Happy Friday, folks! If you are looking for a place to go grab a drink this weekend, make sure it ISN’T Big Shots Bar and Grill in Woodbridge, NJ. Apparently, they aren’t a big fan of Colored men. My friend Andre Melvin Jones, Jr. had a nasty experience there. Check his words out below and make sure that no matter what color you are, you avoid any place of business that treats people this way. Have a fantastic Labor Day weekend and if you get a chance, check out my homage to the ladies of Hip-Hop who helped me develop my sex positive attitude over at Soul Train.- ST

Dear Friends,

The upcoming scenario is a real one. I want to welcome you to a reality. A reality that our country would like for us to gullibly forget about, coaxing us into believing is a thing of the past when really it is not; a reality that once before I felt lucky, maybe even naïve about having not experienced, but now feel humbled having thus discovered.

It was Friday, August 20, 2010, when two black men (myself and my friend) hanging out with a mutual friend, decided to visit a local bar in their hometown of Woodbridge, NJ.  Our friend arrives before us. My friend and I follow up shortly after along with two more female friends and other patrons. The bouncer at the door announces that there’s no guarantee of entry due to overcrowding. He then directs us to the side of the building. After several minutes, the bouncer gets back to us and says that we can go home because NO ONE ELSE IS GETTING IN TONIGHT. So we contact our friend who arrived before us  and tell her the news. She comes outside, bemused about the situation as she tells us bye; we think nothing of it, these things happen, but were a little disappointed. We now notice more cars filing into the parking lot. We figure their fate is going to be the same as ours. But as these groups of people empty their cars and head for the establishment – all white males and females – something strange happens. They all disappear. Into the bar.

We can’t believe our eyes! My friend and I reapproach the bouncer and question him about his decision to let those particular patrons in. He replies, “they’re cops, wanna talk to them?” We reiterate what he told us about no one else getting in for the rest of the night which he responds to with, “we have the right to be selective.” We go back and forth with the bouncer and then he tells us about the dress code – which he even says we’re adhering to – but recites for us anyway. No baggy jeans, no backwards caps, no hoodies… we don’t have on any of that stuff. But then he says that they don’t allow “no homie sh*t here.” Tempers flare; our discourse turns into an all out argument. The bouncer continues to threaten us with the idea of “cops” being present in their establishment and welcomes us to “speak” to them. We simply want a real explanation for our rejection tonight.

Now, the manager, a fellow named Mike Decrosta, comes outside and reiterates that no one else is getting in for the night. Again – not just us two, but NO ONE. We continue arguing with the bouncer and manager that their rejecting us is unjustifiable and discriminatory. The manager points to a black bouncer off to the side and says, “We have black employees.” Now, that type of condescension is ridiculous. We stand our ground and refuse to leave. The manager then empties his pockets and throws up his hands. He starts yelling, directing his anger towards my friend, “I want a piece of that motherfucker! Bring him over here!” We originally came to have a good time; now we want answers for our rejection and he wants to fight. The black bouncer finally comes over, escorts us away from the door. For the remainder of the time we spend in the parking lot talking to the black bouncer, more white patrons show up and are allowed entry.

 What happened to me and my friend wasn’t instigated. We didn’t pose a threat to anyone in there; we aren’t threatening or intimidating individuals. Actually, we’re just two young, black men who just want to be respected and treated like human beings. Not looked at as suspects and insulted like that. We didn’t deserve that. No one deserves that. But it happened. It is happening. This is the reality that people of color face every waking moment, whether we’re applying for a job, moving into a community, or simply looking to grab a beer. This is what we’re dealing with! And it’s an insult to say otherwise and to suggest that this is a post-racism country. This is stillvery much a racist country, the euphemisms have just gotten cleverer and the forms of racism are disguised a lot better. Big Shots Sports Bar & Grill is an example of this evolution. With a policy like “no homie sh*t” they might as well have a sign outside that reads “Whites Only.”

