You Better Be Glad I Like You

Posted on September 3, 2014 by Raivenne

Yawning before she can open to the first page of Glass Houses, the new book she downloaded the night before, Sabrina gives up and closes her Tab. Already familiar with the author’s mesmerizing writing style, she knows the successive yawns that have overtaken her are hardly portent to the reading material. Sparing the fellow commuter sitting directly across from being able to count her fillings even from that distance should she allow free rein to pandiculation, she presses her lips tightly together stifling yet another yawn. Dear sweet Insomnia, the sonavabitch, in its perverse sense of humor, takes the sleep she was denied in the dead of night when it was needed and uses the rhythmic movements of the subway train to bring it to her in the morning light of her commute to work.

Glancing at the time piece on her wrist as an afterthought, she muses why she even bothers wearing a watch anymore as she checks the time on her cell phone anyway, 06:47am. There is still a solid forty-five minutes or so of her ride to work, barring the expected unexpected delays inherit to morning rush hour. Knowing a losing battle when she feels it, she stores the Tab in her handbag, and like the true City commuter she is, she then zips it and wraps the straps around her wrists for safe keeping before pulling her sunglasses over her eyes and gives in to slumber.

Taking a late breakfast break nearly four hours later, she sits at her desk, her second extra-large coffee of the morning well in hand, curious antici-pation, not letting her wait until the evening commute to begin reading the book. She opens the reader on her PC figuring she can get at least the first chapter in as she takes a bite of the bacon, eggs and cheese on a toasted bialy. The cheese oh so perfectly warm and gooey as she likes it suddenly feeling repulsively mucoid as she reads the opening sentence:

NED POWELL AWOKE FRIDAY morning at eight and rubbed the sleep from his eyes, rolling a viscous, snot-like clump between his fingers like it was putty.

Damn you Andrew Wilmot, you better be glad I like you!

(PS: I finished eating the sandwich anyway.)

Glass Houses by Andrew Wilmot

What Is More Scandalous?

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Raivenne

As many people know, a trove of nude photos spread like wild forest fire across the internet this past weekend. Several well know female celebrities were victimized because some (presumably male) assholes decided it would be great fun to hack into their cellphones and other private cloud storage to steal their private photos. The photos were stolen, not for personal enjoyment, because what fun is that if only a select few know what they did? No, they also had to leak these private photos to the internet for the rest of the world to see. And not just leaked anywhere, but to add insult to injury, they were leaked to 4Chan where they were guaranteed to be seen. Not even Olivia Pope could out scandal this one.

If you are not familiar with 4Chan, let me just say if Dante Alighieri has a chance to do some modern redesigning, 4Chan — the bastion of so much that is prurient and outright disgusting about the internet, would surely be included as a form of punishment in his new circles of purgatory. And why 4Chan? Because of how it is set up, it is near impossible to track who posted what and when. If you can do something on the internet and think you can get away with it would you? In the land of 4Chan – where lolcats, resides next to mutilated kitties, resides next to very graphic images of another word for felines that also relates to female sexual organs – the answer is almost always “Yes”.

Though there were several actresses victimized in this, some who have denied – some who have confirmed the veracity of the photos, it is Jennifer Lawrence, whose name has now become the spearhead for this, as the Oscar award-winning actress is the most well-known of the victims. And have no doubt about it; these women are most certainly the victims here. Because for as many detractors there is finger pointing and wagging at the malevolent acts, there is even more finger-pointing and wagging, not at the perpetrators, but at the victims. The underlying, and completely wrong message, is not that it is inherently messed up to invade someone’s privacy like this, but that these women brought on themselves. The old well, if they hadn’t taken nude photos… mantra in full swing. Blaming the women for having private and personal nude photos of themselves on their cell phone and/or cloud is akin to blaming a sexual assault victim who happened to be wearing sexy lingerie under her clothes. Understandably, lawyers and spokesmen have been brought into this with Jennifer Lawrence, Victoria Justice, Kate Upton and several others stating they would prosecute anyone who posts the stolen and “leaked” pictures.

