au naturel

i have a black girlfriend who wears her hair natural. sometimes it's in twists, sometimes it just...there. lately her hair has been looking kind of....rough. and i feel like bringing it up somehow, that maybe it would look a little better if she did this or that to it. i feel weird about it because my hair relaxed. i don't want to give the impression that the only reason why i think it doesn't look good is because it's not relaxed. granted, i honestly don't like the way natural hair looks-sad, i know. there's just not much you can do with it, besides braids, twists or a 'fro. what if those are my style?

i digress.
i just think she could care for it differently to make it look better in it's natural state. for some reason though, i just feel like i don't have the right to say anything because i'm not "natural". I honestly put that in the same category as a white person telling a black person how to style their hair. how dare i try to give her tips and advice when i've never worn my hair natural?

white girl-again

i got called "white girl" again. by now i'm used to it. that's just who i am, obviously. i'm a black woman who is always mistaken for someone who think she's white. that's the perception of me and i've accepted that although i don't agree with it.

i got called that by someone who has no college education, and she only eats fattening soul food (because of course, eating healthy is for white folks, right?). by the way, i can't stand when black people refuse to make healthy changes in their lives because they're afraid it's too "white".

last night i lay in bed and thought about the fact that my whole life--- my WHOLE LIFE i've been labeled as 'trying to act white' and i 'talk white'. but what i couldn't really figure out is WHY. why do i sound white when i talk? i'm not talking about just speaking proper english. i know plenty of black people that speak proper english but when i hear them, they still sound (stereotypically) "black" to me. but when i talk, i truly sound like a white person. if someone heard me talking on the phone who had never met me, without a doubt they'd think i were white. maybe i just don't have that 'bass' in my voice, as a character in a Will Smith movie once said.

i mean, i could blame it on my (white) city/environment, but then what about the other black people here who don't sound like me? so i'm not sure why i sound the way i do. and i don't even have to try to sound "white". i just do. ironically, i have to make an effort to sound black. how weird is that?

and despite what the people who have called me "white girl" may think, i have never tried to attract white friends because of the way i talk. however, i do think that the way i talk inadvertently attracts white people to me ( more than to other black women) which is likely why i have so many white friends.

the way i talk just feels so normal to me. people think i'm trying to talk this way, which is just not true.

stamps

i went to the post office today. i went to the window and asked the guy if he could mail my two pieces of mail and that i also needed to buy about 10 stamps. normally, i'm not picky about the stamps i buy. i like any black heritage usually. but i really DON'T care. they're just stamps.

but for some reason today, i was a little...what-irritated, i guess? the guy hands me sheet with "Kwanzaa" and some emblem on the stamps. since i don't do Kwanzaa, i just didn't really want those. i know, i know. who cares? i usually don't. so i told the man, 'eh....can i get some other stamps?' he hands me some stamps with Arabic writing. i think it was some type of Arabic holiday type stamp. no, i did not really want those either. wtf?

then he hands me some Hanukkah type of stamp. i guess he figured since i turned down the "black" and the middle eastern holiday stamps, i must just want a Hanukkah stamp. i thought he must of just been trying to piss me off. or not.

i guess i do care what type of stamp i buy. i mean, if i don't "subscribe" to Kwanzaa, why would i want that on my mail? i mean, would a (serious) jew want christmas stamps? i have no idea. i guess i just don't want my mail to do any other speaking for me than what's already in the envelope.

i finally just settled on some plain, usps stamps.

ads

i was bored at work yesterday and decided to peruse through Yahoo "personals", just for fun. i think it's interesting and fun to see who in my age group is desperate enough to use that service, and also who i may recognize. so i set the search options for male, 33-45 years old, african-american, portland-vicinity. i was shocked but no, not really that shocked at the prospects that came up.

