Grown And Sexy

At 51, I've seen the light. I am no longer interested in labels. Haven't been for a while, actually. I have friends. Not like a rosters, just a few friends. We don't play kid games. We're mature about our shit. For the most part we are honest about our entanglements. 

I have this one friend I'll call Hot Stuff. He's a yellow fellow. Very pretty. My neighbors have been beside themselves every since he's been visiting me at my new crib. Why people get jealous of others and have to hate instead of congratulate I do not know.

Beyond looks, Hot Stuff is a man of substance. He's thoughtful, understanding and kind. A lot of young brothers could learn a lot from someone like him. He takes good care of his family and even works 2 jobs to make ends meet. 

I have another friend I'll call Boss who has been looking out for me for several years. We always have fun when we get together and he always spoils me. 

However, since I got on the radar of some hateful muthafuckah, I have been labeled as some dirty whore. When did Oakland become so puritanical? It's okay for men to date. They get considered big studs but when a woman does it she's a hoe?

I'm not a hoe and I resent the connotation that I am based on mistakes I may have made in my past. None of you reading this right now can call yourselves perfect, can you? 

According to a story I read in The New York Times, Generation X'er's are having better sex than Generation Y and Z. It has something to do with our willingness to explore. They, on the other hand were raised by helicopter parents, have been sheltered and simply don't know how to approach the opposite sex. 

I have all of Downtown Oakland in my business and that of my family. I had no family to spend this Thanksgiving with so I went around the corner to City Team, a community resource center, to have a Thanksgiving meal. The food was good. The Black people were nice but the knuckle-dragging troglodytes were extremely rude. I shouldn't of let them get to me but I did and I launched an attack back, threatening to pepper spray them. I didn't want to risk a stay in Santa Rita, so I just bounced.

I'm a creative. I don't expect everyone to understand my lifestyle. However, that once was the beauty of America. Growing up in the 70's and 80's I read Free To Be You And Me, a book and film put out by Marlo Thomas (of “That Girl” fame). saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one's identity. A major thematic message is that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything. 

I was raised in the suburbs at the age of 8. I learned more about the nuances of life. These young Oakland niggas know nothing about nuances. They are products of the Oakland School District. Most of them just got passed along. I can't expect them to understand what it is to be grown and sexy. I've been maligned by Latino youth who have enlisted the help of naive Blacks to assassinate my character because I had the nerve to exercise my right to free speech and call Black-Brown unity for what it is– a myth. I have over 30 posts on my blog. I wrote one about them and they go Def Con 10. 

They have hacked my phone, shared my pictures (even my nudes), call me names as I listen to YouTube Music and have all of Oakland thinking I'm retarded, has AIDS and smell bad (like they didn't learn anything in school about pheromones). It has taken my male friends to ground me because a weaker person would have admitted themselves into a mental institution by now.

I'm not changing. I'm growing. I contacted a lawyer to fight against the Latinos who have violated HIPPA to stick it to me. I plan cases against Walgreen's, Western Dental, Quest Labs and a gastroenterologist's office for sharing my medical records. What I do in my crib is my business, not anyone else's. 

I feel like I live in a human zoo of the 19th and 20th centuries. They watch, stalk and harassed me all my waking hours. I've lost all anonymity. The troglodytes doing this to me say I'm stupid. I say I'm transparent. There is no shame in my game. I'm just living my life, chasing my dreams. My American Dream would never include trying to ruin someone's life for exercising their rights. The first one at that. These Latinos have a lot to learn about what it is to be an American. 

Bottom line– Black people are the sexiest people on earth. We have the swag and cool other ethnicities seek to imitate. Our cultural has gone global. When I go out to restaurants others are always ear-hustling. It's so annoying. Like they are looking to get the secret of our charisma. Sorry, Brah. They are rooted in our melanin. It can't be easily sought or bought. 

Infamous in Oakland

Oakland, California is a beautiful town full of all types of characters. Mark Twain, Gertrude Stein and Jack London all spent time here. Stein famously said of Oakland, “There is no there there. I'm not sure why she would say that. 

Oakland can also be a cold place. Many people wander the streets at night with nowhere to lay their heads. It's estimated that 40% of the homeless population is Black while we are only 13% of the national population. This fact has been normalized. 

The coldest part though is that many people living in the streets may never have an abode of their own again. One evicted is enough for one to be barred from leasing for life. 