The word leak generally implies something accidentally. Except we all know this was no accident. These women were sucker punched. Instead of a relaxing Labor Day weekend, they instead labored under the pressures of being thrown under the scandal bus. And how the pictures were hacked and then leaked is secondary only to the why someone would do so in the first place.

If the hacker had simply patted himself on the back for a personal job well done, he would still be all kinds of wrong for the hacking in the first place, but we the general public would never know about it. Let us not kid ourselves, if these were dozens of photos were of anonymous women whose cell phones and cloud services he hacked, only those women and their families immediately would have truly cared. It’s not right or fair, but it is the truth. The hackers presumably did not break into male celebrity accounts and post nude photos of them because while it definitely would have sparked a lot of interest, a lot is not good enough.

Most people are not considered an artist or a genius until others recognize/acknowledge them as such, which means they need a witness, they need an audience. It is the same for this type of hacker. As I stated above, a select few friends as witness is not enough of an ego boost to prove the point, the world at large must be in audience to this. The bad part, well one of the so many, is that the hacking and the posting of the photos are not about the women involved. This was something that was going to happen at some point regardless. Ms. Lawrence, Kate Upton et al, just happen to be the echelon of the hot young female stars right now. This was solely about the one-upmanship of the moment. These young women were nothing, but the means to a specific end, with no consideration of the consequences to them at all. So many are having the vapors that these women dared to have – what I cannot stress enough – private nude photos of themselves, that it seems few have taken umbrage with the fact that the these women’s lives are now in turmoil for no other reason than bragging hacking fapping rights.

No, the scandal here is not who took the pictures (the victims), but who stole them (the perpetrator/s and/or initial poster/s).

Nothing To Fear? Want To Bet?

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Raivenne

Please – read this first —-> Unseen, Unheard, Unvalued, Unimportant …

Now hear (read?) me out…

The fear of such an encounter is in nearly every woman’s subconscious, whether we want to admit to ourselves, let alone openly, or not.

Maybe it is not to such extremes in smaller towns, but in cities big and small, each day we as women who deign to step out past our front doors is consciously unconscious prepared for battle. We walk the streets constantly scanning faces and spaces, making as little eye-contact as possible, to keep from bumping into people and people from bumping into us. We walk the streets wondering was that brush against our backsides just the happenstance of crowded streets/bus/train/bar or was it something else? We walk the streets knowing that to hold eye-contact with a stranger too long can garner anything from a “were you looking at me?” stare with them quickly looking away, to a “what the f*** you looking at?” glare that makes you quickly shift your eyes. For extended eye-contact can turn into a simple one head nod of acknowledgement one human to another that is forgotten faster than the air refills the vacancy formed in passing each other or it can escalate into what happened to GirlGriot. Or for the wrong woman caught by the wrong man on the wrong day with no knights, white/black or otherwise, to come to the rescue – something worse.

And all of this for no other reason for some than our having a vagina.

This daily battle is amplified pound for pound exponentially for us bigger gals. Where a look can also be one mere disapproval for taking up more space than some other person or outright disdain for our mere existence on this planet. Where a woman can strut down the street in haute couture, but can be brought down and made to feel a hot mess by the hateful words and/or actions of an (im)perfect stranger, because she appears to be over XYZ pounds over some presumed benchmark of beauty. If a cell phone is held up in our general direction, is the person just trying to read their texts in a better light or are we about to be photographed without our permission only to someday find ourselves subjected to the likes of Tosh 2.0 or “People of WalMart” type of vile and viral?