On a night, in a suburb, where the grass is green, the fences are picketed and white, and the disillusioned, whitewashed perspective of American life prevails, reality struck. Now, welcome.

André Melvin Jones, Jr.

Big Shots Sports Bar & Grill

780 US Highway1 Iselin, NJ 08830

(732)750-5050

**Tonight is the night! My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women in Hip-Hop airs on BET at 10pm EST! I’m telling you…this is a film not to be missed. Support, support, support! **

I have a confession to make: I may just be a little bit complexion obsessed. I tend to be to hyper-aware of color at times (not race, you know I’m a lot more fascinated about what’s going on with us as opposed to how we interact outside).

How did this happen? I think it started early for me. Color was always there. My mother is  my twin in a rich milk chocolate shade (PS- Do we have any other way of describing our skin other than dessert flavors and wood?).  While I see some of my father (and his mother’s) features on my face now, as a child, I looked even more like Mom. Yet, when people saw she and I together, they almost always asked “Does she look like her father?” Because, of course, I would have to resemble the light skinned parent, right? This drove my mother up the wall.  Growing up, she wasn’t so different than her own mom complexion-wise, but subject to a different, ignorant remark: “You’re so pretty for a darker girl.” A member of a prominent Chicago Creole family told her that her eyes were her “saving grace” in spite of the stain of such brown skin.

Then we have my father: fair skinned, mixed race, Black Panther alum. His entire life, as I have heard my entire life,  his Blackness has been challenged. Not by people of other races, of course. By our folk. By other activists and by brothers and sisters who may be able to best him in a melanin race, but who would never have spent the past 30 years armed and ready to defend the lives of Black people as he has. Growing up, I dealt with many inquiries and occasional taunts about my “White daddy”. My neighborhood, Hyde Park, had a large concentration of mixed-race couples and children and people quite often took for granted that I was a part of that number.

So while I’ve known a few people claim  that color didn’t come up a lot when they were growing up, that wasn’t the case for me. Like most children, I adopted some of my parents’ insecurities and issues and I developed a few of my own.  More about those to come soon. I don’t think my obsession is a bad thing; it’s forced me to be critical and vocal about some things that I think deserve that sort of attention (i.e. the disproportionate number of light-skinned women in certain media spaces).  Talking about skin color is something we really don’t do enough of in Negronia. It’s a difficult and painful subject and we’ve only really allowed darker-complexioned persons (usually women) to speak freely about the matter.  And it’s a double edged sword for them: allowed to represent “authentic Blackness”, but then described as bitter or delusional for speaking up. The color complex may not be what it once was…but it’s still in effect, even in 2010.

Dear readers, what have been YOUR experiences with color? When were you first made aware of the concept? Have you been hurt or challenged by matters of skin tone and if so, how? Unpack your bags and let’s rap. This is the first in what will be a few posts about the matter and I am going to be unchained, just so you know. Black as the ace of spades and high yellow as I always have been. As a wise brother was once prompted with a point to say, “Black is Black”…not that it’s ever been that easy for us.

There have been many jokes about a recent DEA job posting for “Ebonics experts”.  But for all the LOL-worthy, “is this an Onion story come true”-ness of the situation, there is a troubling truth here that I haven’t heard much talk of. I’ve heard the oft-repeated “Black folks aren’t a monolith! New York Ebonics ain’t Atlanta’s“. I’ve heard indignation about the return of Ebony Phonics to the national stage. Worry more over this: If the DEA is looking for Ebony Phonics decoders, this means that the officers they have on staff do not reflect the cultural norms of the persons whom they are policing. In other words…sounds like it ain’t enough Black folks working for the DEA.

