Category Archives: This World Needs An Enema!

I Ain’t ‘Fraid of No Stereotype – I’m Pissed

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So the official trailer for the remake of Ghostbusters has hit the internet.

And I am pissed-off.

I fully understand this is a reboot of the original Ghostbusters and the new characters somewhat mirror their male counterparts from 1984, but in the original, when Ernie Hudson’s character Winston joins the group he comes in -more or less- as an equal partner to the three scientists. So what happened to Leslie Jones’ character Patty in this remake? As depicted in this trailer, I don’t see it. It’s looks more like they, the three white scientists, are the brains and she is the loud mouth brawn.

It is 2016 and the trope of the smart white guys and their “street-wise” black partner is just plain OLD. Gender swapping does not make it less noticeable. The –you three got all your degrees, but I got a Cadillac, I know NYC and I will slap the ghost out of you! – scenes of Patty, as shown in the trailer, play so heavily on the Loud/Streetwise Black Woman stereotypes that it is a neck roll and three finger snap in a Z formation away from looking racist.

It is bad enough that women of color are under represented in movies as is. When we do appear it is often as some stereotype. And after so many years of movie going it is so frustrating to see again and again and yet again. Would it really have been so far out of the movie going mindset that Leslie Jones portray one of the scientists and let’s say Kate McKinnon portray the streetwise one?

Maybe Patty will come off more as an equal in the overall arc of the movie, I really hope so, because the trailer clearly missed the mark in portraying such.

At least this iteration of Ghostbusters will pass the Bechdel Test.

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Let’s see how other are slicing it up this Saturday…

sol

Slice of Life Story Challenge – Day 5 | Two Writing Teachers

Just Die Already

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“… Yo that nigger was mad tight… The nigga seriously wanted to hurt somebody…No, but the nigga didn’t say that…Yo, my nigga really?… Nigga don’t go there…”

This was the piece of a conversation I overheard between two train stops as I rode home from work last night. I’m guessing my distaste for what I, and a good portion of the subway car overheard because he was not even trying to moderate his voice, must have shone on my face as he turned his back to me and continued with a string of words further enhanced with the slur. All of that from one person, all within the span of a standard television commercial break.

And here we go again, the love/hate relationship of the use of the N-word.

I remember growing up saying any version of the word was as much an epithet as dropping the f-bomb in front of my mother as it was as a phrase of solidarity among her male peers. There was/is somehow this unspoken agreement “my nigger” just did not apply to women. Even when I hear females say it now, 90% of the time they refer to someone male, sorry guys.

When trying to explain why I feel the use of the word offensive, regardless of who utters it, I’m often made to feel like I’m overreacting when I’m around some of my peers. Or the offending person feels the need to defend him or herself, because the only thing worse than being ignorant is being called ignorant.

And the thing that is hardest to explain is that the relatively unfettered use of this word is coming from a position of privilege most of today’s young blacks don’t even realize they have. This social advantage is so ingrained in our culture that most either aren’t aware or simply don’t care their comments are coming off the backs of centuries worth of hardship and oppression. They did not live personally through when word was nothing other than a vile degradation.

As with all young children, I knew nothing of the world beyond the boundaries of my neighborhood. Thus in grade school learning of the assassination of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King was simply another lesson learned in history with no more or less import on my life as the lessons about Abe Lincoln and Harriet Tubman to my child’s eyes. Being all of four years of age when he died, the import was lost on me. I was a teen before I realized that I was alive when King was assassinated, and just how close segregated times were a reality for myself.

By the time I became aware of the world I was able to sit in the back of the bus because I wanted to, not because I had to. Thus, I could not understand  why my mother refused to do so even when seats were available. It was ingrained in her reality as a person who came of age through segregation to refuse to sit in the back of the bus, but not mine as I child who had not grown up in such. It was a thisclose reality, but still not my reality.