Now add being a woman of color to the daily strategy, because unless we are already acquainted with them in other some way, the ones who could become a danger to us do not see the individual. The questions then become – is the guy looking at me seeing a Sapphire (the Angry Black Woman stereotype to challenge) or a Jezebel (the Promiscuous Black Woman stereotype to fuck)? While no one is ever mistaking me for the third stereotype a Mammy – the maid/mother/church woman/crone, I know for certain that the potential predator/s may look at me through any one or all three stereotypes and only see one thing – prey. This battle crosses every class, social and economic lines from roun’-the-way girls through to the upper echelons grande dames. The daily battle of our self-pride that says “Keep your head up,” against our self-preservation that says “but, keep your eyes lowered” because any day could turn into that day. Just as no mother of black sons wants her child’s name to follow behind the comma of the latest victim of senseless violence, we have no desire for it to be our name behind that comma either.

We women are well aware that millions of women will go through their lives and never encounter anything that may challenge her safety. Still, if we have not lived it ourselves, we all know someone, or of someone, who has. Thus we all go through our lives knowing that on any given day it could. We either live in the grips of this fear, or in spite of this fear, or some combination thereof, but this fear is a subconscious part of our day, every single day.

I know most of you can’t, won’t or refuse to comprehend this, so I’ll repeat it.

Every. Single. Day.

And we do it in relative silence. Why? Because what’s the point in complaining? No ones listening anyway, as the saying goes. It’s one thing to surmise that our well beings can mean so little to some. It’s a bitter pill to swallow down in our cores in the face of the truth of it. Had she been a white woman accosted by a black man in such a manner, someone would have quickly intervened. Someone else likely would have been taking cell phone pictures/videos for the police. She would not be deliberately unseen by passers-by. She would not be unheard by those she called out to. If silence equals consent, then the silence of each person that ignored GG’s plight in effect gave the man consent to harm. I do not dare to ask what would it have taken for them to acknowledge her potentially dire situation and intervene. I am just grateful for the young heroes who did come to her aid, that we won’t ever have to find out.

But what of the next woman who encounters a man like that?

I read GirlGriot’s post. And re-read it. And read it yet again. I want to focus on the positive of the young men that came to her rescue, but I can’t get past the boulder sized lump in my throat that rescuing was needed in the first place.

I keep coming back to this: I shouldn’t have to fear men messing with me in the street. And I shouldn’t have to fear the people who are supposed to protect me from men messing with me in the street.
— GirlGriot Unseen, Unheard, Unvalued, Unimportant …

Nor should we have to have fear for the good Samaritan/s who do reach out to protect us, that their actions to help could put them in a different kind of harm on our behalf.

We should not have to fear…period.

But we do… Every. Single. Day.

No Apologies

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Raivenne

So Linda Kelsey posted an article on the Daily Mail, a UK publication. In the article the self-proclaimed “unapologetic fattist”

Oh Linda Kelsey honey, let me begin with these wonderful words from the incomparable Mary J. Bligh:

So I like what I see, when I’m looking at me,
When I’m walking past the mirror

And yes it’s a full length mirror, showing all of me from my cankles, through my “bulging bellies and billowing pillows of back and shoulder stuffing, punctured by flabby arms and lardy legs” to my massive mess of curly hair. And I adore every ounce of it!

I am not going to go through the various fallacies in your pseudo medical proclamations solely equating fat with a litany of potentially fate medical conditions. We’ve all been on that not-so-merry-go-round and rather leave that to those who are better versed in that debate handle it. My focus is on your inability to understand how women of a certain size can dare to be happy. I do not know about you, but the source of my happiness is not attached to the size of my waistline.

You don’t like fat on yourself, that’s fine. You don’t like fat on other people, that’s equally fine. You are entitled to your opinion on both counts. However, your issues with the fat body are not mine. And certainly are not the Happiness Police. My happiness is not reliant upon your opinion -there’s that word again- of my fatness. My happiness cannot be validated or unvalidated by anyone but the crazy woman I face in that full length mirror each day.

