Head tilt. Eye roll. Ear steam.

Okay so here's a little preface. I haven't posted in a year. Law school is the probably the most stressful and busiest venture I've ever encountered. It has been beyond rewarding though - I'm not just saying that. So if this post gets deleted, it's because I freaked out and wanted to make sure I can still be a lawyer when I grow up. Although to be really real, I probably wouldn't want to work anywhere that can't get down with this post. 

And, second preface. I started writing this at the airport two days ago. I just fixed the wifi situation in my parents home today. So for those of you all up on my life that know that when I say "today" it's not actually today, just humor me. Okay, I'm done prefacing now. Enjoy... 

Today a middle aged white man standing behind me at the airport said the following micro aggression under his breath, “It smells like patchouli oil in here.”

At first I wasn’t sure what he said, because in my head, I just finished identifying that the security check line smelled like tacos. So I assumed he was going to say something like enchiladas or tortas, you know, something that the area actually smelled like. But no, he looked down his privileged little nose at me and decided he needed to make an aggressive remark about my hair.

I assume that’s kind of man who’s voting for Trump. I’m really tempted to refer to him as “he-who-must-not-be-named” because he is definitely an evil wizard. At this point, that's the only plausible explanation. I digress. Back to this racially insensitive man and his attempt to besmirch my crown.

Oh and for reference please recall this: Guiliana Rancic saying that Zendaya, a gorgeous goddess, looked like she smelled like weed because she was rocking impeccable locs. 

Let me just state for the record, my hair looks all kinds of excellent right now. I just re-twisted my locs 3 days ago and I did a braid out so they are all crimped and curly. The locs in the front lay gracefully as can be on my collar bone and there is a lovely, subtle hombre situation that goes from black to a dark reddish brown. Before I left my apartment this morning, I vitalized my luscious strands with some mango and lime spray and some African healing oil. My hair smells damn delightful. Not that I have anything to prove, but I just wanted you to know what was what. And even if my locs were not laid to the gods, that still would not excuse this man’s comment. To avoid referring to him as “this man,” I’m going to call him Buck. He looked like a Buck. My apologies if you’re reading this and your name is Buck and you are as pleasant as can be. Next time you need tell a story about a stranger who looks like an Ekaette, you have my blessing.

Now obviously Buck did not smell my hair. He looked at it, decided it was inferior to his insipid buzz cut, and felt the need to make sure I knew that he felt that way.

Now as I said before, I really wasn’t expecting this comment from this stranger, so it took a little minute to register. And when it did, I looked at Buck and said “Really, sir?” I should not have called him “sir.” He did not deserve it. He wouldn’t even make eye contact with me.

I stared at him for a little bit. And then I asked Jesus to keep me near the cross. Jesus told me to move into another line and don’t start no stuff at the airport. Jesus also reminded me that I specifically booked a flight home on this day to catch the end of Baltimore restaurant week, and I would be damned if I missed my flight and missed my lump crab cakes and key lime pie all because some fool thinks it’s cool to verbally assault a young lady in a passive aggressive way for no reason.

I was, as they say, steaming. July has been one of my steamiest months to date. I keep encountering terrible sides of people and humanity in general. Don’t get me wrong – I am grateful for all of the beauty that summer time Chi has bestowed upon me. My summer ’16 theme has been “live your best life,” and I really do think I’ve been doing so to the best of my ability. I saw Drake on Tuesday and borderline fell in love with him, and Future had me weak in the knees. My friend and I bought nosebleed tickets to this concert and magically got our seats upgraded by the stage. We were so close to Drizzy. We could see his facial features. We could see him laughing in that cute way that Aubrey does. We could see Future’s perfect teeth and poppin’ back muscles. It was the delight of a century. I am listening to Views as I type.

But you know, it seems I only get the itch to write when something makes my head tilt, my eyes slide to the side, or my ears steam. Or a combination of the three.

Side note, something that is currently perturbing me is that I picked a window seat on the plane. There’s no window. Literally it’s just a wall. I didn’t notice when I picked the seat (I’m flying Southwest). This friendly couple got up to let me in, and I scooched past them making adorable small talk, just to have my heart broken upon the sight of an alabaster block of nothing. The person in front of me has a window but it’s closed. It’s almost slightly behind him or her or them (don’t wanna put a label on this individual), but it would probably be weird if I reached up there to open it. It’s just like, can I catch a break? From the old gods or the new? I’m not choosy.

Update. Because fortune favors the bold, I reached up to open the window about 1/5 of the way. I think the individual is asleep. And now I can see the clouds. First win of the day. =) 

Update on the update. Individual woke up and closed the window to about a pencil width. I can see a pencil’s width amount of clouds. -_-

Anyway back to my head tilts and side eyes. There are always the petty things to be lamented. Boys who don’t text back. Friends who don’t text back. (Theme: texting ruins lives.) That man who almost ran me into the train tracks trying to catch ‘em all. -______-

My biggest disturbance this July was from a man I labeled Chocolate Shemar before I learned he did not deserve such an honorable title. For everyone who thought they might be feature as the source of my steamiest moment this summer, you can breathe easy now! Also I was aiming to fix the wifi and post this by yesterday so that all the July references would be more pertinent... but it didn't happen. You probably didn't care, but I do, so just forgive me. Okay thanks.

So, CS and I were having our first ever conversation. He thought it was necessary to tell me that any woman in her 30’s who is not married is a selfish woman and something must be wrong with her. Those are actual words that he said. My head was tilted all the way to the side. I almost hurt myself. I’m not sure why I allowed him to continue talking. It was the audio equivalent of watching a car crash and craning to look at the aftermath.

