Why Does It Always Have to be About Race?!

I talk about race a lot.

And when I say a lot, I mean a lot.

It's not uncommon for the title of this blog to be flung at me with exasperation by one of my white friends. I have a lot of white friends.

I never realized how much I talked about race until I came to college. My high school was predominately black and race was something we talked about constantly. We talked about race in relation to our teachers, our varied socioeconomic statuses, the television we watched, the music we listened to, etc.

Race was in no way a taboo or sensitive subject. Black wasn't everything we were, but being black made up our culture and shared experiences. It was a non-issue.

When I came to college, I experienced a REAL culture shock. There were girls on my floor who told me that I was the first black person they'd ever had a conversation with. I thought, "How does that happen?!"

But I knew how it happened.

In general--I repeat--in general, white people aren't raised talking about race in their households. As far as I can tell, they're being raised to believe that talking about race is actually rude. You don't bring up anything that labels anyone as "different" because you don't want to make anyone uncomfortable.

As noble as that school of thought may be, the truth of the matter is...

Black people don't really care.*

You aren't fooling us! We KNOW we're different!

The jig is up!

I understand that when you're raised to believe something is rude, it's hard for you to change your mind. Maybe every time I talk about race with my friends they see it like I'm farting in front of company. The first time it was kinda funny, maybe even a little interesting, but the third or fourth time you smell open booty you're like, "All right now, that's enough!"

I get that, I understand where you're coming from. But what YOU have to understand is that your parents unintentionally lied to you a little.

It's not rude to notice that someone is different from you. It's rude to think that because they're different, they're wrong.

Black people are proud of their differences. Hell, every culture is proud of their culture. We don't want a melting pot, we want a salad. We're all still our own vegetables, we're just in the bowl together helping each other taste good.

And trust me, I don't think about the fact that I'm black every second of everyday, but I'm also not allowed to forget. Every time I go to a party and some drunk white person calls me "Sistah", or asks me about Kwanzaa, or congratulates me on another successful Black History Month, I'm reminded that I'm a little different and people notice that I'm different. Too often I'm on the recieving end of this ignorance, without the benefit of being able to educate this person, because really, they don't want to know why what they just said is kinda effed up.

Those are the moments when my afro feels heavier and I wish my boots didn't say Baby Phat on the sides, and I have a sneaking suspicion that everyone is wondering what I'm doing at this party.

Then I remember who I am, dust my shoulders off, and refuse to teach anyone the Stanky Leg for the rest of the night.

But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop dancing.




*Just a reminder: This is just MY opinion, based off MY experiences. I in no way claim to be speaking for ALL black people. But, I do think I'm speaking accurately for most.

All The Bitter Ladies

When my first boyfriend, who I dated from the time I was 14 until I was 20, broke up with me my sophomore year of college, I was angry.

I was angry because he had left me, because we had plans that would never come to fruition, and that he'd done it the weekend before finals.

I stayed in my hometown that summer and worked four jobs to distract myself from my heavy heart. I also wanted to stay close in case he changed his mind and wanted me back.

To make matters worse, he was my co-worker at one of my jobs. I had to see him at 8 o'clock in the morning five days a week. For an entire summer. We were cordial of course, and even hung out outside of work sometimes. We both had our emotional breakdowns and we both said stupid, inappropriate, and even hateful things. I wanted him back and he needed to figure things out. That was consistently our point of contention.

Then, over lunch, on the warmest day of the summer, he told me that he was gay.

Initially, I was supportive. Even at 20 years-old I knew that being gay was not a choice that someone made. I still don't understand how anyone believes that load of bull. So, I was there for him. I was there when he cried about it, when he laughed about it, and when he was figuring out how to tell the rest of his family and friends.

But I was still angry. And now it was a different kind of angry. I wasn't just angry with him anymore. Now, I was angry with myself too.

I had suspected for some time that he might be gay, and I never trusted my instincts. I told myself that we had sex frequently so he couldn't be gay. Why would he date me for 6 years if he was gay? He wants to marry me/have children with me/ build a life with me, etc. As though gays don't want to marry, have children, build lives together, etc.

While I was focused on rebulding my friendship with him, my relationship with myself was quickly deteriorating. I gained 25 pounds that summer, I stopped paying much attention to my physical appearance, and I jumped into two rebound situations with male friends, that both had the potential to end horribly.

One Sunday, as I lay beached on her couch with a bag of Chips Ahoy, and watching Diary of a Mad Black Woman for the 467,789,358th time in 2 months, my grandmother turned to me and said, "you're really hurting, aren't you, baby?"

