'House It Up' Award of the Year: Kyra Phillips

i had to do a triple-take on this one.  wow, kyra.  wow.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/29/the-most-embarrassing-cnn_n_193095.html

Our Green Doppleganger: Ultraviolet Underground

Those in the blog world may know about this already.

Ultraviolet Underground is a site that...

In an age where the idea of 'selling out' is congratulated, there are still many who remember a time when 'selling out' inspired contempt, not born of envy but of disgust. Art was celebrated for the skill and depth within the wielder. Sell-outs were typically wack cardboard cut outs of the real thing (and in reality still are) who accrued no respect.
At least a decent proportion of the music on the airwaves was acceptable to play in the listening range of children, in the not so distant past, but nearly overnight those values began to change, and those of us refusing to be fooled into dumbing ourselves down sought other alternatives.

...amongst other things. Other things includes a green mentality that puts our halogen bulbs and hybrid car ambitions to shame (check out Purple Mag #7, the official print version of the blog for examples).

I am fan because these guys challenge me to rethink my willingness to go green, my commitment to environmentally friendly alternatives and my appreciation of black underground activity all at once. And they are afrofuturistic.

One article in the latest Purple Mag had an exercise I thought folks in the Common Room might enjoy.

Plant Good Seeds

Uprooting and replacing unwanted thoughtforms/beliefs is a key action in any reprogramming regimen, and
mindgardens everywhere could use a serious overhauling in these days and times. The thoughts we pay
attention to will grow, and knowing this it is crucial we train our minds to stay focused on what should matter,
rather than what we dread.
On a scrap sheet of paper, take a moment to write out a list of the weeds currently in your mindgarden.
Whatever nagging negative thoughts, worries, or recurring situations that must have negative thoughts at
their root. When you've completed your list, take your list of weeds, and in the space below or on a separate
sheet of paper for a more elaborate collage of words and images, write out what you will replace them with.
e.g
Weed list:
'I release the obstacles interrupting my peace and creative flow.

Seed planting list:
'I plant seeds of plentiful hope and abundant resources that are required for my creative/expressive
endeavors.

(p.s. There is no byline to this page and the mag is open source/creative commons registered so I think it is okay to post this here. If not, feel free to correct me and I'll edit this post)

Anyway...

Shall we play? I'm going to try to go with my comment from IC's post:

I release my need to be liked in all situations which is really releasing my own insecurity that I won't be liked.

I plant confidence, a healthy self-image, and a totally zen state of mind. Because I wasn't given life to stress out about it siempre.

Peace yall.

I Got Issues, You Got Issues...

This quote just came up in conversation with kismet and also resonated something I talked to cornflake girl about this weekend.

"All those issues you've had since you were 19, that you're about to carry with you into your 30's? Let those shits go."
~ WU Homie

So what is one issue that you would like to let go of before your 30th birthday?

Here are (some of) mine:
Fear of judgment/rejection/failure.
Men issues (haven't quite figured out exactly what they are but probably linked to the above).

Your turn.

International Black Girl Politics: No Hetero

So this is going to be short and nasty because I'm on a pay-to-play internet USB.

1. I headed up to Toulouse with my new buddy for a huge Caribbean party. We shall call him Marcel.

Marcel is probably my second close but comfortably platonic male friend. (Close as in I talk to the dude on an almost daily basis where my other guy friends I talk to once a year) And I'm actually kind of excited about this because I was just discussing with IC how I seem to attract stalker-type-call-you-8-times-in-one-night-find-you-on-Facebook-through-your-email-address types (did I tell you about that? yeah, the kid blocked him). But I had a feeling I was good when it turned out that he has almost all close female friends and has a typical black man hankering for those the lighter, leaner, longer haired persuasion.

(For reference, the BBGs can keep in mind a certain male neighbor named J.M. whom we all love and adore.)

Anyway, it is fun to hang out with a guy who isn't secretly eyeing your bootie.

2. So I'm looking forward to hanging out with him and his homegirl, who we will call Elen. Elen I met through the same Caribbean circles as Marcel, she's from St. Martin. She was super cool, offered the floor of their hotel room free of charge, speaks English patiently with me, etc. Her other two homegirls are also very cool--either that or there is a francophone way of Zen that I would never find in the States. Super laidback. So I'm like, all relaxed, feeling cool, did some work in the hotel room and then we headed to the amphitheatre Zenith Toulouse and had been dancing all night at the party when the inevitable occurs...

3. A type of song called zouk comes on, which is Haitian, according to Elen, and is kind of like a grinding, fast-turning salsa. I LOVE it, precisely because it is so similar to salsa. But I'm not trying to grind on any of these dudes here (see #1) so I don't bother to try to dance. But Elen is like you have to try it and that one of her guy friends (who is actually her ex-something, we shall call him Ole Dude) was checking me out and seemed like he liked me and said he would come back to dance with me....

yeah.

(Okay, so you think you know what's going to happen here? Yeah, I did too. Not so much.)