Then. Somehow. Who knows how. He said that the concept of Black Girls Rock is stupid and the Black Lives Matter movement is ridiculous. Now mind you, this is a black man. Not one of those Shad Moss (Lil Bow Wow) types who feel like they can’t relate to BLM because they’re mixed. I swear to the heavens I will never understand that rationalization. Racist people do not look at you and say oh, you’re only half black, well you’re okay then. Come on now. The one drop rule is still in full effect people! This man was Dominican, but as I illustrated with his name, he was a chocolate man. You look at him, you see a black man. If someone were to racially profile him, they wouldn’t stop and say oh, well what kind of black are you? If you’re Afro-Caribbean, you get a pass. Nope. Doesn't happen.

Sigh.

The he said – Black people should not expect people to care about their lives if they don’t care about their own.

My neck was on FULL TILT. My new nick name was about to be Nearly-Headless-Ekaette. Yes, I’m on HP reference number two, not an ounce of shame in my game.

I asked him if he was making a reference to black on black crime. And then explained that “black on black crime” is just crime. The same way “white on white crime” is just crime. Except you’ve never heard anyone use the term white on white crime. It’s equally as prevalent. Crime is most likely to happen intra racially. Black on black crime was just coined as an excuse to vilify a group of people and help black people themselves believe that they are the aggressive animals the media says we are. When a white person kills another white person, white people do not say, damn we gotta stop killing ourselves. If they did say that, they would be talking about people in general not white on white crime. Obviously any death is to be mourned and prevention measures are important. But to let that rhetoric fool you into thinking that that alone is an excuse for a police officer to shoot and kill someone is beyond ludicrous.

I lost it on this man. I was angry at him but also sad and a little scared for him. You expect that kind of idiocy to spill out of the mouth of a privileged white person. We’ve all heard and read that kind of idiocy spill out of the mouth of a privileged white person. But it was just so strange coming out of a chocolate mouth directly into my chocolate ears. Not on TV, not in a news article. But someone actually speaking to me, and my chocolate self. 

He then started saying that the solution was to give resources to poor black communities. Which obviously I'm all for. Resources are great. Never turn those things down. 

But I am black woman who can claim some privilege herself. I went to private school from age 6 to 18. Then I became a BlueJay and now I'm.... I think it's a Hawk. Whatever, I'm in law school now. That didn't stop me from being scared out of my mind when I got pulled over one evening for a dimmed tail light. It wasn't out. It was literally dim. It was pretty late, maybe 11:30 p.m. I was driving my mother's GMC. I was wearing a Hopkins hoodie. But it was black. Don't remember if I had the hood up or not. But driving a nice car, at night, in a black hoodie while black.... well I guess that was my mistake. I was about 4 minutes from my house. The officer kept asking me whose car it was that I was driving.  There's only so many ways to say it's my mother's. I never know when to throw in the "both of my parents work for the Baltimore City Police Department" card - don't want them to think I'm sassing them. Also this occurred maybe a few days after Sandra Bland was killed, so I was on all types of edge. Took the officer a LOOOONG time checking my ID back in his vehicle. Not sure what he thought he was going to find. And even though I knew I had nothing for him to find, and no reason for him to hurt me, I was scared. All my "resources" did not protect me from that moment. Bad things have happened to people who look like me for doing something as or less benign as driving with a dimmed tail light.

CS kept interjecting "but all lives matter" at every spot he could. I asked him why he thought that mantra existed. He said because it is meant to be all inclusive. I explained that it was a DIRECT response to Black Lives Matter, because for some reason, it is painful for some people in this world to recognize that things happen to people of color systemically that just do not happen to the majority. We should be able to shine a light on that without being challenged. I've said it once, I'll say it a million times. To say Black Lives Matter does not mean someone else's does not - it means exactly what it says. It's irresponsible, naive, and petty to read something else into those simple three words and what they clearly stand for. Being anti-police brutality does not mean anti-police. If you really can't see the difference, I encourage you to open a dialogue. But do recognize that a true dialogue cannot occur if you're yelling or typing furiously on the internet without taking the time to understand what someone is trying to explain to you. 

As evidenced by the fact that I even let CS continue talking, I am the kind of person that will oftentimes engage in a conversation with someone, when they have polar views from mine. To be fair, I also like a good debate. But, to me, that's the only way progress can happen. I think there are a considerable amount of people out there who operate in a similar fashion. However when it's clear that your conversation partner is not actually having a conversation but simply spewing that bull, well for me, that's when I gotta let you go. It's exhausting trying to help people see the light sometimes. 

For those of you who don't know, we are in the middle of a civil rights movement. Ask your friends and family about the micro aggressions they have encountered, I assure you they have a story for you. Those micro aggressions stem from the systemic racism that BLM is attempting to combat. 

I want to write more but I gotta dip my toes back into this blog writing game, especially with this whole lawyerly business. Also my left over key lime pie is calling my name. Until next time. 

P.S. This was me when I finished telling CS to have several seats. Head tilt. Eye roll. Ear steam. 

AmeriCorps: Part I "Just corn and the sun."

A year and seven months later, I am finally writing a post about AmeriCorps. AmeriCorps NCCC FEMACorps Class XX to be specific. I'm not sure if that's actually the correct order in which to write that, but I do not care enough to verify. This entry is going to veer on the path of long-winded story that you may or may not have already heard bits and pieces of. Not saying it's not going to be good, just letting you know to grab a snack or perhaps an ice cold bevy.

So it all began in August of 2013. I was a fresh graduate of the venerable Johns Hopkins University with absolutely zero desire to be anywhere near a school like environment. Mad props to the people who just kept on going to grad school, if I had tried to do that I would have punched everything and anything. You can't graduate and be a bum, and I wanted to keep my brain active and still be a productive member of society. So I thought, why I don't I do something service related? I had participated in various community service efforts in college, but it was never my first priority - that was obviously school. I was proud to offer my time and services to purely help people as my first priority, not as an extra curricular. 

I initially applied for AmeriCorps NCCC (the traditional track) and applied to FEMACorps as a secondary maneuver. I was admitted into the FEMACorps program, and as was suggested by the organization, I accepted, as to not lose my place, and forfeited my application for AmeriCorps NCCC. This happened to a suspicious amount of my fellow Corps members. FEMACorps is now a three year old program, it seems they needed to boost their enrollment. Sneaky, sneaky.

