and it is extremely unhealthy!!!   It is a LIE that we tell ourselves when we bend over backwards and obsess over vanity in the name of being attractive so that we might be more desirable to men.   I am hear to tell you today that if we stop this madness we will STILL have the same chances of finding a good man, and perhaps a BETTER chance because the boneheads will be eliminated from the pool of potential suitors.   
This is not about men.  This is about how we feel about ourselves.  It is about a loss of rejoicing in the God-given beauty and magnificence that is WOMANKIND!  Your beauty and desirability is NOT about those things you can change about your outside.  I know it sounds cliche, but it's the truth.

I am living proof.  I found the love of my life at a time in my life where I wear little or no makeup unless I'm putting on the rock star, I don't dress up unless I have to, I'm thick and not particularly worried about it outside of for health purposes, and yes, I have been sporting my naturally curly/kinky, frizzy hair since 1992!!!   It's like having an anvil removed from around my neck after years of being a slave to the hot pressing comb and a junkie for the creamy crack (permanent relaxer).    That's not to say that I will never straighten my hair again.  It's to say what people think of me, how my hair makes them feel about me is of absolutely no consequence at all.  I am free.  100% free when it comes to my hair.   We should all be free like this!  Hell! Save the money for something extravagant like say.... organic groceries, an eco-friendly vehicle, and hey!  Perhaps some THERAPY!  I'm telling you, our priorities are way out of whack!

To me this should all go without having to be said, ergo my frustrated tone.  This is a new age we are dawning upon.  We have to let go of those shackles.  They are barely even hanging on anymore.  And we've got keys, ladies!!!  But listen, this is not about me.  Please don't stop there, and make this about my tone or attitude and choose to be offended.  This is not about what I think of you.  This is about how you feel about yourself!!!
If you have searched your soul, and you're sick of being in those straightening comb, $1000+ weave, ammonium thioglycollate shackles, and you feel trapped into something that's costing you in more ways than you want it to,  but you don't know what to do with your natural hair, there are fantastic resources out there now.  God Bless the Internet!   Here are some of the sites I find useful for my own hair:
http://maneandchic.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html
http://www.blackhairinformation.com
http://bglhonline.com/
http://ghettointellect.com/nappykitchen/
http://www.kynk.ca/
http://www.curls.biz/
http://missjessies.com/
http://zurique.webs.com/
http://search.fotki.com/?q=kinky
http://search.fotki.com/?q=dreadlockshttp://www.naturalhairstylesblog.com/
http://www.nappturality.com/

Veterans Day- Our Contribution

In Memorium.....

Crispus Attucks

Buffalo Soldiers

(the black experience of the civil war)

 

African American Civil War Soldiers Sandusky County, Ohio

Buffalo Soldier

 

Union Army Drummer Boy

 

WWI Soldiers

African American Women Operating a Canteen for Soldiers

Soldiers from Arkansas

 

WWII Buffalo Division

WWII Soldier Being Treated 

WWII Soldiers with Confiscated Nazi Flag

Soldiers-Korean War 

 

Soldier Shouting... Vietnam War

Arriving in Vietnam

General Colin Powell

Desert Storm Soldier

Operation Iraqi Freedom Soldier

ADDENDUM:
Thank you M. Padar!  How could I forget...

The Tuskeegee Airmen!

WWII Black Nurses serving in London