the most interesting thing to me was that most of these black men lived in the outskirts, such as beaverton, tigard, and aloha. i didn't know there were that many black men living out there...but i guess with the gentrifying white yuppies taking over the inner northeast, there aren't a lot of choices left except for the outskirts for some blacks.

i also noticed that the prospects- about 108 of them, were pretty pathetic looking. i mean, i realize that not every black man in the portland area does yahoo personals, but the ones who do do it look pretty raggedy(sorry!). most of them were physically unattractive looking. a lot of them had pseudo-names like "sly" or "slick cat". some of them looked like thugs. one of them had a tag line that read: 'when i love, i love with my whole heart and when i hate, it's forever'. what the hell!!?? the rest of the tags lines from the other men weren't much better.

i looked at the ads objectively, like, if i were "looking", who i'd pick. not a ONE. they all basically looked raggedy. i know, i know, you can't judge a book by it's cover. but when people place those ads, the "cover" is what they're banking on.

my impression of those guys was that they were definitely the picked-over leftovers. although i didn't peruse the white guy ads, but i'd venture to guess it was the same deal. it made me really glad that i am married and NOT in the dating scene looking for a black man. i'd be pretty depressed if i were.

treyshauyn

why are black people STILL naming their kids these made up, hard to pronounce, hard to spell, and hard to understand names? we all know the stereotype- shaniqua, tyrone, latrell, and on and on. you'd think black people would stop. i'm not advocating for names like becky or meagan or amy or suzie. but what's up with these made-up black names with the apostophes (tra'shara)?

if you have a kid in school, you might see it on a daily basis like i do. just walking through the halls of the school i see names like Dontrayl, raykeshyia, shontayie,etc. i'm only partly knocking the name because of its stereotype ( i do realize that SOME black names have african roots. but come on-some of them are just ridiculous!). but mainly it's the spelling of it. why do these parents have to come up with the most nonsensical way to spell it? isn't the name itself already unique? does their child really need to go through life correcting everyone who tries to pronounce it?

my girlfriend i had had dinner the other night and discussed the fact that despite there being common jokes about black names, people are still naming their kids these names-well, as of 5 years ago, at least. and this the point of my post. who are these people?! do they live under a rock? is it just the uneducated black people? do they really still think that shameika is a good choice? haven't they heard about the studies conducted that show that people who submitted their resumes with weird, hard-to-pronounce names seldom got call-backs?

why would anyone still name their child a name like Devaste? (de-va'-stay)? no matter how professional you are, there are people in corporate america who wont even give a resume a second thought when they see a name like that. have we not learned anything by the year 2008 already?

coincidence

i've been shopping a lot lately, probably more than i should have. since i live on the northeast side, i shop on the northeast side too. i guess i'm a regular at lloyd center, jantzen beach, and the new airport way shopping area, all of which have Ross Stores. interestingly enough, in the last month, i've been inside all 3 of those stores. today, while i was at the jantzen beach Ross, i came to the realization: all three of those stores have a big, dark skinned black man standing in front wearing a "loss prevention" jacket. not necessarily security, but loss prevention.

if portland had a high number of black people, i probably wouldn't have given it a second thought. but is it a coincidence that the three Ross stores in northeast portland have a tall, dark skinned black man for their "loss prevention"? what does that say about Ross?

is the typical shopper afraid of a big black man standing in the front of the store-so intimidated that they will think twice about stealing? or did the store choose to hire a big black man because [they think] he can run fast and catch a thief? or is there a high number of black shoplifters that the store thinks will suddenly grow a conscience when they see 'one of their own' protecting the store? i'm not sure what to make of it.

granted, we all know that a large black man is more intimidating (to white people) than a large white man. even a lanky, nice looking black man (like the ones working at Ross) will be "scarier" than a big, mean, burly white man. we know this. i guess i'm just wondering what Ross' reason is for making sure they ALL (at least on my side of town) have black men guarding the store.

(not that i'm complaining about black men being employed! this is good!)