There are five FEMACorps branches. I was accepted to the Vinton, Iowa campus. This was the first red flag. Iowa. I mean really, Iowa. No offense to the one native Iowan I know who is a wonderful human (Hi, Tanner.) But my trepidation was immediately validated. People from Iowa do not know where Vinton, Iowa is. That was the second red flag. If you are already placing me in a random state, how dare you place me in a small town that people don't know exists. 

FEMACorps paid for my plane ride from Baltimore to... hmm well it wasn't Vinton. I want to say the airport was in Cedar Rapids, but we had a layover in Texas. Who set that foolishness up? The very second I stepped out of the airport and the Iowan air hit my nostrils I began to sneeze. I was allergic to Iowa. 

We then got onto a coach bus (fanciest thing we would see for a long time) and made our way to... okay I want to say Iowa School for the Blind because that sounds more legitimate, but I know the shorthand was IBS because I remember being sad for them because that is an unfortunate comparison, but they wouldn't name the school: Iowa Blind School... okay I just looked it up. It's Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School. I could delete all of that, but I assume the whole stream of consciousness angle is the move for this tale. Anyway, I quickly became buds with this one chick who was also from Maryland, and we had a pleasant little chat through miles and miles of corn. Just so much corn. Do you know how horrifying it is to look out of a window and only see corn and the sun? Nothing else. Just corn and the sun. 

We finally pulled up to our destination. I was sneezing and sweating bullets. August Iowan sun was fiercer than I would have ever anticipated. I then was somehow transported into my lower school gymnasium. There were all these people in ill-fitting tan shorts and hunter green polos smiling at me like they had all just passed around a big ole' chalice of the kool-aid. Yeah the kool-aid, aka crazy juice. 

There was music playing. Too loudly. Too Taylor Swiftly. It may not have been Taylor, but it was something of that nature that caused  me to produce a stank face and give a quick glance to my neighbor begging the question: who will save us?

So it was camp. It was creepy, weird camp. Similar music continued for the rest of the day. We were separated into units and teams. I was Hickory 2. I was 22 year old woman, who had to identify herself as a member of something called Hickory 2. Just let that marinate for a moment. 

We got "catered food" for the first few days but then we had to buy groceries as a team. Catered food is in quotes because it was barely food and should not have been classified as catered. At the end of the second week, my team members and I became agitated, because we noticed that we were eating spoonfuls of peanut butter and ramen for dinner. We were out of food. We were not pleased. We brought this to the attention of our team leader, who basically told us we were shit out of luck. We had used 80% of our budget, as suggested by our AmeriCorps overlords, and the 20% remainder was for emergencies. Apparently me eating a nature valley bar for lunch was not an emergency. Here's the budget breakdown. Each team member was afforded $4/day while at a base location, $7 when we were on the road. So for our 11 person team we were expected to buy enough groceries to last for a full week with $246.40. I don't know if you've ever tried to feed a family of 11, but let me just warn you, this method does not cut it.

My team earned the adjective "bougie" initially because we wanted to eat well balanced meals. We wanted our groceries to consist of things like fruits, vegetables, and you know, things that were actually food and not processed. Sure you could feed 11 people with that meager budget if they're only eating sugary cereals and cup of noodles. But excuse us, we wanted to eat real food. When you eat real food, you have real energy. You have regular bowel movements - yeah I said it, because that's something you want in life. You are generally happier because your body is satisfied. I know there's science behind that, but we won't get into it, there is much to cover.

So anyway, this hoopla over starvation was when I believe my team was labeled as a bunch of bad apples. But even though we were "trouble makers," we were just so good at everything. We consistently won competitions, and though we sometimes could not manage to stay awake through training, we knew our shit.

Let me back track a little and tell you about the wee town of Vinton. There is a Dollar General (that sold wine, praise the heavens), a McDonald's (obviously, because where isn't there a McDonald's), a Subway, this place called Jolly Rogers (allegedly sold pizza... it was never open), some other pizza place, a Mexican restaurant run by the only Hispanic person I laid eyes on in that town, a Chinese restaurant, a froyo place (that had wifi!), a radio shack, and a couple of those creepy shops where the set up is just a yard sale but inside someone's home and it smells like animals because there are guinea pigs just running loose on the ground and the owner only has 4 teeth and isn't wearing a shirt and you knew you should have just stayed on front porch while your silly friends went inside to look at homemade candles made out of don't ask, don't tell.

My heart, Jesus, my heart.

So. As the group of 18 - 24-year-olds that we were, we needed to blow off steam. We frequented the local watering holes, as was our right (for the majority of us). There was one place called Golf. I don't remember much about it, except that I did not like it. I felt like I was in someone's basement. I think a lot of the ceiling was missing, or part of a wall? I don't know, when I think of Golf, I just think unfinished basement. But the true turn up spot was Ron-Da-Voo. Oh yes. That's how it's spelled. Also, please forgive the tense changes in this story, I usually try to be professional about that, but for real, for real, I can't even worry about that as I unleash all this foolishness. Ron-Da-Voo was equipped with a juke-box (like a modern day one, I know you probably assumed I meant the 50's kind because of the middle of nowhere Iowa factor, lol. But also not lol, because why was I in the middle of nowhere Iowa??) Every night that I went to Ron-Da-Voo I put on "Pop That" by French Montana. Please take a moment to imagine the townies as all these youths started to get their lives to some ratchet tunes. They were in shock. But they didn't do anything (most of the time). We out numbered them. We were also probably the main source of income for that whole town.

Walking in "downtown" Vinton literally felt like you were walking on a movie set. 75% of the time I thought that I was being unwillingly and unknowingly filmed for a horror flick, and some monster from the deep was going to burst out of a corn field and take my life. Sometimes when we walked into town I would count the number of people we saw that day. I know, I know, I'm from a relatively large city, but seriously I felt like I was on the set of House of Wax. If you have not seen that film, please watch it, it's hilarious but also kind of scary, and CMM (Chad Michael Murray, don't get cute and act like you don't remember him, jk no one called him that...) anyway, he was in his prime.