It physically hurts me to see all this housing being built around the Bay Area and know that you can never qualify for leasing because your credit score isn't high enough or whatever excuse they use to legally discriminate against Blacks. 

No, this housing is for the monied immigrants and transplants from the Midwest. Actual natives get no love in the housing market. Thus, they are forced to leave the Bay and head to places like Pittsburgh, Antioch or 

even further– down South to places like Atlanta and Houston.

Recently I found housing in a spot in Oakland. I was elated and eager to leave a living situation that was untenable. I may have jumped the gun. There were a lot of rules and regulations where I had been for nearly 2 years. You see, it was a board and care. The price was right. They called it “The Program.” There were many rules. We had to be in by 9 pm and couldn't go outside until 7 am. We could not snack in our rooms. We could not dye our hair because the owner didn't want us to damage “her” sink. 

The biggest, most detrimental rule was that we were not allowed to shower in the day time. We could only shower between the hours of 6 pm and 8 pm. If we were out during these hours, we were literally assed out. We would have to wait to the following day. We could wash up in the sink. That's it. Toward the end of my stay she even disallowed us from using wipes because she didn't want them going down her toilet. It didn't matter that I told her that I was intelligent enough to put them in the trash. It was her way or the highway.

It wasn't long before I went into a deep depression. I wouldn't go anywhere. I did the bare minimum. Fortunately, I was able to stay on a medication regimen. A blonde about my age watched us take our meds. When I first got there she gave me my key on a lancet which she referred to as a"dog collar.” That struck me as odd. 

I looked for work for the longest time with the help of a job coach. He was a super nice Mexican guy. Very positive. I was able to find a remote position. 

After that job ended I was back to square one. I began working with a new job coach. She was a sistah and super motivated to help me. The restrictions on the hours I could leave the house and be back proved to also be an obstacle to finding work. I was extremely thankful that I could make ends meet with my disability insurance. 

I applied to a waiting list for a place in Chinatown and six months later I was invited to attend an interview. Shortly after that I was notified that my application was accepted. I saw a glimmer of hope that I didn't have while I was living in The Trap, also known as Ghost Town. 

Since I moved to my new crib that is subsidized by the Oakland Housing Authority I've encountered a lot of hostility from certain neighbors. It's been an intervention of the cruelest kind. I have become infamous from Oakland to Sacramento for smelling like shit. They even gave me a new moniker– Skunk. The skunk is a beautiful black creature but when crossed or frightened sprays a scent that will knock you out.

I'm all about growth and learning. I am committed to getting to the bottom of this issue with my doctors and with myself. I'm not dead yet. As long as I am breathing I will grow. God’s got me.

Meanwhile, I am suing everybody. Many people have violated my privacy, especially violated HIPPA. Some Latinas eager to knock me out of the box out of their superiority complex when it comes to Black women. I got something for them. Big. Fat. Lawsuits. You see, these people are the new house niggas.

I've made many mistakes in my life, but this is still my Town and I will not just lay down and die like roadkill. Nope, ain't doing it. I'm a Jones. A double Jones. I mind my business, pay my rent on time and am courteous to my neighbors. I live in a way Christ has commanded us to live. Yet, I've been called everything but a child of God. 

It's funny to me that Sex and The City is one of the biggest franchises in entertainment history yet people act so chaste and frigged in real life. It's a tale about a writer living a single life. When it debuted I was also in the thick of my journalism years living in Oakland on E. 18th Street by Lake Merritt. 

I subscribed to HBO just to watch the ladies take a big bite out of the Big Apple. If I had a dollar for every time I was told by a gatekeeper that I wasn't really a writer, I'd be very rich. Their disbelief is out of racism. The forces that be have actively scrubbed the internet of the work I produced as a journalist and editor for YO! Youth Outlet, a youth paper I co-founded (I even named the muthafuckah) and was Senior Editor of for about 10 years before I was blacklisted. At the same time, I suffered complications due to bipolar disorder. 

I've been made infamous here in Oakland. I don't have a car. I have to use public transportation. I have a life to live. I cannot seek a gig until my symptoms are under control. Until then everyone can do like Whitney Houston would say, “Eat my ass!” I still have a long American heritage. I simply can't be erased. Try as you might, the mighty Califia energy lives in me, a writer touched with fire.

