Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Black love/hate

I just saw this post on an LJ I lurk on regularly, and honestly, there's not much else to be said about why the whole "Why the rap mysogyny hurts so much" debate:

What I don't know black men understand or even black women can articulate is this:

There is no new blackland. That is to say that there is nowhere in the world -- the ENTIRE WORLD -- where a black woman is the beauty standard. There is NOWHWERE where our skin is sang about, where our form is coveted, where our hair is rhaposized about. Nowhere. And, no, that is not black men's fault. But the matter, the real matter, is that if black men don't love us, NO ONE LOVES US. Hispanic men don't think their women are second best. You go to China and there is a Chinese ideal of beauty. Tell me this place where brown women who look like me, who look like your mother, are considered desirable by default.I

t may not be fair to lay the burden at the feet of black men, but that is all we have. We cannot make anyone else hear us and YOU are our last hope.

IF BLACK MEN DO NOT HONOR AND DESIRE BLACK WOMEN THEN THERE IS NOWHERE ELSE FOR US TO GO.

And that is a real, real, real truth. Real.Now keep it thus.

Amen.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

open letter

I'd forgotten I wrote this, but it seems...relevant somehow. Read at your own risk, of course. I tend to get TMI sometimes.


Apparently the Love Jones soundtrack, rain, getting off work early, and certain memories don't mix. Because they make me think of asking you things I know I shouldn't. They make me want to be brave and come in the door, kiss you senseless, and getting naked. I have this vision of us, a la Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs in Brown Sugar, or Sanaa Lathan and dude in Something New, all breathless and open-mouthed kisses. Not the pecks we give each other and I grew used to because you use too much tongue.

But I won't, because it's apparent I can't drive you senseless, and I'd feel too heavy on top of you, anyway, were we to fall to the floor or couch, etc., and you'd probably tell me I had a wedgie before I came through the door.

So I'm going to change the CDs in my car until the rain lets up, and just call myself the coward that I am.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

at least pride cometh before a fall...even if no one else does.

On my knees, doing the slow-drag and firm lick technique, actually getting into it, enjoying the feel of his hardening cock in my mouth, the sense of power that comes from bringing pleasure to a man that way, the subtle movement of his hips; awaiting the sigh that is the male equivalent of "Don't stop".

I'd gotten into a slight rhythm (okay, so it was the Sumthin' Sumthin' Mellosmoothe cut from the Love Jones soundtrack -- sue me; I mentally mark giving head to music), and was really feeling like "I've suprised my husband with some head on a lazy spring Sunday afternoon, what a good wife I am, and damnit, I'm gonna give him some good brain, too" (I was even thinking about moving into some 'Til the Cops Come Knocking' good-and-steady), when I heard it. The intake of breath, the tensing of his stomach muscles...

"Fuck! We forgot the lava rocks!"

So picture this: me, prepared to sweat my (newly pressed) hair out, kneeling before a man who, instead of being awed by my skills and generosity, has apparently been ruminating on the fact that we did not go to Lowe's today to get the lava rocks to go around the house -- his project for his week off of work.

Have things changed so much? I'm tempted to call my exes and ask them "Did you mentally change your oil while I was giving you head?" "Was all that moaning and ish a show, or were you expressing your dismay over the fact that you'd forgotten to pick up your dry cleaning?" I made a man's knees buckle once; extracted a penis from trousers without my hands.

And now my husband, sweet man that he is, is trying to make me feel better. "I'm just medicated," he says. "Maybe later?"

I may never perform fellatio again.

Friday, April 06, 2007

straight, no chaser

This week, I'll be doing something of an inadvertent social experiment: will people react to me differently now that my hair is pressed? And what will happen after I've gone back to the twists?

subject 1: fellow patron of my stylist's shop who said "Oh, now THAT looks nice! That looks really good on you! I just don't know how you do that nappy stuff!" I replied with a civil "Well, chemicals and heat damage my hair". It was clear that she was of the "Nappy is bad and why can't you just be normal and straighten your hair" camp.

subject 2: My mother, who insisted on taking several pictures of me and my hair in different light. It took her all of ten minutes to hint that maybe I should get a weave because "You work in a professional place." (i.e. "Nappy is unprofessional and you know you should have hair like white folks in order to work with them"). So i had to explaint (again) why I have the twists, and why it's better for my hair. And that my husband hates weave on me.

Subject 3: white female boss at work, who said, "Oh, your hair looks nice! Now, this is a different look too! So this is your hair straightened. (I had to explain to her about the hot comb and that my hair will be different again next week). I really like that look, but I like the other thing, braids? what do you call them? [me: "twists"] Yeah, twists. I like those too."

Subject 4: my husband, C. who said (to be fair, on his way to the bathroom to change after coming in from the gym) "Yeah, it looks nice." And when I proceeded to do the outraged vanity glare/pout because he didn't fall all over himself saying how gorgeous I am with the new hairstyle and why didn't we just stay home and he could help me sweat my hair out, just said, "what? it looks nice -- my shorts are soaked!"

I really love him sometimes.

I should have included myself as a subject because to be honest, I've conflicting feelings about this. I'm scared for my hair, because even on the best of days it's fragile and very soft and difficult. Smelling the heat on my hair yesterday made me want to jump out of the chair and run like hell.

On the other hand, I can't kid myself and make believe that everyone accepts my twists. They aren't at all what anyone (myself included) would consider 'sexy' and what most would call 'attractive'. My 'fro is cute, but I'm not really the Nia Long/Sanaa Lathan type that could rock it and be dead sexy. I just sort of try to make it look as neat as possible and keep it movin'.

But there's a part of me that knows that my straight hair is more acceptable -- especially here, in a white workplace. And beyond being 'acceptable', it's considered attractive and pretty and proper. Right.

Which means my hair, my real hair, in it's natural state -- is unacceptable, ugly. Wrong.

And while I find it amusing that the same guy from the 2nd floor who called my braids "medusa things" was practically on top of me, looking at my hair (I had to actually back away from him), gazing at it in wonder, saying "it's like a complete change!"

"It's called....it's just straightened."

I asked one of only two black men that work here "Is my hair really that fascinating?"

His knowing, said-with-a-laugh answer: "Must be. Looks good, though."

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Monday, April 02, 2007

Why one should have pens with lights on them...

So I went to bed early on Saturday night, despite our overnight guests still watching The Aristocrats downstairs until 2-something in the morning, and had the most interesting dream..

I was in a latino version of The White Rapper Show (sadly, no steamy sex with MC Serch), and was riding in an SUV, stressed over what to write. The challenge was to include rhymes containing a set of different, random themes/words, and mine was water. Somehow I came up with a refrain of 'nobody can drown you like yourself' and the images of being tied down and anchored, and when I woke up fully, it became a little more full, but with less detail, images of chains of slaves waving in the ocean literally, and ourselves in the figurative ocean, some anchored, some treading water, some swimming - trying to survive, all in the same sea where those people died. Songs glorifying the bottom of the ocean and the anchors that keep some of us there, and railing at those who manage to get loose and find the surface. Questions about why some of us swim and some just drown, and all of us are pushed in. I kept flashing back to this poem I started writing after Katrina entitled The New Atlantis. I think that's what I'll name this.

I wrote some of it down, but I'm afraid to go back and look for fear of what I wrote. What if it's just horrible? Everything seems brilliant at 4, 5 a.m. when you've just woken up and you're writing in the dark. What if it's beautiful and I can't read the damn thing?

Ugh. At least my muse has a sense of humor. I wish he had better handwriting.