Okay so Act 1 summary: we did not have enough food, there were no activities, one of my friends almost got run off the road by an angry farmer and she had to hop into a ditch to save her life, some of my friends got called the n-word in the middle of the dark Iowan night by some angry Iowans, we were told this service opportunity would be like a job, but really it was camp. Camp for juvenile delinquents with stupid rules like "muster."

Um... sorry I'm not summarizing, I thought I was going to, but I didn't. Sue me. But don't because I'm going to law school in a couple months (surprise! - will post about that later) and I will eventually be Ekaette Obot, Esq. and I will counter-sue the pants off you. BOOM. Okay so "muster." For some reason, probably because this program was intended for juvenile delinquents, each team on campus had to gather at 5 in the morning just to say hey, I'm here and alive. We typically had training starting at 8 am. Roll call could have happened there. But I assume AmeriCorps leaders just needed to know they could control every aspect of our lives so they made us get out of our beds to meet in a location that wasn't even in the same building where we slept just so they could take attendance. No one will ever be able to convince me that there was a logical reason behind muster. And I hate that word, and the word mustard because it reminds me of it.

About this training. There was 5 weeks of it. All taking place in Iowa before we would go to our first assignment. We were typically in training from 8 in the morning until 4 ish 5 ish. The training consisted of the following: how to be professional, how to deal with diversity, the history of NCCC, basically things that could have been covered in 1 - 2 weeks but was drawn out for some unknown reason. One time, they added in an extra hour into our schedules, an afternoon slot, to make us all sit in an auditorium and watch a very long youtube clip of military jets flying. And then an old man (high up on the AmeriCorps chain of command) talked to us about team work or something. Then people got written up for falling asleep. It's just like, did you never go to school? You don't show a dumb movie after lunch. People will go to sleep, and that is your fault not theirs.

Sometimes while in training, if we didn't seem interested enough, they would make us do this shakedown thing. Where we all had to stand up, and shake our bodies on a specified count. This might have been entertaining or acceptable if we were seven years old. But to make a group of grown ass adults stand up and shake their bodies because YOU are boring them to death doesn't scream logic to me. The person that made us do this the most was someone whom I can only describe as a mixture of Paula Deen and Professor Umbridge. She had those terrifying drown in the icy blue death of my eyes that Paula Deen has. And she had this horrible facade of sweetness while she was she spewing all the rudeness she could a la Professor Umbridge.

I think one of the most insulting trainings we had was the nutrition training. We had to listen to a woman tell us that we shouldn't eat any grain and that we should stick to coconut and almond oils. AmeriCorps didn't even bother to once-over the contents of this woman's presentation, or maybe they did, and they thought it would be funny to prepare us to adhere to nutritional values we could not afford. If you can tell me why they thought it was helpful to train the Corps Members on how to maintain an organic diet, but they didn't feel the need to coach our team leaders on how to budget and grocery shop for eleven people with basically no money, you get a silver star. Not gold, because even if you come up with an answer, it's still going to be dumb. But yeah I'm gonna keep coming back to the food. Because it's insane. My team leader was the same age as me. She had just graduated from college, just like me. She had never been in the program before. They sent me something the summer before I joined, offering me an opportunity to be a team leader in this program, but I declined because I thought it might be pretty stupid to be a team leader in a program of this nature that I had never been a part of. But nope, here she was, dazed and confused, preventing us from using our 20% of emergency funds so that we could eat.

You know when you go through terrible things with someone, and that brings you closer? I guess that was the one benefit of no food and people smiling at me with crazy eyes all day. Our team was pretty tight. Half of our team were young ladies in college or recently graduated, from the east coast. We were used to things like carrots and hummus, being treated like adults, and the expectation of not being afraid of what may happen to us when we go to sleep at night (I'll delve more into that last point later, don't you worry.) Most of the Corps Members were friendly enough, some were cool, some were not. It's okay, I can say that, that's just part of life. But you see, after our five week training we would be spending the next 3 months, anywhere in America with our team, not with the rest of the people in our program. So it made sense for us to hang out with our team, get to know them, get to like them. But for some reason, the team leaders thought it was strange that we hung out so much. I think they were just looking for another reason not to like us. But it was for the best, if not for the relationships I fostered with the people on my team, I would not have survived the 4 months that I did. Another big bonding point with certain people on team was the belief that if something didn't make sense, we had the right to question it. There are some people on this earth that believe the rules are just the rules. I weep for those people. I weep for them, but we cannot be friends.

As I stated before, even though the team leaders and our unit leader (Thomas - he's gonna get his own section later) thought we were bad kids, at the end of training, our group was designated as DSA (Disaster Survivor Assistance) and we were sent to Colorado to assist FEMA with the flood damage that occurred there. We were so excited to go to state that began with a consonant. We loaded up our 12 passenger van (I think that was the number) with our little red backpacks and pillows. While on the road we had a $7 budget for lunch (we got spoiled!) This usually meant that we pulled up to a fast food joint, because what can you buy for $7 in America? Sometimes we got subway though, so that was a treat. But sometimes, we got to go to Wal-Mart! Which meant we pooled our money so we could buy some fruit, some cheese, some nice bread, maybe some prosciutto~. We had to push it when we could. We stayed in little motels along the way. It took a lot of will power to fall asleep in those sheets.

When we finally got to Denver, where the FEMA headquarters was located, we clapped when we saw the city skyline. We hadn't seen a skyscraper in so long. It was beautiful. It was a city. It was life. We drove past a theme park, we tricked ourselves into thinking we might go there. It's the little things that get you through. Our first week or so in Colorado, we stayed a hotel. A real hotel with clean white sheets and fluffy pillows. We ordered some Vietnamese food. The FEMA training was a little slow at first (half of it was teaching our Reservists ((older people who volunteered and made BANK)) how to use an iPad. But we were getting to our purpose, the reason why we wanted to be AmeriCorps. We were learning how we were actually going to be helping people. Our FEMA instructors didn't speak to us as if we were in 5th grade, and that was truly exhilarating.