Changes, Part II

you might remember this post a while back about movie theaters in portland, oregon.

so i thought it would be fun tonight to get a couple friends together and go see the new Tyler Perry movie. as i looked through the listings to find which theater i wanted to go to, i once again noticed that the only place on the northeast side of town (where the majority of people of color live) where this "black movie" is playing is at the lloyd mall. once again, another "black movie" relegated to the mall with the mallrats, kids and transients. it's okay for black people to make a scene there, where we won't tarnish anyone's opinion of the biker happy, green, liberal, sustainable portland.

the other 8 or so locations playing the movie are way far out. sure, there are black people who live waaay out on the outskirts, but not many. and sure, white people will want to see it as well. but COME. ON. there are many movie theaters in NE portland and downtown (not far from NE) that could show the movie. why do we have to drive way out of the area to see it?

it's clear that someone obviously doesn't want a large group of black people anywhere in the NE area "causing a scene" and "disrupting" all the new white yuppies now living in NE gentrifying the old black neighborhoods, or bother any of the existing 'quiet' white folks. and are they assuming that there aren't any non-people of color in the inner NE who want to see the movie?

why else would the movie only be shown at places such as gresham, milwaukie and hillsboro? most of the people who are most interested in seeing it likely live in NE. why do i have to drive way out to do it? why are they so afraid of black people being in one place? this is not some controversial malcolm X movie, or MLK type racial film. they don't have to worry about there being a riot or looting. it's racist because someone assumes that when a bunch of black people are together in one area, we will act like the stereotype- rioting, loud, rude, disorderly and whatever else.

portland.

respite

i've been away for awhile. i needed time to sort out whether i even wantd to blog this anymore. i don't even know if i still have readers. but inevitably, things happen which cause me to think. about race. in portland. but the summer respite was nice.

i feel like i'm SUCH a (bad) product of the lack of good radio stations in portland. lately, i feel like i despise black music. it's stupid. it's so simple minded-it's either about 'making slow looooove baby' or it's about 'shaking that thang'. period. that's all black people sing about. or is it that that's the only non-white music the radio stations in portland play?

i know there's better r & b out there. but i've been conditioned to despise it. if i don't watch BET on cable (which, by the way should be boycotted because of it's total degradation of black women and black people in general...but wait! It's the only channel us black people have!!) and i'm too old for MTV, how would someone go about finding good soul music out there?

seriously. it all sounds the same. it all sounds like R.Kelly whining about making love, making love, making love, making love...UGH! and don't get me started on the ghetto moms i see dropping their kids off at school with their slippers and rollers BLASTING that slow, lovemaking, baby-baby music at 8am in the morning.

so typical. that's another post though.

idiot

i was over at grant park, mingling with about 4 other white moms whom i had just met. we were in line to sign up for swimming lessons and we were all talking about our kids and life, and then the discussion turned to hair. i actually wasn't saying a whole lot in the conversation when one of the moms started talking about those foamy pink rollers from back in the day, and how hideous they made her hair look. she turned to me and said, "you probably never had to worry about that, huh?" and then she looked uncomfortable like she thought maybe she had put her foot in her mouth.

i've probably never had to worry about that, huh? oh nooooo. never. never have i EVER tried to do any type of styling with my hair. in fact, i've never even heard of pink spongy rollers. this idea is completely foreign to me. us black people don't ever do stylish things to our hair.

hello. woman. what an idiot. i'm sure she meant nothing by it, but it just shows how ignorant some white people can be when it comes to what they think about black people. so then i started explaining about my hair, yadda, yadda, yadda, how i have it chemically relaxed, and yeah, i have attempted to curl it with rollers in my past thirtysomething years. another one of the white moms chimed in to say how she would 'die' for hair like mine. really?

let's think about that for a minute. she'd 'die' for what- my relaxed hair (which is actually in imitation of hers)? or the kinky stuff? which one?

