My Warrior Princess

Some say I am supposed to redirect my daughters aggression when it is directed towards others. I do not feel the need to. She is who she is and I am not going to allow anyone to take that away from her. I was taught to be more like Dr. King and living my dream in my non-violent way makes me forget sometimes that I may have to fight for my dream. So when my warrior princess' father knocked me down I looked up at him dumbfounded. Until I realized hey maybe I need to fight back, and maybe I need to fight back in the only way I can. The way that is going to allow me to win. Yes winning is the key. My daughter will not grow up learning to self-destruct like her father because no one ever taught that she is supposed to fight with purpose. So maybe right now understanding that fighting is a part of life is something I can teach her until she is old enough to understand fighting for a purpose is so much more real.
Her father has no fight left in him. He has chanced upon a vampire whose main goal in life is to suck him dry so that he can never again think for himself and can only think with a member of his body that is manipulated by her sexual prowess as a woman. Therefore, he will never amount to being his better than now self. He can never realize that when someone is good for you, you elevate. you move up in levels whether they are spiritually, mentally, physically, or financially. And when he is with her he plummets in all four levels. Spiritually he can't build a relationship with God because he spends his time smoking drinking and partying not looking for divine light to right the wrongs in his life. Mentally he can't even take on the task of being a father to one of his children let alone all five of them. Physically he can barely run up and down the street and has a pot belly and i usually don't compare but the love of my life at his age had a six pack and loved to run and jog and encourage me to go with him. Financially on this date he has no job, lost his car, can't even have call waiting on his phone line and most definitely can't pay his little bit of child support that the state has deemed necessary for him to pay to his 1 child. Who knows what the other women are getting. In the words of King B, "Partna lemme upgrade you." As a woman it is the job and duty of her to elevate and uplift her man. He should not fall into holes of this magnitude when he is YOUR man. Obviously you are doing nothing right. Keeping him from the places he is supposed to be out of a simple desire to prove that you have won, but won what? What is the prize? That woman that can't help this man even get to his halfway mark let alone his best self obviously isn't the woman anointed by God to be this man's partner for life and while she is keeping him away from his appointed place the man for her is being kept away from her. They live in misery together. Finding sweet solace in the blunts they smoke that allow them to be able to enjoy each other's bodies in familiar ways, but once the laughs good times and smokes run out there is nothing but contempt for each other. Not the warmth and contentment he felt with the woman he was supposed to be with. Needing nothing more than her company. Words never needed to be said, it was the quiet enjoyment of togetherness that kept them from wanting to stay apart. He co-signed for cars for her when he had nothing for himself. Putting not one but two TVs in the car that she drove daily as he bought bus passes for himself while he paid the note. Later on down the line when given an opportunity to stay with any woman of his choosing, he chose to sleep in this very same woman's car while having a broken leg unable to find comfort. But whatever she didn't have materially she made of for with love, and words to reassure and up build him. Yes that woman was me, and no I never felt a need to fight. Not for most things. Fighting when necessary was only for my personal success. So maybe now I need to understand things in a different light. My daughter is my warrior princess because she needs to understand when and why she needs to fight. She needs to understand that fighting is not always a bad thing, because according to an old adage, If you stand for nothing...you fall for anything. I want her to stand tall for the best life she can have and if that means a little kick push here and there and I'm not talking about skateboarding then so be it. It is what it is, you get one life and we aim to make the best of it.

Today

Today I choose life by living in today. I used to be a person that wanted to revel in the memories of yesterday, regrets, and the what ifs? However staying in that frame of mind causes one to be left behind missing out on the treasures of today because how can you see whats in front of you if your head is turned backwards trying to imitate an owl stretching necks to distorted proportions.
Life is a journey and I intend to live it as such. When one is taking a tour around the world it is very rare that they turn around and revisit a place that they didnt particularly enjoy. And why revisit places when there are so many more places to see. On my journey of life i want to continue to move forward. Yes, I am human and like many have experienced disappointments. There is no blame to be placed on disappointments. Disappointments are merely an opportunity to get a look at another part of yourself, reflect and learn. That is the only way a person is able to get to their best self.
I believe now I am a champion. I am constantly winning in my life daily. overcoming small obstacles to attain my goals and even though I had my life mapped out there is only one map maker of lives and that is the creator. As with any map I am always given two forks in roads after i reach a certain point in my destination and until now I have always chosen the side of the road that seemed easier out of fear of the unknown. Today I understand that. I also understand I will continuously be given this fork in the road that seems to totter on the verge of self destructive behavior until I make better choices. I can say that today because that is the intent I have now. That is to make better choices and to move in a deliberate way.
When my journey is over I want to have a feeling of relief in my life that I have lived the way I wanted to. I have been a wonderful mother and a best friend to my daughter. An example to those that needed one. A giving humanitarian who may or may not have had gobs of money to spare to those in need, but when the time came I gave my time, my energy and my self when I had nothing else to give because maybe one person could relate to me and I could help make thier journey a little bit more bearable when times weren't so easy. An educator, a caregiver, a success, and if it is possible a loving wife.
I live for today. I cannot correct the mistakes of my past, but I can be a better person today than i was yesterday and aim to be even better tomorrow. Isnt that what life is about? My belief is that it is about making the necessary changes to creating the best possible experience for yourself, because if you don't believe in yourself who else will? And I believe in me!