But as with all things of this nature,  we did get a little bored. Things were being repeated, old people kept forgetting how to exit programs on their iPads. So instead of zoning out and staring out of the window, sometimes we would do things like research upcoming concerts. Ye was coming to Denver. KANYE WAS COMING TO DENVER. This was a blessing from Jesus himself. Yeezus, if you will. So despite everything that was happening, two girls from my team and I scrounged up our funds to make this dream come true. And it was lovely having that to look forward to. Until it got cancelled because one of Kanye's LED machine thingies was hit in a car accident so he canceled all his shows in that area. When I tell you that my heart broke that day, I really mean it. Like 808's and heartbreak heartbroken. Sigh.

Okay, I literally just now decided I'm going to write this in installments because it's actually going to be impossible for me to get this all out right now. I have a lot of stuff to do. I'm moving to Chicago soon weeeeeeeeee, because.... law school... hehehehehehe!!! Yeah so that wasn't really the greatest ending point, but that's what I'm giving you, stay tuned. The next post will not take 3 months I promise. I'm thinking like later this week. I hope this drama has entertained you at least a little bit.

XOXO,
Gossip Girl

Ha. Just kidding, bye. 

Happy Black History Month!

I have a distinct memory from sixth grade on a school bus, we were on a field trip. The girls around me were talking about the movie Finding Forrester. Only a couple of us had seen the movie, so one girl started to explain the main points. She started by saying, "So there was a man and a little Black boy..." and I remember that striking me as so odd. I was curious as to why it was important that the boy was Black but no racial description was given for the man.

Ever since then I've always paid attention to things like that. From my unofficial research, it seems that people often omit race as a descriptor if the person or people they're describing matches theirs. For example, once a friend was telling me a story about how these girls were being mean and making fun of her. She felt the need to mention that they were Black. She also felt the need to tell this story specifically to me even though our other (non-Black) friends were all in the room. I'm not sure if these mean girls would have been less intimidating if they were not Black... but we all know that stereotype that Black people are scary. I would like to think she was only telling me that story because I am the brazen friend that doesn't put up with bunk, especially from strangers. And I'm sure that was part of it. But part of it was also "listen to what your people did to me," at least that's how it came off.

In that moment I could have asked why this story was specifically being told to me and why sympathy was especially anticipated from me, but as I have expressed before, I'm not one to make an awkward situation more awkward. But it wasn't awkward for her, I guess it was just awkward for me. The brave and sensible option in that scenario would have been for me to address it. As this girl's friend, I think I owed her that, I owed myself that, and I owed it to our friendship. If you can't be honest with those closest to you, then where's the hope?

So despite this, we do live in the age of colorblindness. People do not want to talk about race. I can count for you on hand, maybe both if I'm generous, the amount of times I have explicitly discussed race in depth with a good friend of mine who was not the same race as me. When I say discussed race, I don't mean talking about the gorgeous specimen we deemed "Beautiful Black Man." Okay, see there, the race label was completely necessary. There weren't that many Black men on campus at ye ole Hop. The chances of there being a beautiful White man were higher simply because there were more White men. But this Adonis was easily spotted when he would grace the world by playing corn hole shirtless on the quad at letting the pure rays of Baltimore sunshine beam onto his caramel skin, muscles just a-glistenin'. But I digress, happily, because I haven't thought about BBM in a minute. On the real though, BBM, if you're out there... there are honestly enough clues for you to identify yourself in my glowing review... so hollaaaaa.... My friends and I are notorious for giving people bizarre nick names, like Jubilation and Santa. Most of them are not racially motivated save for BBM and AWM (Average White Man, but that's mostly because his name is so... well... White, like the name Hunter Johnson. His name is not Hunter Johnson, but I just want you to understand).

You could easily imagine that this man's name is Hunter Johnson right? His picture is the first that came up when I searched "average white man." Also, lol, it doesn't even look real; it looks like somebody compiled every White male face on one of those apps, and this was the resulting, all inclusive, average White male face.....

Now I personally don't think that stating someone has a "White sounding" name is that offensive. Friends and foes please feel to correct me if I'm wrong. The only negativity I could even begin to connect is maybe that you come from middle class White America and most likely live a comfortable life, and maybe you say a lot of things that only a square would say. So... shrug, I don't really feel too bad about that. A "White sounding" name means that when you submit your resume 1) Your name is typically easily pronounced on the first attempt and 2) Nobody is trying to guess what you are and so they simply proceed to look at the rest of your resume. 3) You may get the upper hand even if you have an identical resume to someone else's, but your name isn't DeShawn so there's less of a chance that you are... as they say... ghetto. *I'm not saying this happens all the time, I'm just saying it happens*

Okay okay okay. I got super sidetracked. So my point was when my friends and I talk about race it usually isn't in the social or economic or political sense. I'm not sure if we intentionally try to avoid it. I wish that it was something that I could bring up more frequently because it is truly something that interests me. And since I have such an advantageous situation of being friends with people from a plethora of various ethnic and racial backgrounds, I'm sure we could all learn so much from each other if we permeated the barrier of discomfort.

Would it be awkward if I asked my friends if they did anything to observe Black History Month? Sorry I don't know if that's supposed to be all caps, but the answer is yes. Mostly because I didn't "do" anything. I took a few minutes out of this month to read a couple articles on Marian Anderson and Shirley Chisolm. If you don't who they are, feel free to stop reading my blog and have your own little Black history moment. I'm also reading the New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander, lent to me by a dear friend with whom I'll definitely discuss our reactions and new found knowledge, but I do wish this is something all my friends felt comfortable doing.

