Your Mental Health Care Provider May Be A Racist And Other Startling Facts

By Andrea N. Jones

"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief."  -Sigmund Freud 

I stood in my driveway, hands high above my head. At least 4 officers (none black) proceeded to raise their gun directly toward me. My heart skipped a beat. Words came to my mind like they always had in times of crisis. I thought, " Oh, shit," trembling, "they're here to kill me."

With 4 guns pointed in my direction, I was sure I'd be killed if I moved an inch. I couldn't breathe.

I went catonic while exclaiming, "If you shoot me, I will become the second most famous resident in Hayward because Oscar Grant (a young black man who had been murdered on the Fruitvale BART station's platform six years prior on New Year's Day) will always be the first!!!" These words may have saved my life because as soon as they were spoken the officers/overseers/crackers lowered their weapons. However, I was not totally off the hook. 

The officers/overseers/crackers tossed  me to the ground, handcuffed me and tried to toss me in the back of a police car. I was not having it. I did not trust these officers/overseer/crackers at all. I did not trust him with my black body. Perhaps if my body were white, even Asian, I may have thought differently. 

But due to the fact that I had experienced extreme racism from the Hayward Police Department before, I was fearful and had to act. I proceeded to go limp as I'd  seen the civil rights activists doing countless film footage. Once my ambulance had arrived only then could I breathe. 

Thing is, every time I tell that story I could tell some folks hardly believe me. Why would the cops do such a thing you might ask. Because they're dicks. Dicks to the mentally ill. Frightening fragile. This is what I'm used to and it has been my life and my experience.

I was 5150'd and driven by blaring siren to John P. George Pavilion, the notorious local county mental hospital, for evaluation and treatment.

At the age of 22, I was diagnosed with an invisible illness that would shape the rest of my life. That illness was Bipolar Disorder. I wailed like a baby for weeks on end when I found this out because, not only did I instinctively know the diagnoses was true,  I knew my life would never be the same. In fact, my worst fears have been realized. 

At 40, I can sit back and actually see all that I have lost-- friends, so-called family, jobs, possessions, love and status.

At my height, I hobnobbed with international players and at my lowest, I sat in county clinics full of drunkards and addicts just to get my meds. The disorder is quite common among writers. I feel that what most people don't know won't hurt them, so this part of my life I share with very few people. It's just not everyone's business, you know?

I've been taking my meds for months as prescribed by my outpatient doctor, however, I have recently experienced a symptoms' flare up that needed to be managed. I was hesitant to go to the local psych facility. Like the county clink, Santa Rita, once they get you, they have you and there's just no telling when you get to leave that hell behind.

My best option was a nearby mental hospital, John George Pavillion, where the staff knows me very well. Or, so they think. I've been coming here for more than 15 years. Getting 5150'd is not the business.  It's been a 15 year history of terror for me and it goes much like this:

1) Family member calls the cops on me to get me 5150'd (placed under custody for a 72-hour psychological hold) with a simple "white lie," like, "she's threatening to kill me!" The Hayward Police Overseers/Officers/Crackers are quick to declare my rights modified on the spot.

2) I am swiftly 5150'd and taken by ambulance to the county psych ward at John George Pavillion for evaluation. I am always admitted.
3) I always get in trouble with the staff for being willful.
4)I am warehoused and given activities to perform to justify the staffs' paychecks.
5) I go to court with an advocate or public defender who sits on his ass while the prosecution defames me as a violent, psychopathic, maniacal drug addict (because I carry a medical marijuana card).

6) Eventually, I am released for good behavior and I am forced to go about the business of rebuilding my life, from what may be scratch, yet again.

It's become clear to me that my latest in-patient doctor is absolutely colorstruck. If you're light-skinned and act like white is right, y'all may as well be related because you are for sure getting out of this piece in a minute. If you're black and radical like me, you are treated like nothing less than an enemy of the state. Europeans have performed great studies on racism and health care disparities among their populations. 

Studies in England and Wales suggest that a great disparity does in fact exist between the ethnicities: 

The first census report published in 2005 showed that the black patient experience was in stark contrast to their white counterparts, with detention rates under the Mental Health Act 44% higher among this group. Once in the system, the data also showed that black patients were more likely to be admitted to intensive care and secure services, and be given higher doses of antipsychotic medication. They were also 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained and 49% more likely to be placed in seclusion.
Rather than seeing an improvement in this area, the figures show that the number of black patients formally detained under the Mental Health Act shot up from 2,700 to 4,600 in the four years to 2009-10 – a rise of nearly 70%.

I tried to rationalize with my doctor. I lost my job for not reporting while I was hopped up on heavy psychotropics in the hospital. He told me I would have lost my job anyway. I'm sure the stank face I gave him was the most sincere one he received all day. 

