tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81455123635589813792024-03-05T22:36:35.871-08:00Flatland DivaFlatland Diva is a look at an indigenous black woman's journey through the Bay Area (Oakland, San Francisco, Silicon Valley) of Northern California and beyond. I am The Flatland Diva at your service as a voice of the community in which I live and thrive despite the societal struggles that present themselves in vivid Technicolor. This revolution is both physical and metaphysical. While The Flatland Diva is on the case, the elite will see defeat! Vive le peuple! Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-35635125637568180872023-05-20T10:19:00.001-07:002023-05-20T10:27:31.537-07:00Broken American Royalty: How The Black Builders of America are Being Supplanted <p><span style="caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">American Royalty: How The Builders of America are Being Supplanted </span><br></p><p>By Andrea N. Jones </p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">You gotta be like a Jones. <span style="position: static; font-size: 11pt;">Pretty and useful. </span></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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.” </span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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. </span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;">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. </span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;"><br></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;">These women, I use the term “women” loosely, are nothing more than troglodytes who have slithered all the way to Hollywood. <span style="font-size: 14.666667px;">Their cut up faces are more recognizable than Michelle Obama’s around the world. </span></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px;"><br></span></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px;">The word gypsy comes directly out of Egypt, remove the “e” and all you get is Gypsy. Black scholars and academics refer to Ancient Egypt as the founders did, Kemet, which means “Land of Black Faces.” Need I say more? </span></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.666667px;"><br></span></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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 of all humankind.</span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1OWqOtDmuvt3T_Dyr7tu5Qhw_U4yWYIIQ" width="300" height="300" style="width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><font face="Arial"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">My bloodline goes back to the land of Kemet. My ancestors held primordial secrets <span style="font-size: 14.666667px;">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, that 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.</span></span></font><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;"><br></span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><font face="Arial"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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. </span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span></font></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; font-family: Arial;">We, they are original people, truth be told, 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. </span></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;"><br></span><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14.666667px; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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 within 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.</span><br></p><p style="font-size: 16px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><img src="" width="300" height="300" style="transform: rotate(0deg);"><br><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">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 the immigrants who run the Top100 Fortune 500 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.</span></p><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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.</span></p><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1GVFBNFQl4Qri5zyKupeDhNY9dvQygdLw" width="300" height="300" style="font-size: 16px; width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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 fucking sense. I’ll wait over there filling my nails while you think about that.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=17YfqdgDT8_VyYYQVBm0FR2z-FM5eMZeG" width="300" height="300" style="width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); transform: rotate(0deg); max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">I recently moved to 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. Get the hell out! Let them have it. You cannot survive The Asian Invasion alive. </span><br></p><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They hate us but we’re told to love without boundarie like 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 (trashy Fariba Nawa quite specifically comes to mind— read my blog post “Let It Go!— Afghanistan Must Stand On Its Own”) to Vietnam to the Philippines. None of them give a fuck about us. </span></p><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">They’re here to get whatever is not nailed down. Most people come around the country laugh at Americans and have a inflated ethnocentric view worldview. They cannot identify The American Dream like the people who actually built it 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. </span></p><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1poUsNkGgGlQ5sDaP3UciTQfis0NMqMT4" width="300" height="300" style="font-size: 16px; width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; transform: rotate(0deg); max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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? </span></p><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. </span></p><font face="Arial" style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto;">
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 Neanderthals just like all the other races on the planet. </span></font><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=11_GRS9_gcKlCOmBtKE00qup1xrB-3nAN" width="300" height="300" style="font-size: 16px; width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; transform: rotate(0deg); max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. </span></p><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Africans never mixed with Neanderthals. They 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. </span></p><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1Zav745zEeJ3mQ4thZShjh07iOgvZZdL9" width="300" height="300" style="font-size: 16px; width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. </span></p><img src="https://drive.google.com/uc?id=1V-VbEA2UD6nIrKb89KaQFSSLSgqh-Ddp" width="300" height="300" style="font-size: 16px; width: auto; height: auto; background-image: url("image_placeholder.png"); caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%; max-height: 80%; max-width: 80%; background-repeat: no-repeat no-repeat;"><br style="font-size: 16px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;"><br style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);"><p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; margin: 0pt 0px; caret-color: rgb(69, 81, 84); color: rgb(69, 81, 84); font-family: HelveticaNeue; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); line-height: 1.38;"><span style="display: block; position: static; font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">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. 🥥🥥🍌🍌🧁🧁</span></p>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-87577782541573199622021-10-21T21:01:00.001-07:002021-10-21T23:34:35.237-07:00Momma and The City<div>By Andrea N. Jones</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_9fa5_30fd_4608_fd14" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/tUNKji0jOorYistIwLW4tSernQnHr8LLdgNG-9-h0qeAjMzP_H-fgFsJRc1VS1SK6Ic" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><img id="id_7b7a_8958_3c2c_272" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/Dj0atLro1DY-tLoWJSQ6V8kpbB_Lv7preElRwUXFVADvibgsDj_wyWlezXgypEZREV4" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><img id="id_77c6_b741_49fe_a5aa" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/vx7IViTWB4mTDHuQiCMGm-1YohGPCy8jkcOGEai2iX0HMdDUGA8hSqQILx3nYHVqeWo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_9754_4193_5ff4_64a0" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/O7dJ2dR17tPvfQAdjjiKT4biiNSwxnqMzu5dhxZEUMWy01AVPT6yKrC5Sri4OXDaq5A" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.🌹🌹🌹</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_5b1c_9004_4211_f5b5" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/79paWCpfSbY-6o5Flpno2MFt1mLq-Ac-b_kn98Naa5C5WcALSiRuWgkKFBE_bQPnIXQ" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div> Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-27526732552017262662021-08-19T09:38:00.001-07:002021-08-27T10:29:15.403-07:00Let It Go: Afghanistan Must Stand On It’s Own<div>By Andrea N. Jones</div><div><br></div><div>I’m a 10th generation Black American who is beginning to feel a certain way about immigrants and foreigners. Like, maybe they’re just using us. Many Afghans have been upset about our withdrawal from their country. We only spent 2 TRILLION DOLLARS+ taking care of them the past 20 YEARS. Yet, they are so DEPENDENT that they have the nerve to guilt us for leaving all over the AIRWAVES. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_1b6f_cccf_d84a_500f" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/X-4qurcM8Xmn9WTsJW_aI4R3ZOTgJCFzoY445sgMB81fjCwlPvSGv_o7boH3jz89afw" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div>I say “Oh well, I show hate it.” Afghans are very basic being they come from a land of dirt rocks and opium poppies. They believe the calendar year to be 1391. The way they treat women is worse than a dog fares there. They’re ass backwards in thinking to the point that a Taliban could arise with such crushing force to democracy there. I know how democracy is also fragile here, which was made apparent with the rise of Donald J. Trump.</div><div><br></div><div>However, the irony is that they and other foreigners can give TWO FUCKS about Americans. In fact, they look to take ADVANTAGE OF US at every turn. If Afghanistan descends into hell, Afghans have NO ONE to blame but themselves. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_4869_b446_cf0e_ba0d" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/OELWTcVvkDIJDVReFMS3ElMVnr_Mw-WQ8Ai7zeBLB6pMoSq6Y9axrsKAo9kAWxNoEsY" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br></div><div>Expect The Taliban to be a threatening fixture against the U.S. Government for the next 100 years. They here, as it were. NUGGA.</div><div><br></div><div>Do you know what AMERICANS could have done with that money? Do you know what black folk could have done with 2 TRILLION DOLLARS+???? Come on now. However, the United States government would rather give $2 trillion+ to Afghans than they would to Nuggas. </div><div><br></div><div>RACISM IS REAL. BLACKS ARE ALONE. ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) stand alone.</div><div></div><div>In high school, my closest friend was Afghan. I’ll call her F.N. I met her the first day of freshman year at James Logan High in Union City, California. She literally came up to me while our school I.D.’s were being made and said to me this, “Hello, my name is F. I heard your stepfather is an alcoholic. My father is also an alcoholic. Let’s talk.” From that point onto junior year, we were nearly INSEPARABLE. </div><div><br></div><div>I very quickly discovered that F. loved all things BLACK. She devoured books on The Harlem Renaissance, watched Spike Lee movies with me and listened to my music from artists like Minnie Riperton and Stevie Wonder. All this CULTURE she received directly from me. I felt like a DOPE PUSHER because of the way she always needed more. Anyway, with years and distance, we grew apart.</div><div><br></div><div>Fast forward 20 years. We’re both journalist. However, this bitch beat me to a publishing house and released a book entitled Opium Nation, a memoir. Within it, she mentioned me NOT ONE time. Instead, she created a fictitious composite and made the girl AFGHAN. FAKE BITCH. </div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_2d6d_fa79_f020_4b2d" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/69E6ysZ2ym24gMF-K16Kuzuwf0ZGX7d7bJZAJmHDQmulYX8OMt7D88Qni6H82Aowa2U" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><br></div><div>In fact, at the book signing I attended of F.N., her twitchy-eyed sister couldn’t WAIT to run up on me talking about, “How does it feel that your BEST FRIEND published a book?” I just stared at the hoe. Wtf! Bitch, yo hoe ass sister is NOT MY BEST FRIEND. She’s a liar, cheater (constantly cheated in her A.P. classes), shoplifter and likes sucking white dick. How can a sheisty OPPORTUNIST be my best friend?</div><div><br></div><div>I spoke to F. recently, at which time the how told me, “Nicci, no one owes you ANYTHING.” Lol. I thought to myself “Okay, Fucktard. I don’t owe you shit either.” So, in kind, America owes Afghanistan nothing. </div><div><br></div><div>Afghans owe themselves the ability to think on their own feet; to stand on their own. Self-determination is everything when it comes to organizing a civilization. If one can’t get with the Age of Aquarius we’re currently influenced by, according to the ancients, when man has gone from needing a middleman to think to man being able to think for himself, there’s little I can do to help them.</div><div><br></div><img id="id_ea75_a034_7126_9237" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/TsR3N8G6bMvl6awtad2_IuIcPQGBpAWKfJ9MU9p52l7SUWGtcR2qu3Yc2FYIUTXwf58" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><div>I distinctly remember an occasion that has always stuck with me. Fariba came to visit me at my home in San Francisco’s Polk District. She went to great lengths to let me know that she was “white.” I couldn’t believe this shit. </div><div><br></div><div>The only reason the government considered Afghans white in wide ranging comfortable was in order to boost white folk’s census bureau numbers. White are very desperate to appear as a majority body politic.</div><div><br></div><div>I hear Iranians (Persians) are also on the fast track to being white in America. Foreigners come here and surpass blacks not because they work much harder but, in my opinion, because of their proximity to all mighty whiteness.