long overdue rant.

While I was busy not blogging, there was this huge uproar on Black Twitter and the Black Blogosphere about this absolutely shittastic, racist article in Psychology Today by Satoshi Kanazawa titled "Why Are Black Women Rated Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women?" First of all, the article was initially titled "Why Are Black Women Less Physically Attractive Than Other Women," which goes to show the true nature of the study, but they added the word 'rated' to make it sound slightly less offensive. After black women flipped the fuck out, the dumbasses at Psychology Today removed the article.
I honestly don't know where to begin. The stupidity of actually publishing such drivel is astounding to me - could they possibly have thought it was a good fucking idea? Do they think we don't read? That we don't keep up with current events or publications? Did they honestly think that someone wasn't going to get pissed off about the article and pass it on to someone else? Black women are extremely well-connected when it comes to social media - we're blowing up Twitter on a constant basis, we blog, we read other women's blogs, and we talk and share what we've read. They had to know it was only a matter of time before someone got upset and rallied the troops.
Then there's the writer himself. I don't think the words 'racist bastard' say enough, but it's the first thing to come to my mind. Some dickwad with a PhD and some bullshit evolutionary pseudo-science behind him thinks he can use it to make widespread, sweeping statements about beauty - something that is HIGHLY subjective. There isn't a single human being that every person in the world would say is beautiful. It doesn't happen - people value different things, have different turn-ons. Of course, this isn't the first time someone's used "science" to justify their particular brand of racism (see: the whole eugenics movement, Nazi experiments on the Jewish people, and the list continues), but I thought we would be past that in two thousand fucking eleven. And who is asking for these studies anyway? I don't remember waking up one day and thinking, "Hey! I feel really unattractive today. Maybe it's because I'm black. I wish someone would do a study on that. It would really help me out."
All in all, it just makes me angry and upset because it's yet another example of mainstream media picking black women apart, bit by bit. We're damned if we do and damned if we don't. We get criticized about our looks, our weight, our personalities, our education, and let's not forget - WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE ALONE, RIGHT?! Haven't we been through enough? From getting carted over here in slave ships, to picking cotton in the fields, to watching our brothers/sisters/sons/daughters/husbands sold away from us, to having the KKK sic dogs on our men and lynch them for no good reason, to being mistrusted, harassed and beaten by the police, I think we're sick and tired of being assaulted by the masses. I know I am.
So I have a message to Mr. Kanazawa and other members of the media who want to run special reports about how I'm ugly or bitchy or emasculating or doomed to be single forever - shut the fuck up. No, seriously - shut. the. fuck. up. I don't want to hear it anymore. Just leave black women alone and go about your business. We don't need your reports or your research or your racism. I'll be damned if I'm going to let you tell me that I'm ugly. Not when there are people out there injecting collagen into their lips and ass to get what I had at birth. Not when I've gotten hit on by all types of men - black, white, brown, Hispanic, Asian. In short, Mr. Kanazawa, I think it's time for you to sit down and maybe take some time to examine your own prejudices and think about what you're going to say before you put it down on paper. You can be as ignorant as you want within the confines of your own mind, but once you write something down, you can't take that shit back. //end rant

thoughts on race: part iii

With the start of a new week, I thought I'd speak some more about race. I don't really have an idea for how many parts there will be in this series, but I'm guessing that as long as I have something to talk about, I'll just keep on adding to it. Today, I've been thinking about my friends, specifically the ones I made in high school.

I love hanging out with diverse groups of people - I think it makes life so much more interesting. I wasn't always this way, but high school kind of solidified that for me and taught me the value of branching out. Outside of elementary school, I was never one of those black kids who only hung out with other black kids. Most of that had to do with availability. While I grew up in what I would consider to be a pretty diverse area, there weren't a ton of black kids at my school and not only that, there were very few of them in Honors and AP classes and I was a colossal fucking dork, so those were the classes I took. This meant that I usually just hung out with the other scholastically-oriented (my cute synonym for nerdy) kids. Since school is such a huge part of your life at that age, I tended to make friends in the classes I took.

High school taught me how much I liked hanging out with people who had different cultural backgrounds. I mean, I know what it is to be Black. I live it every day. I also have a pretty good grasp on what it's like to be Latina, due to my father's family and my last name. At the time, though, I didn't have any clue what it meant to be Chinese, or Korean, or Jewish, or Indian. My friends from those years helped give me some insight into that. Our posse was super diverse - our favorite English teacher called us the Multicultural Mob, which we shortened to MCM, a name we still use today. There were about 20 of us - we were Black, Indian, Korean, Chinese, Filipino-Egyptian, Jewish, Italian, Pakistani, etc. I've never in my life had that much diversity at my disposal and I really think those bonds I formed helped make me the person I am today - more worldly, understanding, and sensitive about certain issues.