Knowing the word nigger existed to hurt is one thing, living an existence in it’s hurt is another.  Sympathy is not empathy. I can only surmise the ones who use it freely now really do not understand its power to hurt because it was never really used to hurt them. In a world where it the slur nigger holds as much impact as the curse fuck – it’s not their reality.

Now let’s consider other racial slurs that have come, and for the most part gone, in the immediate tome stream such as spic and kike, and for that matter coon and jigaboo. Words that you rarely hear spoken aloud any more. Because those affected by such slurs asserted their respect for themselves and refused to allow anyone to disrespect them with its use. And made damned sure the world knew to accept that respect.

So what the hell happened with the word nigger that it still survives and thrives to continue in its controversial life?  Why can’t it die off as some of those other slurs?

Because of men like the young man on the cell phone who dropped the word several times without a thought in the less than three minutes it took to get from one train station stop to another, it keeps being used.

How can it die if we keep letting it live?

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An introspective slice from the Raivenne today, let’s see how others are slicing it up…

Slice of Life Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

sol

What The World Needs Now

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So, I was privately asked by a surprising number of people why I had not temporarily changed my Facebook profile picture in a show of support for Paris. I who am usually up on the latest Facebook fads to have not done so was surprising to them. They have a point, but this Facebook Paris profile thing is just one I could not do.

I’ve been to Paris, but even if I had never step foot in the city I still would wholeheartedly feel for what Paris is going through.  Just as I felt the outrage for London when they were bombed in 2005, often referred to as 7/7 – the date of the occurrence, just as I know both countries grieved with us here in the United States when 9/11 happened.  There is this overwhelming sense of helplessness when one is reading of such a tragedy from afar. After all what can the average Jane and Joe from so far away do right?  Granted, most of the world did not have social media, let alone the ability to easily change our profile pics on FB in 2001 or 2005, but today if we can’t really do anything else, the very least we can do, and it really is the very least, is change our profile picture to show our support for Paris right? Right.

When I noticed the changing profile pictures my very first thought was that’s nice.  Our hearts are in the right places, I do not make light of it.

I get it.

I really do.

Still, I could not help but ask myself the following – where were these near instantaneous profile pics apps of solidarity for

Where are the profile pic apps for any all of them?

A couple of months or so ago, here in the US, Facebookers were able to be “StraightOutta___” whatever they chose to be straight out of in honor/celebration of the release of the movie “Straight Outta Compton”.

A movie.

A simple movie about a rap group from the 80’s was worthy of being on our profile pictures, yet today is the 580th day since 273 Nigerian school girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram terrorists in Nigeria. 57 escaped and 219 are still missing.

Where’s their profile pic overlay app?

Some have tried to say that most of the above didn’t count because the countries have been in some form of contentious states for years, even decades now. But just because Paris is relatively brand new to this and is considered a safe place, are they more worthy than the Israeli and Palestinian who live with the threat of a bombing as a daily fact of life? Uh. no.  And please let it begin and end right here with why tragedies to brown faces get less news coverage and hold our attentions far shorter than tragedies to white faces.  I just can’t/won’t go there with that today for we are all hurting.

We cannot look at the events of Paris and not share in their grief. Nor should we ignore the horrors of one tragedy in order to acknowledge the horrors of another.  I have no qualms for the many Facebookers who have temporarily changed their profile pictures in solidarity of Paris. Again, because I understand it, I really do. I have changed my Facebook cover to better reflect the suffering seemingly everywhere, for I have no solutions or resolutions either.

It’s a jacked-up world we’re living in and the events in Paris and in Lebanon and in Nigeria… and… and… are already fading into the happier glow of the coming holidays, because it’s all we can do to hold to what little happiness can be found out here for us.

Let’s find it and try to hold on to it long past the times that go by with auld lang syne.

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Slice of Life : Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

I Cannot Tech This Anymore

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I cannot tech today.

I who work in a technology based industry have been in relative fail mode for anything that has a power button today.

The overhead projector and instructor PC in the training room are in an apparent lover’s snit and do not want to talk each other. I check the wires, display format etc. nothing.  Of course I discover this minutes before a class is set to start.