</div><div><br></div><div><img id="id_3dc1_4762_42d5_a0e2" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/hwuf_JS2VSPeHRHMJHsVMXAoYY2TWncbamgi_rC1tSvCjH6NKX2SMgsT1qIHShh5WYg" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br><img id="id_19c3_6cf8_f902_a45d" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/AGTLtd9esF2gTQljHoOZM77x-GrvRLfjPPpf0wVu65keRuD8zkxBO9KF5QHrmhEpGFo" alt="" title="" tooltip="" style="width: 353px; height: auto;"><br><br>I’m airing Fariba Nawa out because I have decided that I owe this hoe nothing as she is a BACKSTABBER. So, I thought it was only RIGHT I return the favor. I REFUSE to carry the water of people who mistreat me any longer. </div><div><br></div><div>People say don’t poke a panther and they’re right. Look for MY MEMOIR, “That Time When ‘Rona Came A Calling,” in stores sometime late 2022. 👀👀</div> Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-72758950097261641652017-06-30T07:07:00.000-07:002017-07-07T22:14:28.729-07:00Chris Rock, Call Me: Why I Need To Date A Baller<div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LefGCEYNtuw/WVcWu4faOsI/AAAAAAAAHc8/UFPmxrKwnnkvblnJc1whFC3HmZmq00CBACHMYCw/I/photo_267514.jpg"></div><br><br>Last night I dreamt I was dating Chris Rock and it was nothing short of magical. I woke up to the revelation that for the most part I've spent 25 years dating the wrong kind of brothers. Not only have these black men been spiritually broke but they've all been financially strapped, making under 100K a year while living beyond their means.</div><div><br></div><div>Being both a writer and uberly politically conscious has not made making money my strong suit. I've been considered "financially immature" and have even been asked to disclose my credit score on a first date by a man who presented himself as well-to-do for being an entrepreneur who inherited a million dollar home in San Francisco. Most writers struggle and for those of us with a sociopolitically conscious it's even harder to make ends met. However, I make due with what I earn. </div><div><br></div><div>To top it off I've spent the last 16 months caregiving for my mother who is terminally ill with cancer. So, needless to say, I've been deemed not fit for the dating pool as there is no romance without finance. In today's economy a sister is expected to earn if she's ever expected to be considered marriage material for most brothers.</div><div><br></div><div>Your average black man (perhaps due to his inferior earning power compared to white men and even sisters) seems to believe that if a woman is not financially secure enough to take care of his wants she's not worth dating, forget about marrying. A part of me gets it. If they're out there grinding harder than a monkey pumping at an accordion on a fool's shoulder, they expect you to do the same. Hell, I'm the woman (new mommy), I'm suppose to pump even harder than them as they are well aware of all the sisters out there making it happen. Thus, I'm viewed as being a burden and easily replaceable.</div><div><br></div><div>I've spent many a day as of late feeling completely inadequate. I've shed many tears of loneliness and sadness. I'm slowly losing my mother because "Killer Kaiser," her HMO, neglected to diagnose her cancer at an early stage even though she practically lived their with appointments. </div><div><br></div><div>She's all I've got as my father wants nothing to do with me most of the time because of my views. My stepfather has been a rock to me which has been a blessing. However, let's face it-- this is a cold world without a loving mother of your own in it. </div><div><br></div><div>All these years she's been here for me, almost providing a bridge of love and care I would have loved to have gotten in a good long term relationship but never found. What now? What do I do now??</div><div><br></div><div>I've just been lost.</div><div><br></div><div>And then I have this dream. It's turned everything I've been feeling about my situation on it's head. Instead of waking up more drained than I was the prior night, I felt rejuvenated.</div><div><br></div><div>Now, I ain't saying I'm a gold digga. But I've definitely been messing with the wrong negus. </div><div><br></div><div>I've been dating men who buy into the notion that the system is somehow right. That a college degree equals excellence. That it's cool for people to discriminate based on earnings and credit scores.</div><div><br></div><div>Sadly, most people are conditioned to think this way because it's been force fed to them by the dominant ruling class from birth. Even Suze Orman can see through the game. That it's rigged against the majority of people, particularly so against so called minorities.</div><div><br></div><div>A truly woke person wouldn't expect the person they're in a relationship with to sell out in order to love. But capitalism edicts this. As the black thinker/lecturer/author Shahrazad Ali states, there are plenty of financially successful black women out there but it doesn't inform whether or not they can make a good wife and a happy home.</div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFVpqVVuvgZXoSD_3qvmwtLKEWq8A6sJp5r15Qhc_cyL6XnnDhNTeWfZQ6FN78Q3SDMh87P2QrANwEeaFYXn1KH-4H3hst3dYWcojMuTRtGolegijzR2kPK1lAMy2MkXpDFTpfPQQMOnA/I/photo_895433.jpg"></div><br>Enter Chris Rock. He's a white hot talent who is solidly in the black financially. A black man like him, a shot caller, isn't looking for a woman to match him dollar for dollar because like Jamie Foxx says, he's got his own.</div><div><br></div><div>My dream revealed to me what I knew all along-- capitalism is for shit. Which is to say our economy is no good for the artist who doesn't burn a searing hot brand to their flesh as was done to mark our ancestors in chattel slavery. </div><div><br></div><div>After all, a good conscious daughter helped turn this black man...</div><div><div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-D6ZNNjgRLks/WVcWvC0r5EI/AAAAAAAAHdE/PZc-5Cv0cn0QpLSsoj-AT2sR-n53lI9aACHMYCw/I/photo_283932.jpg"></div></div><br>into this black man...<br></div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjupwUAfm0VYKyPzh6W_97e-I7E8KgezB0zbfWaUlNN0Vw7gRtsZW8bNH2kgNaHVairDdqhsagR1XPwps62Yta1TQBlfmfWig6E6Q3o61ptxh-ffvuvWlTW3YlxCqVIGQ0b6A5hIgyhUzc/I/photo_172360.jpg"></div><div style="text-align: left;">doing amazing things for the black community. And she isn't a millionaire. Kaep is still a baller even though so called owners don't want to touch his fire now that he has refused to pledge allegiance to the flag or whatever. What Colin Kaepernick knows is that mo' money isn't everything. He's discovered that all love, such as that All-American love, isn't good love. But black love shared within the community is everything. For some of us it's all that matters. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div><div style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" class="bloggoimg" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpgLctCHpXH9lnk_kT9wFDFK2frpD5GzhHeLz7bbhvBe2WMO8S_A6fsLqIjDQ3zYCVhp_W9V_jDG65JTJd8Mi2f4l5QpmJfFmWURWzXK-ZOJ5nFNwKvimsqssc9njw3WardZ7uVB0aBJY/I/photo_965049.jpg"></div></div><br>So, I'll keep hope alive that a true baller, shot caller, will cross my path to make a beautiful life with me and not my pocketbook.</div><br><br>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-6992974894116853202016-09-25T05:33:00.000-07:002016-12-21T10:36:06.546-08:00When Giving Jill Scott Is Not Enough<div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span><br><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EcqchB3iKDo/V-fDvUflzrI/AAAAAAAADx4/qp7fP51Ah_8/s640/blogger-image-419039494.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EcqchB3iKDo/V-fDvUflzrI/AAAAAAAADx4/qp7fP51Ah_8/s640/blogger-image-419039494.jpg"></span></a></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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."</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">With THE most </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">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.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>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.<br><br>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. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">. <a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2YlDgDQCt84/V-fZeI2HCgI/AAAAAAAADyc/IiY0VBa6RZQ/s640/blogger-image-196924250.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-2YlDgDQCt84/V-fZeI2HCgI/AAAAAAAADyc/IiY0VBa6RZQ/s640/blogger-image-196924250.jpg"></a></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyryY49UMGdvBNRuxlcUkjRme4soR-mGdRLArJXFrheJ9ibBZsZvh-KsVYb7wKDafrpD_KNURz5E9Ayn1OWGQYpMoxAlZ-MG5W4BBEG-SzNdgBhfbkRr0DRAMPM-0aCN3sq2Xm69QgSZc/s640/blogger-image--1317729337.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyryY49UMGdvBNRuxlcUkjRme4soR-mGdRLArJXFrheJ9ibBZsZvh-KsVYb7wKDafrpD_KNURz5E9Ayn1OWGQYpMoxAlZ-MG5W4BBEG-SzNdgBhfbkRr0DRAMPM-0aCN3sq2Xm69QgSZc/s640/blogger-image--1317729337.jpg"></a></div>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.<br><br>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.<br><br>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. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_RwVpLpqBKz4d4vBJKAWwSoOSx4kpiPw_xzQoMxQBkfYOY9xnttt3uWw4VLCtcspH14ZmpMZBolzoC4C8v-cTkl9R9bcCMYpYu3PcMv51ScVRl9j6vBVLmEw2MgJDhjl2x7DW94DAYI/s640/blogger-image--1920317821.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl_RwVpLpqBKz4d4vBJKAWwSoOSx4kpiPw_xzQoMxQBkfYOY9xnttt3uWw4VLCtcspH14ZmpMZBolzoC4C8v-cTkl9R9bcCMYpYu3PcMv51ScVRl9j6vBVLmEw2MgJDhjl2x7DW94DAYI/s640/blogger-image--1920317821.jpg"></a></span></div></div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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."</span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lrGKPMXyQVc/V-d-POmAibI/AAAAAAAADxc/Hhzkwe-QGKc/s640/blogger-image--1762900010.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lrGKPMXyQVc/V-d-POmAibI/AAAAAAAADxc/Hhzkwe-QGKc/s640/blogger-image--1762900010.jpg"></span></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eZOfWp4g5Ng/V-kN9D40UDI/AAAAAAAADzk/GpDuFw3c4Xw/s640/blogger-image--33298658.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-eZOfWp4g5Ng/V-kN9D40UDI/AAAAAAAADzk/GpDuFw3c4Xw/s640/blogger-image--33298658.jpg"></a></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">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.</span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rf_sUdxTxS8/V-kk8TUgibI/AAAAAAAAD0A/ENlhW6CmXoE/s640/blogger-image--1102056301.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rf_sUdxTxS8/V-kk8TUgibI/AAAAAAAAD0A/ENlhW6CmXoE/s640/blogger-image--1102056301.jpg"></a></span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></span></div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5wnRNaKAygA/V-kWGkQA-zI/AAAAAAAADzw/j_hpw66gLWo/s640/blogger-image--1362148204.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5wnRNaKAygA/V-kWGkQA-zI/AAAAAAAADzw/j_hpw66gLWo/s640/blogger-image--1362148204.jpg"></a></span></div><span style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></div></span><br><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ljv5SOKncag/V-fI6arxykI/AAAAAAAADyM/_QkVF_weyfo/s640/blogger-image--1254597787.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: rgba(255 , 255 , 255 , 0); margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Ljv5SOKncag/V-fI6arxykI/AAAAAAAADyM/_QkVF_weyfo/s640/blogger-image--1254597787.jpg"></span></a></div><br></div></div></div></div>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-78555500584803911202015-12-20T04:47:00.001-08:002015-12-20T05:49:25.917-08:00A 90's Throwback: Gucci Braids, Shirley Temple Curls and a Complicated
Freedom<p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><i><b>Editor's Note:</b> 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 </i></span><i style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">with black hair. Enjoy!</i></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">"WHAT WOULD YOU like done today?" the receptionist asks me as I stand in a daze before her counter. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It's been 10 years since I've set foot in a beauty <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/education-guide/" style="display: inline; text-decoration: none;">college</a>, and the question of what style to choose means more than the receptionist could know. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxFqUNbbqiN_whHZU7OROuywJbvf7cq7sPM6v43_1zabCnz5QqzlC1tUhuqKwETX3mx0SEEbAiR9jvnhZ7IZZ98nWCPcczcDL6wADa5NPXBxTpZNoQfotWPyWIBAxgMD86CMFZbQXRr4w/s640/blogger-image--416919341.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxFqUNbbqiN_whHZU7OROuywJbvf7cq7sPM6v43_1zabCnz5QqzlC1tUhuqKwETX3mx0SEEbAiR9jvnhZ7IZZ98nWCPcczcDL6wADa5NPXBxTpZNoQfotWPyWIBAxgMD86CMFZbQXRr4w/s640/blogger-image--416919341.jpg"></a></div><br><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I can't even contemplate the question without thinking of my grandmother. Before I was born, <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=entertainment&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Louise+Russell%22" style="display: inline; text-decoration: none;">Louise Russell</a>, 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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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 </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"colored girls" - a sophomore for her and a senior for me. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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 </span><a href="http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=entertainment&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Laney+College%22" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; display: inline; text-decoration: none;">Laney College</a><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"> 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. </span></div><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheEIE4iiPTxE6zVn-rI2QWWvpA5dUL7VAAFky4Zqv4xRdrTlQFK7LQXL9fNLo-MBFWYLK8bWNw9znq4k9XbOos4mXcqS1kBSC6PYXynlOTfmSp-KXjK_ARcr-17ucRb_ngMj1QfDSvUuk/s640/blogger-image--645947082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEheEIE4iiPTxE6zVn-rI2QWWvpA5dUL7VAAFky4Zqv4xRdrTlQFK7LQXL9fNLo-MBFWYLK8bWNw9znq4k9XbOos4mXcqS1kBSC6PYXynlOTfmSp-KXjK_ARcr-17ucRb_ngMj1QfDSvUuk/s640/blogger-image--645947082.jpg"></a></div><br><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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 <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=entertainment&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Mary+J.+Blige%22" style="display: inline; text-decoration: none;">Mary J. Blige</a> probably pays big money for. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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." </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"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.</span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GZv9Ym0JrNM/VnauNcVY27I/AAAAAAAACz0/qBpcIuqZ83Q/s640/blogger-image-1488820207.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-GZv9Ym0JrNM/VnauNcVY27I/AAAAAAAACz0/qBpcIuqZ83Q/s640/blogger-image-1488820207.jpg"></a></div><br><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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? </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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. </span></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5LSX7jj4tVA/VnauOTflX4I/AAAAAAAACz8/-rWzjGuj-YA/s640/blogger-image--726535601.