I suppose a part of me is somewhat grateful that unapologetic fattists such as yourself at least recognize that not all of us fat chicks are miserable beings, hiding ourselves from the world, crying into a (insert fatty foods of choice here – I don’t want mention specifics and accidentally trigger anyone). After all we fatties are clearly so sensitive with no self control that even mentioning food could set us off on a feeding frenzy <– that was SARCASM in case you missed it. I am not grateful that you and your fellow unapologetic fattists feel that we should be just that though, hiding behind our own for walls until we shrink down to a size the lot of you deem no longer a blight and acceptable for public viewing.

Not gonna happen chica. You want to call me a fat girl, oh please do because guess what? I am fat and that’s that.

Slice of Life Challenge: Two Writing Teachers

One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Raivenne

My entry for Jennifer Nichole Wells’ One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze challenge was found while walking around my home town of New York City. I am constantly finding new and often unusual things when I step away from the beaten path and this was one such thing. I liked that these figures were scaling the wall of 24 Bond Street as though rising up from depths below.

Thanks to my bud G-Unit (with a nod to Google for extra info), I have learned that this is the work of Bruce Williams. A software developer and artist, who lives on the 2nd floor of the building which hosts a dance studio on the ground floor. The first of the sculptures (The Dancers), arranged along the fire escape were added to the exterior in 1998. The dancing statues had to be retroactively approved by the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission when the building became part of the NoHo historic district in 2008. After an unsuccessful attempt to have the original set of dancers removed, Williams having won the hearts and minds of the Commission, extended the statues to vertically span the left side of the building in 2010. The dancers are whimsically arranged, and no two figures are the same.

Definition of a Hero

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Raivenne

It was a desert land so far away
From the green fields where he used to play
He could have made the choice to stay
No, he couldn’t – it wasn’t his way

A man of solid honor, it was his name

He walked away from a fortune that was his due
He walked away from all its fame too
He walked the colors of the red, white & blue
A cardinal became a ranger, through and through

He walked away from fortune and from fame

His actions spoke the volumes he never said
He gave a silent voice to the dead
The ones, not through their choice have bled
No other road he could have tread

It wasn’t a road many other could claim

He fought his battles without fear,
He had plans for his life in some other year
But he didn’t make back over here
And he wouldn’t want us shedding a tear

His straight and just way put others to shame

But tears we shed, for his death’s a crime
Tears for a solider brought down in his prime
A wife’s tears for their love’s lack of time
Tears form the heart of this rhyme

We shed these tears proudly without shame

A man of solid honor, Pat Tillman his name
He walked away from fortune and from fame
It wasn’t a road many other could claim
His straight and just way put others to shame

We shed these tears proudly without shame
The definition of a hero is no longer the same

What’s In A Word…

Posted on July 29, 2014 by Raivenne

What’s in a word? Sometimes too much and yet not enough.

A friend and I, who had not seen each other in a long while, were on our way to dinner when I ran into an erstwhile colleague. As we exchanged greetings, I introduced them to each other as such, friend and erstwhile colleague. When we parted ways, my friend asks why I was so specific in my introductions. As a response I asked her the names of my children, their ages and my birthday. Basically things most of my casual friends would know, but not necessarily a colleague or an acquaintance, especially a former one. The colleague would not have known such information about me when we worked together; he and I were never friends. I’m not even speaking on good friends or best friends here, just friends. You know the people who have not risen to such importance in your life that you would invite them to join in on your vacation, but you would be happy to have them over for a back yard barbecue. I have colleagues I consider friends and would them invite to barbecue. There are other colleagues that I will hang out with socially for the occasional happy hour after work get together, but would not invite to my house. Then there are the ones, like the one above, where my only interactions with them are on the job.