Hoe

Since I moved into “The Hell Hotel” my life has been turned upside down. Demons have been tracking and stalking me. They've bugged and cloned my phone. They've even intruded on my dreams at night. I've been praying to my Almighty God for them to go away, to find some true villains to put under– not me. I am not the person they are trying to make me out to be. 

In this world everything is upside down. Good is bad and bad is good. My stalkers’ identity is a mystery to me thus far. All I know is that they are evil to the core. They are true devils who have turned me into the villain. I hear their voices in my mind and through my devices. They persist in calling me a “hoe” A hoe. They constantly comment on my scent and my every move. The voices are Latino, Black and white. This would be laughable if it wasn't so detrimental to my reputation. Finding a job now would be impossible. Bottom line-- they wish me great harm.

White ass Sarah Jessica Parker gets paid tens of millions of dollars to portray a middle aged single writer with a serial body count that would make Dr. Ruth blush. In fact, Sex and The City is one of the most successful franchises in television history. 

I'm a middle aged Black female writer who was blacklisted 25 years ago with a severe chronic illness. I don't get the same allowances as Carrie Bradshaw. For me there are no Prada or Jimmy Choos.

It's sort of like a supernatural experience. A metaphysical head game. Everyone around me is on a different wavelength than me holding a hi-tech secret. Y'all are trying to judge my mental fitness as I peruse through each day trying to figure out my next move out here all alone. 

All of Northern California has been turned against. My anonymity is gone. I don't know what's worse. The public has apparently been told I stink so people are always up on me to get a whiff, invading my personal space. I'm certain I'm being recorded and they have developed some type of high-tech way to smell me through my own nose and devices. They even hate for me to have my natural pheromones present. To them that's stinking, too. 

I shower daily, most days twice. I'm a creative, and artist. I am not consumed with smelling delicious all the time. Steve Jobs was notorious for his b.o. but that's not how he is remembered, now is it? What i smell like is irrelevant. I am deserving of respect simply by being a human being. This human zoo I've been put in is cruel and inhuman. They cry over beaten animals but have no empathy for others. 

They say you haven't made it until you're very well hated. I'm just wondering where my check is because a lot of people are putting in man hours and I'm penniless here. I plead for the Black brothers and sisters who I've ridden for since my journalism days to step up and blow the whistle on this conspiracy to malign me to insanity or death. I'm not a cautionary tale. I am a life and my potential is yet to be determined.

Y'all think I'm living too good. Little do you know that it costs the taxpayer 3 times as much a month to institutionalize me than for me to pursue happiness in the free world? Why should I rot in an asylum when I can be free? You call me a hoe because I can still pull ‘em. You watch my intimate moments, invading my privacy, while you revere Kim K. Give me a break. What kind of a hypocrite are you?

They hope I kill myself or get Sonya Massey'd 

(say her name). She was a Black mother who called the police for help after hearing a disturbance outside her abode in Peoria, Illinois. She also struggled with mental illness and experienced auditory phenomena. One of the arriving officers was a demon who got triggered by her prayer to God. She was as good as dead from calling on Jesus in the face of a devil.

I'm feeling like this may be a genocide. A vicious attack. A way to take us out, one by one.

They're justifying my cancellation on my being a “musty little wench.” A “slut.”  A "hoe." There are no better at being judgemental than your own. Then there are the Latinos still bothered over a piece I posted about Black-Brown unity being a myth, later retracted and apologized for posting even though I'm part Mexican. 

I long for the Obama Era when people knew how to mind their business and have compassion. Since the Trump Era reemerged I haven't had a real private life. Y'all think I'm living too good because I have a nice air fryer and an array of spices (I heard the voices talking about that one day). Too easy breezy for someone who's disabled.  

If you really knew what I've been through you'd treat me a lot better. In the last 5 years alone I've been institutionalized, incarcerated, car jacked, abducted, had the manuscript to my memoir stolen, a machete held to my face, a knife pointed to my eye, shoes stolen off my feet, put out in the middle of the night, given a black eye, made homeless, et cetera. Let's just say I've not been treated like the queen that I am. 

All y'all can say is "hoe" and “you stink.” Shiiit. The real hoes are on E. 14th and y'all should know that. However, demons have laid the groundwork for my early demise. I will fight for my life to the bitter end because despite all the name calling I desire to live. Suicide will never be the case. So, you are stuck with me and I am stuck with you. I am hoping for a more harmonious union. Grown folks don¹'t name call, its rude. Be a grown up. If you smell me, congratulations, you smelled a queen. Go home and write about it.