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-5LSX7jj4tVA/VnauOTflX4I/AAAAAAAACz8/-rWzjGuj-YA/s640/blogger-image--726535601.jpg"></a></div><br><p></p><p style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px 0px 24px; border: 0px; line-height: 26px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">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.</span></p>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-13925963098778233992015-12-17T18:45:00.001-08:002015-12-19T20:51:25.579-08:00Stacey Dash and Television's Sassy Band of Black Pundits<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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. </span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDr9oemtUN2zJFNAJF5pjFJpEEVCugMXArKsyIjee4Bo6wjJTS0T5lPo-zTDfPF7DX86pt6qOHCWbT09TCRvswzccXmhRUsHD8N4TucrhR9hQ_WcSrkw0EZSKyIDQ9E4ZDc1bl7N7ymk/s640/blogger-image--2073159099.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmDr9oemtUN2zJFNAJF5pjFJpEEVCugMXArKsyIjee4Bo6wjJTS0T5lPo-zTDfPF7DX86pt6qOHCWbT09TCRvswzccXmhRUsHD8N4TucrhR9hQ_WcSrkw0EZSKyIDQ9E4ZDc1bl7N7ymk/s640/blogger-image--2073159099.jpg"></a></div><div><br></div><div>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. <div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLynkQugPxsO2ECxMdjL6D3YPhlJnoJM2Ib-IgKBRikJ-W3OFIxjyJpGuqaNNae8Nd5ZEz6hfF78wvW_jGLtMclkm3pM2YqKO4qE7b4cMydZMxguIBHJathGrqdmJB5P1DDicu6-8Obo/s640/blogger-image--2091450966.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDLynkQugPxsO2ECxMdjL6D3YPhlJnoJM2Ib-IgKBRikJ-W3OFIxjyJpGuqaNNae8Nd5ZEz6hfF78wvW_jGLtMclkm3pM2YqKO4qE7b4cMydZMxguIBHJathGrqdmJB5P1DDicu6-8Obo/s640/blogger-image--2091450966.jpg"></a></div><br></div><br><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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.</span></div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bQfVEi5sQXc/VnX1oloq5-I/AAAAAAAACwI/dXT86XpXVho/s640/blogger-image-1539196812.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-bQfVEi5sQXc/VnX1oloq5-I/AAAAAAAACwI/dXT86XpXVho/s640/blogger-image-1539196812.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>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. </div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyy1z_vmb_mcLH2vtFSTXLPxm6xDUk7EZtnl16STxxnWoGO5_DOJ-xvFZPX6sV-uMHt0oQm2a1IJXakZNB7eM4bT4KTJk8rOaEk7lApYGEEsgCri2_poO5RA717ObqpjvNHjDyQAkKWg/s640/blogger-image-1868839345.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQyy1z_vmb_mcLH2vtFSTXLPxm6xDUk7EZtnl16STxxnWoGO5_DOJ-xvFZPX6sV-uMHt0oQm2a1IJXakZNB7eM4bT4KTJk8rOaEk7lApYGEEsgCri2_poO5RA717ObqpjvNHjDyQAkKWg/s640/blogger-image-1868839345.jpg"></a></div><br></div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xg_r8iUfdow/VnX1rk8jI9I/AAAAAAAACwg/D9pyF_8QPdQ/s640/blogger-image-457144804.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xg_r8iUfdow/VnX1rk8jI9I/AAAAAAAACwg/D9pyF_8QPdQ/s640/blogger-image-457144804.jpg"></a></div><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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." </span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">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.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s7dvxPo5-Jo/VnX1spb9qEI/AAAAAAAACwo/edmSHbw13uM/s640/blogger-image-797403463.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-s7dvxPo5-Jo/VnX1spb9qEI/AAAAAAAACwo/edmSHbw13uM/s640/blogger-image-797403463.jpg"></a></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><br></span></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></div>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-3861037745708767422015-12-10T22:17:00.000-08:002016-09-19T08:19:56.829-07:00Forever Punany, With Love: The Myth of Men<div>
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Sometime, do you ever just sit back and think, "Man, I've been through some shit?" Going through cheating fits right into that "some shit" category. Cheating is a hell of an obstacle to overcome in a relationship. Especially when you have no eyewitness evidence. I recently dealt with a cheater. To this day, I'm convinced the guy is part con man, part Svengali. For I was under a spell that took me 4 years to break. I'll tell you about a time I nearly broke free, the time I stumbled on his Forever Pussy.<br>
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Forever Pussy is a term I coined to describe a woman who has created a lustful contract with a man to be perpetually sexually available to a man who doesn't claim her in any sense of the word outside of any occasion the two aren't naked together. She feels her pussy power will retain his affections for the remainder of their sexual lives, perhaps even longer. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26zMWmAdaPc-6pxpezzcntjzklkkpvWoiAhOePrwguOAftZ28gpKUi67og0JL9uzP-yP3u0fVQMXmF5tWK_N97OeTQg9VfsALe_aYEp1jQD81y8HXopPb5M-SL10Dhe6cdAURsjTkgVI/s640/blogger-image--852110473.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj26zMWmAdaPc-6pxpezzcntjzklkkpvWoiAhOePrwguOAftZ28gpKUi67og0JL9uzP-yP3u0fVQMXmF5tWK_N97OeTQg9VfsALe_aYEp1jQD81y8HXopPb5M-SL10Dhe6cdAURsjTkgVI/s400/blogger-image--852110473.jpg" width="400"></a></div>
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Karrine Stephens, the original "Video Vixen" and author is celebrity Forever Pussy. She's been interviewed stating that any man who messes with her must understand that when Wayne calls, Lil Wayne, that is, when he calls, she will go to him so he can, as Celie said in The Color Purple, "do his business on" her. She made the statement publicly while Lil Wayne had famously been dating Christina Milian, causing a rift in the couple's relationship. No never mind though. What forever pussy wants forever pussy thinks she can get. Stephens also expects a decent man to allow her to be another man's Forever Pussy.<br>
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I think it's kind of funny the way men and women relate to one another once the idea of sex between the two comes into play. Titalating animal energy is tempered by coy, coquettishness. The Ying and yang of masculine/feminine desire go 'round and 'round in a dance which casts a spell on them both.<br>
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By the time "it" goes down, if they've been able to put doing the deed off for some time, the passion can be explosive. I'm talking, break out the fire extinguisher because the heat might erupt into full on combustion. And, don't be a talker. Men fall in love with what they see, while women, we fall for what we hear. There is a popular meme circulating social media that states this fact and goes on to state that this explains why women wear makeup and men, well, they lie.</div>
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When presented with the opportunity to have carnal knowledge of a woman, I've been told by a very reliable, worldly man, that men will say anything to gain it. They'll whisper sweet nothings you take to mean everything. He'll wrap you in a bubble of "You are mines-This is mines." And if you are just fool hardy enough, you'll start to believe him.</div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">So, I told this chick she was an idiot for sticking around to be Forever Pussy. I known about her being a part of his past, but I never knew she was part of his life until I found her number. I texted her and she texted me back. And so ensued a plethora of messages back-and-forth. She insisted they had a transcendental kind of love. She thought she had love but she really had was low self esteem. Her standards were way below mine. The only solace I could find was in knowing that I had higher standards than her. Sometimes when dealing with a cheater that's the only comfort you'll ever get.</span></div>
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I could never be Forever Pussy. It's degrading to allow anyone to believe they have the power to control your mind and body perpetually without giving you anything more than googly eyes. Once I get married so goes all my former suitors. I'll leave a trail of broken hearts behind because when I get married it's going to be ride or die love and my man will be the only single, straight man in my life. Single male friends for what? What good could come out of being friends with men who are attracted to you? When you're an attractive female, most all your male friends are attracted to you. That's just a given. I don't desire that type of energy or attention when I get married because I'm investing in my husband not my potential side action.<br>
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It's been months, but I still keep those texts. Being Latina, she went so far as to mock my blackness She sent a<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"> text to him ("So, you're with a black woman? Ew.") which proves a long standing theory I have that many Latinas think they are superior to black women because black men allow them to believe this. I've got some news for you-- limp hair and pale skin doesn't make for superior genes and most certainly not for a superior human being. She didn't know what I looked like, how many degrees I might have or languages I spoke. The mere fact that I was a Sister made her feel better than me. Brothers act like they got their Yoko Ono in exotic girls, but more often than not they've got a closet racist on their hands.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><br></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "helvetica neue light" , , "helvetica" , "arial" , sans-serif;">But, at the end of the day, I couldn't be more mad at her than I was at him. He hurt me to the core. He violated the sacred trust I believe we shared. After catching him in several more lies I decide to call it quits. And boy am I glad I did. I met a wonderful man. We exchanged numbers months ago and spent some time together before I decided I could not go any further with him while still attached the old dude. Lucky for me, he was interested in rekindling our friendship and it has blossomed into a new relationship. You know why? Because he's serious. He's a serious man. They say you can't turn a hoe into a housewife. Well, try turning an international playboy into a husband. It's damn near impossible. I know because I tried. Won't be making that mistake again.</span></div>
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-77740024038785185392015-09-20T12:25:00.000-07:002015-09-20T12:57:02.068-07:00Why I Walked Outta "Straight Outta Compton"<div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The recent mid-summer release of Universal's "Straight Outta Compton" had the whole country buzzing. Never in all of my years have I seen a black centered film receive so many accolades so fast. So, when I heard people refer to "Straight Outta Compton," a biopic film about the rise of the 1980's gangsta rap group N.W.A., as the best film of the year, I bypassed a search for a free viewing online and went straight for a local theater instead.<br><br>I found that the movie missed the mark on setting the cultural context of the situation of blacks in south central Los Angeles, where the notorious city of Compton is located. Instead of exploring the national, even global, implications of their message of resistance against police brutality and the abuses of the system of racism/white supremacy on the black community, they instead dedicate a good majority of the movie reharshing the old beefs all their real fans and true hip hop heads already knew about. </span><br>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">After about an hour, I was convinced I was witnesses a big pissing contest on a silver screen. Like I care who sucked up behind Jerry Heller (played by"Sideways" star Paul Giamatti), who was his favorite and who in the group Heller, their music business manager, didn't give a damn about to sign and "take care of," with lucrative contracts and cash. Inevitably, supported by Black Muslim leader, Minister Louis Farrakahn, Ice Cube (portrayed by Cube's son, O' Shea Jackson, Jr.) leaves N.W.A. and releases a diss tape that puts its remaining members to shame as sycophants of The White Man.</span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> <br><br>Everyone knows that the music industry is one of the most corrupt businesses to ever operate. Even cottage labels, like Priority Records, have turned into artist farms where both the artists' musical product and integrity are siphoned off for pennies on thousands of product units, making the industry attractive to exploitive, old money interests, gangsters and thugs, like the infamous Suge Knigt. Knight is probably as gang related as Al Caponre. </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Like John Gotti, Knight had become a Teflon Don in his own rigt. For example, the musis mogul survived the 1996 assassination of Tupac (Mackavelli) Shakur in Las Vegas after a less than memorable Mike Tyson match on the Las Vegas Strip. This has all changed reasonly with his indictment on murdering a man on the set of "Straight Outta Compton," in which he backed over two men in a dispute over money. One lived, one died. Knight has cried, even passed out in court, during arraignment. Guess he's not so gangster after all.<br><br>Its been reported in major news outlets that the members of N.W.A. were said to be regulars on the movie's set and were insistent Grey recapture exact details when depicting their lives.<br><br>Funny thing is they left out a couple of big chunks of N.W.A. history-- their social impact on the black community's resistance to police brutality and, well, what I would call the rise of gangster rap. Gangsta rap is a genre of Hip-Hop many black music historian believe was ushered in at the height of the conscious rap movement in order to kill the empowering unity being expressed and felt in the community. Gangster rap propagated not only a view of the police as enemey number 1, but of the next black man, one not in your so called gang set, as a close second. Murder rings out in this genre first explored by Rap forefather Ice-T as an valuable means of exacting revenge on "a nigga." </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Another huge impact of N.W.A.'s gangster rap is what I call the proliferation of a "Pimps Up, Hoes Down" mental code of the streets that still reverberates in the culture throughout rap and hip-hop for some 25 years and counting. I would say the impact of this music on black male/female relations has been devastating. Let's face it. An ethnic group of men who disrespects its women will never find respect in the world, to quote both Dr. Henrik Louis-Clark and Brother Malcolm X. Today, the misogyny is so ubiquitous that many women themselves have taken to calling themselves, "bitches," "hoes" and the tamest insult of them all, "females." When Queens degrade themselves they can't bring anything good in abundance to the black community's nourishment table. These women who subscribe to this music may themselves become the thing the music creates, just another thirsty, gold-digging bitch. <br></span><br>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The opening scene is set in 1986 inside a crack house where dope dealer (soon to be rapper) Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) is conducting a business meeting. Needless to say, the deal goes left and Eazy escapes with his life but not a grown folk's lesson which is you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Eazy is not alone in this aspect. A few of his associates are also living on the edge. Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) dreams of music instead of getting the day job his mom has been hounding him about. Ice Cube (a soon to be father) desires a legacy. DJ Yella (Neil Brown) is looking to increase his pussy cache and MC Ren (Aldo Hodge) appears to Be a true Creative and wants to get the anger out. They come together to form N.W.A., that's Niggas With Atttitudes, realease the LP '<i>Straight</i> <i>Outta</i> <i>Compton</i>' in 1988 and history is made.<br><br>I will find a bootlegger on purpose to cringe through the end of this movie. Dr. Dre and O'Shea have gotten enough of my money the past 25 years. And for what? So Dre can hand out millions to a white school and Ice Cube can be family-friendly? These opportunist have done nothing for the community they come from. Reportedly, Dre is offering the Compton community the royalties from his latest album entitled "Compton: A Soundtrack" to a cultural center there. Who-hoo! He didn't make USC, a extremely wealthy private California university that has among the lowest black enrollment (despite being in an area where more black Californians live per capita than anywhere else in the state) in Southern California, wait to get his coin.<br></span><br>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br>So, there is a buzz. We're talking Oscars now. I've heard it time and again with "Straight Outta Compton." How can I put this? Um, I don't think so. While Gray is a talented director, the film could never be a contender. If by some miracle, it does receive a nod or two, the motives of Hollywood in acknowledging this black film would be "show business" business as usual, dubious at best. In other words, this film has no shot in hell of receiving any Golden statues shaped as the Egyptian God Ptah. Nonetheless, its filmmakers are no doubt taking a que from that Earth, Wind & Fire track and dancing in September as the film has grossed nearly $200 billion dollars. The film cost a mere $28 million to produce. Can you say winning? </span></div>
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<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">All and all, I don'</span><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">t hate this film or this classic '80s rap group. I just didn't want to stick around to watch egos at play. Glad to hear Dre has apologized for years of physically assaulting women, such as his artist and long time girlfriend Mi 'chelle and the hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes. The film would have better served itself and the audience by using a much larger lens to capture the full scope of all N.W.A. meant to my generation of Generation X'er's seeking justice and respect in a system of racism/white supremacy intent on marginalizing us and our lives, even taking our lives at will. </span></div>
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-43925688229386041752015-04-22T19:03:00.001-07:002015-12-16T17:41:57.637-08:00Writers Write, Right?I have so much respect for those writers who hash out verses daily, extrapolating at the crack of dawn, whether for the sake of money and fame or altruistically to connect their art and soul with the collective conscious, they persist in having their voices heard. I'm not that type of writer. This has bothered me since I was quite young.<div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif; text-align: center;">Nonetheless, I began my writing career at 15, publishing my first piece in The San Jose Mercury News, a paper made famous through the reporting of Gary Webb. Mr. Webb cracked the code on the CIA Iran Contra Crack Cocaine connection. His investigation uncovered that The CIA flooded black communities with drugs in the late 1980's in his news series, "Dark Alliance." I actually invited Mr. Webb down to San Francisco from San Jose to discuss "Dark Alliance" with a group of young writers after the Merc published his series. He was the real deal</span>.<br>
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Webb told us then in our meeting that when he spoke to people who lived there in south-central L.A. he was shocked by what he discovered. Webb reported that residents of these but communities in Los Angeles had come across abandoned train cars on various local train tracks full of loaded arms. According to sources, these weapons were dropped off by the government in an undercover operation to arm local gangs for hot wars between rival groups and to sabotage the advances made by the black community during the Black Power Era of the late 1960s 70s. He was a true newsman, who many believe did not commit suicide, as was reported, but was murdered with two shots to the back of his skull. The recent Hollywood film, "Kill The Messenger" chronicles Webb's journey of working through the journalistic scoop of the century. He was the type of writer I aspired to be-- one who could transform hearts, minds and public policy.<br>
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It wasn't long before my work appeared in major newspapers around the country. The devil of doubt on my right shoulder was eclipsed by the angel of productivity on the left. By 21, I was head deep in living a public life. There was nary a topic in my life that was not up for public consumption by me.<br>
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My identity was my writing career. I breathed it in my nose and tasted it on my palate regularly. It won me favor and critics and it paid the bills. I thought I'd conquered that devil. As it turned out, that creature was merely in a slumber.<br>
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By 26, I was struggling with a chronic illness that left me tired and shamed. At that point I felt I had to walk away from writing, my identity, because I could no longer put myself out on a limb and present myself to the world in all my vulnerability as a public person.<br>
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After being tagged "anti-Semitic" once I published a piece critiquing Steven Spielberg's look at American slavery and African resistance in his 1997 film, "Amistad," coupled with some erratic behavior of my own I was essentially blacklisted from publishing in the Bay Area. I was too tired to care at the time it all went down and the phone stopped ringing. I craved privacy and space to tend to my wounds. I didn't want to articulate the contents of my mind to everyone I knew and strangers alike because, frankly, it became too hard. There were younger, hungrier Ivy League-educated writers waiting to take my place in a San Francisco second and, in my hazy Bay fog state, I gave my desk up practically on a silver platter.<br>
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Fast forward 15 years and I've worn a few hats. I've experienced several identities, including common law wife, fashion associate, personal assistant, dental professional; they've all provided me with what writing couldn't-- privacy. I've also taken notes, working these gigs as an undercover journalist. The jobs themselves all left me with a void because the irony is that the writer in me desires to plug-in in a way that no other of my identities can ever fulfill.<br>
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For me, writing has never been about fame and fortune, although fortune would be fantastic. I've turned down offers to be on national television because I wasn't comfortable with the pace and the forum. For me, it's been about the work. It's been about honing my art to the level where the audience feels something, thinks something new, that they can relate to in a visceral way.<br>
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So, writers write, right? No, not always. Not me. If the vibe isn't there, I can't get in my zone for weeks, sometimes longer. I don't want to force the process. At points, it becomes about either racking my mind to create the perfect piece on every hot topic or remaining sane. I have to choose sanity.<br>
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I don't always want to share my thoughts because I need or want them for myself. Plus, I'm at a place where I want to write about what I want to, not what some publisher thinks sells. In my art, my integrity has to come before what's hot. I marvel at the lengths writers go to be prolific, spinning dribble for dollars. Today we have been told to brand ourselves to get anywhere in the era of social media. I can't knock their hustle. Everyone's got to eat.<br>
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I don't desire to offer myself up that way. I've already proven to myself that I am capable of human connection. Whether I write The Great American Novel or Memoir or not, I know I am (and always will be) a writer.<br>
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</div>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-68159736251714960142014-12-03T21:07:00.000-08:002015-03-14T21:42:29.307-07:00Spotlight—Lovie Ray Johnson, Jr.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The
world has a peculiar way of stealing the innocence of its children while
turning a blind eye to the travesty it has committed. Producer/Director/Writer/Actor Lovie Ray Johnson, Jr. seeks to change that with his current film project, “Supernal
Darkness,” which focuses on the world of child sex traffic. It is an underbelly
Johnson believes powerful forces in real life society perpetuate. </span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_RGvogd1-uQxcM_sm_78D6jlBqpfTVu2B_5eJx5OLkUQ7S1SdOdzZ4sT4mAXkkXhr7SfHo4S8joc0Vqh1OiJ6vseEzJv6lky0RcMjVaWg6Gl4yTPU0B9dNhXc2znJWkJYp86BK-NooQ/s1600/supernal+darkness.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_RGvogd1-uQxcM_sm_78D6jlBqpfTVu2B_5eJx5OLkUQ7S1SdOdzZ4sT4mAXkkXhr7SfHo4S8joc0Vqh1OiJ6vseEzJv6lky0RcMjVaWg6Gl4yTPU0B9dNhXc2znJWkJYp86BK-NooQ/s1600/supernal+darkness.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Johnson’s own childhood was not as
picture-perfect as many might have perceived a black military family like his
to be. One may think that a church going family in the ‘70s would be immune to
the sicknesses of depraved souls but Johnson was not so lucky. His first abuser
would be a good family friend, his Sunday school teacher. He was 6. The trauma
of this experience saddled Johnson with a huge sense of loss. “It opened my
eyes to a world you should not be open to at that time,” he says. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The next abuser would be even more
shocking. Shortly after moving to a new military base and settling in, Johnson,
in retrospect, recalls a close family member began to groom him for the sexual
abuse that would follow for several years. His greatest disappointment was that
even when he presented his family with the fact that he was being abused they
did nothing to address it and protect him. His childhood could be summed up as
one one rife with emotion abandonment and betrayal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">All the while, his family was
faithful churchgoers. Johnson himself found solace in the church. “It taught me
about Jesus. [Because of that] I embrace everybody and realize everybody is
trying to find their way to God.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">As soon as Oklahoma City
University came calling, Johnson was out the door. Fortunately, he had a talent
for basketball that won him a scholarship. He was a tenacious player and
recalls playing three to four games with a broken finger. His team was amazed
by this but for Johnson working through pain was nothing new. He remembers thinking,
“This is what I am, this is what I do.” It wouldn’t be long before he would
meet his wife on campus, a lovely Indian American woman. They wed on his
birthday. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Johnson’s future looked brighter
than a Jumbo-Tron. However, an unforeseen tragedy would rock his world. After
receiving a professional contract to play basketball in England and being voted
Player of The Year, his wife suffered complications in their first pregnancy.
He flew back to The States to care for her. Subsequently his first child, a
boy, died in the hospital.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="background: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">His team sent their condolences
with his jersey and a basketball signed by all the players. Johnson would not
return to basketball and says he buried the game with his son. Today, his
daughter Daesja is the light of his life. His marriage did not survive once he
took to the bottle. After 7 years they called it quits and now have an amicable
relationship. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Johnson
sought to rebound by taking up coaching and personal training. However, he
found a groove in acting. Through theater, he could exorcise the demons of his
past. He decided to use his talent to tell the story of sex trafficked
children, the children without voices.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">For
“Supernal Darkness,” Johnson teamed up with Dream Propaganda/Osse Prop to
create a companion graphic novel. The
Supernal Darkness movie trailer, directed by Jeff Frentzen, is available on
YouTube and is gritty and visceral. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Johnson
believes that the absence of both parents in the home lends itself to the
vulnerability of children to predators. “We can help prevent a lot of
trafficking by paying attention to our children,” says Johnson. “You have to be
actively involved with your child. We need to believe our children. The way the
world is today there is no one home to take care of them.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He points a finger at western culture for
sexualizing children. Recently we’ve seen an underwear line for 10 year olds at
Victoria Secret. Abercrombie & Fitch sold girls’ underwear with the words
“eye candy” across them. And let’s not forget those darn pageants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">He
sees a connection between the sexualization of children and an underground
society of pedophiles who pledge allegiances to satanic worship. “There is so
much twisted up in this,” says Johnson. “When you look at kids being taken for
sacrifices, the numbers go up during certain times of the year [for ritual sacrifice].
Just because we don’t believe in sorcery doesn’t mean that other people don’t.”
