Grown And Sexy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Daddy Issues and Memories of My Father

In 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 Saturday Night Fever chic white suit, wearing a gold chain and a Fu Manchu mustache, leaning on one knee prominently with a toothy smile.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What Whitney's Death Means To Me

Whitney Houston's death shocked the globe. Houston's songs were a fixture for three decades. If you lived through the '80s and/or '90s chances are Houston's voice had graced your ear in some memorable way. Since her passing she has been honored from Detroit to Dubai. 

She was to pop music what Billie Holiday had been to jazz. She left this life the most awarded singer of all time. We hear little of this Guinness Book of Records fact in the media these days. Her greatest accomplishments have been usurped by her greatest fail, orchestrating her very own death with drug and alcohol abuse at the age of 48. How will she be remembered?

Whitney Houston was my generation's answer to Diana Ross. She was statuesque and glamorous with a voice of pure soul. We presumed she had a certain class about her in the early years and readily put her on a pedestal reserved for virgin princesses. I suppose it was a lot of pressure being R&B royalty at 22 and in the mid-80s. Cocaine was ubiquitous in Hollywood and omnipresent back home in Newark, NJ. Add the pressure of living in the public eye and the excess of a music business celebrity lifestyle and Houston's eventual drugs addiction can read as probable.

By 1992 Houston had married Bobby Brown and rumors of their drug use circulated through the Black community. Some said Bobby got her hooked on coke. Some said don't believe the hype and contended that Bobby was simply on marijuana before Whitney introduced HIM to coke. Still, some couldn't truly admit that Whitney was an addict until watching her and Bobby's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown" where their strange behavior could only be explained as that of folks hiding something. When that tabloid shot surfaced of Whitney's vanity sink covered in what was suppose to be her vice trash-- cigarette boxes, a beer can, some crack rocks on a plate-- her public image noose-dived. She spent the years since on the fringes.

Bill O' Reily proclaimed on his show that Whitney wanted to kill herself. Some folks were in an uproar over his statement. Albeit he was curlish with his words, I think he made an interesting point. According to Sigmund Freud,  all self-destructive behavior can be explained by a death drive, a  death wish, we have as humans in this society to kill the pain of living.

If one subscribes to Freudian theory, the compulsive, repetitive behavior of abusing drugs and alcohol was Whitney's way of living out her death wish. No one would imagine on a conscious level Houston wanted to leave her prized daughter Bobbi Christina. However, she knew the dangers of her lifestyle but continued on a destructive path as her demons took over. Houston clearly lived in a world of pain and pressure as even she knew her voice was no longer The Voice. Under normal circumstances it's difficult for a singer to maintain the voice of her youth into the golden years. However, with abuse to the cords and body a singer cannot often maintain her optimum sound.

Yet she did what all great talents do, she mounted a comeback.

Many great women in the music industry have fallen victim to drug abuse and premature death while navigating the scene. Phenomenal singers from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse suffered from infamous addictions before untimely deaths. Fast and loose living is not a recipe for longevity.

If only she would leave Bobby they said. She finally left Bobby. Still, her drug addiction ensued. Ray J, her sometime companion, claimed he had no knowledge of her cocaine use. Either the man is an idiot or he's lying. Neither of these possibilites bodes well for his character in my opinion.

Houston's life will serve as one of the great cautionary tales of fame, love and drugs. While watching her tell her story to Oprah in 2009, I was struck by what a survivor she was. A real tough broad. May she alwaysbe rememberedas TheVoice. She certainly will be to me.

To Catch A Snake

To Catch A Snake

When I was 3 years old I was playing alone on our balcony when I saw a jump rope miraculously turn into a green snake and slither across the cemented ground. That's when I knew that I could see and sense things that others could not. 

I had the gift of discernment. Fast forward to 2025. According to Chinese astrology, we were living in The Year of The Snake and I have been bitten, I suspect, by a good friend. 

I met her nearly 20 years ago on a junior college campus where I took a Statistics course. One day after class I was walking to my candy apple red Mitsubishi Eclipse when I heard a voice addressing me from behind. The voice flagged me down with a bevy of, ”Girl, girl, girl.”

I turned around to discover a woman who was as wide as she was tall. She had dyed blonde hair and gang tattoos all over the parts of her body that I could see. I stopped to talk to her. She asked me my age. I told her. I must have been about 32. She said she was looking for a girlfriend for her son, who had to have been 6 years my junior. I let her know that I was in a relationship but that I was flattered. 

The following week our instructor put us in a group together with several other students. We gravitated to each other and would hang out outside of class and group meetings. 

The first thing I noticed about Linda was her loud mouth. She always had to be heard and have the last word. What I've learned in life is that the loudest person in the room is the weakest, most insecure person in the room. Let's say she was very insecure. Anyway, I passed the class but she didn't. Nonetheless, we would stay in touch. 