Anyway, I'm kinda like, I'm cool because 1) duh, that's your ex and 2) you already told me earlier tonight that you broke it off with him because he was one of those stalker-type-call-you-8-times-in-one-night-etc., etc., etc. So why would I be interested? 3) I have a boyfriend and I don't want to send any mixed signals.

Well, she doesn't know me. So she doesn't know that I, too, do not want to be pursued (sorry boogie, I forgot to respond to that post but I feel you). But since she doesn't know me you would think that she wouldn't start trying to put me in awkward situations, right?

(Still think you know what is going to happen? If you do, you are better than me....)

5. Time passes, I dance, sit down, nap a bit (it's like 4 am at this point, we've been dancing, eating, hanging out since 1 pm). I wake up from my nap when Marcel comes by where me and one of the hotelmates is sitting. He's like, get up, Zouk is on and you should try it--

Pause: This is Marcel's mantra. Marcel is probably the only reason that I have not been a total archive head the last week and the only reason I even know any black people here. In ten days I went to Marseille, I went to my first Caribbean party, I hung out with a whole bunch of West Indians all week eating colombo chicken, tagiatelle (don't know if that word is right), researching Guadeloupe families and Martinique "coolie" trade, met some black girls who are down as hell, am even IN Toulouse because I was determined to stay home for Easter vacation to catch up and Marcel told me don't be a dumb ass. All the time forced to speak French because he is fluent in English but refuses to play that game. This is a long pause but important to say because I know that if he is offering to dance he is really just trying to show me not because he wants to grind on me.

Pause #2: He and all his homegirls are two years younger than me or more. Take that as you will.

--so I'm like, ok let's go.

So we start dancing. Marcel happens to take salsa class every Thursday so I know he knows his way around the dance floor and he knows I'm P.R. so he knows I know my way around a swinging two step. So we are spinning around the dance floor (spinning dude, it is hilarious, I really need to find somewhere to dance zouk when I come back stateside, maybe NYC?) and then we come up next to Elem. Who is dancing with Ole Dude (the ex-cum-stalker). And she gasps and slaps Marcel on the shoulder and says something in French about that not being Zouk that being something else. He does a shrug or something but then we are spinning again. Total fun, I am having a blast...

...and then I feel a hand on my arm and all of sudden, Elem is pushing me into Ole Dude's arms and she is partnering with Marcel. The old switcheroo.

?

Okay.

So.

Huh????

I play it cool--yes, I know. Rare. But I did. I'm like, ha ha ha with Ole Dude, and we dance two songs and then I disappear back into the crowd.

But I am PISSED!

First of all, wtf?!? I do not want to dance with random dudes! I know you don't know me, but dude--you Don't Know Me! How the hell do you just push me on someone randomly like that.

Second of all, wtf?!? No hetero dude! If you want Marcel, then do Marcel. There's nothing like that going on with us. It is a zouk so you have to grind a little, but come to find out, it isn't grinding really. It is hips, like salsa. And the closeness isn't the grinding, at least it doesn't have to be. It's the spinning. You whirl so fast that if you don't stay close to the man who is leading you, you are going to lose your feet and spin and fall or something--

I'm sorry. Let me step back. I'm a grown ass woman. I don't need to justify sh*t to her or anyone, especially not here in the Common Room. So I say again--if you want Marcel, then do Marcel. I don't want him. But dammit, say something like that, drop a hint. Maybe that's not the custom in black France, but it is in the states dude.

Well...let me stop. It should be.

*sigh.

International Black Girl Politics. IBGP.

That bullshit.

So after that, I'm totally irritated and still trying to be cool about it. I dance a little more with the other homegirl, but end up finishing my nap (it IS about 6am at this point).

6. So I get woken up to head out (6:30, 6:45 ish, still going strong). And my nap has refreshed me so I'm like its whatever. All chill. Elem seems to have forgotten the whole thing, at least in the English world me and Elem live in.

And then the French begins.

Apparently--and this conversation begins in the amphitheatre and continues all the way to the hotel room as though I don't understand a lick of French when in actuality I understand at least 50% of it and I get better the more it is spoken, so you can put me at about 70% of comprehension in this convo which is still perfectly ripe for misunderstandings so this post may have an addendum soon--

Apparently, Elem was telling the homies about what happened and that she went up to Marcel afterwards and was like what is going on and he was like dude, we were just dancing and apparently this is what happens in casual relationships and is casual casual and if it never really is and that he shouldn't have danced with me like that because then I might not have known the difference between just dancing and trying to get some and....

dude.

Now I know I did say I'm at 50-70% but I can't have gotten ALL of that wrong. Whatever the deal was, the zouk with Marcel had her all hot and bothered and swinging back and forth between "protecting" me and being mad at his apparent indiscretion.

Whatever.

Did I say already that I am a grown ass woman? I would like to choose to dance with whomever I want, whenever I want...oh, never mind. I head back to Aix on Monday so it isn't even that serious. Zen, cherie, Zen.

I should also say that in none of this did I get the impression that she was "vexed" with me, so at least there was that. You don't get chicks in the states who know to be mad at in the same situation. And I don't even know how I would have navigated that cultural and linguistic minefield if she had been.