The one high school incident that stands out in my mind was one of the first weeks of school. I remember that I was running late and had stupidly missed the bus. I can't recall who I ran into (it may have been Shrutes or Slin), but they were like "Hey! You should come to Asian Club. We're all staying for it and you missed the bus. Just come!" I remember thinking it would be weird or that I would feel out of place, but my friends convinced me and so I went and I ended up being in Asian Club for all four years of high school. I loved it. I got to learn about all the different nuances of my friends' cultures. Besides Asian club, I spent time in my friends' homes, got to know their parents and learned about the kinds of foods, cultural dress, and religious traditions that made up their worlds. In return, I got to share my experience as a Black/(sorta) Latina chick. We were able to share our diversity with each other and it's made me so much more knowledgeable because of it.

I love exploring the cultures of my friends, whether it's going to Israel for an Orthodox Jewish wedding, watching Bollywood movies and learning the dance moves in my bedroom, or going to a Native American pow-wow. I want to be a true citizen of the world, which means not only focusing on my own struggles and traditions, but learning what issues other races are faced with. I feel truly blessed to have such amazing friends who are always open to explaining their traditions to me, listening to my questions, and also reciprocating and learning more about where I come from. You are all truly amazing and my oldest friends. I love you more than I can express in words. I hope we never stop learning from each other.

thoughts on race: part ii

One of the things I never understood growing up was why my mother would not let me have anything with a white face on it. It used to rankle me to no end. Two incidents stand out vividly in my mind. When I was about 12, I became obsessed with collecting addresses and phone numbers of my various friends. It was right before my first trip to Nerd Camp (I went to CTY, ya'll - the epicenter of dork camps) and I was so excited and wanted to make sure I collected the information of all of my brand new friends. I went to TJ Maxx with my mother and bought myself a phone book. I guess she wasn't paying attention because she didn't look at it until we got home, but then all hell broke loose. It had a picture of a group of friends having a tea party and they were all white. She was pretty pissed. "Why would you buy a book with a bunch of white people on the cover? Who wants that?!" I tried to tell her it was all they had, but she kind of just rolled her eyes. I ignored her and took the book to my room, thinking she was a nutjob and this was just par for the course.

The second incident was when I was in high school and decorating my room. I was obsessed with angels and told my mom I wanted that photo of those two angels, you know - the famous one. Well, about a week later, my mother showed up with that photo except the angels were black. I remember thinking that I just wanted the normal one and I couldn't understand why everything had to be black all the time. Black angels, black Santas, black tree toppers, black dolls, black Precious Moments characters. Black black black black black black black. It didn't make sense to me at all and frustrated me all the time.

And then, I grew up. Once that happened, I realize why it was so important for my mother to have images of black people all around us. She wanted us to recognize the beauty and strength of blackness - our features, our bodies, our lives. She wanted me to see people who looked like me doing things I might want to do. That was a big deal for her, especially because I grew up in a mostly white, affluent neighborhood where I didn't see people who looked like me with any kind of regularity. She wanted me to know I was beautiful and that there was nothing wrong with being black, that it was something that should be celebrated on a daily basis.

So I want to thank my mother for teaching me the importance of representation. She knew that she needed to counter the barrage of images from the mainstream media that tell all girls that the ideal they're striving for is youthfulness, blond hair, blue eyes, and slim features. This doesn't hurt just black women, it hurts ALL women, but the key difference is that for women of color, we will never fit that ideal. Our skin color alone pretty much precludes that. You can get plastic surgery, dye your hair, wear contacts, and starve yourself skinny, but you're still going to be black after all of that. My mom wanted me to see the beauty in having brown skin, kinky hair, full lips, and curves. She wanted to make me feel beautiful, loved, and accepted in a world that was going to tear me down on a daily basis.

