- Be loved
- Make babies
- Swim in the ocean
- Be comfortable
- Live abroad
- Learn languages
- Contribute significantly to a full-length film or documentary
- Publish a book
- Build a school
- Be care-free
- Travel on a whim
- Make beautiful things on a daily basis
- Grow my own tea and herbs
- Have an extravagant kitchen
- Acquire voice training
- Be secure
- Build a family tree
- Adopt a child
- Give anonymously
- Earn a PhD
- Become an "expert"
- Work out every day
- Go to my favorite concerts
- Resume piano lessons
- Learn a string instrument
Saturday, November 22, 2008
25 things to do before I die
In the order that I thought of them...
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Why do we describe ourselves in candy and desserts?
Chocolate, cinnamon, butter pecan, caramel...
I think that Black people use so many skin color descriptors because while we typically don't have the variation in hair and eye color that white people have, we have a greater variance in skin color than any other group of people in the planet. Hence, the "she was a caramel cutie; he was a dark chocolate brother". I don't see anything wrong with that, and I think the differences should be celebrated.
Unfortunately, I know they aren't and are the cause of contention.
How? Well, my closest friends since middle school have been light skinned (two of my closest/oldest girlfriends have the light skin/non-brown eyes combo). My family is from Louisiana and looks as one would expect a family with generations of Louisiana heritage to look. I've got aunties that could pass but would slap you if you called them anything other than Black and uncles that look about like Wesley Snipes would if he took a two week vacay in the DR. I am a dark-skinned woman with African features, but my daughter caught all the white genes that went unexpressed in me. LOL
Anyway, in my own family I have seen grown ass women make light skinned children cry by calling them "white" or "daddy's maybe" behind some tricky recessive genes. What is stranger is that I have heard LIGHT SKINNED WOMEN do this to LIGHT SKINNED CHILDREN. The self-hate we have as a people is strong.
Newsflash, sisters: light, bright, damn near white is still 100% Black in many families. Hating light skin is STILL self hate!!
Then again, if one more person uses the phrase "good hair" around my baby or jokes that she is not my ex's child, I will smack them. Favoring one sort of hair or skin color over another--well, to me, that's self hate, too.
Black people need to learn to appreciate the full spectrum of "us".
A year or so into our friendship, one of my light skinned, blue-eyed girlfriends told me that I was one of the first dark skinned women she had been friends with, and that she had lots of poor experiences with dark skinned girls growing up. The typical. The girls that should have been her sisters had called her names, cut her hair and made it known that she "wasn't cute" a few times too many.
Today, this girl will go to town on how Black people hate themselves and are a confused people and etc. I KNOW she feels so strongly because of experiences like these. And it is sad that despite the fact that I have never had ANYBODY speak disparagingly about me because of my skin color (I've never so much been told that I am "pretty for a dark skinned woman"), I am inclined to agree.
I grew up with a light skinned sister and my father always reinforced that we were both beautiful effortlessly. It never seemed forced or as though he was trying to teach us a lesson. I spent my formative years in an Afrocentric school wherein I loved my very light skinned, green-eyed principal every bit as much as I loved my very dark-skinned 1st and 2nd grade teachers. They loved me too. They never played favorites with those of us of a certain color. We were all praised as smart, beautiful children. They were convincing enough in their praise that we believed them. This multihued circle of love (hehe...corny) is what I accredit to my own self-security.
This weekend, I was teaching my daughter the color brown. Her puppy is brown. The chair is brown. Her skin is brown. And, as she pointed out, "Mommy brown, too!!" It would be nice if things were that simple. But they aren't. She'll notice the good hair/light skinned comments soon enough. That's life. But, we have to accept and celebrate the differences in skin color, eye color and hair texture so that more children can grow up feeling okay with themselves.
I think that Black people use so many skin color descriptors because while we typically don't have the variation in hair and eye color that white people have, we have a greater variance in skin color than any other group of people in the planet. Hence, the "she was a caramel cutie; he was a dark chocolate brother". I don't see anything wrong with that, and I think the differences should be celebrated.
Unfortunately, I know they aren't and are the cause of contention.
How? Well, my closest friends since middle school have been light skinned (two of my closest/oldest girlfriends have the light skin/non-brown eyes combo). My family is from Louisiana and looks as one would expect a family with generations of Louisiana heritage to look. I've got aunties that could pass but would slap you if you called them anything other than Black and uncles that look about like Wesley Snipes would if he took a two week vacay in the DR. I am a dark-skinned woman with African features, but my daughter caught all the white genes that went unexpressed in me. LOL
Anyway, in my own family I have seen grown ass women make light skinned children cry by calling them "white" or "daddy's maybe" behind some tricky recessive genes. What is stranger is that I have heard LIGHT SKINNED WOMEN do this to LIGHT SKINNED CHILDREN. The self-hate we have as a people is strong.
