Black Women Walk Slowly version 1

Black women walk slowly over hot cracked sidewalks  

Sweat drips from her brow

Magic solutions are solidified in the heat of her mind

Making assistance and pennies stretch to feed five

Turning manager's specials into hearty meals

Black women walk slowly holding the future

Arms ache carrying the little ones

Love from her heart filling her little ones up to their eyes

Protecting their bodies from harm yet fortifying them with pride

Clothing them in armor for their own life battle  

Black women walk slowly with weathered hands

Blood thick like syrup from tiny cuts

Heals daily from edges of machines and work voices

Showering rains are glass shards from the ‘ceiling’ still prick

Totalling blood loss from micro aggressions doesn't soothe the scab

Black women walk slowly with tensed back muscles

Burdens of history, kin, holding peace unwavering

Heavy laden with lamenting loss and caring for elders

Pushing perseverance with each hip beyond incarceration or abandonment

Bending to gravity for a moment, only to best Newton's Second

Black women walk slowly knees popping over throbbing feet

Race but don't run; hurdles lie in wait

Restore the calluses and corns when time permits

Stopping is an action omitted in her prime directive

Sprinting around her doesn't lessen her resolve, she has to get there...eventually.

Placing gloves over her hands

The papers she files

The glass ceilings she breaks

But even in the triumphant shower of  the shattered ceiling

Come the micro cuts the slivers of stinging aggressions

How pleased we are to have you up here with us

As if she didn't belong, as if she hadn't earned it  

Your pleasure is not her measure

Her blood is thick to quickly seal the wound,

Conceal the hurt, scar over to heal

So she can withstand more cuts

Without going mad

Her back aches

She works jobs plural.

Job after job

She holds herself up straight

She stands tall in the indignation of asking for help

Distant sisters balance water on their heads and babes on their backs

Their feet ache from long distances  trudged through  

Patches of ashy white calluses form on the earth facing side of her feet.

The weight of a generation is a heavy burden but a delicate one

Her fingers nimbly braid, plait, and twist the little ones hair.

Her throat is dry from humming the old songs to keep her going

Dried from singing sweetly to the elders, to the sickly, to the teething baby

Her shoulder slopes down.

Her knees crack and pop in the bend

She records and watches and shares

The last moments of her law abiding beloved

She speaks, she fights, she shares her pain vividly  

She seeks justice but is calm and waits

Black women walk slowly  

The race is not given to the swift, nor the strong but to them who endureth until the end

Crabs in a bucket...LADIES!!!

As my pastor Elder Oscar Bradshaw used to say this a meat sermon, not one made of milk and honey. It's harder to chew and swallow, but more nourishing to the soul. (I miss his presence every day.)

In defense and deference to the words spoken by my African sister, Ms. Adichie, please calm down and have a seat. In reality all she said was that the experience of a cis-woman and a non cis woman are both hard but different. No one is saying you're not a real woman.

I REPEAT NO ONE IS SAYING YOU'RE NOT A REAL WOMAN.

All she said is our experiences are different and they are. There is no logical way for you to dispute our experiences differ. I'll wait for you to find a way to make them exactly the same.

….

Ok. They're different but they share similarities and both are subject to hardships that include beatings, rapes, mutilation and death just because we are who we are.

The nearest bigot, given the chance, would kill us both. There's no need to get defensive, we’re both in the shit house. The odor is the same.

Again this reminds me of my pastor Elder Bradshaw’s popular sermon that used crabs in a bucket as a parallel. I'm no fisher person, but he used to tell the congregation that a man with a bucket full of crabs. The fisherman could set that bucket down and walk away and not lose a single crab.

Elder Oscar Bradshaw said that those live crabs individually would try to crawl out of the bucket.

But just as one would crest the lid a crab lower down would grab on to the leaders leg and drag him back down. So that sneaky crab would now be in the lead and nearly to the rim of the bucket. Some other crabs behind her would grab onto the new lead crab’s leg and drag her down as well.