Although you'll never read this, I have to express my appreciation, Mom, for teaching me that blackness is a beautiful thing. It may have taken me over 20 years to learn why you did what you did, but it stuck with me. I know that when I raise my own little brown-skinned children, I'll make sure I surround them with images of black men and women, and teach them to love themselves. Hopefully, they'll get the message quicker than I did.

thoughts on race: part i

I've been thinking a LOT about race lately. So much so that it's overwhelming every other thought in my head. I guess that means I have to write it out, so I'm thinking of doing a little mini-series on the things that pop into my head. As with most things I write about, this is an incredibly personal topic for me and one that I've struggled with for as long as I've been on this earth. I shall begin at the beginning and hopefully I'll end up somewhere by the end of this series.

I'm black. I thought everyone reading this knew that fact, but I've gotten comments from readers who were like, "holy shit! I didn't know you were black," which makes me laugh, cry, shake my head and look quizzical at the same time because I'm not quite sure how I feel about the fact that one of the most important parts of my personality isn't readily apparent in my writing. Besides that, it makes me wonder what people think 'blackness' is.

Growing up, I had a strange relationship with race. I was raised in a two-parent home - both my parents were extremely present and involved in all of our lives. I never wanted for anything. Even though my parents weren't wealthy (my mom was in finance and my dad was and still is a telephone repairman), they made sure that my three brothers and I had everything we could ever want. My family wasn't like other families I interacted with, though, mostly because of the fact that my father isn't black. He's Puerto Rican and an extremely light-skinned one at that. Most people have told me my dad looks Jewish or white. My mother, on the other hand, is dark. Very dark. I'm adopted, though, so technically I'm not half-black/half-Hispanic, but I always identified as such because it was how I was raised. My skin tone is pretty much exactly between my two parents, which helped me avoid awkward 'are you adopted?' questions. I don't want to get into the fuckery that is the black obsession with light skin vs. dark skin, but my best friend (also black) likes to say that when it comes to the brown paper bag test, I am the paper bag. Please note that I'm not co-signing this practice, which is disgusting and awful and as the child of a dark-skinned woman, I learned from the jump that all shades of brown and black are beautiful, but I'm trying to give you an idea of my skin tone. Based on this, I was able to "get away" with not disclosing my adopted status.

Despite having a loving family that cherished and nurtured me, I was ashamed of my father. I never wanted him to take me anywhere because I hated dealing with the stares, the clerks thinking we were separate parties, and the taunts of the local neighborhood kids. Because my dad looked white, I caught hell from a lot of black people at school. As a result, I stopped asking him to come to things and would always prefer to be out with my mom. The funny thing is, my mother and I look nothing alike (for starters chick is 5' and I'm 5'9" and like I mentioned our complexions are nothing alike, nor are our body types), but because she was black and I was black, it was all good. At the same time that I denied my father, I also struggled with being black. As a kid, all I wanted was shiny, long straight hair. I know I'm not the only little black girl that would put my head through a shirt and let all the extra cloth hang down and pretend it was hair. I thought it would make me beautiful and more like the other kids I went to school with. As a proud natural-haired black chick (19 months!!!), I'm happy I got over that shit, but it still makes me burn with shame to think about how much I hated myself in those days. On the one hand, I felt like I had to dissociate myself from my non-black father to prove my blackness and on the other hand, I didn't think that blackness was beautiful or desirable. Quite the conundrum.

My mother was your typical black mother. A guy I once dated (The Intellectual, actually) asked me if I would call my mom was culturally black and I would have to say that she is. My mom grew up middle class on Long Island and was bused to a white school where she was the only black female. I think because of that, she has an acute distrust of white people and has held onto her blackness in a way that used to annoy me as a child, but that I'm coming to understand more and more. She went to an HBCU, pledged a black sorority, and has mostly black friends. She was a harsh disciplinarian, by which I mean she beat the shit out of us when we were kids. With a belt. I always laugh when people tell me they were spanked as children because usually they mean a light tap with some kind of wooden spoon or a hand. My mother would have to change into her sweatsuit and take off her jewelry before she spanked us because it was a huge physical effort. She once told me that as painful as the beating was for us, it was exhausting for her, too.

The one thing we never talked about in my house was my father's race. At least not explicitly. I don't ever remember asking why they were different colors or thinking it was strange - it was just how it was. I never viewed interracial relationships as being odd or different because I'd grown up with one and it didn't seem like a big deal to me. Plus, the fact that my father wasn't white took away all of the uncomfortable references to slavery. They were just two minorities that happened to fall in love. One thing I do remember was that my mother was adamant about us being black children (all of us, even the biological children my parents had) and we were never referred to as being mixed in any way. My mother always told me that I had to be the best at everything because the world was always going to want me to fail. She told me I had three strikes against me - I was black, I was female, and I had a Hispanic last name -  so there was no place for mediocrity. I think that's kind of how she viewed all of us - black children with Hispanic last names. So I learned pretty early on the reality of the One Drop Rule, since basically my mother's race erased all of the  Latino heritage of my father.