i responded with "really???? REALLY???" and educated her on the fact that my hair, in it's natural state does not look like halle berry's or alicia keys, but more like jill scott's or macy gray. now. let's talk about how you could die for that.

and then i had to do some serious soul searchng--why is it that i assume that someone white would NEVER want my hair? is it really that bad? it must be, afterall, we (black people) don't even want it.

gawk

today was another sporadic sunny day in portland, so of course i took the opportunity to be out and about. i went to see a friend and we went walking around the neighborhood. a car with some black guys drove by and they about broke their necks looking at us walking along the sidewalk.

i promise you this isn't going to be another post about black men gawking and doing the 'yo baby what's up' thing. at first i thought, here we go again, with the black men and the gawking. and then i realized that i do the same thing without even realizing it. only i do it because once upon a time in portland, it seemed like we (the black people ) all knew each other. literally. when i was a kid, it was rare that i would go out to the store and see someone black and not know whose mom or dad or sister or brother it was. but back in those days (mmmm...around 1980-1990-ish) most black people lived on the northeast side. now it seems like we're all over portland more so than before.

so i guess it's just out of habit that when i see someone black, i take notice of them to do a mental face-scan to decide whether or not i know them. lately there are a lot more black people that i don't know because of portland growing so much.

so, i did kind of give those guys the benefit of the doubt. instead of ragging on them about being some sorry gawking losers, i thought maybe they just thought they knew me.

redemption

two of my best (black) girlfriends and i decided to go hang out in the Pearl district this weekend. we had a great time, and i realized how much more confident i feel around white people due to Obama being so popular. i mean, being black has never really stopped me from going where i wanted to, but occasionally i feel a little bit out of place or like i don't belong in some of the less ethnic areas. but yesterday was just different.

we were crossing an intersection where we had the walk signal and even though the car was stopped, we were all doing a sort-of run/walk, like we shouldn't have even been trying to cross the street in the first place. and then my friend asked, 'why are we running? we have the walk signal. when you see white people crossing the street, walk signal or not, they always walk like they own the street and KNOW that no one better not hit them'. we laughed about it jokingly but thought that we knew it was true.

it seems like so many people have embraced Obama- both black AND white. so this weekend when us three black young women were walking around in the Pearl, i felt like i was 100 percent equal with any white person there. i already KNOW we're equal, but it doesn't always feel that way, especially in an upscale area like the Pearl district. but now that a black man has the favor of so many people, it feels a little bit like he's redeeming the good, educated, hard-working black people that always get lumped in with the bad, uneducated, lazy black people who perpetuate the stereotype.

dress

now that the sun has come out in portland-albeit intermittently, i've pulled out my summer gear. i also have been out shopping. i didn't realize how truly anal i am about what i wear. when i decide what to wear or what to buy, about 90 percent of my decision is based on whether it makes me NOT look ghetto-fabulous. when most women are paranoid about whether what they wear makes their butt look huge, i'm paranoid that i'll look ghetto.



i can't stand that look of--well the look of black women that have their nails all done, their toes all done, their hair all done, wearing the most trendy, Forever21-style, borderline-club-gear on. the immediate impression i get is that they probably don't have a dime to their name.



so i'm constantly walking that fine line of trying to look tastefully stylish, but not too stylish for fear of falling into that "look" category. i didn't realize how much i was overthinking what i wear without even realizing it, until today, when i almost made my child late for school because of it. only then did it finally dawn on me-that in the back of my mind, i've been having this conversation in my head about how un-ghetto-fabulous i want to look. all the stereotypes of black women depict us with our hair fresh from the salon pressed bone-straight, with tight, provocative clothes, gold rings on our fingers, and long, acrylic nails. and i alway cringe when i see the black girls looking like that. i always think to myself : don't they know? don't they look in the mirror and see the stereotype? are they really that clueless?


