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10 Thoughts for Black Girls Starting College This Year

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This post is inspired by the work that @blackgirlproject is doing.

1. Meet with your professor to clarify your first assignment. Every professor is is different and you will get a better idea of what they asking for. They may be busy but this is your education to claim, they have theirs. As the first woman in my family to go to college AND as someone who is being trained to be a college professor. I know the power of such a meeting.

2. Never set your drink down at the party. Even with your best friend. It only takes one minute for someone to put something in your drink that can compromise your faculties. I don’t use the term date rape, because date softens the sexual violence of rape. However, in a rape culture you need to protect yourself and the culture needs to change.

3. If something traumatizes you, if you have a racist or sexist experience, tell someone preferably a professor or a therapist on campus. Keeping stories inside of you is harmful to your mental health. If you do not have your health, you cannot graduate. I had a hard first year with regards to my family during my first year at Mills. I went to a professor and let them know what was going on. Talking about it out loud helped. I had two part-time jobs and STILL earned a 3.5 that semester.

4. Make friends with girls. I know we are socialized to not like women. But your girlfriends will hold you down when your boyfriend/girlfriends/Lovers break your heart.

5. Send thank you notes to all the family members who do nice things for you while you are away. It means a lot to receive a call or a thank you note.

6. Party. I will never forget four of us packing into my homies BRAND NEW sentra and flying across the Bay Bridge to see the De La Soul show. We bonded that night. I did NOT say party all the time. I said party. Notice the distinction.

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8. When someone offers to help you with your career, thank them and take their card and follow up. I am not saying use people like a rug, because that is wrong. I want you to understand that college exposes you to social capital, which is just as if sometimes not more valuable than money. Access to people means access to relationships. Unfortunately, the world is such that people with institutional power may NOT talk to you if you do not know someone that they know. This is how institutional power works. I want you to understand it and have a language to describe it.

9. Keep a journal. It will help you process mistakes. Remember mistakes are assets.

10. Do not run up your credit card bill. Understand that higher education is a profit oriented system. The fewer loans you have when you graduate the more freedom you will have with choosing a career.

I hope this helps you little bear.

All the best.

To my readers, is there anything else that you would add to this list?

On Mambu Badu and Black Girl Problems Tumblr x Essence’s New White Male Editor

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Earlier this year I said that Mambu Badu was the freshest thing since Honey Magazine. The Quirky Black Girl magazine from 2000 that articles on Lil Kim and Lauryn Hill. The articles seemed to reflect a vision of Black girls that wasn’t as focused on racial uplift, natural hair guides, and finding a “good Black man” in the way that say- Essence is.

Mambu Badu is significant to me because it appears to be made with the explicit intent of centering the lives and art of Black girls. Where else is that?

Furthermore it is unique in that it doesn’t seem to be in response to an event. It appears to be an endin and of it self. That kind of work is powerful.

Disclosure, two of the creators are my homies @alice_wonder and @dascruggs. The third creator is the awesome @kameelahwrites.However, the whole time they were working on it, I had not idea of the scale of it. I say they should do a limited printing of 100 copies and sell them.

On to Black Girl Problems on tumblr.

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This blog resists the erasure of Black girls and for that reason it is hella fresh.

Oh. Essence just got a White male managing editor. #Ummh. Talk about the importance of Black girl subjectivity.

You up on Mambu Badu? What did you think of it?

Black Girls Problems? Thoughts?

A Note Black Gender Relations in 2011

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After writing that post on Nate Dogg, I spoke to Rob and  learned that there is an entire dating blogosphere were men, Black and White, blog about their relationships. I always KNEW these blogs existed but I didn’t know that they existed across race and I didn’t know how popular they were.

The second thing that he mentioned is that in DC there is a concentration of what I will term men who fall under the Ugly Ducklings doctrine, cats for what ever reason or not, didn’t get play in college, high school or both or they are new to city living.  Now they are working, got that government gig, a personal trainer and for arguably a range of reasons they treat  many of the women that they interact with like they are expendable and replaceable. Which makes my ass itch, because I am a human being, you are a human being and why and the hell are you coming at me like that….Lol.

For instance, a boo snack (peace to @huny, @jonubian) I have been seeing since January has recently gotten into the habit  of calling me late after he has marinated all through out the city on Saturdays. Now I told this negro man, on spring forward Saturday, be honest, be human, express your desire and we will take it from there. You calling or texting me at God awful hours, is just disrespectful. I know him to be a kind, considerate and an analytical dude, so I thought we were good. For instance he knows me well enough to know that decent week night date me is bier, a ball game and Chinese food. I mentioned the beef with the late calls again this past Thursday. And I #swearfoJesus I woke up Monday morning with a 12am missed call.

I was done. Like I have #toldyoass what not to do, and you gone do it anyways. Ummhmm.

#Blackgirlsarefromthefuture.

I am a choice not an option.

As a writer I have to have tunnel vision. The downside to that is that I sometimes don’t see the possibilities of other perspectives. In having this conversation with Rob, I was able to see that I had been making the assumption that if Black peoples material needs had been met, then the ways in which we treated each other would improve. Why in the same hell I would think that, I don’t know. Wait, I do, my family fell apart when I was 8 when my dad lost his union job, so according to my own experience, stable employment meant, or arguably provided the conditions for an all good household and decent gender relations.

This is only partly true. Because I also know some people who have serenity no matter whats in their pocket. My daddy is one of them. But on Sunday when I was processing this I hadn’t gotten there, yet.

I think this all came to ahead because the last few days have been the first time that I have had a chance since work school started back in January for me to reflect. Normally I am on the work hustle, grading papers, reading four books, emailing students, calling my family, going on a date,  praying, paying the rent grind, talking to my sisters. In short, there is very little time to reflect.