Intercultural Relationships Strengthened by the Internet

Over the past three months I have taken the time to explore relationships over the internet through various websites. The website where I did more cross-cultural relationship building was on myspace. Here is where I was able to comment on the various posts of a teenage girl starting her first year of high school and we began to build and pick up on a relationship where we left over a year ago.
It began with a simple posting of pictures on her space. Having remembered the young lady she was just last year a bubbly teenager, with a feisty spirit and punk rocker identity it amazed me to see her in a dress for her high school homecoming. It was interesting to see her grow up in such a short period of time and look more like a young woman than the girl she was just last year.
I began commenting on her pictures and updates and we began to talk about the newest addition to my family by way of the baby growing in my belly. Her mom was having her coordinate my baby shower so it was an effective means of communication for the both of us. I was able to talk about my fears, joys and excitements of having this baby while getting more information on how she was doing her first year of high school.
If it weren’t for the internet there would have been no sharing in this manner. There would not be a sense of bonding that we shared by way of these conversations we had via myspace mail. I am not really a big phone person all the time. I talk when I want to talk, but sending a message and receiving one back is a little bit easier for me in order for me to keep lines of communication open with someone that I would probably not ever have sat down to have a phone conversation with.
I was most often at home when I had my conversations and that did not effect what was being said. It is more so the method of being able to communicate that matters most. I could have been on the bus, which is the case most days these days, because of no longer having a laptop at home. I could have been sitting in a classroom waiting for a professor to come in. The conversation would have taken the twists and turns it did no matter what.
I believe this medium had the effect of breaking down walls and age barriers. While there may have been no reason for me to call this young girl sending a message commenting on her pictures got a good conversation flowing.
In many ways the effect of our being able to communicate in this way was that we were able to bridge a generational gap. I could understand some of the things she told me she was dealing with in her first year of high school. I could offer my advice about her dating so soon exclusively. We could share laughs about how big my belly and other parts of my body have grown since having gotten pregnant. Because of our conversations shared over the internet there was no reason for me to think her comments stemmed from disrespect, it was just a familiarity that I had allowed in my conversations with her which I of course thought nothing of because when young ones feel comfortable with an older person it may very well help keep them out of a dangerous situation because they know there is someone they can talk to if they feel uncomfortable talking to their parents.
I enjoyed this process of using the internet for social networking. I have opened doors, and created relationships I would have never thought I would have created and now have resources in which to keep the relationships flowing.

I am a consumer of popular culture

In my room there isn’t much hanging around because I am still unpacking and moving and getting my room prepared for something bigger. However I kept art in my room when it was fully furnished of African American art. Many pieces were part of my collection that showed black people in motion. I do have nikes and many Jordan’s in my collection of sneakers because I am a part of the era of the bulls when they reigned as champions for three years, and took time off and became champions again for three consecutive years. I have my IPOD dock sitting on my dresser so that I can have access to my music wherever I go. Apart from that there is nothing that I can look around that makes me feel as if my motivations for decorations has been provided by pop culture. I take a step out into my living room because maybe that will provide me with a little more to work with. However, when I go into my living room I look at my flat screen HDTV and know that buying a TV that large and of that quality has definitely been motivated by pop culture. I would not watch much television if it were not for visitors in my home. I prefer the lull of music taking me into another world while I search for things on the internet. Almost everything else in my living room has a classic feel. The Italian leather sofa and loveseat set, and a contrasting coffee table compliments the large bright earth toned painting of a tulip that hangs above my loveseat. The African art adds to the comfortable feel which makes me sigh with relief whenever I step foot in my apartment because at last I have made it home. The play station that never gets used is definitely a part of popular culture. There are constant commercials on television to catch the attention of gamers so that they are willing to buy a game console and I happened to get caught up in the hype and purchased one that I used to play more frequently than I do now. I know I am at a stage of my life where there is only one thing that really matters to me, so the choices I make are motivated by this one thing. However, just one year ago popular culture was my life. I would take my own spin on what was popular to make my own identity with it. Therefore, my apparel was heavily motivated by the desire to be. Be what one may ask? To be me. I have an extensive collection of sneakers that I bought because they were part of the hip-hop culture and helped me stay true to my B-girl nature. I also really only wore designer jeans and T-shirts with funky logos and sneakers. Like I said before I have a few Jordan’s and a couple of pairs of Nikes, but for the most part I have a lot of Adidas, Creative Recreations, and Supras to complement my “kicks” collection that was a part of the popular culture that mattered to me. It took a long time for me to buy the Nike brand for social reasons. I know that the workers were getting paid minimally to create these shoes for popular mass consumption. I also at one point in my life worked for the company and left the job after I felt that the beliefs they upheld were different from my own. I try to be socially conscious but most of the time I am drifting in my mind so it is difficult for me to actually do so. I guess even though I try to be an individual I am a product of popular culture because in many ways it has played a role in the decisions I have made in my past about how to look, and what to purchase. I shake my head in disbelief because I could’ve sworn I was different.