Newsflash, sisters: light, bright, damn near white is still 100% Black in many families. Hating light skin is STILL self hate!!
Then again, if one more person uses the phrase "good hair" around my baby or jokes that she is not my ex's child, I will smack them. Favoring one sort of hair or skin color over another--well, to me, that's self hate, too.
Black people need to learn to appreciate the full spectrum of "us".
A year or so into our friendship, one of my light skinned, blue-eyed girlfriends told me that I was one of the first dark skinned women she had been friends with, and that she had lots of poor experiences with dark skinned girls growing up. The typical. The girls that should have been her sisters had called her names, cut her hair and made it known that she "wasn't cute" a few times too many.
Today, this girl will go to town on how Black people hate themselves and are a confused people and etc. I KNOW she feels so strongly because of experiences like these. And it is sad that despite the fact that I have never had ANYBODY speak disparagingly about me because of my skin color (I've never so much been told that I am "pretty for a dark skinned woman"), I am inclined to agree.
I grew up with a light skinned sister and my father always reinforced that we were both beautiful effortlessly. It never seemed forced or as though he was trying to teach us a lesson. I spent my formative years in an Afrocentric school wherein I loved my very light skinned, green-eyed principal every bit as much as I loved my very dark-skinned 1st and 2nd grade teachers. They loved me too. They never played favorites with those of us of a certain color. We were all praised as smart, beautiful children. They were convincing enough in their praise that we believed them. This multihued circle of love (hehe...corny) is what I accredit to my own self-security.
This weekend, I was teaching my daughter the color brown. Her puppy is brown. The chair is brown. Her skin is brown. And, as she pointed out, "Mommy brown, too!!" It would be nice if things were that simple. But they aren't. She'll notice the good hair/light skinned comments soon enough. That's life. But, we have to accept and celebrate the differences in skin color, eye color and hair texture so that more children can grow up feeling okay with themselves.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Rules for the Future
After inspiration from today's post from Very Smart Brothas, I have composed a list of rules I wish I had told my younger self, and which my future self should keep in mind.
1. You have incredible intuition. Do not doubt it or your own integrity for feeling inclined to follow it.
2. Stop making excuses for men. Period. Cut them off as soon as they start cutting up.
3. Stop giving so much of yourself to people who can't say they love you.
4. Someone out there values you for who you are. Men who can't understand you cannot truly value or love you.
5. Wear condoms always. It isn't about trust. It is about self-protection. Nothing is infallible.
6. Live your life for you and your daughter. Nobody will look out for the two of you the way you will.
7. You are wary of Church Folk for a reason. Nobody is perfect, and people who pretend to be are particularly off-kilter. Remember the folks who have been best to you. How many of them seemed perfect?
8. Until you walk down the aisle, men don't deserve unconditional love! Save it for your girlfriends.
9. You don't need to go to him. If he wants you, he will come to you.
10. Never play games with the one you love. Always be honest, or you will regret it.
1. You have incredible intuition. Do not doubt it or your own integrity for feeling inclined to follow it.
2. Stop making excuses for men. Period. Cut them off as soon as they start cutting up.
3. Stop giving so much of yourself to people who can't say they love you.
4. Someone out there values you for who you are. Men who can't understand you cannot truly value or love you.
5. Wear condoms always. It isn't about trust. It is about self-protection. Nothing is infallible.
6. Live your life for you and your daughter. Nobody will look out for the two of you the way you will.
7. You are wary of Church Folk for a reason. Nobody is perfect, and people who pretend to be are particularly off-kilter. Remember the folks who have been best to you. How many of them seemed perfect?
8. Until you walk down the aisle, men don't deserve unconditional love! Save it for your girlfriends.
9. You don't need to go to him. If he wants you, he will come to you.
10. Never play games with the one you love. Always be honest, or you will regret it.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Self-Improvement
I started my long-procrastinated self improvement as of this week. I finally went to the dermatologist, and she prescribed me Retin A Micro at .1%, a 4% hydroquinon cream and BenzaClin (a 5% benzoyl peroxide gel with an added topical antibiotic). Three days later I am already peeling. My forehead broke out a little, also. I am looking forward to the results. She also prescribed me something for my eczema, including this great moisturizer and it looks tons better already.