He goes on to say, “Evil exists because powerful people want it to exist.”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">I</span><span style="background: white; font-family: "Cambria","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">n 2013,<span class="apple-converted-space"> there
were 462,567entries </span>for missing children under the age of 18 into
the FBI's National Crime Information Center. According to The National Center
for Missing and Exploited Children, as many as 2,183 children are abducted each
day, many by a family member. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%;">Johnson is currently assembling a
team to complete “Supernal Darkness.” In the meantime, he is also trying a hand
in the beverage business with a brand of loose-leaf teas with David Edwards at the
New Mexico Tea Company. “10 percent of what happens to you is 90 percent how
you deal with it,’ says Johnson. “Everyone needs to do their part. Everyone has
to pick their part. I’ve chosen my fight.”</span></div>
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-88258875257010175242014-08-12T07:00:00.011-07:002022-10-09T16:29:28.523-07:00Are Rioting And Looting Ever Valid?<div class="_wk _5rny attachmentUnit" style="background-color: white; border-left-color: rgb(211, 215, 220); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 2px; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, "lucida grande", tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px 0px 12px -9px; padding: 0px 0px 0px 7px;">
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By Andrea N. Jones </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yHET8T3DKD8/U-oW3uMxO0I/AAAAAAAABMw/c89kXwcjH_U/s1600/ferguson1.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="207" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yHET8T3DKD8/U-oW3uMxO0I/AAAAAAAABMw/c89kXwcjH_U/s1600/ferguson1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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So, tell me how America has changed in the new millennium? How America loves your black or brown skin now that we've reached, according to some of all races, "post-racial America?"</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Ferguson, MO isn't too different from Lakeland, FL in 1938, as captured here.</div>
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Is rioting ever valid? I say, yes, it's valid. The anger is valid. A riot is quite symbolic. Black communities are treated as "liquid money," as we are called by some whites who notoriously profit in our communities where black business cannot. Most businesses in the hood are non-black owned, which is a travesty in itself. It's a stark contrast from back in the day when black businesses ruled in black communities during the segregation era. </div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;"><br /></div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;">Integration has proven to be problematic for black communities all across the country as black businesses struggle to find a market when blacks have taken their business into other communities. </div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;"><br /></div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;">Gentrification and, what I call "The Great Migration"-- the recent displacement and movement of folks in historic numbers at of the beginning of the 21st century-- has left black communities in shambles. Urban Triage, an unofficial state policy which allows the community to essentially spin out of control and let it's black citizens literally dying in the streets, is real. </div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;"><br /></div></div><div class="userContentWrapper"><div class="text_exposed_root text_exposed" style="display: inline;">Rioters destroy, what Stephen King might call, "needful things" that</div> they are oppressed by. What are we talking about? We're talking about shiny shit that a cop will shoot you dead for to protect his or her bosses and the business/corporate community's profit margin. It's about a bunch of crap made in China because the U.S. deindustrialized 50 years ago, cutting these communities off from life-saving employment. </div><div class="userContentWrapper"><br /></div><div class="userContentWrapper">People who riot do so in a deliberately defiant act against American Consumerism. This is not rocket science. The only thing the government and business understand are interrupted profit. You tell me, why should we protect the wolves (very well insured dogs) in our very communities? What, may I ask, have they done for you lately?</div>
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White folks had very little before "discovering" Africa in 1443. This, I believe, is why white people are obsessed with material things, placing them over people. Hell, they've made corporations people in this country, like that's even possible literally or even esoterically. However, it benefits the power structure/paradigm so they make it law. </div><div class="userContentWrapper"><br /></div><div class="userContentWrapper">The white power structure goes to great lengths to protect worthless material things and to subjugate black people in our own communities. They stole us from Africa, stole our resources and labor and continue to steal the resources and wealth of the black community in various "legal" ways.<br />
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It's time we truly unite against what in Africa is called Maafa, The African Holocaust, and be heard. What will you do to end police brutality against black and brown? Every voice matters which is why God gave us voice to begin with as we evolved from up to 2 mllion years ago (by current scientific estimates) in to the original people. </div><div class="userContentWrapper"><br /></div><div class="userContentWrapper">All so-called races evolved from African ancestors. In this sense, all people are evolved straight outta Africa. Black people are white folk's ancestors but they want us dead. </div><div class="userContentWrapper"><br /></div><div class="userContentWrapper">In the Belly of The Beast, black people continue to be marginalized, oppressed and murdered. By best estimates (mind you because data are not accurately kept by the federal government on nationwide) every 28 hours a black person is killed by a non-black officer (root of "officer" is "overseer," by the way) or vigilante.</div>
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<span face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">White folks' ancestors were so sick and twisted that it's hardly any wonder why society is crazy as hell today. They came to us in 1443, presenting us with, what I call s.s.-- shiny shit, glass beads, mirrors and various cheap trinkets. We welcomed </span><span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">them. They destroyed us. Over 570 years later and Maafa continues. 570 plus years of stealing/killing Africans and "legally" pillaging our riches; yet (due to the dominance of our genes and skin), we still stand! </span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">AIDS, Ebola, the lengths the world has gone to rape it's very own mother and subjugate its ancestors. If you think the white man saved us, think again. We saved him (He was dying in his own filth in Europe)! We don't need them. They need us and what is rightfully ours! Don't EVER get that twisted, k? </span><br />
<span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Racism/White Supremacy is so sick and twisted that I can hardly breathe. Looking up to white folks as a standard to live by is simple lunacy. African people everywhere are the moral compass of the world! Souljahs, unite! Its time to wake up!</span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></div><div><span class="text_exposed_show" face="Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif" style="background-color: white; display: inline; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Mike Brown's murder in cold blood, like all these cases of men, women and children, deserves justice. So, I ask, what will you do to stop police brutality and take the law to task? Some still think we aren't really ready for a real fight. I say the only way to prepare is to ACT prepared. Do you agree? </span></div>
Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-34060623757285938512014-08-06T00:14:00.000-07:002015-09-26T15:14:12.662-07:00Wanted: Black Women and Black Men To Build A Nation!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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As of late I've engaged in heated debates with other black women who are ready, willing and able to date men of other races out of frustration with how many black men mistreat, neglect, disrespect or abandon them. I, on the other hand, still value nothing higher than the black family. I also have a high opinion of black men still. It's perpetual. My love spans over 200,000, when Lucy was my mother, ya dig? Enough metaphysics. I say all that to say that Black Love dates back to an unfathomable antiquity. 500 years of Maafa, The African Holocaust, cannot wreck that for me. This is why I love films like "The Wiz" (with that great opening scene of Auntie and Diana Ross Dorothy around the dining table, 20 deep; talking, laughing and connecting), Maya Angelou's only Hollywood directing gig, "Down on the Delta," Diane Carroll's "Claudine," etc. Listen to this smart, young sistah breakdown The African Diaspora's dire situation and how badly we need to come together to strengthening the black family for the good of our communities around the world. <br />
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-84869205373970240662014-07-30T06:26:00.001-07:002015-10-04T06:40:47.847-07:00Calling All Foodies!-- Celebrity Chef Brian Stansberry Says, “It’s
About the Food”<div class="MsoNormal">
Vallejo-Bred Celebrity Chef Brian
Stansberry Says, “It’s About the Food!”</div>
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By Andrea N. Jones</div>
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Brian
Stansberry, 44, Executive Chef of the well-esteemed Augsburg College in
Minneapolis, Minnesota and owner of High End Catering, is responsible for
providing 11,000 students, along with faculty, breakfast, lunch and dinner,
every day. With 43 employees to supervise at the school, he manages a $2.8
million operation. Stansberry has carved out the time to be a celebrity chef to
boot with big plans to take his high end food on the road with his brand new
venture, Flavor Face! Food Truck, with which healthy, locally produced
ingredients and American comfort-classic gnoshes he plans to fill bellies big
and small, up and down the California Coast.</div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Keen on cooking green, Stansberry wants
African Americans and everyone else to know that they can eat healthy food and
it can still be good to their taste buds.
He will tell you that he is all about preparing the freshest of foods,
grown locally, to create food fare so appetizing that his reputation has come
to precede him. He has been tapped to cook delectable meals for celebrities
such as Snoop Dogg and E-40 as well as dignitary like Rev. Jessie Jackson and
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Stansberry’s cuisine is not just for
the “Who’s Who.” In fact, the Culinarian from Vallejo has every intention of
taking America’s newest food revolution to the people.</span></div>
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Taking
a note out of the playbook of conventional wisdom, he states his motto about
cooking, “I believe the best way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.”
At 18, while working his first kitchen
job he started at first just to pay the
bills, Stansberry fell in love with food. At San Francisco’s world-famous
Drake Hotel, he was assigned to line setup which involved cleaning 100 pounds
of squid, daily. Not everyone could contend with such a demanding task, but
Stansberry took it in stride. At 21, Stansberry moved on to Seattle where he
was the youngest staff member at the acclaimed Metropolitan Grill steak house.
Assigned the broiler, he worked over an 800degree stove and got a taste for
high end cooking—the place where fine ingredients, perfectly-timed preparation
and skillful presentation meet.</div>
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Eventually
he settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After working at the Radissons Hotel for
five years perfecting his craft as sous chef he was offered a position in
Uptown Minneapolis at the Green Mill Restaurant and Bar that he had dreamed of,
Executive Chef. “I learned the culture of Minnesota. The food they like.” His
most popular dishes were the parmesan encrusted Wall-eye, bacon-wrapped jalapeño
poppers and tomato-basil soup. While there, he implemented policies that turned
a $1 million business into a $3.5 million enterprise in just three years.
Stansberry said he made that happen by working closely with his staff, telling
them, “It’s not about us, it’s about the food.” Eventually he would move on to
Executive Chef at the 4-star Crowne Plaza in the twin cities.<br>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">From working at the Crowne Plaza he
received an advantageous offer to partner in the opening of a wireless
internet coffee shop/deli, wine bar and mid to upscale restaurant, located on
the foot of St. Olaf College, the Ole Store Cafe. The accolades began pouring
in. Within one year, Brian was in two featured items in the Star Tribune,
Minnesota’s top newspaper, a special segment on Minnesota’s CBS affiliate
WCCO-Channel 4 and received “Best Restaurant Worth the Drive” honors from
Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine.</span></div>
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So,
it’s no wonder why Stansberry was called upon one night to prepare a meal for
Snoop Dogg when he came through the Twin Cities. “Snoop wanted friend chicken,
rice & gravy and macaroni & cheese,” recalls Stansberry. “People think
fried chicken is the easiest thing to cook, but it’s not.” Stansberry hesitated
at first as to whether he wanted the undertaking. Could he pull it off in the
amount of time he had? Traveling to Snoop’s hotel, would his fried chicken lose
its heat and crisp? In the end
Stansberry knew he could make it happen. ”They loved it,” says Stansberry. “They absolutely loved it.” </div>
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When
asked about cooking for E-40, Stansberry fondly speaks of the rapper. “I grew
up with Earl Stevens,” says Stansberry (Stevens being E-40’s birth name). “When
he was touring in Minnesota he called me up and said, ‘Hey, B. What can you
do?’ I asked him what he would like and he said he wanted seafood. So we did
Garlic Roasted Cherry wood-smoked Dungeness Crab.” 40’s entire team devoured
the food. Now everyone from B-Legit, Juvenile and Keak Da Sneak to Too Short
call Stansberry when they are in town and Chef Brian happily hooks them up. Recently his team hit the set of his
brother’s, the video directing phoneme Taj Stansberry (who directed the YouTube record smashing Hit
The Floor featuring Pop Sensation J. Lo) set feeding featured Kingpins of Rap
Rick Ross and Lil’ Wayne. 2Chainz and
Swiss Beatz (Alicia Key’s producer husband), also have recently enjoyed the
chef’s food fare. </div>
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He’s
also cooked for global politicos. Reverend Jessie Jackson dined on Bronze
Salmon, Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed the Caramelized Ginger Lemon Torte and
for the President of Bolivia, Stanberry prepared an authentic Bolivian dinner,
replete with ingredients he had to source out of state. He is currently
preparing a menu for the king and queen of Norway. Not star stuck but very
humble, Stansberry will tell you in a heartbeat that it’s not about him. It’s
about the food.<br>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Right now, Stansberry is really into
perfecting his sauces, rue in particularly as he is really into gumbo right
now. He also has taken on fusion cuisine—taking two world cuisines and combining
their ingredients to create innovative food experiences. “I’ll take two cultures,
like Italian and Mexican and create something,” he says.</span><br>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"><br></span>
<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Stansberry is most excited to throw
his chef’s hat into the food truck ring by taking his high end food to the streets.
He sees a street food revolution happening in America from coast to coast. “I
believe the food truck revolution is really serious,” says Stansberry.”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack" style="text-indent: 0.5in;"></a><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;"> You don’t have to pay the property taxes, you don’t have to
rent a big building and you can go everywhere to serve people your talents.”