Two weeks before this moment, my grandmother had actually said to me, "I hate that you and ***** broke up. You know, you'll probably never find anybody that'll treat you that well again."

So...yeah. Forgive me, if I wasn't looking forward to her imparting anymore "wisdom" to me.

With a mouth full of chocolate chip goodness and eyes full of shame, I gave a quick nod, dreading the lecture I had surely brought down upon myself in doing so.

"You know you shouldn't let yourself be bitter."

"I'm not bitter, Grandma. ***** and I are still friends."

"You are bitter. You're mad at him. You're mad at yourself. You want to punish everybody, but you're too nice for that, so the only person you're punishing, is YOU. That's why you eat food that don't make you feel good or look good, you don't try to do anything with yourself before you leave the house, and you watch these sad ass movies all the time."

"I'm not bitter, Grandma."

"Whatever. Just know that being bitter is swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. You're not killing yourself, but you are killing your spirit."

I just stayed quiet and kept watching the move, trying to seem unaffected by her words. But I was. My mind was racing and more than I didn't want her to be right, I didn't want to prove her right. I was going to have to change what I was doing if I wanted to be happier, and God, I wanted to be happier.

I quit the job I was working with him 2 weeks early and went back to school before leaving for LeaderShape. I spent what was left of my summer finding out what made me happy. This included finding reasons to love myself everyday. It sounds so corny and it was so hard, but it worked.

It took me a while to realize that being single was not a disease and I didn't need to be cured. Being single has been an opportunity to take all the energy I usually put into my relationships and focus that energy on me and the things I love.

I'm better now. I've experienced more love and more heartbreak since I was 20, and I'm better for it. If nothing else, I finally realize that a broken heart doesn't actually kill you.

And if you're smart, lucky, or maybe you just have a wise grandmother, you won't kill yourself.

Setting It Off

I entered college as a fashion major. One awkward phase and four majors later, I still LOVE fashion and find intense inspiration from the crazy things that crawl out of designers' heads.

Having recently gone natural myself, I was excited to find this website combining fashion and natural hair for black women and men. I get crazy geeked when I see black models, and black models WITH natural hair just make me salivate.

The taste of validation is sweet.

Here are a few pics that make me want to step my game up.











--All Photos from Lecoil

Can You Be Friends if You Can't Be Lovers?

My most recent ex and I had dinner this Sunday. Sometime ago he offered to buy me dinner for my birthday. I accepted. After weeks of trying to work around our schedules (I'm a student and he's a comedian), we finally found a date that worked.

Dinner was excellent. We had great conversation, the food was great, and we even took some sushi to his house afterward and took turns feeding it to his cat. The night was absolutely perfect.

And we're just friends.

I've mentioned before that I have quite a few male friends and that fact remains accurate. Since junior high my circle of close friends has generally included more men than women. Now that I'm in college, I've found a few female friends to talk to and spend some quality time with, but generally I am still mostly surrounded by men.

These are not all exes. As a matter of fact, I've never really dated anyone who goes to Ball State. I've always found those situations to end up in a heap of mess that you still have to run into on-campus. I am not interested.

It's like eating some bad food and every couple weeks you burp and can still taste it a little in the back of your throat.

Nasty.

As my friends, male and female, begin to pair off, I worry about my relationships with my male friends. The two male friends that I have previously dated are currently single, but what happens when they have girlfriends? Won't their girlfriends look at me and think,

"What the hell is she doing here?"

The most recent ex had an ex-girlfriend that he sometimes communicated with, and although I never said anything to him about it, this particular girl made me uncomfortable. I thought it was weird that he had other female friends, that I knew he had hooked up with, and it didn't bother me, but THIS one in particular did.

Finally, I realized what it was:

I couldn't understand why they had ever broken up.

I mean, they laughed with each other and told each other jokes. I couldn't help but wonder where they had gone wrong. At what point had they decided they weren't working out? Couldn't he go back to her if they got along so well?

Naturally, I didn't worry too much about this because I live by the rule that you can't scare a man out of cheating on you. No matter what you say, no matter how much you threaten him, a cheater is a cheater and he will find a way to cheat on you.

So, I played it cool. Never bothered him about her, and he never even realized she irked me until Sunday night.

Eventually, these guys will find themselves some hot lady action. And one day, while she's standing next to him, and he's responding to some hilarious text or voicemail I just left him, she'll have two options:

1. Say "uh-uh, this bitch has GOT to go!"

2. Be like me and play it cool.

Just maybe, no matter which option she chooses, the real problem is that she'll be thinking,

"If he gave up on that, how little would it take for him to give up on me?"