Fine ain’t got time for dat as the saying goes. We’ll do this the ol’ fashioned way and use the still active portable projector like I used to do not too long ago. It’s not as pretty or as high-tech as the overhead, but it will get the job done right? Right. Wrong. Keystone. Horizontal and Vertical settings. Zoom, only showing one monitor. It’s not happening. Oh come the freak on already! All this futzing around is still happening at 10:15 for a class that was supposed to start at 9:30. I look at my students admit tech failure and start to talk talk them through the training.  I speak a lot as it takes longer to describe a concept where a simple click of the mouse to show them all at once would have worked miracles, but we get through it.

I come back to my desk and accidentally kick something, that hits something, that pulls the plug on one of my monitors.  Greeeeeeaaat! Follow the affected line down through the spaghetti of cords under my desk and get it all plugged up, only to realize I have now pulled out my mouse in the process and back into the spaghetti I go.

A run to Starbucks struck me as a right fine idea, by then.  Well, that my colleague leaving me a note, putting the bug in my ear (a really creepy crawly action if taken literally I must say). So I grab my phone with my Starbucks app, insure I have my cardkey to get back in the building, take my sunglasses and head out for some much needed refreshment.

So, do you want to guess who got in line at Starbucks, got all the way to the front of the line, was one measly person away from placing an order when she pulled out her phone and realized the damned thing was as dead as a door nail? No really, guess who! Hint: It’s the same person who did not have a dime on her otherwise. The same person who could not use her Starbucks card instead because it was in her wallet. The same person who left her wallet at her desk, because why would I need my wallet when I have my Starbucks app on my trustee phone? Uh huh.

Technology: 4 – Raivenne: zilch

Silver lining? Yes, there is one. I made it back into the office building Starbucks-less, but just before it started to to pour outside (good thing I had my shades with me, huh?).  Also, this computer has not done anything else untoward since I started typing. Yay, the tides are turning…

But I’m not touching any light switches with my bare hands for the rest of the day, just in case…

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Let’s see how others are slicing it up this Tuesday.Slice of Life : Two Writing Teachers
Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

No Photos Please!

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A friend of mine was posting in a group on Facebook and apparently “Funeral Selfies” is a thing now.

Yes, it’s exactly what it sounds like, taking photos of oneself at a wake or funeral and then posting it to social media for the world can see. Really. And I hate to think this, but in this land of you know you want to know what’s happening with me right this minute! instant information, it so feels so much like something some in the “millennial” generation would do and I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how anyone could be so incredibly narcissistic, at a funeral nonetheless, and think it is okay.

At the wake for my late-husband, Del, a cousin I had not seen in nearly a decade at that point, showed up in bright pink rollers and a scarf that was a joke of an attempt at covering them, so she was already pissing me off. I mean, who shows up at a wake in rollers? As I’m speaking with Reese, my late-husband’s cousin and best friend, I hear the familiar click of a camera behind me. I spin around and call out “No.” waving my index finger. It is Del taking a picture of a couple of friends/family near of the back of the room.

“It’s okay, he’s not in the picture”. She explained at my reaction. “He” being my late husband, aka the deceased that was laying at the front of the same room, and the reason why we were all there at that moment. I continued shaking my head and waving my finger in the negative, but Del lifted the camera preparing to take another picture. I remember thinking “Oh, you’re going to argue with me, the widow at her own husband’s wake?” instead what came out of my mouth was “NO!” at a volume that stopped everyone in the room. I had not even realized that I had taken the physical steps to beat her with her camera until I felt Reese restrain me. Whatever was on my face, Del and those she wanted pictures of were quickly going outside. Luckily, selfies as we know and use them now did not exist then. Because I know if she were truly taking a picture of herself at the moment Reese could not have held me back.