Leaving you with my background, I'll save some of the implications of my childhood for a later post.

diary of a mad black woman.

Lately, I've been feeling really angry and upset at the state of our society, especially in regards to gender and race. I've never been as tired of dealing with bullshit as I currently am. As each day passes, I am more and more disillusioned with the state of life for black women in America.

I spend a lot of time talking to my College BFF. We have a rock solid relationship for a variety of reasons - we're both kind of crazy, borderline alcoholic, have similar outlooks on relationships and friendships, but I'd be lying if I said that race isn't a factor in our friendship. I consider her to be one of my closest friends partially because we're both black women who were raised by a certain type of black parent. We can both feel comfortable with each other's families because we were raised with a lot of the same values. Having bourgie black parents is similar whether you grew up down South (like she did) or up North (like I did). She just gets it. Last night, we discussed how angry we are all the time. How it feels like we're damned if we do and damned if we don't. That there's no way a black woman can 'have it all' and stay sane. I mean, I look at Michelle Obama - girlfriend can't do anything without the press jumping on it. I'm still reeling over the Malia Obama 'hair in twists' debacle. It just makes me sick - just because she was wearing a natural hair style she's deemed unfit to be seen. I reread this OKCupid article that basically shows that the lowest people on the dating totem pole are Black women. It's actually quite fascinating - I'd recommend reading it. Top that off with my own experiences navigating my way through life and it's no wonder I'm bitter. I'm actually shocked I don't feel shittier than I do.

Lately, I'm finding it harder and harder to navigate in the "white world." Sometimes I wish my non-colored friends and colleagues could glimpse just for a second the amount of sadness, anger, and disgust that I live with every single day. Quite frankly, I don't think the upper-middle class order can even grasp just how many angry black people are lurking in its midst. I mean, I'm angry as hell and I have a good job, a good apartment, and am fairly successful by most measures. God only knows how mad I'd be if I was living in poverty. I remember a bit Chris Rock used to do about his older black uncle, who was married to a white woman. The uncle tries to explain this to Chris - something along the lines of "These white people ain't shit... except for Suzie. I love her and she loves me, that's what matters. But, I'll tell you this - if the revolution ever comes, I'll kill her first, just to prove a point." Not gonna lie, I know where he's coming from. I operate within this world, but I'm not from it and if I'm asked to choose sides, I already know which side I'm choosing. It may not be "fair," it may not be "enlightened," but honestly, it's how I've come to feel lately.

I've made a lot of concessions to get where I'm going - I've given up a lot of myself just to assimilate and sometimes I can't bear it. Because the fact of the matter is, no matter how long I operate in this world, and no matter how far I get - there will always be limits. Even if we can have the presidency and become CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, the scrutiny is still there. Everyone is just waiting for you to fuck up because at the end of the day, in the words of one of my favorite Kanye lines, "Even if you in a Benz, you still a nigga in a coupe..."

The fact of matter is, I can't ignore race - try as I might. That is a luxury that no colored person will ever have. Race is something I'll have to discuss in my home, lecture my children about, and prepare them for as I raise them and if I go it alone, I won't have any help doing it. I will have to teach them the lessons my mother and father taught me - that being good is never good enough, that people will judge you before you open your mouth, and that it will never be easy. I've learned that I can't afford to be weak or let anyone see me sweat or cry. Vulnerability is not an option.

In my ongoing struggle to reconcile my choices in the past with the person I'm trying to become, I cut my hair. More and more, the personal is starting to become political. Initially, I cut my hair because all those chemicals were drying my scalp out and it was unhealthy. After I did it, though, it started to mean more to me than just having a healthy head of hair. In the end, I think I cut it because I wanted to say fuck you to all those images that assault women on a daily basis that tell us we have to be tall, thin, with long, silky-straight hair and Caucasian features to be pretty. I refuse to play into that anymore. I'm keeping my short, nappy hair and my fat ass and my brown skin and I'm going to rock it like nobody's business. I'm tired of little black girls not feeling pretty, not loving themselves. So I'm going to do the only thing I feel empowered to do right now - I'm just gonna be me and not apologize for it. I'm going to embrace my own beauty and try and inspire others to do the same. It's not much, but you gotta start somewhere.