Linguists are necessary when attempting to police folks who speak foreign languages. Our government employs speakers of Chinese. Spanish, Arabic (whole lot of those, as THE MOOSLIMS ARE GOING TO GET US ANY DAY NOW), etc, etc. Many are foreign born and are speaking their native tongue in this work; others are from here and have learned these languages at school. But when we are looking at a place with as a large Black population as Atlanta and the number of persons being investigated who will be Black and male…you are telling me you don’t employ folks who speak the language of the ‘trap? Georgia, we have a major problem.

What are the reasons for this? We do have a significant segment of the African American population who balk at the idea of working in law-enforcement. Its worth noting yet again that our society can and will not exist without police, federal investigators and laws. It is in our best interest to saturate these institutions with Black people and allies who have our best interests in mind. So long as we allow White males to be the group most interested in maintaining law and order where we stay, we will continue to be at constant odds with the enforcement of the law.

But we mustn’t forget that Black folks have a particularly contentious relationship with the work of the DEA, if not the agency itself. Blacks have been unfairly targeted by both drug laws (i.e. time served for rock cocaine vs. powdered cocaine), the rate of arrest and prosecution for marijuana,etc. In fact, Blacks are arrested for drug possession at a rate 2.89 times higher then that of Whites.  In a nutshell: the DEA ain’t really our best friend.

However, the DEA has had some trouble over the years with doing their part to keep their workforce diverse. In 1981, the U.S. District Court found that the DEA had discriminated against a number of African American special agents in personnel practices. While the Agency was able to resolve the issue with the plaintiffs, they continued to face criticism regarding the treatment of minority (particularly Black and Latino) persons in three major areas: hiring, promotion, and discipline. In 2003, the Government Accountability Office was called in to survey the situation and make recommendations for revised personnel practices. You can read more about this here.

The concept of Ebony Phonics as a language that White folks in the academy and the workforce needed to learn in order to serve us has been wrought with problems since making national headlines in 1996 (the name was actually created in the 1970′s by a group of Ebony scholars). Much like with schools, hospitals and police departments, the DEA would not struggle to find “Ebonics experts” if they hired and promoted people who had intimate familiarity with the particular communities they are attempting to rid of drugs. In this case, most of those folks would be Black.  And before you proud “I never saw another Black person unless I was at a family reunion”
Ebony folk out there remind me that we aren’t all fluent in BVE, that is not to say that a GOOD number of us can’t speak it rather well despite being raised with instructions not to or a lack of direct exposure to it.

If the DEA can’t hire internally and must have have a national search to find a mere nine people who are fluent in Black Vernacular English, then I feel even less confident in their ability to perform when it comes to us.

It was announced today that Shirley Sherrod has declined an offer to return to the USDA, bringing this international embarrassment to a unique close. Typically, when a Black person is subject to obvious or probable racism in the public eye, she will accept the apologies of the guilty party. See: Gates, Henry Louis and the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team. While Sherrod stated very clearly from the get go* that she was not trying to hear any apologies from Andrew Breitbart  AND that she was considering legal action against the conservative blogger, today’s announcement is even more powerful. And while the ‘Dr. Laura/poor, misguided sister who we want to ask why she called her in the first place’ saga was far less significant, it is worth nothing that the caller has also declined the apology offered her way.

Blatant racism forgiven with the simple words “I’m sorry” brings to mind the phenomenon commonly referred to as Battered Woman’s Syndrome. The victims are unable to walk away from their abuser and continue to return time and time again, without instituting any true demands for an improvement in how they are treated or rehabilitation for their abuser. I have said it once and I will say it again: Black folks will gladly take the moral high road all the way to Hell. Saying “It’s okay” doesn’t always make you the bigger person.

The path to this fabled “Post-Racial America” will not be paved with empty apologies and forgiveness that comes with no requirements. We must not continue telling White folks that it’s okay to treat P.O.C. like second class citizens because they don’t know any better. We must TEACH those who lack understanding of institutionalized racism/oppression and White privilege how those institutions work and we must continue to push back against them whenever we can. Hat tip to Mrs. Sherrod for doing just that.