When Robert McCulloh announced that grand jury decided not to indict Darren Wilson for fatally shooting Michael Brown, I couldn't hold back my tears. I found myself crying on and off for the next week. And if you know me, you know I'm not one for waterworks. But in that moment, as I heard the news, I wanted to talk to someone. It was pretty late, so my parents were asleep. I texted one friend, but she's bad at that form of communication. I texted her because I knew she would feel the same way I felt. I just wanted some solidarity in my sadness. I thought about calling other friends, but then I thought too much about them saying the wrong thing and having that lead to me being more upset than I already was.

That brings up of the main issues that contribute to why I believe race is not something often discussed in my social circles. The first being that I think people assemble what their friends' and families' viewpoints are on certain things based on little indicators they have pieced together over the years. You make a profile in your head of the people you get to know. You can determine what things they might like and dislike because you are familiar with their tendencies and patterns. Similarly, you may assume that they'll feel a specific way about a situation. You may not like this feeling they might have, and therefore make to attempt to discover what their true feelings are. You brush it aside and ensure that topic is never really brought up, because you're afraid of what the truth might be.

On the other side of that, people don't want to say the wrong thing and offend people they care about. People deliberately keep their feelings about controversial topics to themselves so no one gets hurt. The few times that race has been brought up among my friends, at some point I usually just tell myself to shut up, because I can feel the room changing. That tension and discomfort, it's tangible. I don't usually say things for the sake of someone just being mad at me, 9 times out of 10 it's because I'd like to have an invigorating discussion.

These topics are inevitably personal so we have to careful to be respectful but I think it's important that we bring them to the table. How else do you learn? There are some people that don't have the luxury of being exposed to people of different religions, cultures, political beliefs, races, etc. So for those of us that do have that privilege, we should take advantage of it and educate ourselves. I'm sure that's how we can all learn to be better friends and better people.

So that being said, I vow not to punk out on opportunities to educate or be educated. I'm not going to ask my friends if they did anything to honor Black History Month, but I will continue to ensure that I keep learning about trials and successes of my culture, past and present, and be sure to impart any knowledge when the occasion calls for it. I also hope to impress that I am open and eager to hearing the thoughts of my friends and family. You can't always say what I want to hear, and I can promise the same from my end, but it's so important for us to at least start a dialogue. Race isn't biological, it is a social construct, and whether we want to acknowledge it or not, it is an undeniably pervasive and powerful aspect of our society.

To my friends that have ignored or perhaps simply embraced the uneasiness in an effort to have a enlightening conversation, I applaud you. It's hard not have conversations on this topic without being defensive or guarded. Being socially mature in this arena is not an easy task, but it is one we should all think about taking on. I'm not saying to do this today, these things are not automatic. Let's just all consider easing ourselves into it.

Alright cool. Next post I'll try to write about something that's funny? This one was heavy and the last one... well I can't think of a good word for it, but you know what I mean. More variety to come for future posts, I promise! I don't say this nearly enough, but thanks for reading! Seriously, I still can't believe people read this haha. Additionally, my sincerest apologies for any typos. If this were real life, I would print it and read it on real paper. But this is a blog, ain't nobody got time for that.

Self-image and Selfies and Such

Hello again friends. I hope all is well.

I've started writing a new blog post approximately eleven times this year.......

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about self image and how we want other people to see us. Respect is the major theme in all of this. Respect for ourselves and the respect we think we deserve or do not deserve from those around us. I've been thinking about it mostly in terms of physical image as well as... I guess the most accurate term would be status? I'm not sure about that, I might come up with something better and replace it, but for right now that's all I got.

I can't decide if social media and smartphones have unearthed immeasurable amounts of vanity or low-esteem. The "selfie" mode on my phone is actually called "beauty face," which I find hilarious, but I guess it's a nice pick me up. I really just can't believe we are living at a time where people take pictures of their own faces and upload them expecting other people to tell them how attractive they look. They put some dumb caption like "just me" to feign an air of casualness. Alert: you are not being casual. At. All.

I hesitated briefly writing about this because I thought men wouldn't want to read about it. But then I thought, there probably aren't that many men reading my blog. And if they are, then I guess they are okay with my "girlish" topics. But is this really a girlish topic? Because there are a way too many men in this world taking pictures of themselves at the gym, standing in front of weights they're not actually going to pick up... because they can't...

Admittedly there was a time in my life when I took selfies in a serious nature. This was before it was the phenomenon it is now. And, I was a 14 year old girl. So of course I was taking pictures of my face alone in my room when I got new sunglasses, or when I put on new lip gloss, or when I thought my boobies were worthy of three sassy finger snaps. Because I was a 14 year old girl. Full of insecurities, accessories as one of my biggest concerns, and nothing better to do because I already finished my homework before volleyball practice.

Why are people so anxious to have people they're not even close with confirm their beauty by clicking "like". Cool you got 98 likes on your selfie. You only talk to 4 of those people. What about affirmation from mere acquaintances gets people so excited?

Now don't get it twisted, anyone who knows me knows I am oh so accepting of a compliment. When you see my locs all wavy instead of just straight, it's because I spent extra hour doing my hair that week, so.... throw a sista some praise, and I will accept it graciously, knowing that my arduous labor has been appreciated and admired. But also, I do that because I like the way it looks when it's wavy. It's not just so someone can tell me it's pretty, it's so that when I look at it, I can say "Damngurllll" to myself. Yes, I really do say that to myself.

When a person posts a selfie that's not funny or at least serving as a record as something momentous like new bangs or 11 months growing out her locs then I just do not understand.. (if it wasn't obvious, those are the two non-funny selfies I myself have posted after my teen narcissism years.)  Don't even try to say you're just posting it to post it. You know you would be hella upset if you didn't get your desired amount of "likes." But why though? Who decided that this is the ultimate form of validation?

But I guess validation is better than the alternative. We can just be so hard on ourselves and sometimes, unknowingly, on each other. Everyone has something that they think they can work on, even if they have all the self confidence in the world. Once a friend told me she was surprised that I felt comfortable with my profile picture choice because the other girl in the picture was so gorgeous, and that she wouldn't be brave enough to do the same thing. She caught herself immediately, and told me that obviously I was pretty too. But it was already said. I knew she wasn't intentionally trying to offend me, but it still stung. I felt like I got suckered into an insecurity that wasn't mine.

