Stream of Conscious Holiday Manifesto… Reflections on A Quarter Century

* A writing ritual I do at each year's end. Personal, cathartic-- and for some reason I feature it on my blog. Feel free to skip. Or better yet, try it yourself.

 It is the final day of my twenty-fifth year and what a fleeting year this has been been. Twenty-Five passed in such a flurry, I want to do it again. So I will. Tomorrow, on my birthday, I will be celebrating 25. Again. After all, they always say you’re only 25 once... and I never do what they always say.



This year has felt like a turbulent flight and right now I’m idle on the runway trying to figure out where to take off to next. I tried new things like belly dancing and ballroom. I got serious about my book. I believe it is my big idea--- you know, the aha-moment of a lifetime. I moved on from heartbreak and began reaping the benefits of being a Siren (in the making). With a quater-century down, and a powerful loss in the recent path, I began to see how important it is to live like there's no tomorrow.



I began 2011 in Jacksonville, Florida where I was in the third year of a contract with a television news station. What can I say about my experience as a local news reporter except I learned a lot about TV, about myself, and you couldn’t pay me enough money to move down there and do it again. When the opportunity arose for me to re-sign a new contract for another three years as an over-worked, under-paid (and appreciated) TV journalist I said, “No, thank you.”. It’s funny how I was so certain about what I didn’t want even though I had no idea what I did want. The truth is I had no back-up plan and that was on purpose. I have wanted to be a media personality since I was 14 years old. It never dawned on me that I’d despise my first television gig.
But maybe that was paying dues…
It has been a month since I’ve moved back home and I can honestly say I have no regrets. I do not miss working in Florida one bit. I’ve been waiting for the morning when I’d rise and feel like heading to the studio at the butt-crack of dawn, but… that hasn’t happened yet. I’m proud of myself for going after my dream, landing an on-air position right out of school, and moving to a new state where I didn’t know a soul. That gave me some chops. But your twenties are about figuring out what you do want out of life just as much as they are about figuring out what you don’t want. What I didn’t want was to be far away from my family. What I didn’t want was to continue turning mindless stories whose sole purpose was to take up two minutes of air space.
I do want to matter.
I’ve always wanted to matter and in fact, now that I am back at home, getting reacquainted with New Jersey winter, I know that the next move I make has to put me some place where I am making a difference in someone’s life and using my brain. Perhaps I was making a difference as a Black woman on TV in Medium-City, South. My fans often referred to me as a positive role model, but after three years, that wasn’t enough. I'm using this time to re-evaluate.
In your twenties (and twenty-five just happens to be the ultimate metanym for "your twenties") the greatest obstacle isn’t figuring out what you want to do with your life, but overcoming your innate fear of being your best self. I've come to learn that the hardest part isn’t completing the journey. Sometimes it's taking the first step. As I see it, most humans have a deep-rooted fear of inadequacy. I realize that now as my big idea--- the book serves as a gross reminder of the thin line between the life of your dreams and what could have been.



It’s several days after Christmas but it really didn’t feel much like Christmas at all. Still, my soul is merry. I am at home, finally, surrounded by people I love. What my 25-year old person will know this time around is that it is okay to re-prioritize your life. Right now, I love how simple life is, even if this state is only temporary. I love being with my family, hugging my parents each day, and lying in my bed until the sun wakes me up. The daily glamour is gone. I am sans weave and a full face of make-up. In fact, I spend most days in jeans . And yet, in my natural state, I merely feel as if I am back stage, preparing, for the performance of my life.

TEN DAYS

As my loyal readers may know, for the past three years I have been toiling away in Medium City, South as a television reporter. Well guess what? In ten days I am moving to Big City, North to pursue my dream as a writer. I hope to post more and in 2012 to be able to tell you where you can purchase my first book. It is a non fiction.

Flyness and Funk,

Life is like a Jigsaw Puzzle

"Life is like a jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the box." -Anonymous