My boss and I were hella cool. He didn't know what he was talking about--  typical white male, afraid of the impending black planet seeks to destroy my black family and love relationship by separating me from the ones I love and love me back.

Meanwhile, I've seen many white, brown and Asian patients regain their freedom as I sit here waiting for mine. Some of these patients have been violent, aggressive and exhibit more pressured speech than I do, but they are not warehoused. Their lives are valid to Thomicini, while mine is not.

I've come to see myself as a political prison here on my 22nd day in John George Pavilion. I fear no man as man can only take my life while God, He can take my soul. I let my stance on my involuntary hospitalization be known. Before I was kidnapped by night-riding, overseers/officers in the middle of the night, I was very active on various media sites doing my part to serve and make a difference. Since I've been institutionalized, I think of Angela Davis (and all political prisoners) daily. What a strong sistah! 

I  write about nothing if not inequality in the heart of the S.F.-Oakland Bay Area, yet here I am, a victim of the beast's system and racist/white supremacist paradigm.  So, I do my time knowing how much harder sistahs like Ms. Davis had it paving the way more than 60 years ago.

My doctor, a Dr. Asseipe, is nothing short of a basic Reaganite. He sports the Colonel Sanders white hair and beard and is partial to sweater vests. He warehouses me here with no plan. I wonder if he plays god with me or mere devil because he has given me nothing resembling a release date. All I am told is that I am still "not well" yet. Shiiiiit. 

If well means I am no longer irreverent and I stop speaking truth to power, he might as well curl up and die today. Because the day I loose my spark and spunk will be my last living day as well.

Simply put, I could never be white enough to please Dr. Assmuncher, and frankly put, I love my black and wish to be no other.

So, I must wait four more days to hear the judge's verdict which will seal the fate of my upcoming fall season. I'm a Jones. A double Jones (on both sides)! I am not easily impressed by doctors. I really haven't the time to sweat an asshole, would you?  

"As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism." -Angela Davis 

Driving On Fire

Momma's Firebird 

by Andrea N. Jones 

Picture it– the year was 1976, the same year as the great Bicentennial. 

I was a toddler and my mother had just divorced my father. She ended up buying a sweet, brand new, silver Pontiac Firebird with red vinyl interior. She, my older sister Rhonda and I would be mobbin' around the streets of Oakland, day and night. I never minded that it was a two-door and I had to crawl my way to my back buckle seat. What I did mind was getting in on hot summer days because the interior would feel hotter than the sun and my little brown legs would sweat then stick to my seat. 

It was always so cool when my mom would pick Rhonda and me up from the roller rink or the movies at the Eastmont Mall. Our friends loved packing in, we didn't grow up on car seats and seat belts, you dig? 

My mom worked hard 5 days a week at Southern Pacific, starting out as a Switchboard Operator and moving up to Accounts. We were living for the weekend. Mom would bump The Commodores, Earth, Wind & Fire, Teddy Pendergrass, Rick James or Parliament as we'd make our way up to the Oakland Hills to an affluent community up Skyline Drive, past the Oakland Zoo (Knowland Zoo then) and visit her brother, my Uncle Jimmy, his wife Aunt Connie and my cousins James Jr., Darryl, Tommy and Roxanne. We would PAAARTA! 

Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Connie were our black Ozzie & Harriet. They were wholesome but not stuck up. We'd be met at the door with some light barking by their German Shepard Keno as if he were the court announcer. People still smoked indoors back then and us kids didn't do all that fake coughing and carrying on these brats do today. No, no, no. Liquor and beer flowed but no one there ever struck me as being drunk. To this day, I've never tasted cleaner, fresher comfort food in all my life than that prepared by my Aunt Connie's hands. I swear she sprinkled magic over her dishes.

The whole gang would be there, even my dad and his new wife, what seemed like every weekend. Uncle Chester, my grandmother's ginger-headed brother was always there with a sweet smelling cigar between his lips and a toothy smile. He was a prominent dry cleaner and a past Ebony Magazine Who's Who who's Operatic and Barbershop Quartet baritone voice could make a grown man cry. His son Ricky would be in tow, my quietest cousin, a good boy who was all eyes and dark, shaggy hair. The Raiders game would be on. Those were the Madden years and we were kicking ass! At night we'd watch that dirty, old Englishman Benny Hill until I fell asleep and woke up in my bed down the hill at my mom's home on 75th & Mac Arthur to a brand new day.

