Category Archives: The Present

It’s All Just A Little Bit Of History Repeating…

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I haven wanted to write commentary on the racial unrest that happening in this country (again). I feel like I should be writing something. I just find it so hard to do without getting angry. So I ask for a little tolerance as I just spill it out as I think it.

I know there are millions of out there in this country where we never will know each other, billions who will never have a direct impact on my life. Yet there are so many who do and will impact my life in a positive way and I do not want wash all white people and cops with that oh so broad, us versus them, paint brush. Because yes, I do have friends who are officers and I know them to be the good guys we were taught to believe in as tykes watching Sesame Street and that they do exist now that I am well into my adulthood. And yes, I really do have friends who are white, who have jumped to offer succor when I was going through a rough patch in my life, as I have in theirs. I know they are not the bad guys because I have gotten to know them. They know I am not they bad guy, because they in turn have come to know me.

Regrettably, it is of little balm when at the beginning of this summer I am on the street attempting to hail a taxi and the driver slows in my direction only to blatantly pass me by to pick up the white couple maybe 30 feet further down from me. When that same couple who knew I was there before them looked at me, shrugged, opened the door to the cab and got in anyway. It is of no balm when I have to force myself to stay positive when I learn a month ago my son, who walks dogs part time, was detained by an officer because “some random citizen called the cops” while he was walking a client’s dog. Never mind that he had a key to the building to have access to the dog. Never mind that the dog clearly knew my son, he is accused of stealing said dog. Why? In the predominantly white neighborhood of his client, my son did not look like any of the tenants. Because clearly my child, yes he’s a thirty year old adult male, but as all mamas understand he will always be my child, as a black man could not possibly live in that neighborhood and own such a dog in his own right, right? Riiiight. My son is stuck explaining himself to the unbelieving officers until a neighbor of the dog’s owner happened by and vouched for him. It was something very simple that ended well, no harm perhaps, but very foul. Still as a mother, I could not help but be cognizant, yet very grateful, that this confrontation did not go in a very different direction. I am also very cognizant and very pissed that this event came to fruition solely because he was literally walking a dog while black. It is of little balm to the litany of racial acts subtle, such as the taxi and dog incidents mentioned above, or more overt as so recently demonstrated in the news, that is a constant part of my existence as a person of color in this country.

A few years ago I was once told by an erstwhile friend that I see race in nearly everything and that’s just not the way it is. I in turn accused him of blatantly choosing to see race in nothing and that’s just not the way it is. How does the saying go? Those who forget their history are doomed to repeat it. Names like Eleanor Bumpurs, Michael Stewart, Yusef Hawkins, Anthony Baez, Rodney King, Patrick Dorismond, Abner Louima, Amadou Diallo and James Byrd Jr., come far too easily to my mind’s history. Yet each new flare-up – Sean Bell, Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis, Renisha McBride, Marlene Pinnock, Eric Garner and now Michael Brown, proves even knowing the history does little stop it from repeating. It is as though there has become this unspoken understanding that murdering blacks and calling it self-defense, or justifiable/in the line of duty is supposed to somehow dissolve the racial hierarchy in this country. So who has the right of it?

Is any of this anything new in history, the realities of living black specifically? Honestly, no. As a culture, the majority of us have lived with this as a sub routine of sorts in our consciousness on the daily for a couple of centuries now. When it was one person’s word versus another, most of such news was quickly buried under the burden of no real proof. Until it was something so bad, that it made national headlines. Can you say Emmitt Till? The advent of so many with smart phones now, able to immediately capture and then upload images/videos has helped. And social media, for all its foibles makes each occurrence captured readily available to the general public and national headlines sooner. Yet for all that we hear about, we all know that there are so many others whose names will never be listed.

I hope that this is that stage in history repeating itself, that this is the worst that it will get, and things are soonish going change for the better. I want to have hope, I really do. Because not to hope means that more names will be added to that ever growing list. So even as I hope, please understand as I pray in the interim that the names of my loved ones and I are not to be among them.

Power in the Blood

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Human Art by Grace Mateo Used tampons on canvas. 20 x 16 inch. www.gracemateo.com

You Don’t Understand (Do You Now?). 2014.
by Grace Mateo
Used tampons on canvas. 20 x 16 inch.
http://www.gracemateo.com

 

The above image will make a lot of you uncomfortable? Why? If you are one of those souls who genuinely get physically sick at the site of blood, I am sorry to have made you feel ill, but I do not  apologize.