I find even taking photos outside of a funeral parlor or at a church where it’s obviously a funeral is gauche. A wake/funeral is not about you. If you yourself are not in deep mourning, you are there for the deceased and/o for those who are in mourning. That’s why it’s called paying your last respects. How are taking photos of yourself showing that respect? At the very least have the manners to wait until the repast for such.

If you don’t have pictures of friends/family members at happier events whose fault is that? Show up at a party, a BBQ, a wedding or family reunion. Or better yet host one to have people over so you can happy photos.

I think taking pictures at a wake/funeral/interment of the living or dead is so disrespectful enough. Turning around and then posting such on social media is a level of gracelessness I simply cannot comprehend.

“You look lovely, that dress is so cute! Where was this?”

“Oh thanks! I got it at the boutique. That was at Nana’s funeral last month.”

My immediate family knows “NO PHOTOS”. God help anyone taking pictures at my funeral. Just for spite, I am showing up in every photo as the creepy shadowy figure that doesn’t go away no matter how they try to crop or Photoshop me out.

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Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

Not So Daily Grind

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So far today:

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From a colleague who I have not seen in over a year:

“Oh, you changed you hair! I liked it better the other way.”

My response:

“Oh, you lost your manners! I liked you better the other way.”

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Prima Donna I: disrupts my training session in progress to ask about a personal training session. Had the nerve to be annoyed when called-out on it and asked to leave.

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Student would not take polite “no”s for an answer until bluntly told “Ask once you’re being curious, ask twice with a smile you’re being cute, ask a third time -regardless of smile- you’re being annoying, ask a fourth time you’re being disruptive, ask a fifth time when specifically instructed not to, you’re being petty, ask again and you’re being put out. Drop it, now.”

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Had to insist Student leave class, now.

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Go to my desk during break–

Prima Donna II: Leaves a voice mail and an email request that I move a pre-scheduled training class to another date because they want to use the room.  Leaves another voice mail about an hour after the fact as I had not responded to the earlier queries.

If Prima Donna II knows I had the training room next week, they should have also noticed that I had the training room today and perhaps the reason I had not responded to requests in a prompt manner was because I  – oh I don’t know – in the flipping training room conducting class.

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And this was all before noon peeps. Grrr

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After training —

Stepped into an elevator that smelled. No seriously it smelled. It smelled the smell of a thousand unwashed masses smelled, of a thousand locker rooms minutes after a thousand games smelled.

It smelled an instant reaction of What the fuck IS that? smelled.

A man who boarded with me and I exchanged glances, not wanting to speak as we simultaneously held our breaths. My eyes watered; I could barely breathe covering my mouth and nose with my coat collar, in dire fear of my lungs giving out before I disembark and silently praying to the deities that this please not be the last smell I’ll ever smell for all smellternity. We stumbled out of the elevator at my floor gasping  for air as a colleague walked past us to get in. We tried to give warning, but still gasping, it was too late.  I turned in time to hear “What the fuck is that STENCH?!” just as the doors closed. The guy who rode with me simply shrugged as he pressed the call button for a different and hopefully better smelling elevator.

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Prima Donna II  tried pulling rank by emailing Higher Authority and CCing me on it.

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Received email from ejected Student’s Boss wanting to know what happened. Suffice it to say the account Student gave was vastly different from what really happened.

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On the plus side 1-

Higher Authority realized the who, what and why of the situation and not only diplomatically told the Prima Donna II to grow the hell up and schedule a different day, but also CCed me on the exchange so I would know about it.

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On the plus side 2-

As I calmed down and attempted to compose a more EEO friendly, than what was in my head, email to Student’s Boss, a new email arrived from the same boss. with an apology. It turned out another  student in the class is a colleague of said boss from another unit, wanting to know “what assholes are being hired over there” and gave a harsh, but accurate account of the ejected student’s actions.

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Just saw Prima Donna I has sent an email. It’s almost 6:30pm (I should have left at 5pm) not even looking at it. I’m going home now.