so the complicated part is that i don't want to look like i have no style, but of course i want to look good. and everyone that i know with money doesn't "look" like they have money. but you can always tell good quality clothing. i would say my style is somewhere along the lines of Abercrombie and fitch meets the Gap. sorta. so i guess i just try to keep it simple but stylish, forgetting the acrylic nails (those were long forgotten) and the big gawdy earrings. i like my toes, clean and neat with a light coat of sheer pink.

i know that people will form whatever opinions they want to about a black woman regardless of what we wear, but if i can help it, i will.

unsure

i just got back from an extended vacation visiting my 2 older brothers in West Virginia. it's weird, there's so many MORE professional black people there than there are in portland. i didn't get those you-sound-so-white-when-you-talk looks from other black people like the way i do in portland. instead, they just assume you're one of the professional black people like themselves. but the funny thing is, there are still the country-ghetto-uneducated people there, too, and they're REALLY country.

i also realized that i don't always know what offends people of other races. you'd think someone black would be SO polically correct. i guess that just because i know what offends black people doesn't necessarily mean i know what offends people of other races.

when i got home, my next door neighbor, this really hip asian guy dyed his naturally black hair blond. my first reaction was to say, "you totally look like one of those asian tourists!" it was on the tip of my tongue before i stopped and thought: wait- is that offensive? i honestly didn't know. i know what comments are offensive to black people (of course) but not so much other people. is that weird? that's probably why when a white person gets called out about some racist remark they said, they always reply by saying "whaaaaat??" and everyone thinks they should automatically know what they said was wrong. not that i'm making excuses for them, not at all. but i can see how it could happen.

do white people ever get offended by subjective racist statements about themselves? and i can't remember any white people that i know of or in the media ever saying that they were offended by some kind of underhanded racial comment. seriously.

the thing is

i get emails from people who literally either love me or hate me. it's never really in-between. and it's funny because i'm just writing thoughts through my eyes. so it's not anything conjured up for a reaction (although i usually get some kind of reaction).

what's really curious is that before i started this blog, i had one of those social/mommy/hodgepodge blogs where i'd try to come up with some interesting topic all the time. i guess my goal was to get as many readers as i could. it worked for a while, until i just burned out. i started to think it was too contrived. i thought i was just writing for myself, but wondered why was i putting so much effort into something that no one read. so then i'd try all these things like, having a cool layout. or linking other blogs. or catchy titles or gadgets or widgets or pictures just to get people to read it. until i realized that it was taking way too much energy. and it wasn't really positive energy. it felt like work and it was stressful if i thought that not enough people were reading it. and it just consumed my brain all the time. everything i did was an effort to get inspired for cool blog post that would attract readers.

so i bagged that blog. and decided that i did have things i wanted to say, but it didn't really fit into the type of social blogging that i was doing. i decided that i had all these thoughts about this or that, things you can't just say to people -and i could put it into a blog. and honest-to-god didn't care who would read it, i just wanted to get my raw thought out there.

so how ironic it is to me, that without even trying, i get more readers and dialoguing on this blog than i ever did when i was trying so hard on the old blog to get people to read what i was talking about. which is why i don't even fuss with some really cool layout, or anything catchy. if people were going to read it, i just wanted them to read the stripped-down version of what i was saying without the distractions.

and no, i'm not going to link to anyone from my site. i'm not trying to promote anyone or anything----why would i when i'm not even promoting myself? i even feel kind of______(for lack of a better word) when people link to me on their blogs. my first thought is, okay that's great, but what's going to happen when one day i write about my rawest (is that a word?) thought and they don't like it? then will they unlink me? it's almost like pressure to perform or something. like they're telling their readers that they recommend this "great" blog. and i'm just writing about nothing, really. and i'm afraid that i'll go back to writing just to impress people (which i really, really, really don't want to do again).

okay i guess i really digressed.