I’ll admit that I did the rapidly blinking eye thing as I registered exactly what it was I viewed. After all, I am woman who has made it the half-century mark  in life. To put this in a historical  timeline perspective, I am old enough to remember/have used a menstrual belt, but by the time I was living with my partner in the mid-80’s they were already a thing of the distant past, so I have an itsy bit of personal knowledge in the subject. After all this isn’t anything I haven’t seen virtually every month for the past thirty plus years of it, so big deal. Even as I thought the words, I was already countering thinking, but so many other will think it’s just that, a big deal, and I’m forced to ask myself why? Why is this a big deal?

In the artist’s own words…

This is Human Art. The female body is not something to be afraid of, and it is definitely not disgusting. There are things we don’t speak about, that are traditionally held to be private, but silence only leads to fear and death. So, if you don’t like the things I say or make then you do not have to engage in it. This is not shock art. If you find a woman’s period to be shocking then you, my friend, are most definitely living a sheltered life and need to be better informed about your fellow humans.

I’m not here to further roast the old chestnut of What Is Art?. This is more of a query into this particular human behavior. What is it about the female menstrual cycle that makes people, male and fellow females so uncomfortable?

It takes everything I have to not let my eyes roll in the back of my head whenever I hear a grown woman say “I can’t stand the sight of blood”. The older she is and the more emphatic she is in her repulsion the harder the temptation to do so.  Years ago I was handling a stack of manila folders at work and gave my self a nasty paper cut. One that required my stopping everything to tend to it. As I rinsed my finger at the sink and prepared to bandage it, a co-worker went into mini theatrics about the sight of blood and how I was upsetting her. Trust me when I tell you she was no shrinking violet so that was one time I did roll my eyes in annoyance without hesitation. I asked if she menstruates each month, to which she naturally responded in the positive as I expected. I then queried if she had assistance when removing and disposing of her used feminine hygiene products at that time. Naturally,she naturally responded in the negative, as expected. I concluded with if she can stand processing her bloody bodily functions several times a day, for a few days each damn month, then my manila cut on a finger for a minute was nothing and she needed to shut the fuck up, but I digress and return to my original query.

Why is the female menstrual cycle clouded in this veil of mystery? What is with the menstrual taboo that allows commercials to use the proper terminology for erectile dysfunction and incontinence with almost no filter, but when it comes to female our cycles it’s almost always hidden some form of pseudonym – The Gift, That Time of the Month, the ever classic Aunt Flo and of course the only one that actually makes any sense Period. Basically any and everything that will avoid using the word blood and any iteration of  menses. The only time you hear the word menstrual used regularly is in the phrase “premenstrual syndrome”, but even that is usually shortened to the gentler acronym of PMS. Because we can talk circles about the mental and emotional aspects about menstruation, but the actually physically bloody part of it is always hush-hush. And speaking of bloody – unless advertisers believe every single woman who menstruates also turns into a  Vulcan during her period, what is with the mysterious blue stuff they use to demonstrate Product Y’s absorbancy anyway? Because goodness gracious should they use red food coloring so that it might resemble what it is. I am not even going to touch that nonsense of women wearing white anything below the waist when Mother Nature comes to visit. Trust me when I tell you for a majority of us women, the first few days are not anything near as sanitized as it looks in the above art work, yet only other women and our respective doctors will readily understand this.

Nearly all girls are brought up that they should not talk about menstruation with boys, nor was it appropriate to discuss menstruation with their fathers. Most of the single fathers I know learned that their daughters were not quite so little girls anymore via a female friend or relative because of this. Young heterosexual women are almost always embarrassed the first time they misjudge their monthly supply amount and have to ask their significant others to run to the store for their feminine hygiene product/s of choice.  Tip for any men reading this: Please, please pay attention to what brand your woman uses/tells you to get. You do not want to get into that argument – really you just don’t.