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Hopefully my fellow Slicers are having a better daily grind on the 19th day of the challenge – come read what they’re up to…

8th-annualc2a0slice-of-life-story-challenge-invite

Train Pain

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Took the uptown #2 Local one stop uptown to catch the express because nothing was stopping on the downtown local stations due to signal malfunction.

Get put off the express #2 after a couple of stops because the train itself was malfunctioning.

Get on the #5 Express into lower Manhattan to transfer to the A train that places me less than a block from my job site.

Get to the A train platform only to learn there are no A or C trains running downtown because of a problem at Canal Street.

Play Human Triplanner.MTA.info Guide to about five different lost and clueless commuters in the interim.

Go back to the 4/5 Express train to get into Brooklyn and walk the five blocks I was trying to avoid in the first place.

Mama Mary gets her and her temporary Lost Little Lambs into Brooklyn and part ways.

Finally reach work and what is the very first email I see? “MTA Unlimited Ride MetroCard Fare Increase…”

Dear Universe, apparently, you got jokes this morning!
HA HA very funny muthafugga!

Battle Lines

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I am sure most of the nation has heard/read about Officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos of NYPD who were murdered over the weekend. And while I sincerely wish that I can say that I am surprised that this has happened, I am not. As word of the officers’ deaths hit the news Facebook and Twitter went berserk as the immediate bastions of gut reaction opinions flew. What I am surprised at is how quickly battle lines have emerged because of this.

While few argue that the killing of the NYPD officers was wrong, posts/comments/private messages along the lines of “I guess you’re happy now” that popped up over the weekend gives a definite sense that some who are against the protests in Ferguson and NYC seemed to think those who protest and/or support the protestors are somehow engaged in Schadenfreude over this weekend’s killings. Are you fucking kidding me? I was so aghast that anyone would ever think such a thing  of any protestor, let alone me personally. I unfriended them without even bothering to engage in debate.  From what I’ve since gathered from the handful of mutual acquaintances among us it’s just as well, but as the kids say “I can’t…”

This is not an either or situation. The support of #BlackLivesMatter does not negate support of #NYPDLivesMatter.

  1. The deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner et al, at the hands of their respective local police is a tragedy.
  2. The assignations of Officers Liu and Ramos at the hands of Ismaaiyl Brinsley is also a tragedy.

In a previous posted I asked “Or Does It Explode?” The fuse, already lit in the aftermath of the Ferguson and New York City grand jury decisions, has the general vibe between police and minorities at a high level of tense. Both sides were walking on proverbial eggshells. Things have yet returned to anything near normal levels of tense – whatever the hell that is; the killings of Officers Liu and Ramos this past weekend have not helped at all.

Just as at our cores we know that it is #NotAllPolice are out to get us, we hope they equally know #NotAllBlacks are out to assassinate them.  The LAST thing we need is for a black man to be accidentally taken out while jogging on the street or while walking a dog because he got too close to a police car because the officers inside perhaps felt threatened.

I am praying and praying hard that the actions of Ismaaiyl Brinsley have furthered that ignition along the fuse.

#AllLivesMatter

Or Does It Explode?

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I can see my personal quest for inner calm is in direct defiance of my continual reading of news regarding the lack of a grand jury indictment in Ferguson, MO.

When I first read about the verdict I literally threw up my hands in frustration. That action immediately put to mind the classic Marvin Gaye song “Inner City Blues” which I posted to my Facebook.

ferguson

I wake up this morning to the snippets of the evidence presented at trial all over the news and social media. If what has thus far ben released to the public as a way to substantiate the grand jury’s correctness in their decision, it has backfired greatly my eyes.

I’ve seen some of the photo evidence of Office Wilson’s “injuries”. They range from what looks like razor burn or heat rash to a simple scratch. I’ve marred myself more popping a pimple.

And as I angrily posted this morning upon seeing the above picture:

ferguson2

That was his personal evidence? THAT was worth someone’s life? NO!

I know. I KNOW, I was not at the trial. I have not perused all the evidence that was presented to the grand jury – now released to the public. I have seen several snippets that have thus far been posted to news and social media. Those alone, at least to me, make it worthy of a trial.