Silence has the power to be so LOUD!

Sometimes the use of silence can convey a message loud and clear. Using silence can sometimes make a statement for another person. It may be a way of saying I am displeased with your actions, I am so intuned with my thoughts, or I really do not have anything useful that can be said. For the past year I have useed my own silence. Not so much because I don’t have much to say but because the level of grief I have been going thru made me feel as if my mouth was filled with cotton, and nothing would come out except soft puffs of it. There were only two people I would talk to regularly otherwise I was quiet. However, recently I have become more interested in speaking. There is a little one that is living in my belly, and I understand thru my many google searches that she can hear my voice now. Therefore, I use my voice for melody, and for having small conversations with her even when I don’t feel like it because I want her to be familiar with language and speech even in the womb. However, I seem to lose my motivation for speaking, yes me the chatterbox, when her father is around. I also am able to notice when I am in various classes there are always times when the professor seems to be hanging on to a thin piece of rope hoping that someone is willing to answer the question that has just been presented to the class. There is always a person in the class that has the answer to everything, and just as you wish that this person would allow the silence to overtake the room to give yourself a chance to allow the question to marinate and respond, he/she blurts out their opinions. I am sure the professor is relieved there is a student like this in the room. Silence, though, can be more inviting than speech sometimes. It gives an opportunity for a person to be at one with their thoughts. It also allows a person to make a powerful statement. For example, it would be easier for me to tell a person who tells me they love me nothing at all than to say sorry I do not feel the same way. It just softens the blow of reality. Silence is powerful and should therefore be used wisely.

Grandma's Journey

She sits in her personal chair because it is the only chair in the house that provides enough support for her back. She keeps her eyes glued to my belly with a smile on her face, she has lived her seventy years and will be able to see another great grandchild bron into this world. So I begin to ask her questions. These are questions I know the answer to because my grandmother is someone I talk to quite frequently. I ask her all the time how was life when she was younger because I need to have these stories to tell to the little girl who is still developing inside my belly. So I ask her where did our ancestors originally come from. She tells me that for as long as she can remember they were in Mississippi. She knows that she was familiar with her family being sharecroppers which were what blacks did after slavery which in many ways was another form of slavery because it kept black families in debt. They worked and worked to try to repay a debt that just kept building up. She recalls that her grandmother was very fair skinned and could pass for white, which explains her light coloring. I can infer that one of her ancestors was white and who knows how my great-great grandmother came into this world and from what type of relationship. However, she says this was her background. A southern one with deep and close-knitted roots.

My grandmother got pregnant at a very young age. She was fourteen. In those days it was important for that woman to be married to the man who got her pregnant, because my great-grandfather was not one to allow his daughter to be unmarried with a baby. My grandfather and grandmother wed when my grandmother was fourteen and my grandfather was eighteen, but all this was happening in the early fifties. My grandmother already was considered a woman because her mother died at such a young age that it then became my grandmothers responsibility to take care of her 9 younger brothers and sisters. My grandfather and grandmother after some time decided to relocate to Chicago because there were more opportunities for my grandfather to make more money. In addition to that there were many of their friends doing the same thing. So they built a community of southerners in Chicago on the southwest side of Chicago which we refer to now as West Lawndale.

Unfortunately, slave records do not show where many African Americans originally came from so when I ask my grandmother did our family surname change, all she can tell me is that she came from a line of Jacksons. Jackson was more than likely either a name that a freed slave decided upon for themselves or a name that was given to them by a slave master.

Being that my grandmother was born in the thirties racial discrimination was at its peak. This was an era of lynching, leading into Jim Crow, and in Mississippi, the heart of the south racial discrimination was prevalent. "I knew I was (black) there was no question about that. From my youth there was constant conversation about the white man this, the white man that. Blacks were mainly just thought of as the white man slaves on his plantation. We couldnt even go on thier side of town. We couldnt go to the same movie, and restaurant they went to. They had the signs that said white restaurants and colored restaurants. Even the Deli. When you were born you were taught that there were certain things you couldn't do. I Knew that there was a certain place, but never paid much attention to it because all my aunties looked like they were white. One of my Aunts was a cook in one of the white houses and I would play in the white houses. It was different in my town of Pace because the slavery wasn't as deep as the other towns. My experience was different because I never lived on a plantation. My father worked for the railroad and momma and daddy did their sharecropping and we had our own small plantation and that land was where the house was built that I grew up in."