Anger is only useful if it leads to some kind of action. The good Lord knows I'm trying.

hair crisis.

I had written a while back about my hair and how I was going to stop straightening it. I thought I was totally set with going natural and being free and hippie-like and Black is Beautiful. Go me! However, now I'm having a serious panic attack over it. I was randomly browsing on Facebook and saw a photo of myself the last time I went natural and all I could think was, I cannot look like that again. That was one of the most awkward periods of my life - not only had I radically chopped off my hair, but I had this weird rash thing on my face, I was pledging a frickin sorority and doing theatre like 24/7. It was hellish. I'd like to think that I'm in a better place now, but I don't know if I'm ready to feel unattractive just yet. I'd like to think that I can do it differently this time and find a style that I really like. I'm living in New York City, there are tons of black salons and hair care shops around, and there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to find a natural style that works for me.

I know this entry seems shallow and vapid, but I don't think people really understand the importance of hair in black culture. In addition to skin color, hair is a really big deal in the African-American community. The way you choose to style your hair as a black woman says something about you whether you want it to or not. I constantly get frustrated because it seems like as a black woman, I can't do anything to my body without it being a political statement, due to the complicated nature of race in America. Just because I choose to straighten my hair doesn't mean I don't appreciate natural black beauty or that I'm conforming to white standards of what is beautiful. I also don't think that wearing your hair natural makes you some radical, Afrocentric activist. Sometimes hair is just hair. But, I guess history and society have robbed me of the ability to make choices that don't have values subscribed to them.

It does bother me, however, that I don't know how to deal with my natural hair. When I stopped relaxing it, I had no idea how to style it and no clue how to take care of it. I know there are tons of options for handling natural hair that don't necessarily mean rocking a short Afro - I just need to find something that works for me. I refuse to give up on this just yet. I'd really like to try and do this the right way to see what really works for me. I'm tired of hair being such a big deal. I wish we could just get over it. Maybe that's asking too much, but I'm going to try and do my own thing and not worry about what people think.

i am not my hair...

... but maybe I am. I'm going through a hair crisis right now. I go through these fairly periodically (crises, I mean... I'm seemingly always on the edge of insanity). Anyway, I'm not sure what I want to do with my hair. I've gone through a million phases with it - relaxers, braids (my own hair), braids (extensions), mini fro, curl perm. Just about the only things I haven't done are shave it bald or get a weave. I thought I had a really good thing going at this Dominican salon I go to - they relax and style my hair and they get it straighter than I've ever seen before. 

However, I also have this horrible scalp condition that makes my scalp horribly dry and scaly at times. I'm lucky in that I don't have an extreme case of it (seriously, when I google image searched it, I wanted to vomit - thank GOD my scalp doesn't look like that), but it's still a colossal pain in the ass to treat. Namely because most of the treatments require you to wash your hair with this medicated, prescription shampoo every two days. That doesn't sound so horrible, but African-American hair is wayyyy too sensitive to wash that frequently. So, I'm unsure of what to do because sometimes the condition shows up (like now) and sometimes it goes away for months at a time. As most of you know, I chemically relax (straighten) my hair every 6 weeks. I'm sure that that's probably not healthy for my condition, but I haven't been able to find a definitive answer about how great the damage is. I guess what I want to know is what the fuck I can do to keep my hair healthy and happy and not look horrible in the process. 

Sometimes I wish I had some sort of scientific skill because I hate the fact that if you're black, there are so few resources available to you if you have a dermatological problem. Not only do I have this scalp issue, but I have some other hereditary skin problems (biological mother - you were a hot mess, fyi) that I haven't been able to solve. So now, I have to spend precious time hunting down a dermatologist that specializes in black skin care (which I'm sure will be time-consuming and expensive). UGH. I guess for right now, I'm just going to stop relaxing my hair, start using these special tar shampoos and hope for the best with my search. In the meantime, I'll try not to look too beastly.

president barack obama.

I really wanted to write this entry last night, but I was so overcome with emotion that I really couldn't do it. I voted yesterday, in person, for the first time. I'd never pulled a lever before and I found it thrilling and exciting and nerve-wracking all at the same time. My father and I went to our polling place, my old elementary school, on Long Island. When I was in the booth I was so nervous! I was afraid that something would go wrong and my vote wouldn't count, it wouldn't register, or maybe I'd accidentally vote for the wrong person. So I triple-checked that I'd pulled the lever for Barack Obama, and then I walked out. It was a wonderful feeling.