some of my emails tell me that i must 'hate' myself, i 'need help' et cetera, et cetera. i don't agree at all. why? because i'm functioning. if i couldn't function in different social situations or if any of my insecure thoughts inhibited me from living life somehow, or made me some sick demented person, well then i could see getting help. just what exactly would 'help' do for me that i am not already doing? and what kind of help is that, exactly? since when is it not okay to have *thoughts* (besides dangerous, suicidal, or immoral)? i'm living life to the fullest of my ability. and i know for a fact that my thoughts are not any worse than MANY people. i've never struggled with depression or any type of mental illness which is a lot more than i can say for many people. i actually feel kind of proud of that fact. seems kind of rare these days for someone to not be on ANY meds at all. but yeah, that's me. i feel lucky that way.

i'm just saying what people think about all the time. this will sound cliche, but nobody is perfect. so no matter how politically correct you think you are, or how progressive you feel, if you blogged about the first thought that popped into your head, it would likely sound like the things i say.

akin

so, i have this female co-worker/kinda friend, who's involved in a live-in relationship with a he/she. that is, a guy who used to be a girl. both my co-worker and the he/she person have ISSUES from their past. like, they both grew up with screwed up parents in dysfunctional homes with abuse and abandonment, drugs use, and everything in between.

aside from all that, my (white) co-worker has a young child with a black man, who is a total deadbeat, pot-smoking, duii-convicted, loser. he's just barely in the picture, and when he is, it's a headache. anyhow, i got to thinking about the young daughter my co-worker has, and how this bi-racial (maybe i should just say black) girl is being raised in such a chaotic lifestyle.

my first thought, and i have to be honest here, was: that poor little black girl. yah, it's sad for any child to grow up in some weird kind of lifestyle with parents that have issues. but to me, if the child were white, i might stop for a minute and say 'so sad for that child...' and then keep going. but to me, it's sadder that that child is a little black girl, raised by two white people (who can't truly relate to her black side -the side which she'll need the most relating-no matter how hard they try) who are in a very non-traditional lifestyle/relationship. and i can't really put a finger on why exactly i feel so strongly that the part about her being black is so distressing to me.

maybe it's because i remember what it was like to be confused and feel out of place because i didn't quite fit in with the "real" black people or many of the white people (well, i seemed to fit in with the white people a little more for a while, but that's a different post. plus, even though i fit in more with my white friends, i still didn't trakinuly relate to them as much). and i'm not biracial and didn't come from a wacky home environment.

or maybe i just think that there are enough issues with black children without having one in the mix of that environment. but even those reasons doesn't really explain why i feel the way i do.

diversity

lately i've spent a lot of time lurking on local portland forums discussing the portland public school issue. trying to figure out which public school to send your child to, to me, is like staring down at several piles of dirt and picking the one that seems the least dirty. that is, unless you're privileged enough to live in one of the wealthier nabes where the parents can donate money to school programs.

but on these forums, it's a trip because parents of the mostly white, wealthy public schools will say things like, 'we love the school, but it's just not very diverse', or 'we want more diversity!'. i kept reading that phrase over and over from parents of those "whiter" schools. they want diversity!! but do they really? a couple thoughts came to my mind:

first, it's funny to think that just by me (or anyone black) being in a crowd of white people automatically makes the environment diverse. wow. just by plopping a handful of ethnic kids into a room of white people creates a "diverse" school.

and the thing that really gets me is that i seriously doubt they REALLY want diversity other than a few token ethnic kids. probably a handful more of black students in the school might satisfy their "need" but they know well and good that if their school suddenly flip flopped and became 90 percent black and 8 percent white, most of those parents would shudder and run for the hills and private schools.

why do they claim they want diversity so bad anyway? like black people are just interesting to watch and be around-we inherently provide instant culture? would those parents want to associate and befriend the other black students? do they have black friends? or do they just want them there so that their child can "experience culture" simply by gawking the black students in the classroom ? does it make the school complete?