We have become this society so afraid of hurting another’s feelings, that we oftentimes will give elevated credence to people to avoid potentially embarrassing or insulting them. The advent of Facebook has truly downplayed the definition of a friend. It is even sneaky in that you can set certain people to be an acquaintance without them knowing it. Yes, technically it is so you can post things to your status that your only friends can see, but they themselves would never know that you only consider them an acquaintance, not a friend. We differentiate friend from good friend and best friend. One really has to earn their stripes for those titles, but dumping everyone one else into this generic friend folder does not work for me. Just because you are not a complete stranger to me does not automatically make you a friend, let alone my friend.

So what’s the big deal? How much does it really hurt anything to call someone a friend who is not? What’s the harm? For many – there is no big deal. It will not hurt a thing. When someone I consider a friend introduces another to me as a friend, I immediately presume that this new person is at the very least of some minor importance to the one doing the introductions. I may be more open to that person, give a certain level of respect to them based on that information. After all, based on the mutual person between us, a friend of yours is a potential friend of mine. However, if a friend introduces someone to me as a co-worker or colleague I am immediately friendly, but guarded. Until indicated otherwise, s/he is not necessarily a person to start sharing embarrassing remember the time? stories with. For me to casually introduce him as a friend a) elevates him to a status he has not earned in my life and b) undermines the importance of those in my life I truly consider friends. And to me that is harmful.

In the midst of a conversation regarding people who carelessly or blatantly misspell a person’s name someone exclaimed to me “Oh, don’t you just hate that?” Without really thinking about it I said that I did not hate it. So yes, I with the unique, some would say weirdly, spelled moniker was looked at with obvious surprise. And be honest, we are all guilty of casually throwing out the hate and love words for really trivial things from time to time. I explained there is a reason people complain that words like love and hate and friend has lost the power of their meaning. Collectively they have become so over used for such meaningless things as to be near meaningless themselves. Hate is all-consuming. Hate drives your day-to-day existence, becomes your most prevalent thoughts in all things. You channel so much of your energy into that which you hate, nearly all else takes a backseat to it. The barista at Starbucks who wrote Raven on my cup when I clearly spelled out R-A-I-V-E-N-N-E was worthy of my pissed-off tongue lashing when I saw it. Once I said what I had to say, I walked out the door not giving it or him a second thought. Because annoying as it was — why bother having me spell it if he was going to do whatever he wanted any way?– it was hardly worthy of my expending such energy required as to hate him. I’ll save that for the racists, sexists etc. out there who deign to wreak havoc on people’s lives for no other reason than their own stupidity and yes hatred. See? There is an enormous difference between “Oh, don’t you just hate fat people?” And “Oh, don’t you just hate when people misspell your name?”

Conversely…

“I love crossword puzzles.”
“I love those shoes.”
“I love sports.”
“I love my best friend.”
“I love my spouse/significant other.”
“I love *insert deity of choice here*.”

Yeah, I am not even going go any further on the far too many ways in which we abuse the word love. That one word encompasses so much, to make it feel so belittled sometimes. After all, how I feel about Doughnut Plant’s coconut creme filled square doughnuts, while pure, deep and true, is hardly comparable to that of how I felt about my late-husband. Yet, many others would use the word love to convey both feelings – that’s how little credence we’re now giving to the word. Other languages, especially Asian languages get it right in having specific words/phrases for different types of love to solve the this. I think the English language fails us greatly here to have one such word encompass so many things. And as a poet it is a major frustration on just how limited it is to rhyme!

It is true – any word we use only has the power we give it and conversely the power we take away by the over use of it. Certain curse words/phrases hold their power because we are told we not supposed to use them. The power of those words has carried on through the centuries at least until recent modern times. They are used so cavalierly these days, the shock value of them is slowly wearing off. Hopefully not in our lifetime, but soon enough, the washing of a child’s mouth out with soap for such an offense will be a dying antiquated notion.

There is a reason we have all these different terms for people and things in our lives. The people we have as friends, share our love with, even give our hate to should never roll off trivially from our lips, yet they do because the words themselves, that should be held with reverence and spoken with care, are becoming trivial. We should learn to use at least those three words friend, love and hate, for their specialness as intended and use them properly.

