Black like me

originally posted 2/28/12
re-running for black history month

Cropped out of deference to my mother-in-law, whom I love very much.

MANIFESTO 
OF THE 
BLACK CONSERVATIVE AMERICAN SPIDERor 

"For Colored People considering Ron Paul cuz Romney's pot o' gold at the end of Obama's rainbow ain't enuf"

Super Black History Month
Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, my brothas and sistas, 2012 is a leap year and as such, this is like…some kind of Super Black History Month extravaganza that only comes once every four years - like the Olympics used to.

I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity to really raise a ruckus...and so that’s just what I’m fixin' to do. I started writing this at least two weeks ago...

A SHOUT OUT FROM THE SPIDER
AMERICANS, YOU ARE MY PEOPLE
THIS GREAT LAND IS OUR COUNTRY
THE GOOD, BAD & UGLY..WARTS & ALL
WE STAND NOW UPON THE PRECIPICE!!!
WILL WE LET IT ALL SLIP AWAY WITHOUT A FIGHT?
SISTERS & BROTHERS...BLACK, WHITE & OTHERS
IT IS TIME TO TAKE OFF YOUR BEDROOM SLIPPERS
IF YOU LOVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

OUR ONLY HOPE IS RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT

Black-not-White
When I was growing up black in Colorado Springs, there weren't many of us at the schools I attended; at Twain Elementary, Penrose Elementary, Audubon Elementary, and Horace Mann Middle School, I was like one of five black people in the whole entire building - including teachers.

I attended six elementary schools in just as many years; seemingly always the new girl, my new classmates would often refer to me as "that black girl.” I won’t lie - it made me feel like a star-bellied Sneetch amongst those without stars on thars…and I became keenly aware of how black-not-white I was.

White-not-Black
I spent second through sixth grade in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was where a a dirty little white boy called me a "nigger" for the first time in my life, and I kicked him hard in his shin. I learned that boys would sometimes be mean to me solely because I was black – they called me “nigger” most…but little white girls could be mean, also.

But the realization that black kids were often the cruelest to me stings to this day.

I got my first taste of black-on-black discrimination hanging with my dad's relatives in Newark, where we would occasionally go to visit...and though I longed to fit in with this large group of people who were brown like me, I just didn't. Shy, awkward, adopted and acutely aware that I was not of or like these folks, it was quickly apparent how very not-black-not-white I was, and I stuck out like a red-headed step-child at a family reunion.

But at least my kinfolk and cousins tried to be kind; my east coast black classmates were brutal. “You talk so white", they tutted disapprovingly, “You act so white,” they would sneer. “She think she white,” came the whispered hiss. Titters and eye rolling met my every utterance…“She too proper" came the final decree. I was even told that I "walked white" – indeed, they said the only thing “black” about me was my butt.

Whereas the white kids had always tolerated and included me, my black brethren looked at me as some kind of terrible aberration and mocked me.  It started when I was unable to double-dutch jump rope; I was shunned - outcast by their cold, dark collective - it was the last thing I ever expected, and left me baffled and bruised.

Occasionally, I’d try to “talk black”, an effort that was instantly recognized as phony...like Madonna's fake British accent...or the fake "black accent" Obama used to scold black people in his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus (shown in the video below).  Eventually I gave up, unwilling and unable to alter  my speech in the mere hope of being accepted.

"Walking black" - something that today is referred to as "swagger" was another skill that eluded me – but then again, I was taking my rhythmic cues from Rudy on the Fat Albetrt show…suffice it to say that my attempts to rightly stride black were unsuccessful.

I was born black; outwardly, I was obviously black. To my white classmates, I was as black as the ace of spades….but to my black classmates, I was a white-washed wannabe, deemed "artificially black” by my more "naturally black” brethren...many of whom were lighter in hue than I. Not fitting in with my white classmates at that time hurt; but if anything ever made me fleetingly wish I was white, it was the rejection of my black classmates…the ones on whose "side" I was.

Getting Black
My situation improved once we moved back to Colorado Springs; since there were far fewer black people here, there was only one group in which I didn’t fit. Palmer High School had its own Black Student Union – and I always wondered what they did, exactly, that was different from the Student Council…and I imagined it was a club where black kids could hang out and complain about how lame white people can be.