Those were the days. That Firebird wasn't just a car, it was a statement. It was my mom telling the world that she, Linda Jones, was free, fly af and was not afraid to flaunt her and her girls around in sporty style. Now with 45 years passed all of our relatives that made The Town warm and cozy have since passed or moved away. I thank GOD for all the rich memories I have of them and the endearing love of family that lives in my mind through memory. Without those layers of easy living and peaceful joy, I would not be the strong, irreverent black woman I am today. Thank you! #vroomvroom #flatlanddiva #califia

Broken American Royalty: How The Black Builders of America are Being Supplanted

American Royalty: How The Builders of America are Being Supplanted 

By Andrea N. Jones 

​You gotta be like a Jones. Pretty and useful. There was a time, not too long ago, when Joneses were the envy of all family names and bloodlines. The surname means “Favored by Jehovah.”

Joneses have always been the toast of the town or village, as it were. The name Jones is synonymous with the words “cool,” “stylish,” “envied,” “admired” and “swagger.” The Jones name dates as far back as 921 in merry old England and Scotland. Today it remains the most popular last name in Wales.

However, it was only a matter of time before the culture vultures would try to steal The Jones Glow. Kids don’t know anything today about the old-school American saying “Keeping up with the Joneses.” The only thing they know about is how to keep up with a band of literal gypsies straight outta a cave in the Caucus Mountains. 

These women, I use the term “women” loosely, are nothing more than troglodytes who have slithered all the way to Hollywood. Their cut up faces are more recognizable than Michelle Obama’s around the world. 

Michelle Obama isn't merely a former first lady, she's a Queen. In fact, it is no exaggeration that black people decend from a rich, vibrant land that allowed for a standard of living that Europeans could never image. 

I've done the research and, yes, compared to the peasants of Europe who were living with and making lovers of their livestock, black people were kings and queens. 

Black scholars and academics refer to Ancient Egypt as the founders did, Kemet, which means “Land of Black Faces.” Need I say more? 

Kemet is the name the ancient people of the desert kingdom used for their kingdom and thus, out of respect for them, it is the name scholars and academics use to refer to the greatest and most mysterious kingdom in all of all human history.

My bloodline goes back to the land of Kemet. My ancestors held primordial secrets that reveal an origin of man that would shock most people. After no longer being able to stop thousands of years of invasions and other attempted invasions, by neighbors to the east, my ancestors fled from their Nile Valley homeland, migrating through the Sahara Desert into Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Gao, Guinea, Benin and Mali. They were the forbearers of the great nations of West Africa.

Many would like to believe that there is absolutely no connection between the civilizations of east Africa, and those of West Africa, however, there could be nothing further from the truth. These places were linked by ancient trading ties. The roads that lead to Lagos are as old as time itself. My progenitors, my progenerous whispers me as I slumber. They breathe life into memories.

We, the original people, truth be told, are the only real humans on the planet. We are no less than 5 million years old. Our connection to earth dwarfs all other races by an astronomical amount. We have been the greatest stewards the world has ever seen. 

Our essence has always been here. We are the great and ominous We. The Earth Goddess Nefertiti, The Mother God Isis and the world’s oldest mermaid entity Mami Wata live in me. And in you, too. Breathe, listen and be still, O, Mighty Black Queen, your truth has been hidden but it has now been revealed.

I’ll give you a basic example that illustrates how much contempt the foreign-controlled Bay Area has for its native people. Folks who pay taxes and that’s everybody, Honey. Particularly, those of us who are black. How in the hell do we not have free energy in Silicon Valley? These billionaires refuse to provide basic access to electrical outlets for people who may need to revive a dead smartphone. Smartphones are the only life line many have.

The Bay Area’s failure to provide sufficient support to its black population is nothing short of acute neglect. Urban planners call this type of marginalization “Urban Triage.” Urban Triage is when city leaders pick and choose the people in the community they want to bestow goodwill on. 9 times out of 10, it won’t be black citizens benefiting en masse. However, 9 times out of 10 it will be people who are foreign born. It is social engineering of the worst kind. The kind meant to kill.

Does it make any kind of sense to anyone that black people who have been fundamental to the state of California’s prosperity and global popularity are being thrown into the streets like last week’s garbage because social engineers think it’s perfectly acceptable for blacks to be without food, clothing, heat, comfort and shelter if they’re FICO Scores are below 750? Raise your hand if this makes any kind of sense.

I recently visited Memphis, a major city in West Tennessee, where I have discovered an embarrassment of free access to electrical power. Blacks in The Bay are getting ass raped and not even black leadership there cares. 

They hate us but we’re told to love without boundarie like they're our brothers and sisters. Let me tell you something, Honey. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve had Asian friends from every corner of that weird and desolate haunted place. From New Delhi to Mumbai to Pakistan to Afghanistan to Vietnam to the Philippines. None of them give a fuck about us. 

They’re here to get whatever is not nailed down. Most people around the world laugh at Americans and have a inflated ethnocentric view worldview. They cannot identify with the American Dream like the people who actually built this country and we’re simultaneously locked out of it. They do not understand the significance of the civil rights movement not to mention the black liberation movement and pay no homage to our struggle, and the fact that we built this entire civilization. 