All I can think right now is: Has the value of black lives, which were always of questionable value in this country historically once we stopped being chattel in the country anyway, lowered so far down the scale that the death of one in such fashion is not even worth a damn trial?

Last night’s outbreaks of violence in the aftermath of the verdict, reminds me very much of what happened after Rodney King. And to be honest, while I understood the anger that drove it, I did not understand the point of the LA riots in 1992 any more than I understand these outbreaks in Ferguson now. Being afraid to step foot in or out of the door of your local business because your own neighbor may have a Molotov at the ready, does nothing to help the situation. I’ve lived just long enough to see that while the details change, it still all feels a harsh ring of deja vu with history repeating itself.

Here we Americans stand some two hundred and thirty plus years of freedom from England. We blacks stand some one hundred and fifty years free from slavery, but sometimes I feel like we’re still bound. The Civil Rights Movement has done much for the outer trappings, yet we are still such a long way from the inner heart of the dream of Rev. Dr. King. And it seems every generation or so, a match gets lit to a powder keg to remind of us of just how far we have left to go before that dream comes true. In the interim, it still remains a dream deferred and Langston Hughes best explained the possible ramifications of such…

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

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It’s a pretty pissed off Raivenne slicing here – come see how others are slicing it up today:

Slice of Life - Two Writing Teachers

Slice of Life Weekly Writing Challenge | Two Writing Teachers

She Had It Coming

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Watch this first:

He smacked her like she cussed out his dear mother. Like a mother smacks her child for using a really bad word. Like a soap-opera actress slaps her paramour after discovering an affair. Let’s just say he slapped her – hard. So hard I said “Damn!” and rubbed my own face.

The initial reaction most have had he didn’t have to smack he like that, but I also add – she had it coming.

I have no idea what instigated the young woman clowning all over the young man, but clearly she had been running her mouth for a bit before the start of this video. Yes, she was talking much mess, but it was all words. She was all in his personal being stupid and he was mostly ignoring her. With instigating of her girls as Greek chorus riling her up to spew even more bullshit, she was getting worse by the minute. The additional audience of some of the other passengers laughing did not help and realizing she was being filmed on a cell phone only made it worse; escalating the situation rapidly.

When the target of her tirade had enough, whether he had reached his stop or not, he had started walking away from her. Let me repeat that; he was walking away from her. When you do hear him speak at last, it is evident he has an accent, but she tells him he sounds stupid. I bet she did not give one thought to what she must have sounded like to him while she was going off. He took all her bullshit pretty much wordlessly, but he had enough and called her out of her name. Was he wrong in how he chose to call her out?-yes. But was he wrong in calling her out?-no. After all the crap she spewed to him, he earned a call out.  That she did not like it –too damn bad– she had no business slapping him in the back of his neck because of it.

She clearly took a couple of seconds to think about it before she punched him – that was an intentional response. Granted, he had no business smacking her in retaliation period, but he just as clearly did not think about it; immediately turning back to slap her – that was a gut reaction. He did not beat her, he did not punch her. He did exactly what she did – slapped and stepped back.

Some females count on the adage that a man will never hit a woman and misuse it to berate men. She had a public audience; she had her girls as back-up and she was surrounded by other men aw swell. She was so secure in the knowledge that she could mouth off, being all Betty Bad Bitch and get away with it knowing he was not going to be stupid enough to touch her. Or so she thought. To quote Lincoln – “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt” and that girl was acting “all kinds of fool” as the old folks say. I think he was trying to be a gentleman and let her act like the clown she chose to be.  As I said at the beginning of this, it was all words. However, once she slapped him all bets were off.  Even in the imbroglio that followed, it was less about the other men protecting the female from the one guy, and more keeping the females off the one guy.

As Mama always said: Keep your hands to yourself.

I feel no remorse whatsoever for her, it was not right, but she had it -and all the memes that are now spinning from it- coming.