from what i've heard from other black people who went to mostly white schools with only a handful of other black students, the white students did not include them as much, the black people had their little unit and they all stuck together. i guess it must make somebody (administrators?) feel good to say that there is diversity in their school, but i think that's about it.

and then i thought about the school my son attends. in my mind, i don't think of diversity as being just a bunch of black people. like, people think that a school that's mostly black is diverse. how is that diverse? as if blacks and hispanics alone epitomize diversity. the school my son goes to is like 8 percent white and then mostly black and hispanic with like 2 percent asian. the white parents who have kids there are always raving about how they love the diversity. okay, but is 8 percent white really diversity? i'm not necessarily advocating for more white people to join the school(well maybe i am?) but to be fair, diversity would be closer to an equal number of all different ethnicities. white people at our school are the minority.

i would have a hard time sending my son to a school where the black /multiracial kids only amounted to 8 percent. yet the white parents at my son's school seem to like being the 8 percent minority. go figure that.

levels

portland grocery stores seem to have adopted the wanna-be-whole-foods thing, i.e. painting their stores earthy colors i guess justify charging an arm-and-a-leg for generic items, hoping you wont notice as they try to compete with whole paycheck foods and new seasons. i'm not buying it though. i used to shop at my neighborhood safeway until i bought 4 tomatoes on the vine and it cost me 4.99. seems like we're all just paying for their remodel job a couple years back.

anyhow, i started shopping at winco a couple years ago because they have LOW prices. it was really hard for me at first to shop there. first of all, the people who shop there are different from who you see at the other stores (well, except for me of course :). i guess on some subconscious level when i'd see well dressed, well groomed shoppers at the other stores, it made ME feel better about who i was--afterall, i WAS shopping among upperclass people, it reassured me that i was like them...

but at winco, i'd see a lot of welfare moms (and please don't ask how i know they're welfare moms-you just know), immigrants, and generally more trashy people than what you might see at new seasons or whole foods or even safeway. i mean hey, it's affordable. but when i first started going there, i felt uncomfortable. like, i wasn't on that level, i didn't want to be lumped together with all the hoodrats, babymamas and illegals. i felt like by shopping there it made me one of "them". and then i was thought: maybe i was one of them and just didn't know it? people could see how well groomed and non-welfarish and clean i was, couldn't they? what if they didn't?

i no longer feel that way, as money talks a little bit louder than pride. but tonight i was reminded of those feelings i used to have when went there to get food and stuff for our mega superbowl party on sunday. it's the beginning of the month so of course i saw all these young , single moms and downtrodden folks with carts topped to the rim with things like hot dogs, cookies, cheetos, sugary kool-aid-in-the-gallonjug, fruit loops and other stuff like that. i guess that's another post i'll save for another day.

names

i finally picked out a new dentist. you might remember several posts ago i talked about a new, black dentist who had taken the place of my old dentist. i thought about it long and hard. yeah, i had some funky issues about a successful black dentist digging around in my mouth, but i decided that mainly it was about wanting someone with more experience. i may have chosen to go with the black dentist if he had more experience, but he didn't.

why should i feel guilty or, like i'm not giving a brother a chance? it's strictly business. my first inclination was to feel guilty. but i'm not going to, because i have the right to have a dentist with more experience.

so, i hope this doesn't sound bad. i called the dental office last week to schedule an appointment, as i had much needed work to be done on my teeth. i explained that i didn't really want the replacement, because i wanted someone with more experience. the receptionist named off two dentists. one of which had the last name of Nguyen. my first thought - and i hope this isn't too terrible- was that i wanted to go with the asian dentist. simply because almost all the asians i've known in my life seemed like perfectionists and also seemed smart.

and that's how i made my choice. isn't that a huge stereotype? that all asians are smart? is that offensive to an asian to say that i assumed they were smart simply by being asian? i thought about that for a while. it's a generalization, but isn't it a good generalization?? i have to be honest and say that if the stereotype for black people was that we were all say, hardworking and honest, even if it weren't true for everyone, i don't think i'd be offended by it.

i went to an online open forum that i frequent and asked the same question because i kinda surprised myself about the way i chose the dentist. when i called the office, i was just ready to take any ol' dentist with more experience -until i heard the last name.