In fact, truth be told, we continue to build this country up and run it while white folks get the promotion and take the credit. Not to mention the whole kit and caboodle. Our very wealth. We are black gold. We were from the get period— from Jamestown to Funkytown to Oaktown, you dig? 

Foreigners look at blacks as easy meal tickets, coming  for our neighborhoods, then our wealth and then our culture. Lastly, they want to take our lives. No lie. 

They want to supplant us. They are The Watchers. They watch us for cues on how to be human. Their bloodlines are heavily mixed with Neanderthal just like all the other races on the planet. 

They are humanoid not human. No credible biologist or anthropologist can call these people crawling all around the globe human. Black people are the only humans on the planet. 

Africans never mixed with Neanderthal. Caucasians mixed with them for an estimated 20 to 30,000 years. Believe me, Honey, many of them are more Neanderthal than human. Look it up. 

You can always tell who is a full-on Cro Magnum Man by their non verbal communication and behavior. Shifty eyes. Pathological lies so big about their ancestry you could drive a Mac truck through them. Passive aggressive actions meant to burn. 

I don’t even bother to be friends with most of them anymore. I have better things to do and better people to do those things with. I eat coconuts, bananas and vanilla, Honey. I don’t hang out with them. 🥥🥥🍌🍌🧁🧁

Black Americans have to come to terms with the fact that all skin folk ain't kin folk. African, Latin American and Caribbean blacks want our spot, too. As much as I respect Marcus Garvey, Pan-Africanism is a joke. Blacks were never meant to be free. Gatekeepers make damn sure we remain an underclass by denying job, housing and adequate health care. 

Once the $900 trillion generational wealth transfer currently taking place is complete blacks will be assed out. Get a plan because it's truly black versus everybody else now in America. 

Momma and The City

By Andrea N. Jones

I stare out on California Street in San Francisco as cable cars pass up and down the slanted thoroughfare with distant memories swirling around inside my head. Memories of a young Andrea, just 19 years old, moving to the big city to take a huge bite out of it. 

I like so many black girls was pushed out of my parent’s house at an early age. As much as I resented this ritual I was eager to experience adulthood. Anyway, my mother arranged my U-Haul and we drove the short distance from Hayward to The City. 

I found a charming studio apartment in Lower Nob Hill or Polk Gulch. After unloading the last box into my new home, my mother gave me a big, lippy kiss, told me to be safe, watch out for strangers and pay my bills. After a heartfelt I love you, she was gone. I sat on my Murphy bed looking over my second hand furniture for about an hour figuring out my next move.

It was 1993 and I was a young journalist. I’d been at it since I was 15, publishing my first piece in the San Jose Mercury, the paper journalist Gary Webb (google him) made famous. Up to this point I would handwrite my articles then type them up when I got to my desk at my office, Pacific News Service. 

My mom must had heard my internal cry for help because she rewarded my dedication to my craft. She found a Macintosh Classic for sale in the paper. Driving to Foster City to pick up that Mac was one of the happiest days of my life. My mom could be very generous like that. She would do kind things on a whim. Every branch of my family could attest to that.

Once I got the Mac, my productivity rose greatly. However, I needed a side hustle to be financially comfortable. I decided I would become a phone sex operator. I looked at it as undercover work. I took on the persona of a white blonde, 36-24-36, Kelly was my name. With Kelly, anything but pedophilia was cool. 

96% of my clients were white men. Many wanted to be peed on. I’d just stand over my toilet with a tall cup of water and make a splash. Some were kinkier and wanted to be defecated on. For this, I’d pour out “lumps” of aqua.They’d go nuts. And so many requested some strap-on treatment. They loved it! I loved making $20/hr plus tips. I also got gifts like lingerie.

I spoke to my mom less and less during this time. We had a running joke about me still being a virgin when in reality I’d lost that at 16. Still, I didn’t want to slip up and spill the beans. I just knew it would hurt her to no end to know I could be that type of girl— a dirty girl.

It wasn’t meant to last for me though. After seeing Spike Lee’s Girl 6 starring the beautiful and talented Teresa Randall about a black actress’s journey through the phone sex industry and being shamed by a lame ass boyfriend I quit. 

I’d successfully kept this secret from my mother for 20 years. That was until she was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. I didn’t want her to die not knowing this guilty secret I’d been carrying around from her. 

One day after feeding her soup, I’d made my confession. She just looked at me, half way rolled her eyes and asked if we could smoke a joint. That was my mom. She never ceased to amaze me.

When she passed, I was left with a clean conscious. I knew that in those 18 months of caregiving I’d done right by Linda Patterson. Even still, it doesn’t take away my pain from losing my best friend. In her absence, I’m my own best friend. I let me know when I can splurge and when to tighten my belt.