Stansberry states that America is beginning to catch on to street food, but
it’s been a common way to chow around the world. “If you travel to Thailand,
Australia, Italy, Jamaica, they all have street food and vendors,” says
Stansberry. “[The food] is not pretty, it’s not expensive but it’s done well
and from the heart. It’s done straight from the soul, like music.” As many as
2.5 billion people around the globe eat street food every day. In fact, Chef
Brian will be touring Thailand later this year to do his on study on street
food vending.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Stansberry has envisioned a
statewide food tour up and down the California coast in his spanking-new truck
company, Flavor Face!, that will cater to The Stars beginning January 1. The
menu will feature Chef Brian’s signature “Stick-N-In-Movin’“ items:
Mac-n-Cheese on a Stick, Spaghetti-n-Meatballs on a Stick and Tuna Tartar on a Stick.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">“Music, food and people go hand and hand,” he
states about his appeal to the Top Artists he feeds. When he goes H.A.M. (Hard as a Mutha) in the
kitchen, he sets his timers to his own playlist. It’s not uncommon to find this
celebrity chef cooking to Sade, Confunkshun or George Benson. However, when he
goes real hard in the kitchen, it’s all about bumping Mac Dre or Ice Cube.</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Stansberry might say that the two
hearts he loves nourishing the most with his food belong to his two daughters,
the both of whom he’s is currently putting through colleges. </span><span style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Stansberry sees cooking as both an
art form and a way to make it out of tough circumstances. “A lot of my friends
are dead; a lot of them are in prison. [Cooking] has been a way to stay off the
street and work at my craft. It’s a way to be better as an individual. To
young, prospective chefs, he offers words of advice: “Eat everything, taste
everything and travel as much as you can. Learn other cultures, languages and
terminologies. And look and listen.”</span></div>
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-Contact Chef Brian Stansberry, owner of High End Catering
at <a href="mailto:bdown66@yahoo.com">bdown66@yahoo.com</a>, on Twitter @FlavaFaceCo or on Facebook.</div>
Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-49882222825212811242014-07-28T17:36:00.000-07:002014-08-09T02:22:47.433-07:00A Poetess Breaks Maafa Down for the People<div id="fb-root">
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<a href="https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=810736455627640">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CtCoob">Yacub Majeed</a>.<br />
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Poetess Sunny Patterson holds no punches. Pow...pow, pow, pow! Take that, Beast!</div>
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-47835805085425734562014-06-23T13:55:00.000-07:002020-01-20T22:49:05.038-08:00Love & Vodoo--The Curse"There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any."<br />
-Carl Sagan, <i>The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark</i><br />
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Commitment is more than an involuntary stay in a sanitarium. In a romantic relationship, any significant personal relationship, for that matter, commitment is fundamental to the love and positive energy that flows through the union. What's real tends to last. What's not tends to fall apart easily and disappoint. <br />
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But really, at the end of the day, for me every since I saw my first disaster movie called "The Day After" in the early '80s, I've been mildly concerned with survival should the shit hit the fan. So, for me, I'm thinking who is not going to ditch me, but love, care for and be with me should the Zombie Apocalypse actually go down, you know? Who's going to have my back should civilization unravel tomorrow but me? As I have no children, my primary concern will be for my aging parents. I must prepare, as I just hit 40, to be my own savior. Wow. <br />
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After I found out my sophomore year of college that Walt Disney was a known racist, I ditched all hope in the princess fantasy. It was bull, a simple product; and at 20, completely obvious as it was hard to find a gentleman, let alone a prince. Do some women get a taste of it? You bet. But only about half the people who take "the plunge" and have "the wedding" can get through the tough times to actual sustain long marriages. It is a rarity in these days and times for people to be married 40, 50, 60 years. If so, I wonder, how many of those years are spent truly happy? How many are tested by infidelity, mental and physical disorders and acute boredom? How many bounce back?<br />
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I was actually confronted with the news that chances were I would never be happy in love around the age of six. Yes, six. My grandmother, the matriarch of my mother's family, delivered the bad news. By this time in her life she was an ordained minister and missionary, so it was only appropriate she deliver this oral history down to me. I was her youngest grandchild.<br />
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One summer night in the San Bernardino Valley, as the desert wind howled and the window a/c unit chilled the dining room air, we sat around the dining table after dinner one night and she told me about our family curse. She spoke in hushed tones. A terrible pox was put upon us because of jealousy and romantic love. You see, my grandmother's mother started the whole thing.<br />
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My great grandmother Helen Young was from a well-to-do African-American family. Upon graduating college, no small feat for a Black woman at the turn of the 20th Century, her father arranged a marriage for her with an African prince. If great grandmother Helen would have gone through with it, explained Grandma, we would all be princesses today. <br />
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Great grandmother Helen had other plans. By a twist of fate she met and fell in love with a half Black, half Irish musician with a penchant for booze. Grandma actually minced no words, describing her father John Russell as a "bum." However, he was her mother's heart's desire. Upon cancelling her engagement to the prince she was disowned from her family. What's more, the prince, distraught, was said to have gone to his witch doctor for retribution against his runaway fiancee. The witch doctor then put the curse on our blood that no Russell woman would ever be happy in love.<br />
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One might believe from the family track record that the curse took. Cut off a couple of my fingers and I could still add up the happy marriages on my mother's side, with one hand. I think that curse followed me back to The Bay.</div>
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I've wondered what, if anything, that old witch woman had to do with the situation I find myself in now. Pushing 40, a successful relationship had eluded me. I've had passionate relationships, even lengthy ones (seven years lengthy), but not one I could say was with the person I've really been looking for. The person I've always wanted possessed qualities I'd never experienced in a partner; foremost he would accept me at the place I showed up at and would be willing to grow and build a life with me.<br />
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My current relationship of nearly three years has by far been the most promising. We love and respect one another as we are. Our greatest challenge has been the two thousand miles that has separated us the majority of the time. After careful consideration I have decided to close that gap by moving to his state so we can get on with building a life together. It's a big step for the both of us. I'm not taking any chances. Sage, myrrh and frankincense will be burned in our space before I even unpack. My second biggest challenge will be controlling my mind. I'm sensitive and I tend to over-think everything. I suppose because of my life experience often being dictated by Murphy's Law, I just realized how often I wait for the other shoe to drop; in other words, for things to fall apart.<br />
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My boyfriend thinks my "curse" is hogwash and says we create our own fate. Part of me agrees. My Great Grandparents had many good years crisscrossing the country in a traveling jazz band, having eight kids along the way. The other part of me isn't so sure. For all of civilizations advances, life is still a great mystery. Who's to say that witch doctor didn't conjure up a magical link between this and the spirit world so strong that it may affect the outcome of this love relationship that I'm working on being my last? Ahh, there's that over-thinking again.<br />
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Curse or no, I must believe in the power of our love to overcome all the new trials and tribulations we will be facing together. For, in my heart, I truly believe that living in love creates the best luck of all.<br />
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<br />Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-33403302361304599492013-08-02T04:23:00.001-07:002013-08-25T13:14:55.242-07:00Janet & Michael Jackson - Scream (We About That "Public" Life) #Scream #Vox #WeGrind #HAM <br />
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<span style="background-color: #f1f3f8; color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11px; line-height: 16px;">"No I'm not feeling myself; No I'm not trying to be hired to do parties, I'm not trying to do anything special here except consolidate my mixes, that all" -Anonymous DJ</span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/0P4A1K4lXDo" width="459"></iframe>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-41083071131652317712013-04-04T09:57:00.000-07:002014-08-06T19:07:23.215-07:00Throwback Thursday-- "Learning to Live Like Latifah"<br />
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Learning to Live Like Latifah</h1>
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Commentary</h2>
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By Andrea N. Jones, Pacific News Service</div>
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In a world that demands women slim down to Kate Moss-like proportions, the writer finds inspiration from rapper-turned-actor-turned-glamorous metrosexual Queen Latifah</h4>
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October 19, 2004 - I was broke and I needed to call my Jenny Craig Weight Loss Consultant to let her know that I just couldn't do it anymore. Although I hadn't reached my "goal" weight, which would put me at a size 6, I'd gotten down to a 12 (the average American female is a size 14). Breaking the news wouldn't be easy.<br />
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Upon our meeting 17 pounds ago, Lily told me that I shouldn't be a victim of genetics. She's an Ayn Rand devotee, committed to the theory of clawing over the ordinary person with bloody tooth and nail to become the ideal self. I read "Anthem," a Rand book she gave me, and I enjoyed it. The climax of the novella is reached when the protagonist discovers his name.<br />
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After canceling my last appointment, I received a voicemail stating, "Andrea, don't let me down. I want to see you lose the weight and see how beautiful you'll be."<br />
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I'm the kind of woman who would rather eat an entire bag of unsalted rice cakes than disappoint an elder. It took Queen Latifah to become a brand for me to get my "ah-ha" moment.<br />
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On Monday nights I veg out on UPN -- "Half &Half," "Girlfriends" -- your typical 30-something black city-girl fair. During one commercial break -- bam! -- there she was, again. This time giving a plug of the hit-maybe-miss new comedy "Taxi," starring her and Jimmy Fallon. Queen Latifah! Queen Latifah, who I just saw hosting "Saturday Night Live" with musical guest, Dana Owens (a.k.a. Queen Latifah). The same buxom woman I eyeball to be about a size 18, who has endorsements with Maybelline and Pizza Hut and a plus-size underwear line available at Wal-Mart.<br />
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Latifah's a home girl-turned rapper-actress-singer, turned glamorous female metrosexual. She's big, beautiful, symmetric and wonderfully made up, I concluded, never-minding the blitz of her machine. Her character's name in the new film is even Belle, which means an attractive or admired woman. "Except for a few minor proportions and multi-millions of dollars, we're in the same league," I told myself. It was like seeing myself on a good day through someone else's eyes, and discovering my true name.<br />
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I admit that, after my thighs and waist thinned out just a bit, I began to see myself more clearly.<br />
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Now, I don't profess to have Latifah's personality. She's the 21st century's answer to Pearl Bailey, a world-class American entertainer popular through the 1950s and '60s who also moved easily between stage, film and television, Rubenesque as she was. With the recent release of Latifah's "The Dana Owens Album," many are drawing comparisons.<br />
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Elders in the black community remember Bailey as one hell of a saucy, talented and tough broad. Latifah and Bailey share a no-nonsense charisma and sexuality. Black folk admire women like them because they show pride in where they come from, and in what God gave them. They are archetypes for big girls everywhere.<br />
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What I know at 30 is that big black women crave what we've wanted and never had -- attention. I think the attention we are seeking is from mainstream America. Why else would we spend ungodly amounts of money on purses, weaves, shoes and luxury vehicles? Most black men I know profess to prefer a larger lady, a woman somewhere between the size Oprah was two years ago and her size last season. Latifah is an example of how women in the black community show a kind of love for themselves that infects those all around them. Her celebrity franchise has opened a door. We are fortunate today that we can step out of our big-boned loving community and set an example of grace, style and boldness for big women suffering in communities clinging to a Size-0 Kate Moss Model of beauty.<br />
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Yesterday I called my local Jenny Craig Center and cut the cord. The cost was killing my disposable income. No vacation, no home improvement. Hell, I spent the last two months losing and gaining the same 2.2 pounds. Some say it's a plateau. I'm feeling it's where I should stay right now. Everyone tells me how great I look and how good I'm doing at the gym. My boyfriend calls me "juicy."<br />
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Bailey once said that a crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing. Most women just can't afford to be constructed like J. Lo. I say, let's learn to love our jellyroll.<br />
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Walking down the street, all done up, I get a little ditty stuck in my mind as my hips switch and I get into a rhythm. It's Destiny's Child's chorus, "I don't think you ready for this jelly/I don't think your ready for this jelly/ 'Cause my body too bootylicious for ya babe." On such a day, I'm Queen.<br />
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-48776443631976143482012-12-16T15:54:00.000-08:002015-09-18T05:01:08.534-07:00Daddy Issues and Memories of My FatherIn our own way, we are all scientists. In the concrete jungle, the mating scene is an exercise in Social Darwinism. We are drawn to select the best in the bunch and then we put that person under our microscope even further. I've spent my dating life either choosing or being chosen by men I very consciously compared to the very first man unconditional love ever flowed through and that's my Dad.<br />
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Indeed, there seems to be something to the Freudian notion that we play out our relationship with our opposite sex parent with our opposite sex partners. Men love to accuse an unstable girl of having "Daddy Issues." I've heard my homeboys say this about women a hundred times. Yet, most men I know want a Mommy in their women but would never acknowledge that fact.<br />
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I decided I would take a microscope to my own life and look into my own so-called daddy issues. I had a few memories and thoughts.<br />
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As a baby growing up in a townhouse apartment on Oakland's High Street, I was mostly a Daddy's Girl. My dad would pick out my puffy Black Power 'fro and combed and braided my ponytails as my hair grew. He would take me to the A&W Drive-Thru in the Fruitvale District, carefully maneuvering the town's hills with me strapped in the stock adult-sized car seat. Child car seats were not the law then. Instead, my father would stretch his right arm out over my tiny body as if it were a steel bar only covered in mahogany flesh as we entered intersections, met stoplights and crossed crazy drivers. Funny thing is that I've been searching for that sort of security every since.<br />