I also plan to start working out. It has been suggested to me to spend 30 minutes on the bike per day. I'll try to do that. I'm also going to buy batteries so I can start back on my elliptical. I'll say I'll do the 300 calorie workout every day for now. We'll see... Maybe I can do the bike in the morning and the elliptical in the evenings. I don't know how much I can trust myself to do that, but regardless, I plan on getting a physical evaluation soon so I can develop a real workout plan.
What I think I may do is do the bike and elliptical for the rest of the month and start tracking my food in hopes I can reduce my weight by about 5 - 10 pounds. At that point, I'll start weight training.
I WILL be fine as hell by December.
I also plan to start working out. It has been suggested to me to spend 30 minutes on the bike per day. I'll try to do that. I'm also going to buy batteries so I can start back on my elliptical. I'll say I'll do the 300 calorie workout every day for now. We'll see... Maybe I can do the bike in the morning and the elliptical in the evenings. I don't know how much I can trust myself to do that, but regardless, I plan on getting a physical evaluation soon so I can develop a real workout plan.
What I think I may do is do the bike and elliptical for the rest of the month and start tracking my food in hopes I can reduce my weight by about 5 - 10 pounds. At that point, I'll start weight training.
I WILL be fine as hell by December.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Expressing my perception of God
God never stopped making sense to me. God actually just made more and more sense the more I lived and saw and learned and read. I'd say that part of that contentment with the idea of God comes from the fact that I also think quite a bit about the nature of God and how he exists. Biblical texts provide many hints as to the nature of man and the consequences of men interacting with one another, but very little about God and His nature is expressly stated.
I am rather partial to filling in the blanks with theological theories of monism. The idea of God as the universe and the simultaneous existence of varied manifestations of him (including anthromorphic manifestations!) seems to be almost universal.
I like a lot of the biblical allusions to such a state of being:
-the idea of "the Creation" being a presentation by God of himself
-the trilogy as the "persons" of God
-man as the "image" or "son" of God (and, on the flip side of that, God's choice to be the "son" of man)
-hell/evil as the mere absence of/separation from God.
These references probably first occurred to me as allusions to that state of monistic being after I read some about the M-theory and different physics-related theories of everything.
Honestly, I always thought the biblical description of the Creation was odd. How does one bring something altogether new into being as it appeared God had when he called light into existance? I never quite QUESTIONED it, but I always analyzed its feasibility.
When I was younger, after reading about the law of conservation of energy, I decided that God was energy. However, after I read about the string theories, I decided THAT was a more appropriate concept of God/the universe--that God IS these strings or branes or whatever and that the things we have no physical conception of--the soul, the spirit, etc. are unapparent because they are manifestations of string behavior which is of no relevance to our temporal selves.
Energy, the various manifestations of God that we are capable as temporal beings of perceiving, is only a part of that theory.
To me, that made sense. It also made me smile to think that, at some point, the most advanced scientific thinkers postulate that the universe springs forth from something that just IS. As the Bible puts it, God = I am that I am.
I am rather partial to filling in the blanks with theological theories of monism. The idea of God as the universe and the simultaneous existence of varied manifestations of him (including anthromorphic manifestations!) seems to be almost universal.
I like a lot of the biblical allusions to such a state of being:
-the idea of "the Creation" being a presentation by God of himself
-the trilogy as the "persons" of God
-man as the "image" or "son" of God (and, on the flip side of that, God's choice to be the "son" of man)
-hell/evil as the mere absence of/separation from God.
These references probably first occurred to me as allusions to that state of monistic being after I read some about the M-theory and different physics-related theories of everything.
Honestly, I always thought the biblical description of the Creation was odd. How does one bring something altogether new into being as it appeared God had when he called light into existance? I never quite QUESTIONED it, but I always analyzed its feasibility.
When I was younger, after reading about the law of conservation of energy, I decided that God was energy. However, after I read about the string theories, I decided THAT was a more appropriate concept of God/the universe--that God IS these strings or branes or whatever and that the things we have no physical conception of--the soul, the spirit, etc. are unapparent because they are manifestations of string behavior which is of no relevance to our temporal selves.
Energy, the various manifestations of God that we are capable as temporal beings of perceiving, is only a part of that theory.
To me, that made sense. It also made me smile to think that, at some point, the most advanced scientific thinkers postulate that the universe springs forth from something that just IS. As the Bible puts it, God = I am that I am.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)