Our friendship quickly turned rocky. We had a love/hate dynamic that I found troubling. We would go months without talking. I couldn't stand how competitive she was with me. She had been a teenage drop-out/runaway at 13 turned into a teen mom at 14. She liked to wear a facade of toughness and for the most part I would let her. I really didn't care either way.

We did the on again, off again thing some friends do as if they were lovers. I really grew to trust her because she groomed me to look at her as though she was my consigliere. You know how you get a vibe off someone that they are not cool people to be around? I catch vibes all the time as an empath. So, let me tell you how shook I was to find out that my good friend was not really a friend to me. 

 

I suspected there was something odd about our bond when she got 2 cars just like I had– a Mitsubishi Eclipse and a Ford Focus. Wouldn't that throw up a red flag to you? On some Single Black Female shit, am I right?

I'm a Taurus and she's a Gemini. It's said that we can find harmony in our friendship but I'd have to say Katie provoked the majority of our quarrels. She would turn on me like a vicious, junkyard dog. Truth be told, she was just a mean girl.

During our last hiatus Katie (name changed for privacy) got a body by Stanford Medicine. She dropped 125 pounds and got all the surgeries to remove her flabby skin. She also had her gang tattoos removed. I was happy for her. 

I, on the other hand, had picked up 25 pounds since we'd last spoken. I'd gained the weight while caring for my mother in her last days. She was very dejected to hear about my mother's passing. However, as soon as she could she had to point out the irony of her losing weight and me gaining weight. I was like, “whatever.” 

I made the choice not to fall into the trap she tried to set up for me. I'm too mature to be jealous of the next female. What I felt was that I was dealing with someone with the emotional intelligence of a goldfish. In The Year of The Snake I found one that I called a friend. I began to hold her at arm's length. This is something I had to do with the contrarian. The thing is that I loved her but I love myself too much to deal with someone I can't trust. Toxicity is not my get down.

I have a gift for picking up vibrations. Katie gave up good vibes until she turns into a transformer. Then hold your hats, folks. In the last couple of years I've been single. Not much to write home about. While we were on good terms, Katie would always probe me for information about my dates. I look at it as a little invasive but I didn't see the harm of sharing these things with someone I considered to be a good friend.

One thing I noticed about Katie that I never liked is the amount of gossiping she engaged in. I should have known that she was spilling my tea as much as she spilled everyone else's.

Her treachery was confirmed to me last week when we fell out for good. It started with a simple text I sent her on what I thought was the day after her latest surgery. I basically texted her, “Tag bitch, you're it!” I didn't think much of it. We curse all the time. Well, she decided she'd get all bent out of shape. She reached deep into her gutter world to accuse me of “opening my legs” to 7 men. I was flabbergasted. First off, I'm grown. I don't report to her. Second, that's a straight lie. And third, we can't all let cobwebs form over our stuff.

I will not use this opportunity to bash her because I was raised to have more class than that. I'll just say she's in no position to judge me. None at all.

So, I find that I must ghost a good friend because she's a snake. I know with certainty that she spread my supposed business in the streets. The best parts of her will be missed. But that Alpha female energy won't be missed.

If there's one thing I learned from Coppola's Godfather saga I would say it would be to keep your friends close but your enemies even closer. I'm still trying to figure out which end of the spectrum Katie is on. Who really sent her my way. Time will tell.

My Memories of Philo: How Kevin Weston Lives On

Until I got the call from an old colleague that another one of my former colleagues from my Pacific News Service days was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of leukemia and that he was in fact weeks away from dying, I didn't realize just how much I loved Kevin Weston. 

He wasn't just a friend, sometimes a rival, he was my brother. He meant so much to so many and my gut burned while my heart bled to think he wouldn't just be around the Bay, pen and paper in hand, speaking truth to power as our key mentor and boss Sandy Close, Executive Director of PNS, had always encouraged us to do. What the fuck now? He passed a little over a decade ago and he has been memorialized all over the Bay. It's time I tell folks the Kevin I knew.

I recall the first time I saw Kevin. He was lounging on a cyan blue loveseat fitted next to Malcolm Marshall, son to Mr. Joe Marshall who had a long running show on KMEL radio, what at the time was the Bay Area’s premiere Hip Hop station called Street Soldiers that encouraged wayward youth of all persuasions to do better.

Kevin sat there, round eyed, hair long yet crowning his hair in waves that defied gravity in its majesty. The thing I remember most were what I'd learned would be his trademark headphones that he wore like a W.A.S.P. wears her favorite pearls everyday. He was a cool cucumber from the get. 

It was a Monday which was the day we held our editorial meetings. I was curious what this cat had to say.

We circled the motley seating and got down to business with an assortment of 20 or so writers and editors. We discussed the hottest topics of the day. What I was left with about Kevin, Philo to his friends, was that he was a quiet genius. He could tie events together that would appear incongruent to most.

In no time Kevin was a regular around the office in the Transbay Plaza across the street from the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco's Financial District. Boy, those were the days.