I’m vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard with mom and dad. At the same time I’m reflecting on a major turning point of my life. I have decided to not resign my current television contract which means I’ve got about 3 months to secure a second television job, preferably in Big City, North versus Medium City, South. That task alone comes with serious trepidation, but I’ve also been trying to make sense of where I am headed, and where I want to go. I wish I was published by now, but I am not. I’m questioning if television journalism is really the career for me. I don't want to punk out and duck out early. And then there’s the possibility of law school looming over my head as it is the logical finale many BAP educations. Anyway, suddenly I’m adult, and time is ticking, and I have these humungous dreams and the SHIT IS SCARY.
It started to rain on Monday. The cable is crap so I found this jig saw puzzle in the closet. It was Monet’s Summer broken up into 500 little pieces. If you are familiar with that painting you’re aware that it is like 95 percent blue and white, so putting it together was a mother. Speaking of moms, after the first day she saw that I didn’t have much finished so she lent a hand. It took the both of us four days but we did it and in the end… I realized completing the puzzle was a valuable lesson for me.
Life is a lot like a (difficult) jigsaw puzzle. It comes together piece by piece.
You have to start with the edges. These are the only pieces you know for sure. Your character, your values, your knowledge, and your passions in life. The edge pieces are the framework you need in order to complete the puzzle.
Sometimes you’ll find the next piece by searching for it by color or by shape.
But even then, you may over look it. So when you get stuck, you move on. Try something new. You start working on another section of the puzzle.
Sometimes you get lucky and you stumble upon pieces. That helps you out a lot. But luck only takes you so far.
Jig saw puzzles take patience. Sometimes you’ll feel as if you’ve reached a dead end but you can’t give up. You just keep trying different pieces until something works. Sometimes it helps to take a break, come back and look at the puzzle through fresh eyes.
In jigsaw puzzles you can’t connect one piece, without the other. So even though by luck or technique you may move quickly through a puzzle, there truly are no short cuts.
Jig saw puzzles are far easier when you have someone (like mom) or a group of people to help you. They’ll help you find the pieces you may have over looked on your own.
Jig saw puzzles are hard. But with patience, diligence, and determination they are possible.
And finally, you can’t enjoy the picture until you’ve completed it--- so you might as well have fun working on it along the way.

Black Girl Beautiful

Satoshi Kanazawa is not the first person to disguise racism as science nor is he the first (or last) man to degrade African beauty. In spite of these givens, the Psychology Today article that asserts Black women are inherently less attractive than women of other races has lit the Black E-World on fire. So much so, several hours after it was published, Psychology Today removed the article from their site.

If you'd like to read this mess article click here.

Really Kanazawa's theory comes as no surprise. I don't know about you, but I live in a society that endorses a eurocentric beauty ideal. I live in a society where Marilyn Monroe is the ultimate male fantasy and Sarah Baartman is the ultimate fetish. Every day my senses are overloaded with images of 'beautiful' women whose features are the opposite of my own. If beauty is fair skinned, tall and lithe, with straightish hair and a keen nose, then beauty-- I am not. And that a so-called psychologist would take this observation one step further and attempt to back it up with a half-assed case study .... I'm just not surprised.

What I am shocked by is the subsequent outrage within the Black (on-line) community. Why does it take an Asian man articulating a Black woman's inherent ghastliness to make us react so passionately? Is this not the same euro-centric beauty propaganda that we spread throughout our own communities in subtle and not-so-subtle ways? Do Black women as a collective not have an inferiority complex? An outsider looking in would be justified in assuming so.

Madame CJ Walker, the first Black millionaire, made her fortune selling chemical hair straighteners and bleaching creams to Black women and today Black women still spend billions of dollars on creamy crack and other people's straight hair.

I'd like to think we are a generation beyond the brown paper bag test, but still, most of our leading ladies are women of color with Anglo features. As those in the model world like to call it, white women dipped in chocolate.

Even though it's okay to rock locks, and sista locks, twists and fros---we still praise our wavy headed sisters and brothers for having good-hair, and Black moms still slap "Just for Me" all over their toddler's virgin hair.

Guess what? African women throughout the diaspora bleach their skin. Some even bleach their children's skin. If no body was bleaching, you wouldn't be able to find Fair And White at just about every beauty supply store in the United States of America.


Statistics show that more and more Black women are reconciling their ethnic reality with their anglo aspirations by turning to rhinoplasty and other procedures that may tame exotic features.

Pretty Black girls are still told, "you're pretty, for a dark skinned girl". And no kidding, a male friend and fellow Ivy-Leaguer once told me that as a successful Black man, he can only date "light-skinned" women. He was dead serious.


Black is beautiful....
But is it?

Kanazawa seems to emphasize that Black men and Black women are not aesthetic equals. In fact, he writes that Black men are superior in looks to other men due to their "high levels of testosterone". So I'm thinking....

If Black men are the most attractive of all men, and Black women are the least attractive of all women, then perhaps Black women are not good enough for Black men after all. Kanazawa has finally supplied millions of Black women with an explanation for why they are single and why Black marriage rates are stark and why Kobe didn't marry a sista.

Are you upset yet?

It baffles me that we would decry an outsiders opinion of our beauty when as a culture, we have allowed others to define "our beauty" and politicize "our beauty" for centuries.