Fall is in full swing in San Francisco. Leaves line the streets in this concrete jungle and I am reminded what a cold world we live in. I was carjacked last month. Escaping domestic violence, I had most of my earthly possessions in my car— 2 iPhones, a laptop, diamond earrings, new clothes, etc. Not to mention all my cards. 

I slipped up by not minding one of my mom’s rules, don’t talk to strangers. What made it worse is that my family, the one my mother was always there for has not offered me any type of help. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Makes me wonder what good having a family really is to me. 

I did some venting about it to Facebook. Next thing I know the family porn star tells me I’m about to be disowned. That really gave me a good chuckle. The truth is, there is no one alive who is qualified to disown me from my family. My mother is dead. She is the only one who could disown me, hooker. Another day, another encounter with a dipshit.

How I miss my mother’s love. I’ll curl up under my electric blanket remembering how my mom would rock us both to sleep. Watch a show my mother would love, like Billions. Fall asleep and do it all over again tomorrow without her. Her love remains in my heart though whether I’m strong enough to recall that during difficult times or not. I love you, Momma.🌹🌹🌹

When Giving Jill Scott Is Not Enough

I'm sitting on my lover's black leather couch pondering my future, with or without him. See, we have a rather complicated situation just like every couple that, in my opinion, could easily be unraveled if only he'd cooperate with our flow. You see, when things are good we make bangin' hot tracks. I privately call it feel good music. But no, he's holding back and I can't help but believe it because he's holding out for another romantic opportunity, perhaps with someone who looks completely different than me.

I think to myself, "You say you love Jill Scott? I was bringing you Jill Scott, dumb ass. I could rap to you for hours because to me you were The Truth. The honest to God real McKoy. So, in return, I honored that by representing my ancestors to the utmost level of respect; as if I were Pharoah herself. Jill Scott is the utmost high Queen in the R&B music industry. Jill is real."

With THE most angelic voice and a no holds barred sensuality, vulnerability and boldness of tone, Ms. Jill Scott is in her own class. The actress/singer/songwriter/producer has all the right physical and emotional attributes my dude claims to like and I idolize her for exemplifying. We talking sweetness, compassion, even humor. I channel these qualities very naturally as well. I put it ALL on him. Had dude eating out of these hands, too.

I honestly can't tell you when we friended one another, however, I recall when he appeared on my radar. It was May 2011 on my birthday. Yes, I fell pry to a friggin' Facebook birthday comment.

At first, I thought nothing of his likes. After all, I had taken myself out of the singles' scene a few months prior. I was tired of the ritual dance of dating. 

.  

Men think they are expected to shell out, and, in my book, they still are, at least for a Starbucks coffee. For all the gains black women have made in white collar job positions, we lag behind white women who's meteoric rise to power across corporate America could only be surpassed the white male who's wages remain at a premium. Considering the very real pay gap, let him pay, girl.

Women feel the pressure to sleep with a guy if too many duckets have been shelled out for her. In fact, before the bill makes it to the table, the woman must send her date a cue as to whether he's gonna get the panties afterward or not. I personally became leary of any expensive date. "Say, Baby, let's hit up Crustaceans," could be met by my stank face. A woman has to assume that in Thee Concrete Jungle, a man is willing to manipulate the given scenario in order to simply smash.

Once we made our way into the infamous inbox, it was on and poppin. Fast forward to December when we meet in the flesh. The love displayed and felt was both mutual and monumental. I'd never felt that way before.

I don't feel like your average American broad. I am an abyss of consciousness. I feel a little more gifted than a typical middle age woman. I am a queen. People confirmed my crown and scepter are really real all the time. Grace isn't something I have to practice nor is it about anything I was taught. It's just a deeply rooted confidence in the superior quality of my genes and what exactly they can do. 

I've actually been asked, "Andrea, how is it that you don't live high up on the hill somewhere?" I mentally shrug my shoulders and explain to the best that I love the flatlands. All the hills get me is a status that I interpret to be more of a burdensome status, but also alienating from the majority of folks in the community. This is why I call myself The Flatland Diva. I refuse to be the coon, the house nigga. I will never run from my people for the hills, literally and figuratively.

People are so busy doing them that they don't take the time to nurture a mutually satisfying and reciprocal relationship with the people they sleep with in any shape shift or fashion. We play adult games. You know the games. They range from "Pimps Up, Hoes Down," "That's Mine, This is Mine," "Charades," "Catch Me If You Can" and, my personal favorite, "Hide and Don't Seek."