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Come see what other slices of life are happening this week:

Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

The Blues Singer

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Raivenne

.
.
First look up and down she seems cool
Someone urban, yet proud with a touch of sass
She chooses a sofa over a stool
For the main support of her ample mass
Some truths settle in so cruel
You just know she is no vapid, hoity-toity lass

Her maquillage is a multihued blend
Colors not in vogue for a human face to adorn
Velvet yards seemingly without end
Feather a figure where it really shouldn’t be worn
A seam or two will soon need a mend
But what will mend her expression so forlorn?

There’s a distant pain in her eyes
That feels like no amount of warmth can overcome
Merged with an air of deep despise
Red talons sift between rest and a hard tapping drum
On the table top as smooth her most painful lies
Yeah, you recognize that kind of hurt and then some

Was this hurt from just yesterday
Or precious moments trampled in her distant past
Was she plotting on viable ways to pay
Or wondering if ever again she’ll laugh last
Then somewhere a piano starts to play
A chord that hurdles through her sorrows vast

You watch her venture to the stage
As she take the mike her rouged lips starts to quiver
The notes cradle her gritty voice of rage
In a vernacular that causes the soul’s core to shiver
It takes berth as both fresh and sage
Through heartbreaks where she was never the giver

Her look now seems less like a sin
In the glaring spotlight it’s subtle not cheap or crass
Still sipping inspiration through her gin
Reminding you of all the pain you’re trying to pass
Still you think, as you feel it all within
She’s the saddest girl to ever hold a martini glass

She takes you ‘to the river’ in tears owned
Her voice filling the virtual vacuum of her surrounds
As she layers Janis on Billy in tone
Her notes vary rising high only to vale to the ground
You wonder is it the song or a true moan
Notes you’ll hear days later when there’s no one around

She sings a provocative mix
Watching the audience eat out the palm of her hand
For you know it’s how she gets her kicks
By taking you on this tearful journey she’s planned
But for now you sit totally transfixed
Leaving only when the pain is more than you can stand

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I was at a jazz club in Harlem with a heartbroken friend. Usually there is upbeat jazz, fusion bands, the perfect thing to help start the healing, but that night. That night the Fates decided clearly more wallowing was needed. It was not the night for the melancholy to be there. The above is a poetic rendition of how one singer broke nearly everyone there down. I had started this poem that night while we were still there. The above is the end result.

Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: More Monday Morning Madness

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Raivenne

I am on the subway, on my way to work, minding my own business when this happens:

I am reading my graphic novel when a masculine hand suddenly hovers into my view forcing me to look up. I know my resting bitch face was on in full force as I was at an interesting plot twist in the story and was not happy about the interruption.

Him: I just wanted to say “you’re beautiful” to my future ex-wife.

My exact initial thought: No, really? Not that there’s ever a good time for such bullshit, but really dude? First thing on a Monday morning? Get the fuck outta here!

I was considering whether I should pull a Luis Suarez (the biting soccer player from Uruguay), on the hand still hovering over my novel or only verbally chew out the idiot when I’m pretty sure my resting bitch face quickly morphed into my resting I’ll cut a bitch face as our eyes made contact and he just as quickly withdrew his hand and grinned. And just when I thought my already low opinion of him could not decrease more – it did. He had on grillz. Seriously, he was wearing grillz.

What. The. And. Bleeeeeep?

The amount of jewelry in his mouth could have fed a starving child in a third world country for a couple of months. Besides I thought that nonsense was finally out of style, having it was only adding to rapidly declining thoughts of him. Not knowing what I was dealing I opted for a third choice. – and please note the following exchange is happening on a crowded subway during morning rush hour.

Me (sounding official): Would you, whoever your are, take me, whoever I am, for your wife?

Him (confused, but playing along): I would.