Rob also asked me a couple other questions that got the anthropologist in me thinking. I swear I do not know another man who can question my thinking, I mean poke holes in my ideas, but not come across like he is trying to dominate or belittle. He is a light, in some ways, for this reason. So he asked me when I was talking about Black gender relations, well what are my White girlfriends dating experiences like. I said I only know about their experiences in Black spaces.  And then he asked do working class and low income Black folks relate to each other differently? I then began to think, wait, maybe I can talk to an older Black woman, who can tell me about how gender relations were in DC in say the 50’s or 60’s. Rob then responded that, during that time period, men and women got married earlier and far more often.
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It was then that I realized that we are at a rare historical moment, not only in terms of electoral politics, and youth driven social movements in Egypt, Iran, along with  labor movements in Wisconsin. We are also in a historical moment in terms of Black gender relations.

So boom. I got clarity today talking to @Afrolicious. And she asked me why I was sad. And I said, well, the constant negotiations that both my work and social life take is wearing on me. It’s cool, because I don’t have resentments, but its challenging because its work. I also said that it bugs me out that some of the  Black people in DMV who are arguably some of the most well off in the history of Black people in this country have such janky gender relationships.

She listened.

I listened.

And while I was listening to her I had an epiphany. I realized that the material needs, having your food, clothes and shelter met are important, BUT, a person who is going to treat a woman, a Lover, a lady friend like a human being is going to do so regardless of whether these things are taken care of, if their spiritual needs are being met.

Its an issue of spirit. Not the material world. Not about jobs, or Ugly Duckling doctrines or degrees. But about realizing that the people that you interact with are spirits and deserve your respect or for you to respect them enough to leave them alone.

Peace to my little sister who has her heart broke right now. Little bear you will emerge stronger. Trust. With each break up I became closer to becoming byrd Girl.  I Love you.

Have you assumed that if people had more cake, they would treat each other better?

Where are the women in the blogosphere writing about this? Why don’t we do it more?

Speaking of gender relations. I will be speaking on on panel, “Happily Every After”, Saturday March 26th at the Red Tent Symposium for Women.  Join us.

3 Questions on Art and Desire

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Is my work such an integral part of me, that if you don’t get it, I can’t fuck with you?

Is this being dogmatic? Or am I just being honest?

Would I even have to ask myself these questions if I were born male?

These questions came out a conversation with @hotcombpics this morning.

As many of you know I have written about accepting the fact that as much as I hate Bleek Gilliam, I have serious Bleek Gilliam tendencies…hence my hate.

We hate the shit we hate because it reminds us of ourselves.

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As a Black girl in East Oakland, I had to learn to think critically on my feet as Oakland went from pretty Black town to Crackzilla monster overnight in 1986. Why does this time period matter and how is it related? For me it speaks to how I had the develop the courage to trust myself and my instincts. About people, about relationships, when and where to walk, whether or not to go to a party, whether or not to challenge a person as they may have a gun and me talking back could mean losing my life.

In someways my willingness to stand up for myself is rooted in the fact that the cost of learning to think critically is that I can’t do it any other way now.

If I learned to trust my instincts at 15, I can’t stop doing it at 30, even if trusting them means that people don’t know what the fuck I am talking about, or even if it means going against the grain, even it it means losing a friendship that I cherish.

#damnGina.

File this under the costs of being a high achieving Black girl.

Thoughts?

Now That You Got It, What ‘Chu Gone Do With It.

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Yesterday, I was sending an email to someone and I came across an old Law school colleague in the little auto fill jawn, so I decided to look her up.

Be careful when you do that shit.

I did a search and learned via the NY Times that she got married last fall to a FOUNE jawn, that she met in law school as well.

When Black folks make the NY Times marriage section, its not a game.  Black folks IN “the paper of record?” #ummhmm.  I smile every time I see somebody I know in there. The sociologist in me looks at the class background of the bride and groom or bride’s and groom’s,  their education background,  their parents occupation and their ages.

I started beating myself up, like she crazy young, she did really well in L school and she got a boo thang AND they both lawyers.

THE FUCK?

However as I spoke to Court Bear my dating coach I realized:
a. I only know part of her story. And based on my research on Black women’s sexuality over the last month, there is a LOT of performance going on, and I should be mindful of the assumptions that I make based on appearances.

b. When I started Law school, I was engaged, I gave back the ring, and I moved out. So what the fuck was I complaining for. I had it, I walked away from it. Black girls ain’t victims, they make choices. It’s really bugged out when you realize you are longing for something you already had. #Pitypartymuch?
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c. I have been fortunate to have people love me, dirty drawls Love.  I dated a giver this year honey. Once you do that, it ain’t no turning back. The blessing and the curse. This winter/year is teaching me how special and rare that is.

It was like….um, don’t be romanticizing people ish, because guess what, “Now that you got it what chu’ gone do with it.”

I remember the weeks before I moved out.  That August night when I hung that diamond cut diamond (which The Google has just reminded me is accurately called a Marquise, ah,  now I remember honey) around my neck the way Carrie did in SITC. I know, dumb corny, but in some ways I was saying, treat me right or leave me alone.  Shit Carrie did it, I can do it too. #ummhmm.

Peace to #Josephine and Black girls who stay having jobs in recessions and having jawns regardless of the season AND who do searches that bring them reality checks and Love bears. Embrace it, Can This Be Life?

I wrote this post because…


You check yourself mentally lately when comparing your life to someone elses?

Who helps bring you back to reality when you are having a pity party?


You look someone up recently and regret it? Appreciate it.