Similarly, once a friend stated that "we" weren't as pretty as another one of our friends. And I almost said something, I didn't though. I think I just made one of those neutral sounds. Because it's one thing to put another woman on a pedestal and decide that your own looks don't measure up to hers, but to also rope someone else into that defeated mind frame, I don't think that's fair. I guess it's easier to be gloomy with company, but yuck. I just wasn't raised to declare that people are prettier than me. I know there are standards of beauty in this country that people often try to emulate (if possible) and when along comes a peer who seems to embody that standard it is easy to glorify him or her. But check yourself.

These little remarks often go undetected but when they are heard and actually processed, there is serious damage potential. I'm sure reading those little anecdotes may have triggered a memory of a similar incident that you've had, and seriously, my sincerest apologies if I was the culprit. I think it's just something we should be a little more conscious of. Because these interaction are happening with people we actually like. I'm not even going to delve into those classless, unkempt fools we can't stand. Not sure I'm mature enough to approach that at the current moment haha.

I mentioned status before, as another part of self image that we want to be viewed in the most agreeable light. I guess I'm looking at it from a socio-economic standpoint. For example, I've never been to public school, and at times when observing the Baltimore City Public School system, one can understand why my parents didn't let that happen. As an undergrad at Hopkins, when people found out I was a Baltimore native, they'd ask if I went to Poly or Western (public magnet schools). Offended, I'd respond that I went to Bryn Mawr, a private school. Most of my offense did not stem from the fact that they thought I went to public school, but a lot of people assumed that the only reason that Black kids from Baltimore got into Hopkins was because they went to public school so Hopkins just let them in. I'm stating that because multiple informed that that is what they believed, I'm not making this stuff up. I wanted to erase that thought from the jump. I worked as hard as anyone else to get into that school, and nothing was handed to me. Not that anything was handed to the students enrolled through the Baltimore Scholars program, but I just didn't appreciate the assumption.

I actually feel like that whole topic could be another post on its own to be really real. So now I have a jumping off point for my next ditty, or maybe not because my mind can be spastic so I'll probably want to write about something else. I guess this is actually a shorter post, but I have things to do. Like study for the GRE (shoot me in the face). Studying again?? I know crazy right. Too many ambitions over here. Ha. Also, disclaimer, I only proofread this like 1.5 times....

Peace out, girl scouts.

This Is about Money and Friend$

Hello there friends and foes. It's been a lil minute, hasn't it?

There are roughly 8 topics floating through my brain's atmosphere that I'd like to discuss at some point, but I know it's most effective to do things one at a time. I hope you can excuse my 2 month hiatus. I was studying for the LSAT -__-

So anyway, I visited a few friends in Boston a few weeks ago and this phrase came up: "Money is awkward between friends." 

To be more specific, the phrase was said by this friend. Hi Pat. =)

Sometimes I marvel at how influential these pieces of paper can be. Money can make you feel powerful, inferior, comfortable, nervous, limitless, or stuck. I guess it all depends on how much you have and how much you think you need.

Before I had my first real job, before I had my first joke job, before I had a bank account, before I received an allowance, I could see simple differences between people who had more money and those who had less. More specifically I was sensitive to people who had more money than me. The appropriate term here would technically be "wealth" but I didn't know what that was when I was little. Or perhaps I was using visual cues to discern socioeconomic levels, but again, I didn't know what that was as a kid. I just knew money was involved.

I remember my first play date with a new friend at my new school. I was seven. I remember wondering if we'd get lost in her house. I remember thinking her house would come to an end, but she just kept taking me into new rooms to play with something else. I knew that her parents had impressive jobs, and impressive jobs dole out impressive money, and impressive money means you get yourself a big, big house.

Sadly, one of the most potent memories I have from that day is the shame that set in when my friend and her mom dropped me back at my house. We had just moved into that house maybe a few months before, and on any other day, I was in love with it. But on that day, I was nervous that my friend and her mom would think less of me and my parents because our house wasn't as big as theirs. I'm not sure where I got this notion, because kids aren't supposed to think about stuff like that. They're supposed to be carefree and innocent, but there I was thinking this girl would judge me because we weren't in the same socioeconomic class.

Thoughts like that continued throughout my time at my small private all girls' school. My parents worked extremely hard to get me there. Clearly now I have a better idea of the sacrifices they made, but even then I knew that it was something to be grateful for. From my observation, that often seemed to be a difference between the kids that received financial aid and those that didn't. Receiving financial aid and having my parents work so hard for me to have such an exemplary education, I was grateful to be there, for some students, this was just the norm, they were just going to school. There were times when I slipped into that mind frame. You get used to certain things when you're exposed to them at age 6.

Even though I could make connections about my family's financial situation. I was a still a child, and wanted everything my friends had. Let's be real, as a teenager I wanted everything my friends had, and even still as adult, that hasn't really changed.

One of the biggest money related concepts that I had (and still have) a hard time wrapping my head around was having access to a parent's credit card. That is access that I have never had and never will have. Although, I have often been a beneficiary of said cards, through my friends, getting a free meal here and there. The first couple of times in high school when I first heard my friends say "Oh, it's on Bruce tonight" (I intentionally picked a random name, I hope,) I was just so baffled. To my understanding, these cards are typically intended for "emergency use only." I guess sometimes buffalo chicken wings are an emergency. That wasn't even sarcasm. I mean, okay, technically it was, but real talk, we've all been there.

Please don't think I'm playing some pity card here. My family lives a comfortable middle class American life, but I've just always been hyper-aware of my economic status in relation to my peers. I worked every semester of college, so I could afford (most of the time) to participate in the activities of my social group. For some of my friends, working was more of a choice, not a necessity. Unfortunately, food and alcohol are not free. That's what college students spend their money on. That hasn't really changed, except now add student loans to the mix (kill me).