I spent the evening with my friend Jama. We went to Rockefeller Centre and cheered when Obama's projections soared above McCain's to 103. The feeling of the crowd was electric. So many people were out and about - yelling and cheering when things went well for the Democrats and booing when McCain won anything. After that, we headed back to his apartment to watch the returns since we wanted to hear everything and the crowds were so loud. I was so nervous the whole time - we didn't know if America was going to vote for Barack, if the Bradley effect would happen, or what. But in the end, he won. And I cried. I cried so much because I couldn't believe that it was actually happening. A black man is going to be president. President Barack Hussein Obama - an intelligent, dorky (yes, Barack is a nerd, you know it), well-spoken, confident, black man with a funny name is going to lead the United States of America. I cried because this is something I never thought I'd see. Sure, I didn't grow up during Jim Crow and I've only had minimal run-ins with true racism, but it was just shocking. I thought of my mother - the only black girl in her high school, part of one of those integration programs. I thought of my grandparents, who grew up in the segregated South. I thought of every black man, woman, and child who's ever felt 'less than' because of their race. I thought of Chris Rock, who once quipped in a speech - "When you're white, the sky's the limit. When you're black, the limit's the sky." Well times have certainly changed, haven't they?

I still can't even put into words the significance of this election and it's results. When I was growing up, I remember my mother would sit me down and have serious chats with me about my future. "You have three strikes against you and they're going to try and hold you back for your whole life. You're black, you're a woman, and you have a Hispanic last name. You have to jump higher, run faster, and be smarter than everyone else. It's not enough to be good, you have to be great, you have to be the best. No one is going to hand you anything - you are going to have to claw your way to get whatever you desire. Because at the end of the day - no matter how smart you are, no matter how much you've achieved, you're still going to be a nigger. At least in the minds of a lot of people." Those are heavy words to hear as a child, but they've inspired me my whole life. My brothers and I were taught that we were going to have to give more to get less and I've spent my whole life fighting for what I want. And even as successful as I've been thus far, I've still always sensed that there was a limit to that success. For me, seeing Barack Obama take the election just removed some of those limits.

I didn't vote for Obama solely because he is black. To quote Chris Rock again - "I'm proud Barack Obama is running for president. If it was Flavor Flav would I be proud? No." And that, for me, is what makes this so special. America is about to be introduced to a whole new side of blackness that they may have never been exposed to. When some people think of black culture they think of gangsters with bling chains, video hos shaking their butts while having champagne sprayed over them, hip-hop music blasting. But now, we're going to have a First Family that shows a side of blackness that I can identify with. A black family consisting of a mother and father (happily married) with children. Two Ivy-League educated parents, with law degrees, and impressive careers. That's the life I'm trying to build for myself and that's the life I want America to see. That Black people can have that - we can do that and we can do it well. 

When I was a kid, my mother refused to buy anything with a white face on it. I'd ask for things - like once I asked for that picture of the two cherubic angels side-by-side. And my mother got it for me, but they were black angels. I thought it was weird, and for a while, I couldn't understand why she did it. We had a black angel on our Christmas tree and lots of black Santas. After a while, though, I knew exactly why she had done it. It's important to see people that look like you. It's important to know that the world is not whitewashed - there are successful people of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities. I've always struggled with my self-esteem - wondering if I was pretty or if anyone would ever be attracted to me. Because I am not the ideal - I'm not stick-thin, I have boobs, hips, and thighs. I am black, I have dark eyes, super-thick lips, and short hair. I will never be able to toss my hair over my shoulders, I will never fit into a size 2, and I will never be fair of hair or face. And my mother cared enough to make sure that I knew that there were other people out there that looked like me and that they were beautiful and that I should embrace them. I hope that little boys and girls will see Barack, Michelle, Malia, and Sasha Obama and think - that could be me. That is me. I can do that. They are beautiful and whole and happy, and I can be that too. I can go to Columbia, I can go to Harvard, I can be president, I can be whatever I want. That is why this is so important to me.