All of it seemed so superficial and shallow and far past my comprehension.

When I was invited to be a Jolly Jills Debutante, I accepted. I was not the only girl of mixed-race in the bunch, but I was the one who “talked the whitest.” I was unpopular.

After graduating, I took a two-year hiatus from school and spent that time working, partying and immersing myself in books and movies about black people and history. I read “The Black Book”. I nodded my head in assent as I read “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, wept with bewilderment through “Two Hundred Years of Lynchings”, sobbed at the vivid description of Kizzy being torn from her parents arms and sold down the river in “Roots.”

I knew why the caged bird sings. And when the time came that I followed a boyfriend to Colorado State University, I was prepared to finally live the black experience…to be as black as I felt.

Higher Education
It was a leap year long ago…1988. I was at CSU on a Boettcher scholarship, majoring in Journalism and minoring in Classical Voice. I attended the Black Greek Ice Cream Social…shy, a little ill-at-ease, but ready to plow ahead, contemplating pledging AKA.

I went to every event on the Black Calendar; came an event: “JUNEBUG JABBO JONES: A BLACK AMERICAN JOURNEY”. Billed as an “adaptation of a one-man play by John O'Neal, ‘Don't Start Me Talking or I'll Tell You Everything I Know: Sayings from the Life and Writings of Junebug Jabbo Jones’I’ which premiered on stage in 1980, based on a 1960's black folk character.” Directed by John O’Neal and Arnold Bourgeois (how ironic).

So I went and I sat and I watched and I listened to John O’Neal as Junebug Jabbo Jones…and I appreciated the show.

As I recall, the star of the play reminded me of Scatman Crothers.

At the end of the play, John O’Neal invited the audience to participate in a “story circle”…and so I did.

One person said this and the next person asked that, and so on and so on, until it was my turn. I’d thought and considered carefully my question to ask/statement to make...weighed its elements of black outrage and social injustice...thinking about how I as only one of two black classcal voice students at the time at CSU, I deemed it an ok question to ask.

“Why won’t blacks show more support for classical and other musical genres? That is to say, why do black jazz, blues and even reggae artists tend to play to predominantly white audiences?””

Junebug Jabbo Jones he open wide his eyes and lookee round all about.

I continued, a bit shakily. “Taj Mahal and Robert Cray have both spoken on the phenomenon: jazz, blues and reggae are all genres that were borne of and populated by black musicians, yet they’re not considered “black music” per se as much as rap…”

Junebug Jabbo Jones roll his big bug eyes lookin dis way and dat, tryin not to laugh.

“It’s as though the music industry believes blacks only listen to hip-hop and Whitney Houston?”

My voice trailed off uncertainly and I sat down as a thick hush blanketed the room.

I’m glad I can’t remember what John O’Neal – ol’ Junebug Jabbo Jones hisself - said to me in front of that hostile black clique that day, their dark eyes all looking at me like “who do this white-talkin bitch think she is?” All I know is that he upbraided me for asking such a question in ‘mixed company,’” and that for me it felt just like that moment at the beginning of Carrie when she gets her period and all the girls throw tampons at her yelling “Plug It Up!”

And from that moment until I left CSU two years later, the sorority girls who’d only barely tolerated my presence now blatantly turned up their noses at me when I walked past…avoided me as though I was a leper, snickered at me loudly behind my back - needless to say, I didn’t pledge.

I gradually came to see that it didn't matter how many civil rights rallies I marched in, or protests in which I shouted; it didn't matter how much I knew about the transatlantic slave-trade or how many Maya Angelou poems I could recite. It would never matter how much I identified, how black i looked or how black I felt, or how badly I wanted to be a part of their ranks; owing almost primarily to the “whiteness” of my words, I would never be accepted into the ranks of the black elite.

My Sistas
Whether in high school, college, at work or on the social scene, each time the black elite and I come face to face, we’ve found it necessary to turn away from each other. “Sistas” was a group of snobby, elitist, leftist black women to whom I was introduced by Delia Busby. I earned my first black mark with this group after voicing my opinion that gay was not OK.