This pattern would repeat over and over again so that no crabs would find freedom because the one not in the lead would drag the leader down.

For those who don't understand literary devices this is what we keep doing to each other.

Selma Hayek recently did it to we young women of color. Trans-folks are hitting us again. Black women did it to white newly awakened feminists after the Women's March.

Crabs in a bucket….We're all doomed to substandard pay, non equal rights, and the manipulation and objectification that may result in our death.

Yet we keep pulling each other down with petty slights. You didn't join us before. We didn't feel invited before. You said our experiences were different. That doesn't mean our experiences aren't valid because you said they're different.

Can we come together as a group and save our lives, our rights, and our equality?

Or should I  just get back in the bucket and ready myself to be eaten?

The Session on Sessions

When I was younger, I had a trouble making cousin who got suspended a lot. One of her syblings revealed to me that she had been offered a coveted seat in the gifted and talented program at her school. I was shocked.

She got into physical altercations with her own family all the time. She was mouthy, and fast. I enjoyed watching her interact with anyone who tried to tell her what to do. It was like watching police chases. What mayhem will she cause next?

News that she would be in a program I was proud to be in at my school was jaw dropping. She was all but allergic to homework. If you needed class to go off the rails so you didn’t have to take a quiz today, she was your girl. I never doubted her intelligence. Would she be able to simmer down enough that her classmates could learn? Or would she use her new found power in the gifted classes, to further her own agenda?

Her sister turned to me as she thrashed about and whispered, “She tests well.” I just shook my head. Thankful that we didn't go to the same school.

Pardon me. Let my black geek flag fly for a moment. They mentioned Minority Report in a senate confirmation hearing for Sessions to become Attorney General! The Republicans  mentioned it only as a movie. Omitting to give credit to its true author Philip K. Dick. Republicans are mixing science fiction allegory with politics.

The reference was used of course to criticize the outgoing Attorney General and the outgoing administration. Republicans watched the movie and understood at least somewhat the basic principles put forth in the book and subsequently the film. That's something...I guess.

Specifically there were criticisms about Choke Point. Choke Point’s intention as I understood  it was to constrict or choke the flow of money by illegal businesses and protect consumers from predatory lending (payday loans and such). Chokepoint’s selection of who to target wasn't necessarily based on a proven track record but on suspicion of who might likely be an abuser (porn stuff, lottery stuff, credit repair services etc.). Then hold banks responsible for doing business with them.

It's not legal was the outcome. Rather going after fradulent or predatory businesses in this fashion was not the legal way to do it. Some say legitimate businesses were hurt by this.

So innocent businesses were being harmed by a blanket policy.

Does anybody remember stop and frisk? Nice to know that corporations have more rights than a brown person walking the streets. The grievances of companies being violated is quickly remedied, while we debate the violation of my person based on assumptions.

Black people's actual right to personal sovereignty = Fair Game (another Philip K. Dick story).

One of the people tasked with asking questions likened the Choke Point practice to the use of precogs in the film Minority Report. Using knowledge of the future and holding someone accountable for what they haven't done yet, but might do.

When I think about this principle hard enough we do it all the time. Personally we might put our bags in the trunk or cover them with jackets in any area we feel we could be targeted. I have found this practice crosses color lines. It could be some place as innocent as a parking deck near shopping areas. It could be how we perceive the socioeconomic (translation: poor and an assumption of being uneducated; translation decoded: us brown and black folk) status of an area.

Mandatory minimum sentencing was just that, wasn't it? You've been convicted of crime once and we feel or forsee you getting out and doing some bad shit again. To curtail this, regardless of the circumstance or your age or whatever, we give you a heavy sentence now at your first conviction. Then three strikes and you're in jail until the end of your days on this earth. Sessions said that mandatory minimums have been effective and that we should ‘slow down’ before getting rid of them.

My dad used to tell this joke. A policeman stops a man for not stopping at a stop sign. The man says but I slowed down. The policeman pulls the man out of his car and beats him with his baton and asked the man, “Do you want me to slow  down or stop?” I digress.