Of course white supremacy plays a role in black male and female relationships. Approaching a post-Obamian era, black peoples are getting hip to the racism that still exist in the world and in our own back yard since Maafa or African Holocaust by Europeans began in 1526. So, it's been 500 years of our black bodies being used and abuse and we still aren't free. Our jobs our or individual plantations today. Our cars, our whips. We are told that self-branding is a virtue this time around as oppose to our ancestors being tortured by hot steel pressed against their delicate black skin in an effort to subjugate, humiliate and track them. In fact, these slaves were in all actuality prisoners of war. This war continues on the d.l. tip. If you're as versed in racism/white supremacy, you can seem them shits from miles away and smack it down without fear. With staying woke and fighting the crooked, elitist powers, it's best to fear only the fear. The Force, as in Star Wars, is with the melanated people of the world. Believe that. 

White people in America truly crack me up. They sincerely believe that this country has done the black community a favor by enslaving our ancestors and presently occupying our neighborhood's with militarized police. When it comes to race politics, white peoples are little more than grown children. They still believe fairytales, as they take over our old inner city hoods through gentrification.

Where is white America's integrity? Oh yeah, that's right. Its busy sucking up pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, smacking down on goat cheese and peaches bruchetta, deeply entangled in reality show marathons, participating in orgies of soccer moms, dads and coaches, gentrifying our old hoods while training for the most trending charity 5K in the park. It is simply and quite officially out to lunch.

White America, you are quite literally stuck. You can't kill us all. We are Original, the original people who will only die when GOD (not the same as your fake Sky Daddy) says it shall be so and not a moment sooner. Like Iraq, you hate us for our freedom, reckless abandon in the face of your racist tyranny and terrorism. 

We may all may be mankind, but we certainly aren't all human. Recent findings suggest that European and Asian peoples may be mixed with up to 9% of Neaderthal DNA. The only pure humans that exists are African people. Now, chew on that! The black woman's stands alone as God. This queen is the only organism that can produce every variation of DNA in the human genome. Her skin is kissed by the sun and full of light energy. Her hair defies gravity to protectively rise towards the heavens. Aesthetic perfection, her hips are curved so you notice her elegance and beauty. 

After a good night's sleep I remember exactly who and what I am. It's occurred to me that first and foremost I am single. I'm starting to think I just may be too much woman for dude. I use to hate when women would say, "Gurl, he just cant handle me! As if they were lions and their men their tamers. I mean, really? I thought these women were drama queens, but I'm starting to get it now. Maybe, just maybe, The One is ready for merging lives, families and dollars. 

With that said, it would be unwise not to continue to take applications for Cupcaking Season and beyond, for marriage. I ain't stupid and I ain't dumb, neither. I know when I'm on my own and that time is now. Jilly from Philly is currently a newlywed, marrying in a quaint ceremony. With her natural hair embellished with baby's breath, she was a vision. A real life Goddess of Love. She's happy. I want some of that, too. It's only right. 

A 90's Throwback: Gucci Braids, Shirley Temple Curls and a Complicated Freedom

Editor's Note: I wrote this piece in the 1990's for the San Francisco Chronicle. It is a piece near and dear to my heart as it looks at the intersections between mine and my grandmother's lives with black hair. Enjoy!

"WHAT WOULD YOU like done today?" the receptionist asks me as I stand in a daze before her counter. 

It's been 10 years since I've set foot in a beauty college, and the question of what style to choose means more than the receptionist could know. 

I can't even contemplate the question without thinking of my grandmother. Before I was born, Louise Russell, a graduate of The Madame CJ Walker School of Beauty Culrure in Chicago, was famous for the hairstyles she'd fabricate in the back of her home in San Bernardino. I heard stories of women traveling the 60 miles from L.A. to have my grandmother make them glamorous. I'd sit in her back room and imagine the scene: The pressing comb in its tiny stove, Grandma swinging her Marcels (metal curling utensils) around like Bill Pickett while managing to maintain a slippery patch of pink pressing wax on the back of her hand. These women of the '40s and '50s would ride back toward Hollywood like poised divas - hair silked, curled or waved. 

By the time my baby-soft hair had grown into a thick, bushy mane, my grandmother was too old and tired to mess with so much hair. She preferred to take me downtown to the beauty college and let the "girls" deal with me. I'd sit while Grandma made arrangements with the receptionist for two 

"colored girls" - a sophomore for her and a senior for me. 

Heads would turn as my stylist and I crossed the room, and I'd grin back, not caring whether the women were marveling at my cuteness or at the discombobulated state of my woolly ponytails. 

"Are you tender-headed?" my stylist would ask, fingering through my hair, and I'd stoically contend that I wasn't. I'd suffer through minor tugging and pulling and leave the school with bright colored bands around my neatly twisted hair and the scent of cherry shampoo and coconut hair grease in my nose.

After Grandma died, I had to resort to home-relaxers and occasional visits to over-priced, overly made-up stylists. But 10 years later, it was memories of my grandmother that pulled me back to the beauty college - this time at Laney College in Oakland. I'm still sitting waiting for my stylist when it becomes clear that the beauty college wouldn't be quite the cherry-scented idyll I remembered from my childhood. 