“Well, what if one of your children announced that they were gay,” asked Jennifer Barber, eyebrows raised in alarm.

“I would still love my child…but I would also cry and mourn for the loss of the grandchildren that might have been,” came my reply.

I was ultimately disowned after making a stink about the boat made out of black people that stood in front of the county courthouse downtown. All the sistas were outraged when I first pointed it out; but when I copied my sisters on an email I wrote to the Gazette complaining about it, their true colors came shining through.

“It was wrong for you to copy us on that email; not all of us are offended by the sculpture, and it was unfair of you to lump us all into the same boat,” scolded Ms. Barber.

“But that’s my point,” I protested. “We all came to this country on that boat!”

Our family ties were effectively severed when June Waller chimed in that she thought the sculpture was “pretty.”

Ahem.

I took heart when the NAACP’s Rosemary Harris-Lytle took offense…but she's a socialist who has spent time in Cuba, and as such, surreptitiously sneaky.  At the end of the day, Rosemary pretended that she was the one originally offended, leaving everyone else – including me – out of it. Luckily, I learned about her summit with the Downtown Partnership a day in advance - I crashed their party, and got the opportunity to speak my piece…but I was more than a little shocked at how Ms. Lytle compromised and acquiesced, to the point where it seemed as though she was the one apologizing.

Delia Busby saw right away why the placement of the sculpture in front of the court house was tacky and wrong; she, like me, was outraged by the public school and pool closings in minority neighborhoods. I learned from her, and thought she was my friend,…but though she helped me at first, she hurt me most last, so that all of the bad eclipsed the good.

My friend "Tav is a shining example of a strong black woman. Her father had walked out on his wife and kids when she was about eight years old, leaving her strong black mother to single-parent her and her sister in Chicago. ‘Tav and I met years ago, when we both started on the same day at MCI – shockingly, she and I clicked, and our friendship has managed to survive eleven years. Surely, ‘Tav is "blacker" than me if by that I only mean “in the know” – she is far hipper than I, and regularly clues me in to this black slang and that black lingo, and I appreciate her for it.

Over the years, my blackness has been put to the test time and time again.  Tavia has witnessed my struggles, and knows better than most how much I love black people. She knows that I love to dance to “black” music, I love to sing “black” songs, I love to hang with black people (once they get to know me)…and champion many black causes.  I never had to prove my blackness to her, and I'll always love her for that.


My Brahs
When I pointed out the sculpture to James Tucker of the African American Voice, he, too, took offense…going so far as to stage a protest in front of it. I admired Mr. Tucker, and indeed, in a way, still do – but for all his bluster, he, too, will make concessions and pardon slights as long as the perpetrators purchase advertising space in his “newspaper.”

Indeed, none of the aforementioned ever did a thing to help me, even when I asked them pointedly and directly, even promising to repay. The sad truth is that the “black talking” black folk with whom I’d always longed to belong aren’t nearly as militant, outraged or down for the brown as they'd pretended, and nearly all of them have shown me they can be bought. In fact, the only black people to ever help me at all have been my good friend Floyd Tunson, and the ever perfect, ever wise, Colorado Springs native Sam Dunlap…and while I’ll always love and thank them both, even their support has all been of the moral sort.

Yes, all of the aforementioned are…Democrats. Leftists. To the point where they’re practically communists…and strangely proud of it. But so far, the one black Republican I’ve approached for help/guidance/advice hasn’t helped me either. I already know that the leftist blacks will never help me…but still hold out hope that maybe, just maybe, a conservative black will – and for that reason only, I’ll refrain from calling him out.


The Ink is Black
The Bible says, “A good servant is worth his wage.” I believe I am a good servant; I have dilligently pursued every story, stand by every word that I’ve ever written, and believe that every warning I’ve shared with you will come to pass. But if anyone has benefitted from anything I’ve written, few have shared so much as a kind or encouraging word.