Grandma said that while she was younger she didnt have to deal much with discrimination. Her father had a car and since they couldnt do much in thier own town they would go to Cleveland to go shopping. If a black person, like my great grandfather, had money they could shop at the department stores in Cleveland. The biggest form of discrimination was not being able to go into the stores and restaurants that the whites went into. The biggest form of discrimination I noticed from my grandmothers conversation was when she started my conversation. She was telling me how her brother and her was just talking about the time that he stole a bundle of cotton from a white man's farm and had to leave the country. There was no telling what would have happened to them if they had been caught but since that was a time of lynching they could have gotten a punishment that heavy or maybe just beaten badly.

That was my grandmothers history. She was a product of the times, but she didnt really feel the negative effects as much as many of her other friends that she can remember. She said she had a '63 Ford when she was 16. Her father bought her the car while she was married to my grandfather already. She has a wealth of knowledge but these were some of the most interesting things she shared with me. Her journey is quite special because it is definitely something that I learn about when I learn about my history, but coming from someone who was actually there to witness it adds another element to it. It is definitely stories I intend to share with my baby girl.

Kanye's Acts of Egoism vs. Altruism

What happens when a person fails to consider the accomplishments, feelings, and acts of thier fellow wo.man? Well you get an ooops moment like that of Kanye West at the MTV awards in his ranting tirade of his own personal opinions about another's artistry. Yes Ye we know that you got into architecture and design a couple years back after staying in Milan and Tokyo and seeing the differences in thier design and culture. We all know how much of a hip-hop fashionist leader he is. However, when he became a top video director IDK. I say this because he just took Taylor Swift's emotions and trampled them like a trail of ants en route to bringing a scarce piece of bread back to the anthill. His tirade of words were just like a bored child running thier foot along the trail of ants. The poor girl stood there as if someone had just named her prom queen and the king came along and told her she was too ugly to stand by his side so he was going to call his first choice on stage. It was like a high school moment gone bad. Well I would call myself one of Kanye's biggest fan because I have been a Ye follower since he was underground mainly doing songs with Consequence, Talib, little brother and other undergrund artists that don't get much mainstream light, but his opinion this time was out of line at that moment. After my initial shock and reaction I was able to empathize with called by many tackless and tasteless and i have to agree. In the words of Frank Lucas care of Denzel Washington, "the loudest one in the room is the weakest one in the room." Weak from grief, weak from misunderstandings, weak from being great, or weak from carrying around an inflated ego we will never know. Only the confines of Kanyes mind will be able to tell that story.
It looks as if many are interested in crucifying him right now. He didn't learn from the Bush moment? Taking attention from those victims of Katrina to say what we as the world had already come to understand, but we thought he learned there was a time and a place for everything. Well I for one am always willing to look at the bigger picture. When people dwell in the city of hurt and pain many things are liable to come out of thier mouth and while our minds are moving too fast to press pause on our mouths we look back and wish we had a fairy God mother that would have just taken the remote of life out of our hands and pressed pause rewind and put a teleprompter in our tunnel vision with just the right words. Kanye's act of altruism on the Jay Leno show when his humility seemed to overtake him as the emotion of thinking "what would mom think" almost sent him spiraling into breakdown mode. He pulled it together well, and explained that sometimes pain causes reactions we are not able to understand. I understand. I have had a couple of Kanye moments over the past year hurting people that actually love and care for me because of irrational words coming from a place of hurt, and wishin/ praying there was a rewind button of life that would allow me the opportunity to do it all over again, just a little bit differently. Maybe, just maybe, Kanye has learned his lesson this time. Maybe, just maybe, he will decide now is the time to grow up and consider the feelings of others. Maybe, just maybe, he has realized this is not his universe he's just one a lone star in a series of star clouds and he alone is not going to make that cloud shine, but it is a group effort. Maybe, just maybe, now he'll take the time to commit to the difficult task of grieving for his mother. Grieving, I know first hand, is difficult because it makes pain, what humans tend to run from, a reality. There is, in a sense, a losing of a piece of ones self in saying goodbye to the one person who loved you more than anything else in this world. Nothing can compare to losing a parent but especially one whom you shared a body, life and a cord that inevitably never seems to be broken figuratively, although is literally cut the moment you begin gasping your own air. But, anyway, I digress. Kanye was wrong. That was that. But if we as a society can communicate our distress over Kanye being human and further assasinate his character, why can't we forgive him for the same imperfection?