Historically, a menstruating woman was considered sacred and powerful. Yet like so many things and stories that extolled the feminine power, it was wrapped up in mythology and dismissed or outright just dismissed, especially in the patriarchy of many religions that view a menstruating woman as “unclean”. The menstrual taboo is more prevalent in most movies and television shows when a woman’s menses is generally mentioned in relation to the thankfulness of unwanted or regret for lack of  pregnancy. Otherwise periods are generally portrayed as something traumatic, embarrassing, offensive, gross and/or for cheap comedic premenstrual syndrome (PMS) makes us evil laughs.  Outside of the rare portrayals of menarche, when a girl experiences her first period, there are very few portrayals of the completely natural act of female nature that it is.

Granted, things are slowly getting better. There are a hilarious couple of commercials by Always, with the “The Gift before The Gift” tagline.  New Moon Party and The Camp Gyno. The HelloFlo campaign takes wonderful pock shots at their behaviors when it comes to menarche. In these commercials not only are the products free of the packaging, all allusions to blood are not done in blue! Parents of prepubescent girls, if you have not already seen these commercials you should. I wish these care packages were around when my mother was explaining it to me. Designed for young girls, the commercial and the ensuing products are made to help demystify the period for those near the onset of puberty. Take the secrecy out of such items from the beginning, it does not turn into such a taboo later.

I am not saying a detailed analysis of whether Kotex is better than Always is discussion to be had at the family dinner.   If your family is that progressive that you can, I saw “Bravo!”, more power to you. Women can talk about the various stages of their pregnancies good and bad without a problem. Parents can show videos of the up close and personal views of the birth of their children without batting an eye. Some will watch such videos voluntarily on PBS type stations in all its bloody glory and it’s just fine. Yet let a woman place a package of feminine hygiene products on the conveyor belt where a young boy is packing, or at the top of her bag where a grown man has to inspect it and watch what happens. The mere thought of a woman’s menstrual cycle is so disturbing to some, that most males will give pause before touching the item and the younger the male, the more likely the revulsion.

Because it is still the presumed norm that menstruation should remain hidden.  And while whether or not  the above image is art is debatable, the subject matter depicted as a discussion point should not be.

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Nothing To Fear? Want To Bet?

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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.

Almost A Moment – Always A Memory

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One afternoon in the late eighties, my late-husband and I were in some random deli in midtown. A gentleman with a full bushy beard, an overcoat, a ushanka pulled low on his bowed head, though it was hardly the weather for it, sat at an adjacent table and begin eating a sandwich. l paid little attention to him other than to casually note he was hirsute. Tufts of dark hair peeking out from the cuffs and the top of the t-shirt spied under the open collar of his shirt.  Something about the guy nagged the back of my mind, but I didn’t want to outright stare while I attempted to figure it out.  Still, I would steal surreptitious glances, trying to confirm or deny my hunch. In the midst of eating, what it was about the guy finally hit me so I pulled out my inner three-year old and in a childish voice said “Fuck it!”

Bill immediately snorted as that had become something of a silly catchphrase for us at the time. The gentleman at the other table startled, but did not otherwise acknowledge my low-keyed outburst. Satisfied I had the right of it I continued dining and conversing with my husband. As Bill went to pay for the meal,  I started stacking the dishes on our table.  I glanced at the guy one more time and simply couldn’t resist.

“Fuck it! Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

This time he looked up and slowly smiled. It was a rueful kind of “Ah, you got me!” smile.  Having fully satisfied my idle curiosity, I simply winked, nodded once in acknowledgement and continued cleaning off the table as though nothing happened. Bill arrived back to the table just as the guy was lowering his head back down to his meal. I knew Bill recognized him when his eyes started to go wide.

“Is that…?”

I grabbed Bill by the arm and pulled him away before he could think to disturb the man any more than I already had.

“And being a fool, he was simple-minded, he didn’t see a king. He only saw a man alone and in pain.” –The Fisher King

When later asked why I pulled him away,  I responded the man just wanted to be left alone, get a bite to eat and be on his way. If he wanted fawning star treatment he wouldn’t be at some random deli in midtown. Who were we to disturb him? I was afraid if we spoke to him we would draw attention to him. If my interpretation of that rueful little smile was correct, it was clearly not something he wanted at that moment.

That man?  Robin Williams.

This was within a couple of years or so of Williams’ tears of laughter inducing one man show Robin Williams Live At  The Met. At the height of his career, the top of his game.