On the flip side, we used that same logic on Southern states in the Voting Rights Act. You've been on the naughty list for attempting to deny minorities their right to vote. So any changes you make have to be submitted for approval by other folks before you can use it nefariously against the votes of us darkies and the like.

We don't have precogs. Yet the minute these states were allowed to alter the rules to restrain the voices of the poor and brown, they did.

North Carolina, I'm looking at you.

I say hey we gave these states a crack at it on their own. It didn't work out. Put them back on the naughty list and we'll revisit the issue…..in another 50 years. But let's all remember that's 2 strikes now.:-)

When other Republicans were defending Sessions’ acceptance of awards by some Klan-ish organizations, one Republican made a joke about how many Representatives accepted so many awards they couldn't be sure of the affiliations or statements of all these groups. Then they chuckled.

I discovered rich old white men laughing at racial bias who have the power of enacting and perhaps enforcing the laws of this land makes my hands tremble and my eyes well with tears.

It's only day one and Sessions dodged a lot of hard questions that were at the moment hypothetical but in a couple of weeks the new AG will most likely be tasked with taking on. These hard questions were often about being at odds with the President-elect.

Sessions would never be my first choice.

Unfortunately, day one proves he tests well.

Anew

In the crispness of the fall at midday, I saw this used cream colored armchair. It reminded me of myself.

In one of my past lives, I used to make furniture and other props for imaginary people whose rooms only had three walls. A big part of that was changing something new to something old, or restoring something old to look new.

Which am I? I am neither young nor old. I still serve my purpose.

In this time of resolutions, I too want to change me. I'm well aware that change is hard. It's essential.

The cream colored armchair and I have been loved and cherished. Our battle scars are visible, some are deeply hidden. Seasons have come and gone, staining us for better or worse. Ones we have loved and held are now gone. We must learn to love anew.

We now try again. Holding our pillow on the sidewalk as decaying leaves scurry underfoot, we wait. We must remember that we have been loved. Love will find us anew, we are worthy of it. Change will happen, Earth herself is our example. We might get stained and scared anew, yet we will hold those we love and we will feel love. First we must stand on the street in our honest selves and allow for change.

 

Fried Frenemy and Fellow Human

A few years ago, I couldn't understand people's anger at the infamous chicken restaurant until I read about myself. I thought it was a lot of hipster nonsense until I did a bit of research. Once I understood it better, the chicken was still delicious but I was so full on guilt I couldn't enjoy it. So I stopped eating it.
Now that people have started to be more vocal about their feelings toward this corporate entity it's been easier to explain to people why I don't eat there. A lot of times other people will explain it for me so quickly that I can leave the room while someone else tells them why.
What has begun to unnerve me is the super reactions. This whole business about trying to stop them from putting a new franchise up. I mean sure it warms me a little to hear that others, and those put in place by a system of voting, actually agree with me in some way (shocker!). But to combat intolerance with intolerance is no way to run your boycott or to earn any converts.
For those of us in the boycott, let us remember that there are more places we can exercise this muscle.  I am in no way perfect in this but it is always worth seeing where the profit you hand corporations go and where those profits came from. Perhaps we can all take a Sunday afternoon and find out how little the person who assembled our clothes and shoes got paid. We can look at our receipts from the discount depot we buy so many things from and ponder if the nice lady who bagged our cheap plastic crap into a cheap plastic bag has had a decent raise in the 6 years she's worked there.
To those of you who may agree with the chicken restaurant and its actions, enjoy your meal without me. I pray that when those with the ability to shun you for being different rise to power, I will once again find the strength to skip their chicken sandwich too.  As I recall this country was founded by people fleeing intolerance.

The truth about people and sympathy

I just have to get this off my chest.

I've seen the commercials. Some woeful woman wails and they show slow panning photos of domesticated animals shaking or damaged. I agree that it's sad. Lots of things are sad. What I can't understand is people weeping at these commercials and not weeping at dying children living in similar conditions.