Now, things get a little tricky when money is exchanged. What I was talking about before, that's all personal, and how you decided to feel about your socioeconomic status effecting how you feel in relation to your friends, that's mostly your choice. But sometimes these little scenarios pop up and it just so damn uncomfortable.

DISCLAIMER: THE FOLLOWING SCENARIOS ARE VARIOUS ENCOUNTERS THAT HAVE OCCURRED MORE TIMES THAN I CAN COUNT, MERGED INTO 3 LITTLE DITTIES (REFERENCES STARTING WAY BACK IN MIDDLE SCHOOL WHEN WE WERE FIRST ALLOWED TO GO TO THE MALL BY OURSELVES AND SPEND THE MONEY OUR PARENTS GAVE US.) I'M WRITING THIS IN ALL CAPS BECAUSE I DON'T WANT ANYONE TO READ THIS AND SAY "OH SNAP, I TOTALLY OWE EKAETTE $6, DOES SHE HATE ME?" NO I DON'T HATE YOU.

Moving on to the ditties....

When you buy something for your friend that costs $7 and he gives you $5, is it petty to tell him that he still owes you $2? What if you can see that there is more cash in his wallet, but oh maybe he doesn't have any smaller bills? In that moment, if you're like me (poor, trying to save money to buy a car/trying to save up money for law school) all those $2 deficits start to add up. But it's just $2 so you tell yourself to get over it. But clearly since I'm writing about it... looks like I'm not over it? Oops. It's just like I feel like I'm being challenged. I don't hang around anyone who can't read numbers (no slow pokes on my team) so when someone gives me the wrong dollar amount, it's just like are you guessing how much you owe me... because if you didn't know, I assume you would ask. So the alternative is, you think this smaller amount is "good enough." It is only "good enough" if the person who you're giving the money to says "oh five is good." Don't assume. Also, if you only have five bucks... tell your friend you only have five bucks instead of making this awkward scenario happen. Sorry I'm a Taurus, I'm pretty sure being protective over finances is one of our traits. Or maybe I just made that up, but I feel like I've read that...

What about when you order food, but your friend doesn't, and then food comes to the table looking and smelling so gloriously delicious. And then your friend looks so, so sad, so you give her a piece. And in your head you say, "you know what, that's on me." And even though you say it in your head, it's understood by your friend. She's not going to give you $3 for eating a quarter of your entree that you probably shouldn't eat all of anyway because portion size in this country is out of control, so technically she's helping you evade obesity. But then your friend is like "damnnnn, this is wonderful," and she doesn't make eye contact with you while she's telling you her new creepy co-worker who sports a foot long man-ponytail because she's staring at your food. So then your friend eats half of your plate. Literally. The check comes. She only pays for her diet coke. That's awkward right? Now you have a choice to make. If you happen to be spending more time with her doing things that will cost money, perhaps your move at this later venture is to say, "Oh you got me, since you ate half of my calzone, right?" And then your friend can't really say no... because she's your friend and she ate half of your calzone. But if you were just meeting a friend you don't see very often, and she claimed she wasn't hungry, but then she smashed on your calzone, you gotta buck up, face the awkwardness and tell her she's gotta throw down some more dollars.

Then we have the moochers. The friend that never has cash when you take a cab and says he'll buy you a drink later but never does. The friend that asks if you can have a slice of your pizza but before you know it 4 slices are gone. If you are a moocher, your friends will figure that out about you, and they will treat you as such. I'm kind of treating this paragraph like a PSA, because I genuinely believe most moochers feel that they are existing undetected. Just know that if you cause your friend to pay $10 for a cab when they only owed $3, he's probably going to hate you for a little bit. Not forever, unless you're friends with horrible people, but definitely for a little bit. Do you want people to hate you for a little bit? Probably not. Go to the ATM before you venture out with your friends, that is part of adulthood. And if you forgot, apologize, and make a point to pay for the first round, it's only right.

This post started out a bit more seriously and then I digressed, I think I actually do that a lot... sorry, hope you're still following. So here's my perspective about being on the other side of the dollar. By other side of the dollar, I mean to say being the person who owes, not sure if that was clear. Sometimes, your friends cover you, because they know you're poor, maybe poorer than them at the moment, and they're being nice. I think we find things like this so "touching" because you feel loved when someone is willing to part with a certain amount of money just for you. I know... It's the thought that counts, the reasoning behind it, the end goal blah blah. But I think a part of you is thinking, "Wow they were willing to let that precious currency go, just for little old me? I must be special!" But then what if you can't afford to pay them back. They say it's okay, and they sincerely mean that, but you don't want to the pity case. So then you have that whole dilemma.

So the awkwardness is seemingly inescapable. Some people subscribe to "it's only awkward if you make it awkward." That would be true if you were alone on the earth and there was no other living creature. Someone else can make it awkward, quite easily. I don't understand why that phrase exists. I also despise people that say "I never feel awkward." That's just a lie and you trying to make people think you're cool. If you have to try to make people think you're cool, then you're most likely the worst, so just shut it. And if you are reading this thinking that I'm a hypocrite because you've heard me say "I'm not an awkward person," I still stand by that statement. There is a difference between those assertions, I promise.

I was recently talking to someone about what my goal is with this blog. Simply stated, sometimes I have some thoughts in the ole noggin, and I wonder if people have thought about it too, but if not maybe they will after reading. This is also such a gratifying outlet because sometimes people actually read and appreciate what I write and then they want to talk to me about it! I can't even describe how ridiculously happy that makes me. Also, I haven't forgotten that I have yet to write about AmeriCorps. The anniversary of the day I escaped Iowa and returned to my precious Baltimore soil is fast approaching (December 10th) so I think that's when I'll write that little expose (I can't remember how to type in accents on a PC so just read that the way you know it should be read.) Remember when "ttfn" was a way we would say good bye on AIM? If you don't, the translation is: ta ta for now. Jokes on jokes. Bye.