Beauty is an opinion. It's just that. It's fluid. It's changes over time and across cultures. That's something I learned during a recent trip to Dominican Republic. From the time I arrived at the airport I was swarmed with male attention. Fair-skinned, darker-skinned Dominican men, it didn't matter. I received marriage proposals, invitations to dinner, astounding service. "My, you are two beautiful Black woman" one man shouted as he watched my mom and I walk along beach.

It was an all-inclusive resort I stayed in, so after 5 days of big meals, daiquiris, and constant flattery--- I went home with a fatter booty, belly and ego.

"I'm moving to the Dominican Republic," I told Miles* at an outdoor concert.

"Why?"

"Because I've never had my beauty celebrated like that before. I want to feel like that every day."

"Please, men flirt with you all the time," he smiled. And they do. But not like that.

You see, standards of beauty shift depending on where you are in the globe. There are some aspects of a woman's beauty that are universal. Harmonious features, smooth skin, a nice waist-to hip ratio. But after that, beauty is pretty much socialized. Beauty ideals are a function of cultural hegemony. Conforming to a certain standard of beauty is an excercise in power or lack there of. It is the reason why a woman who decides to undergo the "big chop" and swap her perm for a fro is seen as making a "political" statement. Beauty is so much more than looks.

Some people think I'm self-absorbed. A narcissist.

I am.

I think I'm beautiful and I have my parents to thank for that. My mom looks like the bust of Nefertiti. I think she is the most gorgeous woman in the world. She has chocolate skin and beautiful cheek bones. Her hair is natural, coiled in sister locks. She is my beauty ideal and she raised me that way. Literally there were dozens of paintings of beautiful Black women all over my home growing up including a gorgeous one of mom right when you first walk in. My dolls looked like me. The characters in my story books and fairy tales looked like me. I realize now my parents went to incredible lengths to raise a Black child who didn't have a color complex. That's not easy.

In spite of their best efforts, I had some hiccups. I was the only brown skinned frizzy haired girl with a big butt dancing ballet with other young ladies who looked nothing like me. I questioned my beauty then. And of course I went through an awkward adolescent stage where I thought no boys liked me. I questioned my beauty then too.

But somehow, as an adult, I've come love what I see when I look in the mirror, pug nose and all. A woman can not be beautiful to anyone else unless she recognizes her own beauty. It is something that has to be embraced and celebrated.

It's sad because there is a generation out there waiting to be validated. A generation of Black women with broken self-esteem... who feel broken because of who they are. And it's not right.... because they are beautiful.

I'll leave you with this memory. It was the first time I covered a parade. It must have been the MLK parade because there were mostly Black people. Anyway, there was a group of two-dozen or little brown girls dancing down the street in this parade. I looked at them and smiled because they were so adorable. Then, I caught their eyes. Every little girl made a bee-line, ran off the parade route, and into my arms. Each one of them hugged me.

The memory makes me teary eyed.

I realized then, as a 23 year old budding tv- journalist, exactly what I was to those girls. I was them.

Finally they could turn on the tv and see themselves. A brown skin girl, with a pug nose, full lips, high cheek bones, and booty. And I was still on tv. And I was smiling. And I was ... beautiful. And I was them. There's a generation of girls out there who just want to be appreciated for who they are.

At then end of the day Kanazawa is doing what all scientists do--- they try to make sense out of everyday phenomena. If our society places the least value on Black beauty, why is that? Of course he can't see the foolishness in his attempt to apply biological reasoning to a sociological concept. Touche. But this entire ordeal begs the question of who we let define our beauty.

I hope that after the outrage over this silly man's article we hold a mirror up before ourselves. I hope we notice our own faults and propensity to judge each other based on Anglo ideals. And more importantly, I hope Black girls everywhere take a good look in that mirror and see that yes, they are too, beautiful.

Misty Copeland Blackberry Bold 9780 Commercial

It's fantastic to see ballerina's in popular culture. Black Swan, though grossly an overstatement, was adored by fans that would have never stepped foot in the theater. And then I was blessed to see Prince at Madison Square Garden (first row!) and out comes Misty Copeland, African-American soloist with American Ballet Theater. Their performance was out of this world. I always knew ballet had the potential to cross cultural and socioeconomic lines. It is a beautiful art form and I was privileged to train as a ballerina for most of my life.

And now this Blackberry commercial which shadows Misty Copeland. I love that it spotlights ballet, but more importantly a Black ballerina. There is still a supreme dearth of African-American women in the ballet world. That's my few cents. Enjoy.

What's your price? On Sex, Economics, and Market Crash

A woman's most valuable asset is her vagina.