One student with nearly 1,600 hours under her belt - almost enough to graduate - is calling out her sister-in-law for phoning in and asking if "someone at the college" could do her hair. 

"I was like, "I can do your hair,"" recounts the irate stylist. She's proud of her skills, as she should be: She's hooked herself up with the same wispy golden curls that hip-hop balladeer Mary J. Blige probably pays big money for. 

My student dresser, Yvette, is round and beautiful with long Gucci braids (thick twisted plaits), and reminds me of the young women dressers who used to look so old to me. 

"I always did my friends' hair," she tells me as she wraps a shiny metallic smock around me. "When I started this I just fell in love with it and started dreaming about having my own shop." 

Yvette takes my hair down from the loose bun I wrapped it up in this morning and fingers through it. "My hair is the same length as yours under my braids," she tells me. 

"Maybe a little shorter." I confess that I've been using Mane 'n Tail, a lengthening conditioner which is all the rage. The product was originally marketed for horses and I used to have to get it in pet stores until it caught on. Now I buy it at Walgreen's. Yvette tells me she uses it, too.

We move over to the sink and Yvette opens the five-gallon bottle of cherry shampoo. She works up a cool lather with her massage and that ambrosial scent emanates from it. I scan the room, watching young women indulging other women, and listening to the harmonic chatter that could easily be confused with gossip. Sometimes the students misinterpret the talk, Yvette tells me, and feuds begin. But for the most part they get along. 

Yvette tells me something else that makes me think about how much has changed since the days when Grandma did hair. Just two weeks ago, a student who was about to graduate was shot at a party. "Candy had 1,600 hours and was really good," Yvette tells me as she delicately towel blots my hair. Classes were suspended for two days. A couple of the students did her hair and make-up for the burial. 

Back at her station, Yvette gives me a generous dose of brown gel to cast the wet set of my choosing. I decide on fat Shirley curls all overflowing from my crown and into my face. But just as Yvette is emptying out the bag of plastic rollers, I spot a young hairdresser with large sculpted fingerwaves and become inspired. Yvette adds enough gel to hook up some fingerwaves in the front, leaving enough hair free at the crown to make my fat curls successful. 

I look in the mirror and my own face takes me back a generation or two. Back in the day, young black women's creativity might have been restricted on the job or in daily life, but they let loose with their hair, their one pliable appendage. Fingerwaves added to pincurls added to a slick roll at the back with fat curls falling from it. 

But the young women of Grandma's generation didn't face the conflicts today's young women do every time we straighten our hair. Rebelling against Eurocentric beauty standards, our mothers fought for and won the right to 'fro, braid and dread their daughters' hair to reassert our African heritage and beauty. The result for a lot of us daughters is that we question our consciousness every six weeks: Am I perming for my man, my boss or me? Can I love myself with my natural hair texture? 

Hair for Grandma had an entirely different meaning. She spent her childhood during the Depression caring for her six younger brothers and sisters, and her teens fighting courts and social workers to keep them. She kept them exceptionally groomed to avoid any false charges of neglect, and discovered her love for self-expression through hair in the process. By the time I came around she'd gotten quite modest about her own appearance, and went to the school not to get her hair whipped up but to be pampered. She went to be rubbed, massaged and cared for at her crown - to receive a little service for all she'd put in over the years. 

By the time I get out from under the beehive drier I'm one of the last clients in the shop. Yvette removes the last moldings of a 1930s hairstyle, one Grandma might have worn in her youth. I'd gone back to the beauty college out of nostalgia for my girlhood, but when I look in the mirror I'm surprised to see a grown woman - one who makes her own choices and manages her complicated freedom. I think Grandma might have recognized her.

Stacey Dash and Television's Sassy Band of Black Pundits

This past Thanksgiving Fox News cable anchor Brian Kilmeade asked black host Harris Faulkner whether she planned to make Kool-Aid for the holidays. The collective mouth of black America dropped. Faulkner was incredulous (as black audiences were) and swiftly stated no and moved on with her hosting segment. Nonetheless, she was clearly embarrassed as she should be. What business does she have on anti-black Fox News anyway? Faulkner is just one of many black women trying to make a name for themselves on compromising television shows. Stacey Dash is one of the most high profile black pundits today compromising her blackness for dollars. 

Stacey Dash recently stunned a good half of America with her crude attack on President Barack Obama, saying he could give a shit about the safety of the American people in the wake of the San Bernadino terrorist attack. Her co-panelist went so far as to call Obama a pussy. They've both been censured by Fox for now but she, no doubt, will be back sooner than later as she serves a key purpose of the network-- to create a false sense of inclusion of blacks in GOP politics. However, I found Dash's attack on the president more offensive than white dude's simply because it came out of a black mouth. 