I’m presuming that’s why the Gazette hired and paid black “writers” Rosemary Harris-Lytle and Milo F. Bryant to “write” for their newspaper - it makes me laugh to think of either as “writers.” But piss-poor writing skills are not solely reserved for black folk, though. As I point out in my "Worst Writer Ever" post, wealthy white guy Mike Moran from the USOC wins that title *hands down*...and the Gazette's Barry Noreen, another white guy, is the third Worst Writer Ever…and ebonics have nothing to do with it.

Does that mean I'm a racist?

No, it just means that the writers listed above suck, no matter their hue – and the proof is in black and white. It just means that life isn't always fair - if life was fair *I* would be getting paid for what I do. The great black writer James Baldwin had a generous white benefactor; regardless of race, however, wealthy, generous benefactors seem ever fewer and farther between, and none have liked my writing enough to send me so much as a dime.

Rick Johnson, of Johnson Plumbing and Heating, paid me for my writing…and the great people of Eastside Church of Christ – whom I found thanks to the late, great Mitch Christiansen – have been so supportive and loving, nearly all of them white. What do they have in common? They’re Christians.

So, it’s really not about black money, or white money…it’s not just a race thing, or a money thing; I think it’s a God thing. God knows no race, and has no need for money….and as long as I am obedient to Him, I trust that He will provide.


Say it Loud
What's so great about fitting in anyway? "Fitting in" means having lots of fake friends - Samuel Clemmens once wrote that a wise person will never have more friends than can be counted on one hand – and I agree. I have grown comfortable in being misfit…and knowing what I know now about the world, I’m not sure I’d want it any other way.

Black people can be so hypocritcal anyway. It’s all good if a black guy has a white wife…it’s kind of like a status symbol – look at Michael Jordan, OJ Simpson, Tiger Woods. And black people love them. But watch a black woman marry a white man, and all of a sudden, sista has betrayed her race.

Maybe I’d have an easier time swallowing that line of bull if so many of my race hadn’t betrayed me first.

I am unashamed of my white mother and black father. I am unashamed of my white husband, the love of my life. I am unashamed of my children. I am unashamed of my conservative, common-sense, Colorado Springs values. I am unashamed of my “white talking.”

All of my experience has toughened me and made me stronger, and these days, I say it loud: I’m black and I’m proud.  The strong, independent black woman I am today stands in stark contrast to the shy and unsure, not-black-not-white girl who didn't fit in…whereas the black folk who take an instant disliking to me are all very similar, and haven’t changed over the years.

Black Persuasion
Take, for example, the oafish radio host Thad Matthews. The only credit I can give to that big, fat, sneaky, cowardly hypocrite is that at least he delivered his opinion of Goldmann to her face instead of behind her back - but it's easy to be a big, brave badass when you have the guerilla-attack advantage.

Kingfish of "Amos 'n Andy"

Sheesh...where does one begin? Part Kingfish, part Re-Run.  If Matthews is considered an important voice for the "black community" then no wonder it's sometimes hard to get other people to take us seriously.

Rerun of "Wha's Happenin?"

Far worse than Thad’s spiteful, pointless, needless, hateful race-baiting is his diction. It’s not cool to be interviewed by someone who's shouting so heatedly that spittle flies onto your face from his lips. Any time I hear someone use the word "axe" in place of "ask", I cringe...and so I cringed throughout this hard-hitting "interview."

What a hateful, loathsome individual Thaddeus Matthews is...giving voice to every miserable, hateful thing that one  black American can say to another, his only provocation being that Goldmann would not be casting her vote for for Obama..."our first black President." 

I can’t believe Matthews even has a following.  It's ridiculous to be forced to shout in order to be heard over this buffoon's jibber-jabber; his hatred is so blatant - and I thought liberals were so against hate? How can it even be possible that such a bully buffoon like Thaddeus Matthews has a radio show at all? But he does…he’s making money while I’m still broke as hell….

How boorish and asinine.  Matthews should count himself lucky - lucky that Goldmann is an elected official, mindful of soundbites that could come back to haunt her; Matthews is lucky that Goldmann had the couth and wherewithal to bite her tongue.

  I wish that big fat fool would ask me onto his show; I'd  read him up one side and right down the other…and when I was finished with him, he'd be *begging* me to slap him some skin, praying that some of my "whiteness" might rub off on him.