Still, wow.

IBGP.

Can't live with em. Can't live without em.

Black Iconoclasm of the Week: Stevie Williams

why is it still so affirming to see black people functioning outside of social norms?  

this week's black iconoclasm is a pro skateboarder from west philadelphia.  

stevie williams has a really unique style of skating that he attributes to growing up 

in a spatial environment where physical "obstacles" were a reality that he learned 

to use to his stylistic advantage. deep, stevie. deep.

i bought a skateboard as a birthday gift to myself this past february...a nice one that 

i spent more money on that i should've, and i justified my purchase with the 

philosophy that if i invested good money in my new hobby, i would take it more 

seriously. i told myself i would practice for an hour each day on my lunch break at 

work. that didn't exactly happen, and i haven't ridden it in about 5 weeks now. i fell 

really really hard a while back and realized that i have become fragile in my old age, 

and i've had trouble motivating to subject myself to the prospect of more pain.  

(a metaphor for relationships?)

The Princess and the Frog

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0j7EactM9s

oh disney, what have you done now?  disney's first black princess, maddy, is a chambermaid for a white family who lives in the french quarter of new orleans in the 1920s.  maddy is "sassy", of course, like all black women in the world are, and there are also some voodoo practicing antagonists, a singing alligator, her mother is a maid too, and (i hate to spoil the ending for you) the prince is white.

thoughts?

White Privilege-- Real Talk

take a moment to watch it all the way through... then let the discussions begin.

I know many of you are familiar with Tim Wise...but I thought we'd bring him into The Common Room.

BACK OFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From Bitter:

My mother always told me not to be a bitter woman; don’t hate men. She tells me to take responsibility for the role I play in my failed relationships. Men tell you who they are when you meet them and women think they can change them. Thank you mom, for the advice but it’s getting pretty difficult to remain sweet and smile things off, rather than become bitter like the ripest lemon. Because every time I walk down the street, a man/some men/some boys view my body as a receptacle for their mental waste. I become some kind of hip hop version of Lolita for old, tooth-less black men, and some kind of wild leaopard- Foxy brown concoction for white men in business suits in downtown D.C. I become anything but who I am. Incestuous desires are placed on me; slimy tongues are waved at me. Men in cars beep in synchronized melodies.

I never consented to this endless male conquest for entry into my vagina. After all, this is the fact of the matter. The deepest fact that we all know. I am not going to try to dress it up like it’s a simple issue of men not knowing how to properly address a woman. It’s more like: this is America. Every time I open a newspaper, watch TV, see an advertisement, there is some distinctly absurd ploy to make us, women, lose the double chin on our face, the “muffin top” on our waste, the wrinkles under our eyes, get new breast the replace the flat ones, stitch in new hair to replace the “bad” hair, and in many countries, massage creams that give us white skin. What are we doing this for? Was there a matriarchal shift in history where we demanded we transform and twist our bodies for our own good? I don’t recall. It’s all for the glory and feeling of being evaluated by the male eye. The status that comes with being looked at. Repeatedly. The howls of approval that one woman gets for wearing no more than a diamond studded bra and hot pants to a club. In every Seventeen magazine, I see these beautiful ploys: “Lose weight and make him yours.” But what if I don’t want to make him mine based on some mirage of a body I took diet pills to attain? What if I want him to like me, and not just the way I ride a pole or pussy pop or dip it low? What if I want him to like me for not consenting to his sexist behavior? I am upsetting the balance; will I ever find a man who can appreciate that...

Read the rest here. Then go Facebook Fan BackUp: Concrete Diaries.

#15. We Love Métis (or do we?)

In France they love them some black women. And they are all convinced that I must mixed. Not because I am or because there is something ostensibly P.R. about me.

Academically I know that mulatre/mulatresse, cuarteronne, griffe were all 18th and 19th century outre-mer terms (colonial, department, French empire--basically anything not "metropole" specific although they were applied to people of color who lived in and migrated to France in the same years) used to describe people of African descent and the various mixtures.

And academically I know that those mixtures came with certain privileges and semi-corporate benefits: higher rank in colonial militias, sexual stereotypes, free status and the opportunity to accumulate wealth in property, slaves, goods.

And I know French people all tout the "we are one race" assimilation bit on the surface and then used and still use these gradations to full discriminate the next (a contradiction that isn't going to make much sense to one-drop Anglophones. And it is all a very crafty lie...kinda like our A.O. post-racial society? Yeah.)

But it is still interesting to be in a place where if you are lighter than average (average being dark African, at least in Aix) you are immediately marked as mixed=métis.....

...with all of the accompanying mating rituals (See #7)...

...which amuses me further because didn't I write a post about a year ago about the hyper-excited-foolishness that rains down on my big bootie after certain mainstream-minded black men find out I'm half Puerto Rican? Because clearly being "just black" wasn't enough to capture their attention.

This above applies exclusively to white men. The African men aren't bothered with the métis thing. They just like what they see and aren't afraid to holla. And the white (French) women here have not given me the time of day yet.