Sherrod’s actions send a very clear message: if you do not treat me with the  appropriate dignity and respect, then there is no place for me working to serve you and there is certainly no need for me to accept an apology. We can’t allow certain people to make fair treatment of ‘minorities’ to be a matter of being politically correct…its being CORRECT. Period. This isn’t about “us” vs “them”; this is a matter of all of us living together in something resembling peace and harmony.

If we (people of color, women, LGBT folks and/or allies of these groups) do not effectively require that members of majority groups respect us, we will continue to battle racism, sexism and all the other isms so long as this country exists. So long as Black folks’ forgiveness comes cheaper than the Extra Value Menu, I don’t have the ‘audacity’ to hope for otherwise.

*I am fluent in Ebony Phonics. Do you think the DEA will hire me?

PS: I was very surprised to see that I ranked on Black Web 2.0′s list of “Most Powerful Black Women on Twitter” (not to be confused with a list of the most powerful Black women who happen to be on Twitter- two VERY different things). Surprised, excited and humbled. Thanks to everyone who follows me there, has RT’d something I said because they found it valueable and worth sharing and/or placed me on one of their Twitter lists. If the sprit so moves you to vote, my Twitter page was nominated for a Black Weblog Award as well!

I think now is a great time for me to acknowledge that I have learned a lot from the people I have connected from on this site, the others and Twitter. Namely, how to be respectful when I disagree with someone and not to take criticism of my work as a criticism of me. Have I mastered this? No. And there will still be times when reading someone the riot act will be approrpiatye. But I am working on it and I think you, dear readers, should know that you have had a profound effect on how I express and conduct myself. I’m learning patience and how to be more gentle and effective with my words. Online and otherwise. So for that, I thank you from the bottom of my heart! If I could buy each and every one of you a download of El DeBarge’s smash (in my heart) new single “Second Chance”, I would. But I’m poor. So…here’s a link to the video.

Fam-a-lam! No entirely new content here today, but if I may, I want to call your attention to something I am *really* excited about. I had the opportunity to screen BET’s first ever music documentary “My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women In Hip-Hop” last week and it literally brought me to tears. I really think you guys are gonna enjoy this film. I am saving my review and full on gushing until next week, as it airs on August 30th, but I do encourage you to check out the Facebook and Twitter pages for the film in the meantime!

After seeing the film, I was inspired to take on a subject I had pretty much avoided in my writing: Lauryn Hill.  If you are interested, an essay about my conflicted feelings about the singer and her fans appears at Clutch this week. Click here to read “Notes On Lauryn”.

Also, I had the opportunity to share my thoughts on the ongoing controversy over both California’s Proposition 8 and the soon to be built Corodoba Cultural Center and Mosque (aka “The 9/11 Mosque”) over at Essence Online today. Click here to check that out.

Talk to you soon!

In old news today, a fella named Farhad Manjoo who writes for Slate did a piece called “How Black People Use Twitter“. He came to the facinating conclusion that Negroes use the social networking site to network socially. It was the equivalent of the time that White folks discovered that sweet potato pie is our de facto brown-veggie based custard pie at the holidays, as opposed to pumpkin. Not exactly earth shattering, but fascinating to some. What REALLY set people to cutting up was the accompanying illustration: a rendering of the Twitter bird logo wearing a fitted hat with a hashtag on it. A “fail whale” draped with the Pan-African flag may have been more fitting.

A lot of other bloggers hit the nail on the head about the whole ‘Black people are not monkeys in an online cage. We just would like to continue living, loving and laughing without being othered by random strangers’ thing, so I didn’t feel the need to take it on (though I do want to raise a public eyebrow to the fact that the dude who wrote the article is non-White and yet he seems to see the world in terms of ‘White as normative’, which is bizarre).  And some SPECTACULARLY IGNANT BROWN TWITTER BIRDS were created. It was funny beyond measure. If you want to read more, check out this, this, this and this.