Dash, 48, was an actress known best from her role in the juggernaut '90s hit film Clueless and, boy is she ever without a clue. Costar Alicia Silverstone exhibited more soul than Dash ever has in her role in Queen Latifah's beauty shop comedy, Beauty Shop, portraying a white woman in love with black culture as well as with a black man. Dash has no love for the black man, black women or black culture. Now a frequent Fox News contributor, Dash has a lot to say as a newfound pundit with very conservative ideas. She seems to subscribe to the notion that blacks are pathological and therefore can be contained best under Republican rule.

Dash does not fall far from the Disney-to-discussion-panel pipeline that Raven Symone stepped out of most recently with her gig on ABC's The View. Symone has said some off-the-wall things that have even led her own parents to distance themselves from her rhetoric. This past October, Symone created a firestorm when she suggested she would not hire people with black sounding names. Not only was this hypocritical, as Raven Symone is not exactly what you call a biblical name, but discriminating against someone on the basis of their presumed race is also illegal. Her father penned an open letter to the public asking for understanding, stating that his daughter Symone "sometimes says stupid shit." Pops ain't never lied. 

Symone was the recent subject of a petition circulated on social media that demanded she be fired from The View received over 100,000 signatures. However, her bosses at ABC wrote a letter defending the starlet, suggesting that she is an important part of their team. Or their house. Cooning, the act of demeaning and discrediting your own race of black people through words and action in an effort to entertain, amuse and appease the dominant culture, is as good as wearing Teflon garb on television. A black pundit can gaurantee a spot in daytime or prime time (just pick a time slot) for as long as she sprews self-hating perspectives.

For some reason, television executives think coons make for great television. Tamar Braxton and Lonie Love of The Real, Sheryl Underwood and even Aisha Tyler of The Tallk have been accused of cooning on TV from time to time in recent years. Perhaps it is because the coon or the so called Uncle Tom delivers the confusion and pathology people seek to find in the black community. It is the disconnect between the pundit and the community she is an undesired member of to create controversy where there should be none. One may argue that this clan of sassy talking heads offers fresh perspectives on the black experience. However, what I find is that they regurgitate old stereotypes and myths about the black community and suppress our liberation through cowtowing to white audiences who are comfortable seeing blacks as pathological. These women think the box is the prize when in fact it's everything outside of the box that is the real gift in life. They don't offer fresh perspectives, they offer old hat.

Symone is a millennial, and as such is of a generation of young people who believe there are no boundaries. She believes she does not have to adhere to an identity carved out for her. A part of me wants to applaud her forward thinking while another wants to condemn her for being such a stone cold idiot. In Ancient Greek, an idiot was someone with no friends. I would say this girl has no friends. I would imagine the people she calls friends are no smarter than she. If she does have friends smarter than she is, they need to educate her. If she doesn't wish to go to college, the girl certainly could pick up a book here and there. I doubt she has ever cracked open a non-fiction book written by a black person. You can always tell those who have no black writers in their libraries. It's written all over their worldview.

Then there are those Sisters who surprise you. I was horrified to see that The Apprentice contestant Omarosa is supporting Donald Trump for president. This is the height of coonery. At the core, coonery is opportunism at its worst. These are the type of folks Harriet Tubman wouldn't even be able to save. She was famously quoted as saying, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could've freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves."  

There seems there will always be a class of black people who are easily seduced by the white confidence game that allows them to believe they can be a part of the dominant culture when in fact these people serve to be tokens of the dominant culture. They are tauted out to us as if to say, "You too could be a part of The American Dream," however, the dominant culture has no intention of embracing black America as part of the dominant culture. This is evident in the large number of unemployed, underemployed, undereducated and incarcerated blacks in America. American cities and schools are as segregated as they ever were and that's the way they want it.

One of my homeboys though, he could give a damn about Stacy Dash's politics. According to him, she's smoking hot fine. And that's all that matters. There in lies the rub. No matter how ugly she is on the inside, the heifer is drop dead gorgeous by all physical metrics. Black just don't crack, you know what I mean? Plus, she's rich, Bitch. Wealth comes with power and both, without vigilance, corrupts those it's bestowed upon. I get it, she's a bit long in the tooth for modeling and leading ladiehood, so why not use her self hate to make mo' money? Sure, she could buy me twice over. However, I am not for sale and I'm not buying what Stacey Dash and the band of sassy black pundits put down. Whether you realize it or not, we are in a race war with the dominant culture. As the war gets warmer, the more coons will come to the surface. We must find a cure for coonery before it's participants eradicate the few gains made by the black community left, just 150 years out of slavery and into the frying pan of a so called Post-Racial Era that gave rise to Stacey Dash and the like.