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During the fall of my second birthday my parents divorced. Irreconcilable Differences. Daddy quickly remarried a woman from his hometown in Tennessee in the summer of 1976, year of The Bicentennial. My stepmother came with a new older brother, my only brother. We would play and laugh with my older sister, having a genuine bellyaching good old time. By the time I turned 4 my dad informed me that he, a Vietnam vet, would re-enlist in the army. This was the first time I felt heartbreak. My Daddy, my protector, was going away to lands unknown to me. It would be 8 years before I would lay eyes on him again.<br />
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When Daddy left, I didn't just lose my king, but I lost a little piece of myself too. Sure, he sent cards and checks and I received the occasional phone call from Colorado, Germany or South Korea, however, for all intents and purposes within the hood, I was a fatherless child. I clung to a photo my father took shortly before he left Oakland of him dressed in a <i>Saturday Night Fever</i> chic white suit, wearing a gold chain and a Fu Manchu mustache, leaning on one knee prominently with a toothy smile.<br />
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That summer I was molested by family members. There was no one to hold the culprits responsible, really. Virtually fatherless, there was no one there to exact my revenge. I was accused of being fast, yes, at 4 years old. The shame pained me to my core and I was determined not to be a victim again. Food became my protection. I took to eating butter to quicken my fattening. In my mind, layers of fat could protect me from predators sexualizing me anymore. By the time I entered the first grade I weighed 100 pounds. My mission was accomplished.<br />
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By 12, my body had been stretched passed capacity. In regard to my father, I teetered on feeling a sense of abandonment and then cared for when I received phone calls and gifts. My father sent for me that summer. He had just been stationed stateside. I was not the little darling anymore but an obese adolescent. He knew nothing of the abuse. A stern man, Daddy was dismayed by my posture, stance, walk and weight. For him my obesity showed my weakness. Again, I felt shame. I was on course to becoming a 300 pound woman. A lifelong battle with my weight began. By 15, I shed enough fat to be considered a thick treat. As much as I loved the attention I feared it. Sexual objectification unsettled me so much because of my past, however, as I grew into a woman I learned to compartmentalize my sexuality from victimhood. <br />
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I stopped talking to my dad about men every since he accused me of acting like I was looking for Mr. Goodbar when I was in my 20's. Like most women, I turn to my mother and my homegirls. Homeboys offer harsh truths and are often right on the money about the men I date. I've shared moments with men who have made me feel as special as Daddy's little girl, but never as safe as my Daddy could with one outstretched arm.<br />
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That sense of safety has never been simulated. I'd like to say I've stopped looking for it. In the concrete jungle you just can't expect your inner girl to be indulged. In a landscape of Social Darwinist, no one gives a fuck about how you think or feel but the people who love you. I've come to realize that I expect a lot from the men who claim to love me or want to be more than friends. After all, I think I'm a great thing. Maybe it's because I'm a Taurus that my love is demonstrative. Insofar as I show love I expect to receive love action in return. Talk is for the birds.<br />
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Upon my own scientific examination, fear of abandonment and a love of emotionally unavailable men seem to top the list of my so-called daddy issues. Classic, right? No doubt these "issues" have bleed into my love life. However, what a man may consider a daddy issue I call having standards. A man is not going to come in and out of my life and if he can't give he will get the door. <br />
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My daddy and I still have issues. I resent the fact that he never came back to California. On a bad day, I feel like I was left like a sack of potatoes. I think if my father had stayed, a true Alpha male, the abuse would never had occurred as my abusers would not have dared. I have to remember that times were different then. Folks didn't expect there to be predators within families and daddies of yesterday were not as involved as they are today. The upside is that I was able to become my own person as I didn't have to live in his shadow. He still defines me as being weak as he's never understood the artist in me. I see myself for all that I have survived as tough as nails underneath the soft exterior.<br />
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At the end of the day, I know my daddy loves me and that I love my daddy. The fact is that his replacement is not on the scene. At best, my Ph D in Love will score me a really good dude, not another Daddy.<br />
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<br />Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-32522346979667999462012-06-20T11:44:00.001-07:002015-12-16T11:09:45.863-08:00Back to OaklandHave you ever really felt free? Breathed a breath so liberated that you seemed to glow from within your core? That's how I feel now being back in Oakland after 12 years, 12 long, hard years of a sort of self-imposed exile in Suburbia. My hometown came calling on me. So, when the opportunity arose this month to return, I jumped on it. I returned to the flatlands like a duck to a watery haven.<br>
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Listening to my L.A. girl Brandy on Pandora in the solitude of my own space. This is indeed an upgrade from my last few living situations. Here, there is no situation. It's just back to me. No lover, no family. Just me. The phrase "Just me" will forever remind me of the fictitious Miranda Hobbs, "Sex and The City's" red-headed and independent BFF of Carrie Bradshaw. She used the phrase quite a bit after purchasing her first Manhattan apartment. I have a slight smirk on my face, as she did every time she had a chance to utter those two words, and a coquettish twinkle in my eye when I say them too.<br>
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Not only am I the ruler of my roost yet again, but I have been blessed to be one within one of the world's secret treasures. San Francisco is "The City" while Oakland is known as "The Town." Within the entire Bay Area is found a microcosm of what has to be the closest thing to the entire world. That's how I think of the Bay Area and I'm not alone. We may not be the center of the world but we certainly possess a cultural and racial diversity other places around the country are just now beginning to experience.<br>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQLWu7vLvEHnUi3EJb_98xR8M1Kvk6uM9XtilffUSW2_Om_gHhnvATQePx4-n8pj-gD6FrIzDLkfxT8Wfbxb88suVxTUoQwgP6F80zZsV17D3yely_VSCtjDLlGXs38EA3vAgn5RbmYk/s640/blogger-image--1403601534.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHQLWu7vLvEHnUi3EJb_98xR8M1Kvk6uM9XtilffUSW2_Om_gHhnvATQePx4-n8pj-gD6FrIzDLkfxT8Wfbxb88suVxTUoQwgP6F80zZsV17D3yely_VSCtjDLlGXs38EA3vAgn5RbmYk/s640/blogger-image--1403601534.jpg"></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"> Oakland is the cornerstone of the Bay's beauty, politics and culture. Once the furthest Western outpost, the end of the line for the Transcontinental Railroad with a bustling port, Oakland was the mechanism that fed the Bay like no other city. Oakland's magic has been eclipsed by it's inner city's poverty, dismal high school drop-out stats and escalated homicide rate. If you believe, as the poetess Gertrude Stein wrote about Oakland, that there is no there here you couldn't be more wrong.</div></span></div>
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I settled in West Oakland, just a stone's throw from Berkeley and Emeryville. Over half the block is populated by Whites. Contrary to popular belief many Whites are living and thriving in the flatlands of Oakland. I think they play a part in keeping the secret that Oakland is rich so as the flatlands won't be populated with too many Concord-Walnut Creek type transplants. However, The Town's underbelly shows. Men and women out of luck walk the street along side rickety shopping carts full of recyclables and trash. Prostitutes display their wares on infamous street corners. Sirens blare twice a day on average. The Town's grit is intense, sometimes overwhelming but always reminds one of the frank realities of urban life, The Concrete Jungle. Slip and you will be swallowed by The Town.<br>
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I drive the streets, haunted by the past lives I've lived here in The Town. Born in Berkeley, my first residence was on High Street. I was welcomed by mom, dad, sister, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins who already called Oakland home. By 5, 75th Avenue was home. Back then I could walk several blocks to school by myself undisturbed as The Black Panthers still patrolled the streets. Always the baby, I hit the local roller rink and a thriving Eastmont Mall regularly. My love affair with Hip Hop began there in The Eastmont Theater over a blue bubble gum ice cream cone and <i>Beat Street</i>. The screen faded to black and it was a wrap. In search of a better education for her two girls, my mother and new stepfather moved us to Union City.<br>
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By 25, after living in The City, I returned to Oakland and settled by The Lake, Lake Merritt. My extended family had long moved on to other states and the great beyond. The Town was colder and more perilous than it had been in my youth. Working in The City and living in The Town wore on me. I craved a simpler life with a slower pace. I retreated to the 'burbs were I remained the next 12 years.<br>
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This time feels different still. This time I know who I am. I'm a seasoned Sistah, self-possessed, living for love and liberty. The road that led me back to Oakland is paved with platinum memories, I wouldn't change one. That road built this diva, for better or worse. "<span style="background-color: white;">Things take time,</span><span style="background-color: white;">" my friend reminds me. As the next chapter of my life unfolds I stand humbled to be present in such a lively milieu saturated by color, art and music. I'm already making beautiful music here as my instrument, my voice, rings out to The Town. It belts out a hundred thank you's. </span><br>
<br>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-36281803192501132082012-01-31T22:33:00.000-08:002014-09-21T15:47:02.148-07:00Reality T.V.-- A Portal into Stolen WealthMy DVR is my pusher. I've slowly succumb to the battle of reality broads. I lightweight love them and hate them, but I am always finding myself glued to the tube on off hours.<br />
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The gateway was a 12-hour PBS documentary series I saw (Pre-Anna Nicole Show) re-aired, "An American Family." It profiled the Louds, a family anyone would envy from the outside. Dad might have been distant but he brought in a fat paycheck that Mom doled out amongst the household full of teens with various issues and dreams in early 1970's Southern California. I watched as this symbol of the American Dream went from happiness to divorce. It was a riveting look inside an American family and I was hooked to the docu-realism of the format. The intrigue laid not in the families material posessions but the look into the heart of a family, it's dynamics and humanity. Today's reality show has veered from this as it reflects a different era, the era of greed.<br />
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One can hardly turn a channel without coming across a reality show. Gone are the days when situation comedies were king. As much as we claim to hate reality T.V. the numbers don't lie-- we watch. Each one its own train wreck as the egos of real life players collide. I've had both men and women, gay and straight, make mention of the ladies of VH1, BET and Bravo, with or without shame.<br />
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I don't watch them all but enough to know that it is a window into a world where the 98 percent only dream of living. It's odd to me, but many aspire to the lavishness that surround most reality celebs. The cars, homes, clothes, jewelry and vacations are enviable, but I haven't deluded myself to think that it is within my future short of winning the lottery. But if you really are on the way to building an empire, like Kim K. or T.I. and Tiny, more power to you.<br />
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My day job will never make me a millionaire. So, I do a little vicarious living while I plot for a more comfortable life, on the couch or in my bed. All type of experts say leave the television out of the bedroom as it can interfere with sleep to sex. But I'm a DVR junkie. I can't live like the "Straights." I need access to my media dope in the privacy and comfort of my bedroom, sorry. It's my indulgence. My Audi r8. That's just the way I roll.<br />
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Now, in the era of reality t.v., we can gossip ad naseum about people we do not know. Their presence or lack of integrity, fashion sense and common sense. We weigh in on the famous (many of whom are known simply for being famous) as the Ancients weighed in on the lives of gods. Apparently, it's just in our genes to speculate on the lives of others. When doing so we form bonds of commonality with our peers.<br />
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The question that arises is what type of person puts their life before camera for the world to see, warts and all? I can only surmise that it's the type that seeks immense fame. Our societal values have shifted to where the desire for fame has become a principle quest. In a recent survey of today's youth, the desire for fame has eclipsed every other value. They see lights and cameras, not discipline and education, as the way to get ahead. Who can blame them? Fame comes with lots of money and appears so glamorous and easy, especially to a generation raised with a sense of entitlement, three to four generations removed from The Great Depression. It's ironic that during the worst economy in generations American popular culture continues to propagate the notion that easy living is easily had.<br />
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Nothing could be further from the truth. Fame is an aberration not a birthright. Millions desire it but few are chosen by the finicky club of elite tastemakers and trendsetters. I'm still trying to figure out just how the cast of "Jersey Shore" has captivated millions by simply partying and hooking up with "Guidos" and "Grenades." Their carrying-ons are laughable. However, each cast member is laughing all the way to the bank as they each become a brand, one by one.<br />
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It's tempting to envy the lifestyles of the wives, wifeys and moguls that make up our t.v. viewing. It's almost cruel for the media to tout the wealth of a few as an aspiration as it is statistically impossible for the average person to become a baller. We blame ourselves for our everyday, budget-ridden circumstances. We are told by politicians that if we are not rich it's our fault. We internalize this and our self-esteem quietly takes a hit. We begin to believe that people with money deserve all the things that've accumulated since Reagan.<br />
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What we are glued to, in my opinion, many without realizing it, is the picture of stolen wealth. Step right up, Folks! This is where the all your raises, pensions, 401Ks and losses in the market have gone. The super rich who have gotten exponentially richer over the past 30 years due to trickle-down economics provide those in the new money club of celebrity with pieces of your stolen assets.<br />
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I'm looking at the televised lives of the rich and celebrated more and more as a portal into American greed. The product of 30 years of fleecing the American masses. Instead of watching out of adoration, I watch out of amazement that the disparities between the rich and not are so vast. The sense of entitlement most reality celebs seem to share in the way they flaunt their value for superficial things is astounding. Meanwhile, we sink deeper and deeper as a culture into a materialism that can never fill the hole in our collective soul. We have gotten the meaning of life so terribly wrong in American society and we're spreading it around the globe.<br />
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As hard as it is to swallow in the era of greed, material wealth is not the key to happiness. I didn't stutter. Now, I ain't going to lie like money doesn't make the world go around. By all moral means, get paid. However, when we are at a point where there is no such thing as enough money and notoriety we lose sight of the importance of the wealth to be had from who we truly are as human beings. The wealth that doesn't come from material things but comes from expanding the mind and spirit, being kind and giving to others and maintaining the biggest, most opulent home of all, our Planet Earth.<br />
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-21393244779032944032012-01-27T20:54:00.001-08:002012-02-01T04:25:34.812-08:00Sacrifice<br />