Now, Afro-Twitter IS already using the site as a resource to pass along information about important stories that don’t get enough run from the mainstream media. Much like the blogosphere, the #browntwitterbird kept us informed about the Oscar Grant case, the death of Mitrece Richardson, the Black August events taking place this month…along with some pop culture and social commentary stuff that may not be as weighty, but is specific to *us* and how we do.  And you have people like me who use the site as part of these agressive low-budget marketing campaigns to push their writing, music, films, etc. This didn’t make the Slate story and that’s fine, because that’s why we have Afro-Twitter anyway, right?

On my end, I’m thinking…we got White folks-and people who perhaps think they are White folks- real fascinated by what we are doing online…maybe we need to kick it up a notch. ‘Invisible man’ tweets and got the whole world watching…perhaps we need to do some tricks. We are a creative and crafty people.  This has inspired me to dust off the whole “Five For Friday” format and pitch a few ideas that will help us take Afro-Twitter to the next level.  Let’s get get tweet it!

1) Twitter Families: Black folks are notorious for having lots of cousins, play cousins and the proverbial ’auntie’s best friend’s daughter’s neighbor who is just like a sister to us’. Perhaps we can form extended families on the Twitter, which will lead to Twincest, Twanksgiving dinner, Big Mama speeches and fabulous family reunion shirt-avatars each summer. And for those of us who don’t have big Madea-esque families (*sob*), it may give us something to hold on to. This Twitter family has got to be that fist!

2) A Twitter Numbers Runner: We can bring it back to the days of the policy wheel, which made a lot of your aunties and cousins real fancy on the block. People can play their number each week and pay the number runner via PayPal. Um…this is as good a time as any to remind y’all about making those monthly donations to The Beautiful Struggler fund, right? If we get the Twitter policy wheel going, y’all get to play your first book free.

3) Twitter Record Labels:Because all Black people must be involved in the creation of a record label at some point in their lives (hell, people send ME demos like I’m an A&R and like I ain’t been listening to the same damn Albert Brown records since 1993, but okay…), we can just get this out of the way while we on Twitter. My label is gonna be called “No Limit Toldja Records”. Ughhhhhh….na, na, na, na.

4) Twitter Car Clubs: Now, where I’m from (C-H-I-C-A-G-O), membership in a car club is based upon ownership of a particular make and/or model of whip. For example, the Renegade Cavalier Club. Where I live right now (Planet Brooklyn), the clubs are simply for people who are owners of cars. That’s all it takes. There is a fella around my place of work that pushes an Astro-Van that is not only branded with his club’s logo, but also features a permanent tribute to Michael Jackson (of which I am NOT mad at). As a non-driver of anything, I don’t have a vote on which sort of car club Twitter picks. I will just player hate from the sidelines bus stop.  Just make sure you put your @-sign on the window very clearly, so I can tweet my hate.

5) Twitter Adoption:This may fall under the ‘family’ suggestion, but I think it deserves it’s own category. You know how our grandmothers are for scooping somebodies fast-tail daughter or knucklehead son off the block? Well, perhaps we can use this online. I see some people on my own timeline I’d like to re-raise myself. Take their tweets in and mold them with some good old-fashioned. This Twitter family has got to be that fist!

What other suggestions do you all have for using the Twitter to bring our Blacks’ Magic to our legions of adoring fans and pesky reporters?

**I am going to be a guest on Abiola Abrams’ LSD: Love, Sex and Dating tonight at 10pm EST! You can watch it live at Shovio.com! I will also be Tweeting a bunch throughout. Please join us!**

Happy Black Girl Day! (What’s that? Click here for answers!)

My theme for HBGD this month is gratitude. When I started writing about 5 years ago, I wasn’t really sure what the end result would be. I knew I wanted to be an essayist, but I’ve never taken any writing classes and I didn’t see how I could really become a legitimate writer. I didn’t quite know how I could get people to read my stuff, either. I just kept at it until things started to gel and I managed to figure out some things about shameless self-promotion and marketing.