Speak Well
Tav once told me, "You speak better than most black people - most white people, too. That's why black folk don't like you, and why white folk are afraid of you."

Alan Keyes is a prime example...a brilliant black man who was too dark for us to elect as President of these United States.

I can't understand why the way that I speak should have such an effect either group - "talking white" sure didn't seem to keep black folk from voting into office the fake negro American Barack Hussein Obama...

And white folk are probably kicking themselves in their own asses right now...having been duped by the blended beauty of a mixed-race man who refuses to present his birth certificate and school transcripts; whose alleged  accomplishments are largely undocumented and unproven; who doesn't speak nearly as well as he pretends. 

Here’s the truth, y’all: Obama sits in the White House an illegitimate leader..a usurper; everything about him is shady.. He is not a black American, he’s from Kenya and Indonesia. He is quite obviously a Muslim sympathizer.

I'VE SAID IT BEFORE AND I'LL SAY IT AGAIN:  IT'S MY EXPERIENCE AS A BLACK AMERICAN FEMALE THAT MOST BLACK MEN HAVE AT LEAST *TRIED* TO TAP SOME WHITE GIRL'S ASS; ARE WE TO BELIEVE THAT OBAMA IS THE RARE EXCEPTION TO THAT RULE?  ARE WE TO BELIEVE THAT HIS HEART BELONGS TO THAT DOG-FACED, FASHION-CHALLENGED, SIX-TOED SLOTH THEY CALL MICHELLE OBAMA???

I DON'T THINK SO.  

SOMEBODY'S HIDING *SOMETHING*

Michelle Obama

Vanessa Huxtable

I GOT ONE THING TO SAY ABOUT MICHELLE OBAMA:  VANESSA HUXTABLE...THE LEAST AESTHETICALLY PLEASING AND MOST ANNOYING OF THE HUXTABLE CLAN...WHO IN THE END FELL IN LOVE WITH SOME DUDE NAMED "DABNIS".  

MICHELLE OBAMA IS NOT THE BLACK JACKIE-O:
MICHELLE OBAMA IS THE BLACK ELEANOR ROOSEVELT.

Obama hasn't done a single thing to advance the cause of blacks in America; indeed, he’s done nothing but insult and bankrupt the United States of America, starting with that GOD-AWFUL poem, "PRAISE SONG FOR THE DAY."

BRAMBLE INDEED - PERHAPS ELIZABETH ALEXANDER IS THE SECOND-WORST WRITER OF ALL TIME

I don't care if you look at him and think the color of his skin is pleasing - Obama is a caramel-colored communist, pure and simple...anti-American, anti-black, anti-white, anti-us.

And I'm not the only black person expressing these views.

I am not the only one.  You are not the only one.  We are not alone.  LET US MAKE OUR VOICES HEARD!!!

I don't mean to half-step on this love letter to my black brethren - I hope that people of all races are able to better understand things through the words and videos contained on this page.  But the point of this post is this:  I am an all-American black girl from Colorado Springs, Colorado...and if I have been rejected by black people for the way that I speak...THEN HOW IS IT THAT SO MANY BLACK AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE WILLING TO ACCEPT THIS WHITE-TALKIN, ANTI-AMERICAN MUSLIM DOUCHE AS THE LEADER OF OUR NATION???

BARACK OBAMA IS AN USURPER; HE HAS DONE NOTHING FOR BLACK PEOPLE, HE DOESN'T REALLY CONSIDER HIMSELF TO BE BLACK, INDEED, HE *ISN'T* BLACK...MOREOVER, HE HAS DONE NOTHING FOR AMERICA AND AMERICANS, HE DOESN'T REALLY CONSIDER HIMSELF TO BE AMERICAN, AND INDEED, HE *ISN'T* REALLY AMERICAN.

Don't believe the hype about the poll numbers.  Ron Paul's support is NOT being honestly or accurately reported by our media!!!

From here on out, I am going to do everything I can to ensure that neither Obama or Romney make it into office - both of them have some kind of screw loose.

If you are a true, red-blooded American, there's really only one choice for us - the only true, red-blooded American running for President:  RON PAUL.