Lastly, I'm really fucking excited to have a black first lady. Black women are one of the most put-upon groups on this earth. We are either desexualized (mammies taking care of other people's children, Sapphires who castrate our men, snappy sidekicks - the black best friend who's always snapping her fingers and delivering one-liners with no love life of her own) or we're seen as hypersexual gyrating video hos, shaking it for cash. Now we have a strong black woman as first lady - well-educated, beautiful, graceful, classy, but also a wife and a mother. She has a career, a mind of her own, a brain, a loving, devoted husband and two beautiful, well-behaved children. Michelle Obama has given me hope. The hope that all of these things are within my reach. That I can have them. That I don't have to be alone. That I can become a successful attorney who doesn't have to give up a family life for a career. That a black woman can be sexy and smart, with a mind and life of her own.

I am excited at all of the possibilities. I feel energized and invigorated. It truly is the dawn of a new day.

election day 08

I just voted this morning. It was so weird to be behind that curtain (this was the first time I'd ever voted in person at an actual polling place). I was so afraid I was going to mess it up. I checked about 20 times to make sure I'd voted for Obama. I'm really praying that the country goes in that direction. I'm nervous and scared about the effects of racism - not only in stopping him from winning, but in the future. What if he wins and some crazy racist nutjob decides to do something about it or hurt people of color in retaliation? I worry about that a lot. There's a lot of hateful people out there and it's scary.

I would like to post more, but I'm in extreme pain and I can barely breathe so I'm off to do some more work *whip cracks* as I lay in my childhood bedroom and wait until it's time to head back to the city.

black girl, white world.

So, a few posts back Shruti asked me to elaborate on my relationship with other black women. I don't really think my issues deal with strictly other black women, but more so with black men and the community at large.

Basically, I grew up with a pretty privileged lifestyle, especially for a black girl. My parents aren't rich by any means, but we always had what we wanted. I went to Catholic school as a child, a ritzy private summer camp, and we always had yearly vacations. My parents never really said no. I mean, if we wanted something, my parents would work hard to get it. They didn't spoil us - we weren't allowed anything outrageous, nor did we ask for anything like that - and they made sure we knew that we had the things we had because my father busted his ass 7 days a week working overtime. But, it was still a lot of privilege. I never really grew up around people who didn't have some kind of money. While none of my friends are crazy wealthy or anything compared to some of the kids we went to school with, if you compare our families to people in the rest of the country, we're all doing pretty well for ourselves.

I live in a biracial family (black mom, light-skinned Puerto Rican dad) although I'm not biracial (well, at least as far as I know - I'm adopted, but I've been told by several people - including the Intellectual that if I told them that I was half black/half hispanic, they'd believe me). Race has always been an odd things for me. I live in a family where races have mixed and my dad and mom look nothing like each other and nothing like me. When I was a kid, we lived in a predominately black neighborhood where I was teased mercilessly by kids over my "white father." For some reason, having a parent that isn't black is like the kiss of death in the black community. It takes away your street cred. Add that to the fact that I was a dorky, nerdy girl who read a lot, watched Jeopardy for fun, and my whole wardrobe was from the Gap, and you could tell I was going to get teased. Most of my life other black people (with a few exceptions) shunned me. In America, you're told if you're black and you're smart and get good grades and stay out of trouble, that you're "acting white." Well, let me just say this - I'd rather be "acting white" at an Ivy League university than "acting black" in jail. 

Basically, after years of the teasing, the shunning, the discomfort, I just sort of gave up. I tried my hardest to integrate myself into the community and I've pretty much failed at every turn. Instead I've tended to make friends with other black women who've had the same shit happen to them. I love the black community, I love the way I was raised, I love the heritage and the traditions, but I can't deal with the bullshit. And so I've tended to surround myself with kids like me - other bourgie black kids who value education and have goals and dreams and ambitions and don't tease me because I use proper English. 

As far as black men are concerned, I am so awkward around them. I get really nervous because I remember all the kids who teased me in my youth. Also, I don't really interact with black men on a regular basis. Most black women interact with a black man every day of the week - their father. My father isn't black, doesn't really have any black friends, and so the only black men I see are my younger brothers, two of whom are mixed race. I never grew up around black men and so in some ways I'm afraid we won't connect. In my fantasies, my ideal man is always black, because I think that black love is beautiful and I feel more comfortable physically with black men, who tend to appreciate my body type and features. But, I end up dating white men because they're more readily available in the circles I run in, they approach me, and they seem to accept me for who I am as a person. I'd love to fall in love with a wonderful black man who's educated, intelligent, and has an amazing sense of humor. But the statistics don't seem to pan out in my favor. Black women are the least likely group to get married in our society. In 2001, 41.9% of black women have never been married. That's scary. That's really fucking scary. So when I complain that I will always be alone and never get married, it's not just paranoia, it's logic and statistics.