Oh... you think I'm tripping? You don't think your vagina has a price? My mom looked at me pretty funny too until I explained to her my logic.

Let's look at some the basic differences between male and female sexuality.

-In all cultures men are expected to give resources in exchange for access to female sex. These resources may be in the form of dinners, money, gifts, time, attention, compliments, exclusivity or even marriage. But something of value is given in exchange for the possibility of sex. With few rare exceptions, women do not give anything in exchange for sex.

-Sex is costlier for women. Intercourse could result in pregnancy, child birth, and the responsibility of motherhood. Men only lose semen, and they practically have an endless supply of that.

-In all cultures, female virginity, or brand new vagina, is a prized possession. Male virginity, however, is stigmatized.

-Women may enjoy sex, but men need it. When push comes to shove, men are far more inclined to relax their standards or even resort to using porn and/or prostitutes for sexual gratification.

-In all cultures female infidelity carries greater weight than male infidelity. When a man cheats, it is viewed as a broken promise. When a woman cheats, it is as if she gave something of the man's away. In most cases, her infidelity is unforgiveable.

-And finally, when a man boasts about a successful seduction he might say he "scored" , "hit it", or "got the panties". The woman on the other hand "put out" or "gave it up".

Sex between a man and a woman is not an equal exchange. When men and women have sex, physically they are doing similar things. Socially they are doing very different things. A man is receiving something of value that the woman is giving. Her vagina.

Since the beginning of time women have used their sexuality as a powerful negotiating tool for resources and protection. Let's not forget that it wasn't until very recently, less than 100 years, that women were allowed to really work and take care of themselves. For the greater part of human history a woman's sexuality and ability to bear children was her most significant asset. Her survival and her childrens survival depended on how well she leveraged her sexuality. Hence our foremothers had to be incredibly selective about whom they granted access to their vaginas.

When we consider sex as an exchange of resources, our perception of romance is bound to change. In economic terms, the world is a market place. Courtship is a negotiation to determine what a man is willing to give in exchange for access to a particular vagina. And marriage is a contract. But perhaps this less-than-romantic concept of romance could do womankind some good.

It goes without saying that all vagina is not created equal.

There are certain qualities that may increase the value of an individual vagina, and they of course pertain to the woman attached to it. Beauty, youth, class, intelligence, virtue, and a lack of prior sexual partners all raise value.

And then of course some qualities lower it. A used vagina is worth less than new vagina that's still in its original packaging. A widely-distributed vagina is worth less than an exclusive vagina. As with any commodity.

Then there are factors that influence the overall market, largely supply and demand. Think of it as the US Vagina Exchange. The price of American vagina has been plummeting since the early sixties, around the time the birth control pill was introduced. When women stopped having to worry about getting pregnant, they were free to enjoy sex just like men.

In actuality, women's liberation merely freed women to frolic in a man's sexual paradise. As women indulged in pleasures of the flesh, the market became flooded with cheap vagina. As time passed, premarital sex became the norm. More babies were born out of wedlock. Sex without strings and cohabitation without commitment became the norm. Vaginas could be had for less than ever before. One dinner. Maybe two. A week of phone calls. A drink. A compliment. The slightest sign of interest.

By the eighties it was considerably more difficult for women with high quality vagina to command the same high prices as women decades prior. Men weren't as willing to lavish them dinners, gifts, attention, and commitment. It was too easy to find cheaper vagina elsewhere.

And in the year 2000, in a market inundated with cheap vagina and internet porn, the price of american vagina hit rock bottom.

The vagina market crashed.

So where do women go from here? There are two options. Usually when supply exceeds demands, companies work together to reduce the amount of product on the market and raise the market value. So, theoretically modern women en mass could stop giving of the vagina so freely.

Then of course there are steps individual women can take to command a high price. And that's pretty simple. Make your vagina exclusive. Why be a KIA when you can be a Porsche? Why be a double-wide when you can be a mansion? I believe that a woman's vagina is her greatest asset. It is sacred. It is her crown jewel. But it is only worth as much as the woman it is attached to.

The best thing that we can do to survive this sexonomic recession is to be the best women we can, and to make peace with extended periods of abstinence. We have to put our vaginas away and save it for men (or the man) who truly deserve it. We must be wonderfully aware of our worth and only willing to share ourselves with men who demonstrate that they are as well.

While many men will settle for what comes easy, the best men will work for does not. A man may cross the street for a cheap thrill, but he'll jump through flames for a woman that only few have had.

And you know what?

I don't think he'll mind the challenge, the adventure, or the possibility of being with the best this world has to offer.

Cheers,

PS: Never did like economics in college.