Picture it. It was the mid-nineties. All these foreigners weren't hear yet. The Bay was not besieged by mid western Hoosiers. Local talent actually had a shot at landing good jobs. I went from being a founding member of the youth paper I named YO! Youth Outlet to become Senior Editor of our monthly rag in a matter of 2 years. 

We were bumping shoulders with movers and shakers, from Maya Angelou, to Toni Morrison, Gloria Steinem, Pam Grier, Eric Benét, Robin Williams to the darn so-called inventor of the internet, Al Gore himself. 

Let's not discuss all the great places we could have lunch. Being in power positions during our lunch hours we sometimes run a couple hours long. We got to write these meal breaks off as brainstorming sessions. We'd hit up Pepito's just below our office that made the best burritos ever. 

I had phenomenal mentors like our Editor Nell Bernstein, Joan Walsh, Lisa Margonelli, Hugh Pearson and photographer Rick Racamora. Our most famous colleague Richard Rodriguez got famous for writing about bilingual education, ESL, Hunger of Memory, but he was never interested in assisting Black youth. 

Kevin and I had a special bond. We made the cover of the most popular paper in the world, USA Today, together. The topic was OJ Simon and we set the media and nation ablaze. 

Kevin actually got a chance to go on Rolanda, which was a popular talk show that rivaled Geraldo and Sally Jessica Rapheal. I was down south at a family reunion and wasn't answering calls which was just as well. I don't much like public speaking. 

Eventually, Kevin even made the New York Times. These gained him much respect from the young men in the office, particularly Russell Morse who hung around him like a puppy dog.

One memory sticks in my mind. I was all of 21, living in the Polk in my own studio. My rent was $525, I kid you not. I waited for the new Junior Mafia project with Biggie Smalls as I wrote a lot of Arts & Entertainment pieces. I copped one of the first copies of it from the Tower Records on Van Ness.

I called Philo on my landline and told him he had to come through and hear it. So, he slid by and I played the slaps. The stand out was Get Money. We loved it. It represented a change in zeitgeist from earning a living to just getting it by any means necessary. If you weren't born yet, you really missed out.

We smoked some bomb and climbed the fire escape to reach the roof. The view was gorgeous. We were feeling a little naughty so we looked in a few of my neighbors’ windows and laughed at the naked ones and lost it when we caught one jerking his chicken. 

The last time I saw Philo was at PNS reunion around 2010. He embraced me and pinched my cheeks. His soon to be wife Lateefah Simon who I interviewed for Ms. Magazine (She won a 6-figure prize being honored with a Mac Arthur Genius Award). 

It was great seeing the whole gang. I corresponded with him on messenger to let him know that I was praying for him and his family. Shortly before he passed away I posted a picture, chest out, chin up, hair long, arms akimbo. Kevin left a one word comment, DIVA. I was touched. I even shed a tear.

I couldn't make his services. Some homegoings are like that. I didn't want to break down in public withoutsomeonedesignatedtocomfortme. Kevin meant so much to those he crossed paths with. He was a leader. He made white boys like Russell Morse feel cool. It seemed like everyone wanted to claim a piece of Kevin. I preferred to step back and give the floor to Lateefah and their sweet baby girl. 

The Diva in Flatland Diva is all Kevin “Philo” Weston. It's my homage to him as Flatland is a moniker I acquired from Huey P. Newton's first paper that Sandy Close edited, The Flatlands.

Can you see how I'm a little miffed that Google and Yahoo are trying to erase me by removing my blog from its search engine yet every hate group under the sun gets love from Silicon Valley? I’m indigenous. You are all invaders to me.

Rest easy, Philo. In Jesus's name I pray, Amen.

Photo by Unknown 

Photo by Rick Rocamora

Photo by nephew to which Philo named me DIVA. Thanks for everything Kevin. Even the last meal of Chicken Masala we ate around the corner from the office when I was so manic you had to talk sense into me between bites of chicken and rice. Lol. Miss you. 

Let It Go: Afghanistan Must Stand On It’s Own

By Andrea N. Jones

Im an old tyme 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. 

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  has been apparent with the rise of Donald J. Trump.

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. 

Expect The Taliban to be a threatening fixture against the U.S. government for the next 100 years. They here, as it were..

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 niggas. 

RACISM IS REAL. BLACKS ARE ALONE. ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) stand alone.

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. 

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.

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. 

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?

I spoke to F. recently, at which time the hoe 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. 

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.

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. 

The only reason the government considered Afghans white in wide ranging comfortable was in order to boost white folks' census bureau numbers. Whites are very desperate to appear as a majority body politic.

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.

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. 

People say don’t poke a panther and they’re right. 👀👀

Chris Rock, Call Me: Why I Need To Date A Baller

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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. 

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??

I've just been lost.

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.

Now, I ain't saying I'm a gold digga. But I've definitely been messing with the wrong negus. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 

After all, a good conscious daughter helped turn this black man...

into this black man...

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. 

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.