Me: I now pronounce us, whatever and whatever. You may not kiss the whatever. I want a divorce!

Him (turns and walks toward the doors): Good, I’m out of here!

Me (snorts, neck rolls and snaps fingers): Poof baby! Don’t let the sliding doors hit ya where the good Lord split ya!

He exits the train at the next stop and I open my graphic novel.

Woman sitting next to me (chuckling): Damn! And I thought the Kim Kardashian marriage to that basketball player was short!

Me (deadpan): It was a good run while it lasted, but in the end it was like we didn’t even know each other any more.

It’s only Monday morning folks.

Not The Same As…

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Raivenne

Someone recently wrote:

Saying “I don’t date fat people” is the thing same as saying “I don’t date black people”.

No. No. No. And just no.

First let me state the following is how it looks from MY experiences, others may be similar, but mileage will vary. Every person has a right to date, or not date, within her/his own racial preferences. This is not about that. This is about the apple/oranges comparing/pitting one set of struggles against another. This is about how as a fat woman of color deep in the midst of both struggles, being able to say how and why they are not the same and how it affects me.

For most of history, if you dated/married fat, it was mostly just a descriptive. Yes, being fat has always had its own stereotypes, but until semi-recent times these were based more on the physical aspects of being fat, than on the intellectual or psychological state of the fat person. A simpleminded person was deemed so because of his or her behavior, regardless of size. Nowadays some will determine a person’s intelligence, or presumed lack thereof, solely based on the person being corpulent. It is as insidious as incorrect as the presumption that all overweight people are unhealthy based solely on their appearance. And all of this is regardless of race.

So let’s not ignore the elephant in the room from where a lot of this black/white nonsense springs. Regardless of corpulence, historically here in America, it was not droves of fat white people shipped over to pick cotton, tobacco etc. With our history, white dating color, but black in particular has always been fraught with issues. Some of these issues still persist, on both sides, to this day.

A few years ago, a white guy expressed his understanding of why blacks would want to date/marry white because it is “stepping up”. Conversely implying that we [blacks]-were somehow *lesser than* and should be grateful. He was not grateful for my response.

Is saying “I don’t date fat people” the thing same as saying “I don’t date blondes”? No, because a fat person can become blonde.

Is saying “I don’t date fat people” the thing same as saying “I don’t date people who wear glasses”? No, because a fat person can get contacts.

Is saying “I don’t date fat people” the thing same as saying “I don’t date (insert religion) or people with piercings”? No, because again these are things that can be (granted, not easily) changed, should a person so choose to make that change.

Let’s try saying “I’ll drink Cherry Kool Aid” but “I won’t drink water”. One maybe be somewhat malleable to change, the other is not. As a fat black woman I can, to a certain extent, change my flavor (my weight, my hair color, my hair, and as a person of a certain level of melanin, to some degree my complexion – my l Kool-Aid if you will). However, whether I am a glass or a pitcher, none of that changes the fact that no matter what flavors I choose, at the core I am still Black (water).

When I read someone does not want to date black people, it is a dismissal not just of the outer layer of our physical being; it also dismisses the core of who we are as a culture and as individuals. I don’t mean just the blacks the follow the Hip-Hop/Urban/R&B culture. I know blacks born and raised here in New York City who would recognize the music of Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser of the “Two Cellos”, but if shown pictures would have to guess the difference between T-Pain and Li’l Wayne. Neither of which would matter; to those who would not date them, simply because they are black and therefore will be immediately dismissed. Regardless of where we as blacks are on the socio/ economic/class line, it diminishes our individual experiences, our hearts, our souls, our humanity on top of what makes us black, what makes us – us.

So yes saying “I don’t date fat people” is the thing same as saying “I don’t date black people” is flippant, dismissive and frankly out right insulting.

“I may date a different race or color, it doesn’t mean I don’t like my strong black brother”
“Before you can read me, you have to learn how to see me”
/En Vogue – Free Your Mind