MLK

i was invited to go check out a tribute to mlk today. can i just say that i (and probably others) might be more inclined to go it it weren't SO religious? i mean, i know dr. king was a reverend and all, but can't there be a tribute to him without feeling like i'm going to some southern baptist revival?

i am religious, but not in that way, and some people just flat-out aren't religious. however, they still might want to show their appreciation for all that he's done, but don't want to be force fed the gospel choir.


that's all.

expectations

i happen to really, really like this certain song by that old 80's band Motley Crue. i never even gave that group a thought until about 3 months ago when my husband turned the radio on while we were getting dressed and this song by motley crue was playing. and you know how when you're listening to the radio and a song comes on that you don't particularly like, you just tune it out? that's what i did until i realized that i was really liking this song by this weird, heavy metal band. it really rocks. but motley crue? i would have never thought i'd ever like any song by that band.

so, i went to work out at dishman community center here in portland. i had my husband download the song for me on my ipod to listen to when i work out. it's so loud in the weight room that no one can hear what i'm listening to and i was glad. i hate when people try to scrutinize my choice in music.

as my work out went on, i started to sweat. the sweat from my hairline was running down into my ears, causing my earbuds to slip. i decided to stop working out. as i walked out of the weight room, listening to this great song by motley crue, with my earbuds hanging loosely from my sweat, all these [black] heads turned and stared .

i was so embarassed! i'm guessing they could not only hear my loud earphones but what was playing on the earphones must have made them do a double-take once they saw me. i hurried to turn it down. i didn't want anyone there to hear what i was listening to. by the looks on their faces it seemed like like they expected me to be only listening to r&b or hiphop, of course.

i guess i just don't look like a heavy metal type of girl.

generalize

how do some people just make blankets statments like ' i could never date a [this race or that race] man or woman? i seriously don't get it. i had a small dinner party a few nights ago and us girls were sitting around the table talking. one of my newer friends (who is black), who is recently divorced started talking about some guy that she had been set up with. he's white.

so anyway, she's going on and on about things she didn't really like about the guy and just as my eyes started to glaze over she goes, ' i just don't think i could be with a white man'. first of all, isn't that kinda rude in my presence? i mean maybe i'm oversensitive when it comes to that because my husband is white. i don't know. but aside from that, why couldn't she be with a white man? do all white men smell like cheese? or, are they all square dorks? that's just as bad as me saying i could never date a black man. it's not any worse just because i happen to be black. sure, i think i have a preference for attractive white men, but that doesn't mean that any old dirty, dorky, ignorant white guy will do, just because he's white. and it doesn't mean that (if i were in the dating scene) i would totally rule out any other race.

i think alot of black women kind of stereotype white guys as being all stiff and dorky, etc., etc.,and some of them are. but so are some black, asian and hispanic, too. no one's suggesting that you date the dorks of any race, unless you just want to.

it seems like such a tired cliche for black women to say that.--'i just don't think i ever could date a black man.' just because they're white. period. so even if the perfect package guy came along, she'd reject him because he's white? i personally find it hard to believe any woman that says that they think a whole race of people are unattractive.

people should be clear on what they mean when they say things like ' i could never date a white man' . why not just say, 'my preference is black, but any decent guy that's got A, B, and C, is worthy trying out? or, this person is just not my personality type? attractive is atractive (and i'm not just talking about looks). and yeah, you can obviously have your preference (who doesn't?), but to just rule out a whole race?

that's so racist, and somehow it's okay to say it to other black women, as if we all will understand. like we expect each other to say that. and i know if i heard of a group of white women or men sitting around talking about how 'they could never date a black woman', i'd be kinda pissed and think they were idiots.