I sit here now, the last person left of that random happenstance, that snapshot in time. Had you told me then, that he would be gone less than thirty years later, I would not have believed it. If you had asked me five minutes before I read of his passing yesterday, I would not have believed it. He has been gone roughly twenty-four hours now and I still cannot believe it.

Facebook - Robin Williams I, and I imagine most of the comedy loving world, spent a good chunk of time last night watching YouTube after YouTube of Williams in bittersweet heartache. Not that any age is ever the right age for someone to leave us, but in Robin’s case, it really was far too soon.

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”
– Dead Poets Society

I mean no disrespect here for those that suffer the level of depression that had plagued him, but for me, at this moment, the hows and whys of his death does not change the simple fact that he is gone. Williams has been a part of the comedic world and our lives since the 1970s.  I figured if anyone, anyone would go for the George Burn’s Oldest Living Wise-Acre record it would have been Robin Williams. I could easily imagine him still part self-deprecating and part wily and part sage and still hilarious with a scoundrel’s twinkle in those youthful blue eyes that would belie his much advanced years.  Alas, that is not to be.

“Shazbot!”
– Mork and Mindy

Last night the skies were clear. Logically I know many across the globe woke up to clear bright skies this morning, but I woke up to a gray morning, darkening clouds threatening rain. The skies matching the mood of many here in NYC already missing him. The world is a just a little bit darker without him in it, it is fitting. And that he would pass during the brightest nights of the Perseid Meteor Showers, the night skies welcome another star making it just a little bit brighter for a little while. I find it equally fitting.

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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: Never Been Told

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Chatting with an acquaintance on the subway this morning, she and I are politely, but nonetheless giggling at shared memories and the fact that I have clearly caught the eye of the male sitting across from me. I’m wearing mirrored sunglasses and one of the things I love most about them is that while my head can be facing you, you have no way of knowing with certainty if I am in fact looking at you. It comes in handy for ignoring the guy who is using every non-verbal attempt short of semaphores to subtly garner.

Knowing he’s being ignored, I give him moxie points for getting out of his seat to stand directly in front and say “Hello.” My acquaintance grins broadly as even I cannot ignore what’s less than three feet in front of me. Thus I look up and return the greeting.

“Has anyone ever told you, you’re very beautiful?” He smiles almost bashfully, and damn it all to hell, the Grand Canyon of dimples craters his cheeks. Because who adores cute guys with deep dimples?-This gal.

“Why thank you.” I smile beguilingly in return. “But honestly, look at me. Do you really think I’ve never been told that before?”

To his credit he grins undeterred and the canyon gets deeper. He fixes me with a brown doe-eyed stare as he gathers the gumption to continue. “Fair enough” He nods sheepishly at last, “I’m almost to my stop, I’d still like to ask you out to dinner.”

“You can ask, but the answer will be no.”

I know age is just a number and all that hoo-hah, but the thought of this going down the presumed natural procession and my one-day having to introduce him to the Baal and Beelzebub tag-team duo known as my sons gives me just pause. It takes everything I have to not guffaw in his earnest face at the thought of the scenario of my grown sons giving me the side-eye for dating someone likely ten years their junior. The train pulls into the next station and I can tell by his rueful expression, this is his stop. He starts to speak, but I quickly cut him off.

“Look, I’ve got acne scars from my teens older than you.  Thank you, really, but no. You better hurry before you miss your stop.” I say dismissively. Peripherally I can see my acquaintance’s jaw come slightly unhinged at my words. I ignore her, fixing the would-be Lothario with a pointed stare that I know he can glean, even with my sunglasses on. He nods once, turns and exits the train. I exhale not even realizing I had held my breath until it came rushing out of me.

“Has anyone ever told you, you’re a bitch?” She shakes her head at me laughing, watching as the doors close quickly behind him.

“Why thank you.” I smile. “But honestly, look at me. Do you really think I’ve never been told that before?”

No Apologies

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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 - Two Writing Teachers
Slice of Life Challenge: Two Writing Teachers

One Word Photo Challenge: Bronze

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20130302_174820

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.

What’s In A Word…

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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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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

 

 

 

 

Slice of Life Writing Challenge : Two Writing Teachers

Verbal Diarrhea Diaries: More Monday Morning Madness

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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…

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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

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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

 

 

 

 

 

Tuesday Slice of Life Challenge – Two Writing Teachers