Don't get me wrong. I like dogs. I am less fond of cats but I still think they deserve to be cared for. But for the love of God, people first.

I know it's a dangerous thing to talk about people's priorities, but I can't help it.

Okay, well I think my soapbox has been warmed up for the day.

The Never Never List

To say that I am known for having very strong opinions about movies is an understatement. Some of these opinions lead me to refuse to see a movie under any circumstance. I call it the Never, Never list. The most recent movie I have put on this list is Eat, Pray, Love. I haven't read the book but it really doesn't sound like it would hold my interest. In fact all signs point to it probably irritating me more than anything. This is a real shame since I am a big fan of Javier Bardem and I am also a fan of Billy Crudup. I was shocked to find out that the running time for this movie is over two hours. I guess you can't really put a timer on a mid life crisis.

However, thinking about this has made me remember some movies that I put on this list that I eventually saw. Some with positive results and some reaffirming why I shouldn't have seen the movie in the first place. I will admit that sometimes if a movie becomes too popular before I see it this becomes a good enough reason for me not to see it. People who know me and know about my list often are a little heartbroken at what I have selected to add to the list. I am well aware that this is unfair, but hey so is life.

I also go through 'anti' fazes on particular actors and movie genres. The actors have usually made a movie that I didn't care for and I stop watching their films for a bit. I feel it's like punishing a child by putting them in a time out corner. I'm not crazy I know this doesn't actually punish them but it feels better than rolling the dice with them again. Movie genres are similarly banned. I generally get pissed off at having to watch chick flicks. This rule isn't hard and fast and I have excluded any movie I watched when I was younger than 20. People make fun of me for leaving these movies out but there's just nothing I can do about how old I was when I watched Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman. Then once I started watching older movies rather than use my age I just declared that the year the movie was made was a better divider. I didn't see When Harry Met Sally until I was in my mid twenties but considering the year it was made it still fits my flawed logic. :)

The first movie I can remember seeing against my will as an adult was Titanic. I am almost certain that the popularity of this movie did it for me. I didn't know anything about Kate Winslet at the time and I did not hold a grudge against Leonardo D. But alas, I went on a date with a guy who thought he would shed my tough exterior by watching me see this movie in the hopes that I would cry particularly at the ending. Now had circumstances been different maybe I would have really enjoyed the film despite my aversion to seeing it. But under those circumstances, I was not amused. I remember saying to my date before he approached the ticket counter that I wanted to see Kiss the Girls. Granted, I really didn't want to see that either but it was lesser of two evils as I'd already seen everything else they had playing. Trying not to be too upset I sat through the movie and as it came towards the drowning scene I started to hear some chicks in the theater crying. I really couldn't help but laugh out loud. I just didn't see it as the type of movie that was worth crying over. Boy did those chicks in the theater give me some vicious looks. My date was disappointed and I lost 194 minutes of my life that I can't get back now.

Some of the brighter moments of breaking with the Never Never List include seeing Austin Powers: The Spy  Who Shagged Me, and Zoolander. I can only assume I was in an anti empty comedy  faze. But both those movies turned out to be pretty funny and enjoyable. I have since lifted this ban on comedies with moderate success.

One of the most irritating birthdays I ever had was the day I was forced to watch National Treasure. I'd seen the trailer and nothing about it appealed to me. The best character in the film, played by Justin Bartha, doesn't get a lot of face time in the trailer and I think that would have helped. However, I hated the movie and seeing a movie you knew would hate on your birthday just adds insult to injury. And no it was not just the presence of Nicholas Cage that turned me off of this movie. Although that didn't help either.

Let's face it you can't see every movie. A part of me thinks that you can define yourself by what you see and what you don't. I know that there is no better way to judge a movie than to actually watch it but I think it's also important to keep a sense of self. I don't enjoy being forced to watch anything but I am willing to listen to people who have seen a movie to persuade me to lift my ban.