I don't know. Race is such a complicated thing. It never really goes away. I probably haven't done this topic justice, but I wanted to put some things out there.

the great hair debate.

Yet again, I'm unsure what the fuck I want to do with my hair. Being a black woman in San Francisco sucks. I'm serious. There are practically no resources. Well, unless you go to Oakland and I don't have a car nor do I think it's a sustainable lifestyle choice to pick a salon that's far away. I'm still trying to figure out the reason why black people don't live here. Or at least not enough for me to be satisfied with. I was talking to Freshman Year Best Friend and even he admitted that after he listened to my complaint, he took a look around and realized that while certain racial minorities are represented here, not all of them are.

I struggle with race sometimes. Okay all the time. Especially since I've moved to SF and also since my friendship with my Long Island friends has grown stronger. I've talked to Slind about this a number of times. We talked about how for most of our lives, it's just been easier to relate to our colored friends because despite all the differences between our races (my best friends are filipino, egyptian, indian, korean, etc), we're still minorities in America which carries with it a certain upbringing and a certain awareness. I miss that awareness. It doesn't exist here in hippy-dippy, we-love-everyone San Francisco.

But anyway, I digress. This is about hair. Right now I get my hair relaxed (chemically straightened - ugh, even having to explain that annoys me. haha). However, I'm late on my standing every-six-weeks appointment. And I've been thinking about going natural and finding something to do with my natural hair. I've also considered going back to the braids look. Or I guess I can just suck it up and go back and relax it. UGH. There's issues with any of those options. In other news, I'm going to try and do a straw set on Friday night to see if I think it looks cute. If so, then I might just start transitioning from relaxer to no-relaxer.

Wish me luck! I'm notoriously horrible at doing any hair-care procedure myself.

yesterday was a surprisingly good day.

I went to the Black _________ Network party at my job last night and I had such a good time (name edited to protect my identity... lol). Normally I'm so skeptical about those things. For those of you who've known me for a while I have an interesting history with the black community at the various schools and organizations I've been involved with. As a child, I played with other black children like me and had maybe one white friend. Then I moved to the ritzy part of Long Island, dominated by a large white and Jewish population, and that was the end of that. My friends were still very multi-cultural though. My high school clique consists of East Asians, Indians, Filipino-Egyptians, Jews, and blacks. So I was still used to hanging out with mostly colored people. Then I went to college and that changed. Brown was a very diverse place, but diverse in an odd way. There was tons of self-segregation and I've never been about that. Being Black at Brown was a political thing and if you know me, I'm not very political. So I've learned to approach any African-American organization very carefully because I've never felt entirely comfortable with the message that some of them have.

I grew up in a bi-racial family where race was kind of ignored. I mean, we certainly were taught that we were black and we had to work harder to go against the stereotypes, but my mother was always talking about race and success as an individual thing, not a group mentality. My BFF from college is black as well and we get along so well because we were both raised the same way. My economic/living situation and her politics (she's Republican) kept us kind of isolated from the black community and so we banded together and became friends. We both argue and chat about issues of race and class and politics, but our views and our lifestyle choices keep us on the outside. We both date white men. It's not an active decision, I just have a policy of not turning any man down based on race. If you're nice, intelligent, well-read, into the arts, and sarcastic, you could be spotted green and I'd date you. But this isn't a popular choice in the black American community. I got teased like whoa when I was younger for "acting white" because I like to read and watch the history channel and cared about my grades. None of these experiences endeared me to the idea of community. To me, the black community was something I desperately wanted to be a part of but got shunned from every time I tried to put a foot inside.

But last night was different. It took me some time to warm up, but once I got there, it was great. I met a lot of nice people, chatted with folks, and felt *at home.* I miss having a strong black presence in my life. Back in NY, I had my family and I had BFF, but here I have no one and that's hard. Non-black people don't get what it's like to be black on a very fundamental level. And I'm not talking about discrimination or adversity (that stuff counts too but not for the purpose of this discussion), but cultural stuff. Things like hair, food, family dynamics, all of that. So I'm happy I went because it was nice to let my hair down, kick back and just be who I am for once, without worrying about being PC or stepping on anyone's toes or offending anyone.

Oh, in boy news... The Engineer IMmed me!!!! We talked for a while. And things with Tech Guy are getting... interesting. Next post, I promise! I can't talk about men all the time!