Fast forward to now and things are looking promising. The site traffic here is pretty darn respectable. Blind Iwas the first site to ever put me on and I’m still part of the team (much love and respect to the fam) and I also contribute for Clutch, Soul Train, and Essence Online.Plus, I’m part of The Fresh Xpress network and I have a new column debuting very soon (more on that in a second).

All of that came from people supporting me, challenging me, sharing my work with others, sending me hate mail, telling me they were going to start dating one of my friends and then dump her to spite me and prove a point (ok, only one batsh*t crazy reader did that), encouraging me, telling me to hang it up, etc, etc. I’m still rather poor, but I am seeing my dreams come in to fruition and I am very, VERY happy for that. A lot of people have a blog just to have one and no shade to them, but my social media/online presense is more than just “Oh, I just wanna share my thoughts” or some way for me to make new friends. I bust my as$ to keep up this site and my other writing and it means a lot to me that people enjoy what I do. So thank YOU for everything!

I am also grateful for freedom. My entire life, I’ve been known as a little bit of a rebel or someone who marched to the beat of her own drummer.  When I was younger, I had some awareness of this and I didn’t like it. I didn’t change to conform, but I resented the occasional discomfort or dissonance that occured. As an adult, I don’t worry much over those things and I realize that a lot of my ‘out of the box’-ness is my committment to freedom. I am bound by certain loyalties, as most of us are, and I do subcribe to and/or play along with plenty of social mores. But I’m not chained, lovelies, I am free. I use my voice, my body and my life as I see fit. “Free, Black and grown“, as Star Jones would say. And I love it! 

Speaking of feeling free, I am embarking upon a new path in my writers journey and freedom is certainly the name of the game with this here. I am going to be doing a sex column for Madame Noire: Girl On Top. It will be a super fun adventure in s*x positivity*: I’ll share some stories, tips, advice, interesting info making s*x fun! Stay tuned!

Happy Black Girl Day, everyone! Take the time to talk to a sister today and let her know why you are grateful for her presence in your life. Take a moment to examine why you are a Happy Black Girl and appreciate that part of your existence. We have so many spaces to mourn, make sure you make some room to celebrate!

PS: DC folks, the lovely PBG is hosting her monthly HBGD happy hour! Go and have three gin and tonics on my behalf!!!

*I know that some of y’all have trouble with the site getting blocked at work, so I am trying to be careful with words that can be caught up by content fiters.

The other day, Professor Mikhail Lyubansky (a scholar who actively challenges racism and who I have a lot of respect for) asked me my thoughts on the following video clip:

For those unable to view it, the clip shows a Black man explaining that “every 45 seconds, a Black man enters an elevator and some stupid White b*tch clutches her purse for dear life“. If there were pictures in the dictionary, this fella’s would go next to the “non-threatening” entry. However, I don’t doubt that he has experiences a whole lot of purse clutching in his day.

I had seen this while ago and told him that I thought it was spot on. While I don’t know what it feels like to be a Black man in that situation, I know how it feels to be a sister and have some simple White woman clutch her bag in an elevator, on a crowded street or in even in Whole Foods WHEN I HAD A CART FULL OF HUMMUS AND OTHER UPPITY PEOPLE FOOD! WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME A BOUGIE BOHO WITH A CART FULL OF HUMMUS AND TOFU SNATCHED SOMEBODIES PURSE???And I can attest that those very words have gone through my head: “stupid b*tch”, “stupid White b*tch” and all sorts of variations on that phrase.

In fact, my senior year in college, I told a middle aged White purse clutcher “If I were the sort of person who snatched purses, I wouldn’t be robbing someone broke as you. I could probably buy you, stupid b*tch“. Now, we both know that last part is a lie (it’s still The Beautiful Struggler, not the Beautiful and Class Mobile…for now!), but I looked like I had more than she did. I had on a pretty dress, my face and hair were popping and I was full of Howard pride. How dare this woman treat me like I was some no count thief simply because I was Black?

