Random Thoughts 12/6/2009

where did the year go?
why don't I give a damn about Christmas anymore?
why do I feel the need to be nice to total strangers?
where is my remote?
what will I get my Masters Degree in?
why does the FOP keep calling when I specifically requested to be taken off their phone list?
will the Colts go to the Superbowl?
will my son become a successful animator and writer?
will his sister help raise the standard in kindergarten classes one day?
will i convince the ole man that retiring to a nice warm island really is a good idea?

I wonder how watered down the health care bill will be when it comes out of the senate?
why on earth did tiger woods marry a clubber?
will he stay married to the clubber?
why do women make poor choices concerning men and then get mad at the men for being just the idiots they are?
why do men who claim they want to be men insist upon hooking up with women who don't have any idea how to be more than girls?
what will I get my husband for his birthday?

what color should I paint this bedroom?
where can I find some vintag chains locally?
wonder if macy's does the christmas windows downtown like marshall field's used to? (not going to see, thank you very much)
where is OUR snow?
glad we don't have snow, but ready for it just the same.
talking crazy about snow, what on earth am I thinking?

I hope I can find some really good deals on cable knit sweaters after Christmas.
I hope peace, even if only temporary, comes to the middle east... soon
I pray for all who suffer with illness and pain.
I pray for education reform.
I wish I had better organizational skills.
I wish I wasn't addicted to facebook.

I'm happy.
I'm loving my job.
I'm so totally in love.
I'm mindnumbing proud of my children (back pat)
I love my cat and want another one...will devise a plan to make this happen.

I will no longer react to negativity, jealousy or ignorance
I will smile in the face of stupidity and tell it to drop dead please.
I will finish the novel. I will
I will make jewelry until my fingers bleed. (not a major leap)
I will take more trips.

I will appreciate my genuine friendships.
I will nuture new friendships.
I will (unfornuately) dismiss all (including family) who show no self love and therefore try to manipulate my love
I will continue to look to God
I will always recognize who I am.
I will never forget who I once was.
I will grow and become who God wants me to be.

I will write more.
I will listen more
I will talk less.
I will think harder.
I will create.
I will inspire.
I will encourage.
I will heal.
I will nuture.
I will love.
I will allow others to love me.
I will make people say.."Damn girl!"

sigh... yeah.

For the Cat Lover in You...

A Dying Breed of Black Folk

I was raised during the sixties and came of age in the late 70s. My parents were married to each other, well educated, and gainfully employed. We didn't get a colored television until 1972. I didn't have a 10 speed bike until 1976. Our parents sacrificed to send us to a private, catholic high school and my sisters and I are now college graduates.

We lived in a nice 4 bedroom house on a quiet street in the Midwest. Between the three sisters, we were the "proud parents" of 3 cats, 2 dogs, 4 snakes, a praying mantis, and a pail full of worms. Our lives were "a wonder".

I mentioned all of this in passing one evening to a group of chatters who were complaining about the state of the black community and how it was "never" a good scene for black folks in America. After a moment of "cyber silence", one of them asked me if I was white. Another told me (yes, actually told me) I was a spoiled bitch. I laughed so loudly at the comments that my son cam into the room and chastised me for laughing at the computer screen, reminding me of the insanity of such behavior.

I asked them why my childhood and life seemed so strange and "not black" to them. Responses ranged from cus "black folk have never lived like that" to "because your parents were probably sell out, rich Negros" (my parent both grew up on dirt poor farm in the south during the depression and were in college during the early days of the moder civil rights movement." My parents weren't rich, I corrected happily. My mother, now a widow, still would consider herself wealthy, even though daddy made sure she would want for nothing before he left us to live with the ancestors.

Yet, the notion of black folk. from the country, moving to the big, bad city and "moving on up" apparently is something only seen on TV Land reruns for some of my people. Where are all the people like me, who came for 2 parent, 2 income, paid off mortgage, decent credit rating families? Am I an anomaly? Should I be concerned about this?

Whatever happened to the concept of "yes, you too can be more than a kid form the projects?" If you are a kid from the projects who rose above your circumstances, why on earth are you so hard on folk who didn't live in the projects?

I love the way folk badmouth the "chocolate cities" in America, either not knowing or forgetting the glory days of these communities and that this is where all the "uppity" Negros (as we are tacitly referred as" come from. There is an entire generation of "Negros" who now have risen above their circumstances and made a beeline to somewhere other than "home" and now pretend they never lived in the projects or were on welfare, or had to watch their backs as they walked home from the store or cried over the dead body of their drug addict cousin... and that THEY are now the "new negro"... and the rest of us, who never had that experience are "less" than them, because our lives weren't "hard".

Hard? You survived it... so was it really that hard? What about the ones who are still there, who didn't make it out? Why hate on me for having missed out on YOUR experience? Why forget those who did and are still living that experience? Why dismiss my contribution to the black experience because I am a 3rd generation college graduate and you're the first one in your family to see the ivy?

Has it become a different sort of "us vs them"? Needing to feel included in the bigger experience has created a group of "uppity Negros" who don't even realize they're uppity and who have completely forgotten who laid down for them to even be who they now pretend to be. They've left the ghetto...but the ghetto will never leave their consciousness. This is NOT a good thing.

I am a proud member of the "dying breed" of black folk. I know my root is long, strong and blood soaked. I never lived in a project or had to dodge bullets. My parent drove me nuts making me become more than them, even as they were a great deal more than their parents before them.

I didn't benefit form entitlements and scholarships cus I came from a single parent household or have a mother who never expected me to amount to anything. I have no chip on my shoulder. I have nothing to prove.

I am a dying breed of black folk.

We need to start a memorial fund. Holla at ya girl...