I've been away way too long. I've been pretty busy with my new day job. Then the winter holidays hit and I got caught up in my own reveling. Now we have a new year. A fresh new start, in a sense, to work with in 2012. One thing that is certain in the new year is that life will continue to be a beautiful struggle.<br />
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A Flatland Diva makes hard, hard decisions. Life comes with questions much harder than will you drink Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot, right? Sometimes you can have both, choose one or, on a dry night, luck down on none.<br />
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I've recently committed myself to a long distance relationship. It's not something I've ever wanted to do. However, for a special connection, a true unconditional love that could last a lifetime, I was willing to give it a sincere try. Distance makes the heart grow fond but this type of distance can make the heart lonely when your man or lady is unavailable and you are for chat and connection. This type of situation needs lots of watering or the St. Augustine grass will turn dry.<br />
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When we first ventured to do this across-state-lines thing he spoke a lot of sacrifices. The sacrifice it would take to make a relationship work with two thousand miles separating us. We would deal with each other's dirty laundry and he would not be easily moved from me.<br />
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I recently visited the object of my desire at his home across five states. The visit was a great one and I was hoping that maybe we could have something special. That Black Love, against all odds type of love. Whether or not we can make it remains to be seen. He hit a personal rough patch and chose not to tell me anything about it. Stopped communicating with me all together for a week (a week to a cyber romance is the equivalent of a month in real life). I was so hurt, confused and frustrated that I let myself get out of pocket and made some damning statements via text. Ironically, it was when I lost my mind that he finally resurfaced. He was full of apologizes as was I for my lapse in sanity.<br />
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As sorry as we both claim to be, the momentum just is not there. In actuality, I feel that I've made all the sacrifices while he has only spoken of them. I'm thinking that it may be time for this Flatland Diva to move on.Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-35246578746431743812011-11-27T13:42:00.001-08:002015-09-30T11:51:03.888-07:00Disney's "The Help" Does It Again<br>
The film version of "The Help" will be released on DVD and Blu-Ray December 6. I saw "The Help" last month with my girl Janet who is White. I went in with all the preconceived notions of a race movie veteran. I knew that the White protagonist would be placed at the center of the Black woman's story. She was. I was nearly positive that this story would also castrate the issue at the root of systematic White supremacy, the basis of what we call racism. It did. I knew that Janet would be touched and I would be irritated by what was left out.<br>
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"The Help" is set in 1960's Jackson, Mississippi, which at the time was one of the most segregated cities in the country. Blacks throughout the South were institutionally made second class citizens under laws of lifestyle known as Jim Crow Laws. These laws were instituted as early as 1877 through 1964, a year prior to the 100th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. The film takes a fictional look at Jim Crow's end days through the eyes of Black maids and the White people for whom they cooked, cleaned and took care.<br>
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<b>Lawd, Have Mercy</b><br>
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As the typical middle class White family in the early '60s had a suburban tract home, a Ford or Buick in the driveway, a black-and-white console in the living room, they also had a maid. Domestic work was just about the only work a Black woman could get in the South, condemning them to lives of servitude.<br>
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The film opens on the starring maid, Abileen, played by Viola Davis. She is a long-suffering woman. It seems the only joy she experiences besides that she gets shooting the shit with her best friend Minny (Octavia Spencer) is caring for her White family's baby girl. "You is kind, you is smart, you is important," Abileen tells the cherubic child. No doubt Abilene herself benefits from the affirmation. Her White family along with many others in the community begin to build outdoor toilets for their "help" in an effort to fully carry out the 'separate but equal' tenets of Jim Crow, emphasis on the separate. This serves to undermine the dignity of the Black characters psychologically, which is the objective. Feed up with subjugation, Abileen risks her life to tell her story to the White protagonist, Skeeter (Emma Stone), whose motives for writing the book exposing the lifestyle of the South are unclear.<br>
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<b>"Eat My Shit"</b><br>
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I always refuse to give too much away about a film. Suffice it to say that there is a shocking subtext to the film that deals with retribution. Part of the films begs the questions, if someone has abused their power to do all they can to put you under a bridge and block your pursuit of happiness, would you strike back with devastating force?<div><br></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcUObOSYPw31QUmkDf230m5KVvK-c-xoM4D-WLl4b7dhk_JnUeXiFxR2HWeQ-5mw1Cg_CWYubDkPv502ByuHRn7B7EfOtvnZHzmsmK6rrauGRTAlc34Nto19LWtt6qxhzzXNnj5R4h0I/s640/blogger-image--1141279554.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEcUObOSYPw31QUmkDf230m5KVvK-c-xoM4D-WLl4b7dhk_JnUeXiFxR2HWeQ-5mw1Cg_CWYubDkPv502ByuHRn7B7EfOtvnZHzmsmK6rrauGRTAlc34Nto19LWtt6qxhzzXNnj5R4h0I/s640/blogger-image--1141279554.jpg"></a></div> <br>
Sir Isaac Newton's Third Law of Motion states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. When Milly does what she does to Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), a persistent bigot, it is her attempt to make Hilly feel, or taste, just a little bit of what she's been treating her like for far too long. Now, that I can dig as figuratively historic. There are numerous accounts in slave narratives of all the ways Black ancestors struck back in passive aggressive ways to get their owners back for brutally oppressing and subjugating them.<br>
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<b>Sex, The Root of All Racism</b><br>
The film skirts around the real reasons why Whites instituted segregation to begin with. It was the fear of miscegenation, defined by Merriam-Webster as the marriage, cohabitation or sexual intercourse between a white person and a person of another race. The widespread belief in the inferiority of Blacks was a lie propagated to hide the fact that xenophobic White males of privilege did and still fear the loss of the material power their blood lines control and the obliteration of people who look like them through race mixing. Once institutionalized racism in the country took effect a drop of "Black blood" made a person Black and anyone considered Black found virtually no protections under the law.<br>
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Whether we realize it or not the one drop principle persists to this day. Our own president is a product of this principle. Barack Obama, even though his mother is White and he was mostly raised by Whites, grew up to identify as a Black man because in this country he could never be anything else. His father's DNA prevented him from benefiting from the White skin privilege his mother's folks shared. In short, it's the fear of a Black planet, the fear of whiteness being fucked out of existence, that made many Whites cosign on institutionalized racism. However, to hide their fear the myth of Black inferiority was propagated and the lives of Black folks have been made miserable in great measure because of this once popular psychosis.<br>
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"The Help" portrays Black characters who are completely devoid of sexuality. Absent among the maids complaints is the topic of sexual harassment by the mister of the house. The topic of sex is avoided in the Disney tradition. Odd that Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard), the hateful childhood friend of Skeeter's sports a cold sore the last quarter of the film, suggesting she has a sexual past. It's ironic as she leads the initiative for separate bathroom for household domestic on the basis that Blacks carry different diseases. In the end, it is clear that she is the one who is infected.<br>
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<b>History Shrugged</b><br>
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The real life story of Black women during this time is actually phenomenal. Every day Black women who became larger than life such as Rosa Parks, Fannie Lee Hammer and Shirley Chisholm come to mind. These women were the center of their lives, the center of history. Yet, in this so-called historical tale, a young White woman is injected as the gatekeeper to the Black women's freedom on the dawn of the Civil Rights Movement. It's typical Hollywood revisionism.<br>
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Minny and Abileen's preacher delivers the moral of "The Help." On the pulpit he states, "Love compels us to put ourselves in harm's way for our fellow man. If you can love...you already have the victory." The historical accuracy of this love theme is the best thing about "The Help." It's the theme of cooperation through love that bought Janet to tears. However, I left the theater feeling like the real facts about racism and the real story of the Black woman's roles in history on screen has yet to be told.</div>Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-63092379137968187692011-11-20T16:48:00.000-08:002016-09-22T06:10:56.574-07:00Our Love of the N-WordIt's hardly a secret. Black people use the N-Word enough. Enough in the earshot of non-Black folks for them to notice. I've been on enough mass transit trains, buses and college campuses to be privy to the indiscriminate use of the N-Word by numerous non-Black youth to other non-Black youth. I've heard the term applied to Jerry Sandusky, the disgraced Penn State defensive coach, by a Black female friend on Facebook. Didn't seem to matter to her that Sandusky is White.<br>
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The N-Word, most popularly "nigga," has captured the imagination of youth of all colors since Hip-Hop trickled up. The word is itself a rebellion. Replacing the -er in the last syllable of the original N-Word with an -a took the violence and hate out of the word and melded it with a spirit of irreverence toward authority and anyone else who doesn't like it.<br>
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V-Nasty, of The White Girl Mob she formed with fellow Oakland rapper Kreayshawn, has caught some heat for her use of the N-Word in rhymes. It is obviously a way to fit in and drop street credit. A lot of white girls that come from the hood want to prove themselves in the hood for good reason. They often are reminded on the daily of a White skin privilege that they don't yet see residing in the ghettos. Kreayshawn and V-Nasty's White Girl Mob exists as a reaction to their alienation growing up White and disenfranchised in the hood.<br>
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I grew up in a home where the N-Word was taboo and never used. My mom's folks are from Minnesota and have a history of being proud race people. The word was always looked down on as a term used by the so-called lower class. However, black culture has become a matter of fashion. Hip-hop has made the word ubiquitous. It can no longer be looked at as simply a word used by those with a "lack of class," as today's richest Blacks use it.<br>
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The word is like sex, it's provocative. It's illicit in that it breaks the rules of etiquette. It's language noir.<br>
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In a recent Tale Tela online poll, 42 percent of folks thought that rappers in general should stop using the N-Word. The rest were equally divided by those who said no, it has a whole new meaning and those who did not care. I wanted to plant my flag in the "It's Complicated" camp, but the option was not given in the survey.<br>
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I wonder, can the success of a race lie on the back of a word, a word branded in the minds of so many and functions as a vocabulary staple?<br>
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I personally don't use the word more than five times a year. Because of the way I was raised the word doesn't just roll out of my mouth. Only my closest friends have ever heard me use it and probably without them being able to ever recollect it. I slipped once in front of a white friend and I just didn't feel right saying in her presence. That never happened again. I use it like everyone else, for effect. To connote just the right emotion about a person.<br>
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As a possible upside to the use of nigger and nigga, we come across another important n-word meaning we never use at all. A word new to us but rooted in antiquity, Negus, has been making its social media rounds recently. Negus is an East African word meaning King or member of royalty. So, David Duke, former KKK Grand Wizard turned mainstream politician, put that in your pipe and smoke it.<br>
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The N-Word tests the boundaries of free speech and good taste. The righteous seem to think that if the world is lanced from the English language we will enter through the pearly gates of the post-racial society many talk about but many know does not yet exist. The thing is that language is fluid. The word is not only a part of the American lexicon, it is woven in the fabric of it's history and cannot be easily unraveled, if ever at all.<br>
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Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8145512363558981379.post-56642326264369268132011-11-10T13:34:00.000-08:002011-11-27T20:07:52.720-08:00Cyber LifeLife online is a world of discovery. We are both adult and child while surfing the net as we indulge every wonder.<br />
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Let's face it. The internet is magic. It's power for good and evil is omnipotent. If T.V.'s mystique were likened to the Smurf-hating wizard Gargamel, bumbling and full of error, the internet is Potter's Dumbledore. These days, everyone is online. Social media gives us all a public persona to do with as we want. What we create is a unique cyber imprint.<br />
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What's more interesting is how cyberspace has made us all more of who we really are as opposed to who we want to be. Most active users leave a trail. It's hard to fake your vibe. Some of us manicure our profile pages as if they were a bonsai plant. Some of us don't. But we all show a bit of our true selves online.<br />
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All hail, the almighty relationship status. I have a cousin who's newly engaged every few months. I'm single and I admit that I look forward to the day "in a relationship" can be my status, simply for the likes. They're like tiny little wrapped gifts. I just love them when I get them. But I'm no Kim K. I'm not in it for show. I want the relationship to be real.<br />
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We have entered an era in which we must redefine privacy when we've all become public figures in so far as we engage in social media to share ourselves with our friends and followers. Never have we been so accessible to so many. Not since we left the village. Even then our audience was never this broad. The possibilities for both expression and connection for the individual in cyberspace are exhilarating to the spirit and has captivated billions. It's undeniable. We crave connection. We want to plug in.<br />
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We've handed in our anonymity en masse. Some of us seek fame and fortune, some search for love and others simply want to share our voice. It's all valid here. We know Big Brother and corporations monitor our moves at will but we continue to covet the net like a moth to a flame. Will this be the death of us or will it breath new life into the collective consciousness? I'm counting on it being the later.<br />
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What's funny-ironic is our human fear of the computer. Like Dr. Frankenstein, we mistrust our own creation. It's the basis of so many of our best sci-fi film thrillers, from the early cinema classic Metropolis to 2001 to The Matrix. They are cautionary tales symbolic of how The Age of Technology and our dismal world economy has displaced millions of workers, stripping them of their livelihood; a symbolic apocalypse. Our fear of computers replacing humans has been realized. We scramble for new ways to live in cooperation with our fantastic monster.<br />
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We've decided that if we can't beat them we might as well join them, especially where there are apps involved. I've heard people describe their smartphones as best friends. Cyber life is no substitute for real living. We must strike a balance least we get caught up in the magic.Andrea N. Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06081253613106452317noreply@blogger.com0