The professor was surprised that I was okay with the B-word (you can check his Twitter stream for his response and thoughts: “I’m not trying to equate racism with sexism…or “bitch” with the n-word. Just exploring the complex dynamics of racism.”) and it set em to thinking about my use of the B-word, which is somewhat liberal but not excessive IMO. I don’t think calling some one a “b*tch” automatically implies sexism the way that a non-Black person calling someone the N-word does.

I think the b-word is one that we need to wield with caution. I don’t mistake female strength or aggression with being a b*tch, nor do I think it’s the appropriate utterance every time a woman does something wrong. I’ve called men ‘b*tches’ and women ‘assh*oles’ and it didn’t mean that the former was acting ‘like a woman’ or vice versa. When I watched that tape, I didn’t feel like the man was attempting to use patriarchy to reassume power or lash back at this woman. I felt like he called her the same word that I would have used in that situation.

The biggest problem with b*tch is that there is no universally accepted definition. It certainly CAN imply that the speaker has issues with women, but that isn’t always the case. For example, when someone uses it when they refer to a random group of women as b*tches, that’s not quite the same as “This b*tch has been smiling in my face and sleeping with my man for the past 5 months“. And, as Joan Morgan pointed out, it’s “extremely telling” when you have a group of people that use ‘b*tches’ when they mean woman/Black woman and ‘n*gga’ in lieu of man/Black man.

We have the same issue with n*gger too; some of us want it to go, others want it to be a term of endearment. However, the history of n*gger is very clear: it was widely accepted as a synonym for ‘Black person’ and had the ugliest of connotations. It wasn’t used to refer to a certain kind of Black person, it was ALL Black people. Where as b*tch has typically meant a woman with some sort of unseemly qualities. I just can’t co-sign the notion that it is the same for a Black man to call a woman a b*tch as it is for a White woman to call a Black man a n*gger.

As I was getting in my homegirl’s car last night, a driver who was zooming down the street at a red light hit the open door, only missing me by inches. She seemed to be high on something and got an attitude with me, stating the whole thing was somehow my fault. When my friend and I finally got ready to drive away, she looked at me and exclaimed “That stupid b*tch almost killed you!” What would she have said if the driver was a man? Perhaps ‘assh*le’ or ‘motherfu*cker’. But does that mean she has bias or hatred towards her own gender? I’m going with no. I mean…the b*tch almost killed me!

PS: It’s Black Weblog Awardstime! I would greatly appreciate some nominations, which are being submitted NOW! Please consider The Struggler when voting for Best Writing In A Blog, Blog Of The Year and/or Blog To Watch and, also, my Twitter pagefor “Best Microblog”. Thank you kindly!

Sorry that there was no new post here today, but I have three articles elsewhere on the web today:

How Much Was Oscar Grant’s Life Worth? (via Essence Online)

Chicago’s Response to Overturned Gun Ban (also, via Essence Online)

You Know I Had Soul (via Soul Train)

If you are heading to the Brooklyn Hip-Hop Festival tommorrow, I will be in the hizzzouse. Holler at me- I’ll be macking with my cane, wearing something short and sipping on sangria.

I’ve been called a lot of things in my lifetime: daughter, Jamilah, sister, sista, friend, student, teacher, friend, Sunny, foe, lover, victim, survivor,    b!tch, bigot, snob, slut, assh*le, nationalist, nigg*r, loudmouth, feminist, hater, mentor, mentee, man-hater and, of course, Sister Toldja.

I asked for a few of those titles. Some came naturally and others just unfortunately got attached to me somehow. Since I chose that last one, I’ve made my thoughts and my existence public in a way that has allowed folks the space to label me as they see fit. Whether I like it or not, whether or not I agree with the assessment. I’ve written here and there about how I ended up who I am today (for example: this), but I can’t recall ever sitting down and putting pen to paper fingers to keyboard to explain why it is that I write. There’s a lot of reasons. One encompasses them all: love. Love for women, love for Blackness, love for humanity (like all of it, for real, White people and err’thang), love of freedom, love for the possibility of a new world.

To be totally honest, one of my greatest loves is the one that people don’t always seem to understand. Now, as someone who believes herself to be a skilled writer, I have to be careful about always blaming the reader for not comprehending what it is I say. Just because something is clear in my head doesn’t mean I have articulated it clearly on the page. Yet, at the same time I am aware that because of the -isms that I have inherent beef with, I also have to accept that things can get lost on folks due to the state of the world around them.

That’s a lot of preface to get to this point: one of my primary driving motivations for writing as I do…for LIVING as I do, is my love for Black men. I love Black men. I LOVE BLACK MEN! Perhaps I don’t say it in those very words enough. Perhaps I need to throw some <3′s and glitter on it to make it clear for certain folks. But it’s true. I love Black men so very, very much. I think that people look at feminists and assume that our criticisms of men are either rooted in hatred or have delivered to a place of resentment. And I’d suspect there are a lot of folks who hear sisters like me talk about Black love and think what we are really advocating for is love for Black women. That’s not it at all.

My love for Black men is very complicated. My interest in them is self-serving and for the people at the same time. There’s my relationship to fatherhood (my own very precious bond with my own dad, my concern for the fatherly relationships with others and for others). My feelings of sisterhood to brothers, big and small. My sexual interest in them. My urge to protect them as far as I can and to receive protection from them. My romantic stake. My burning desire to be a wife in some years and a mother. My deep, deep wish to be the mother of sons. These needs and wants and existing institutions are not easily managed.

I want to show love and give love to our men (Yes, our men. Not our implying possession, but being of one another, i.e. “our family”, “our people”).effectively. I wish that was always easy or that it always felt good and could be served with a smile, but that isn’t how it works. I don’t ever want to again coddle or make excuses for them. I don’t want to be perceived as hating or bashing when I’m being critical. I want us to be better, healthier, happier, freer. Feminism is a tool in the kit I got to get there.

On a more personal note (as if I could get more personal in an essay that already has the words ‘me, ‘my’ and ‘I’ in it about 50′leven times), my life would probably be a bit easier if I dropped all this think-y Black people stuff and just dealt with what’s going on with the folks I know. Would you believe that being known as an outspoken feminist can be intimidating and unappealing to a lot of young men? Redic! But I love Black men and Black women too much to just ignore this stuff we got going on and I feel like writing is this thing I’m fair to middlin’ at and I should write about us and that maybe, just maybe, I could inspire some people or get them to talking and that might could help somebody.

As I touched upon yesterday and will eventually engage on a less personal-touchy feely level, we want to love our men and we don’t always know how to do that. I think that I feel pretty good about how I love my brothers: how I relate to the men I’ve dated, the little ones I encounter in my community (even though some of the big ones make me feel like this and so I love the little ones in a way to keep them from ending up in that place), my homeboys, my father. The ones reading this right now.

I think so much of the conversation we hear from Black women about their frustrations with Black men can be summed up under the heading of: “I love you and I want you to love me back”. I also think that we don’t always know what we are doing when it comes to showing love to one another (men and women alike), be it on some cultural critic stuff or in the house or on the bus. We have love issues. Love issues all around.

I strive to love brothers better each day. I don’t think more would be possible, but better, sure. I’m very committed to this love as a sister, a daughter, a future wife and mother to sons*. I’m working on it. This is why there is a site in the first place. This is why I write. This has always been why I write. Love, love and more love. That’s what I’m here for.

*I know I’m gonna have a son. I took a mental picture of a baby boy and prayed that God would put him in the Baby Class of 2017.