big girls in hip hop videos.

i'm supposed to be at work, but whatever.

de la soul's "baby phat."




redman. "i'll bee dat"



i can't think of any others, actually.
i'll be back later to wrote more.

the world's oldest profession.

i watched cathouse the other night.

tonight, i'm watching hookers at the point.

do i even need to go into detail about the glaringly obvious differences? nearly all of the women featured from dennis hof's bunny ranch are white. they're in reno. rural, kind of. the women at the point are brown. latin. black. a white girl here & there. it's mindblowing. they're not safe. the cameras on them are from a film crew, not a closed-circuit surveillance system. if something's 'not okay' for the women at the point, they're on their own. so many disparities. i don't even think the women at the bunny ranch come exclusively from a position of privilege -- rather, their choices to become sex workers seem to be motivated by pleasure, rather than a drug habit or the needs of hungry kids @ home. these women get $1,000 for an hour of their time. the women at the point? one tenth of that if they make demands & stand their ground. i don't know how much of that is clever editing, & how much of it is fact. there's a lot at play. sex workers aren't necessarily born sex workers. but the disparities that i see between the two groups are many, & vast.

*sigh*

and then i see this over at angry brown butch. and this at feministe. i have no words. my heart breaks to know that the names of people who should -- just like every fucking body else, be uplifted as they are remembered for their lives -- are having their names twisted in death. it's fucked up. it's wrong. it hurts my feelings. how could panic be an acceptable excuse? i panicked, SO I KILLED HER. what? really? wow. panic has caused me to lock myself out of my apartment. panic has made me drop shit on the floor. panic has never, ever, EVER caused me to kill someone.
& for fuck's sake, if we could all cry misrepresentation as a reason to kill . . . i would have murdered no fewer than 5 men i've had sex with, one woman i used to be friends with . . . & my own father.
let's be for real. calling someone a prostitute (whether they were or not) somehow magically justifies it, if you follow what's been reported. no. i'm not buying it.

excuses aren't gonna soothe the broken hearts of mothers
no explanation given could ever make enough sense of this shit. someone threw away your baby's life because of what? because they were mistaken about who your child was? no.

someone told me today: when ppl attend your funeral, their wailing is meant to be loud so that it's known in heaven that you were/ are loved.
i definitely hope that these loved & lost ones continue to be spoken of.

swagger jacked

from the butch caucus
(it wouldn't let me customize the title i wanted, so i chose ninja instead of typing in "boocakes," "jawn," or "jumpoff")



and you know i'm dead ass serious, right?

for aj.

via the trantasia flickr album:

silence still won't protect you:

some links to feed your inner (or outer) revolutionary:

the sakia gunn film project

black./womyn conversations on blogspot & youtube (i'm SO mad i missed the philly screening)

brokenbeautiful press

no snow here

the butch caucus

happy reading!

get them out.

(links via darkdaughta's blog post on the matter)

In the summer of 2006, seven young Black lesbians from New Jersey—Patreese Johnson, Renata Hill, Venice Brown, Terrain Dandridge, Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and Khamysha Coates—were hanging out on the pier in New York City's West Village when Dwayne Buckle, a man selling DVDs on the street, sexually propositioned Patreese. Refusing to take no for an answer, he followed them down the street, insulting and threatening them: “I’ll **** you straight, sweetheart!”

It is important to understand that all seven women knew of another young woman named Sakia Gunn, who had been stabbed to death under very similar circumstances—by a pair of highly aggressive, verbally abusive male strangers. At least some of the seven had known Sakia personally.

During the resulting confrontation, Buckle first spat in Renata’s face and threw his lit cigarette at her, then he yanked another’s hair, pulling her towards him, and then began strangling Renata. A fight broke out, during which Patreese Johnson, 4 feet 11 inches tall and 95 pounds, produced a small knife from her bag to stop Buckle from choking her friend—a knife she carried to protect herself when she came home alone from her late-night job.

Two male onlookers, one of whom had a knife, ran over to physically deal with Buckle in order to help the women. Buckle, who ended up hospitalized for five days with stomach and liver lacerations, initially reported on at least two occasions that the men—not the women—had attacked him. What’s more, Patreese’s knife was never tested for DNA, the men who beat Buckle were never questioned by police, and the whole incident was captured on surveillance video. Yet the women ended up on trial for attempted murder. Dwayne Buckle testified against them.

The media coverage was savage, calling the women such things as a “wolf pack of lesbians.” The pro bono lawyers for the young lesbians would later have to buy the public record of the case since the judge, Edward J. McLaughlin (who openly taunted and expressed contempt for the women in front of the jury all throughout the trial), would not release it. As of late August 2007, the defense team still didn’t have a copy of the security camera video footage. And after the better part of one year spent sitting in jail, four of the seven women were sentenced in June 2007—reportedly by an all-white jury of mostly women—to jail terms ranging from 3 1/2 to 11 years. The oldest of the women was 24, and two of them are mothers of small children.

the website
contact the 4 who remain incarcerated
contact the governor and demand their release
sign the petition


it's easy to try to forget, but every day there's evidence of how little the lives of black women mean to the world around us.
do what you can to speak out against this wrongdoing. bring these women home.

i don't think i'm supposed to laugh at this.

but this blog is hilarious to me.

being undone can be wonderful.

(swiped from olaomi's blog on myspace)

She's come undone

A exhortation of sorts that is cried out when a woman gets too loud

or hysterical -which of course has the same root as hysterectomy

or bursts out of her corset

or allows the bun at the nape of her neck to come aloose

or takes up too much space

or speaks her truth loudly

or kicks and screams

or does all of the above at once which means she is having "a nervous breakdown"

or is generally not tippy toeing around in a tight ill fitting pinching quiet small shell

she has come undone

when she

when we

are not controlled

I can be the Empress of Control

soft, dulcet voice, smooth touch, not rattled by anything or anyone

one spiritual group refers to it as being "eternally at peace in any situation"

to make is sound like something good, something laudable, something one should seek out and cleave unto themselves

I can

do that

well

But I Feel so much better

when I am undone

there is not a tight knot in my throat

my chest doesn't hurt

and my back and neck don't ache

I am not as my sister said nauseous from swallowing so much shit

Amy Tan wrote that in her culture women are taught to swallow pain and that that is thought to be one of the duties of womanhood

I had a lover from Gambia once who told me the same thing, that women are created to take pain

conversely

we are not expected to experience pleasure frequently...but to give it endlessly

I am in the midst of an internal battle to stay

undone

an every day war against

the conventions, and mindsets, and upbringing and ways and mores

that poke and prod and suggest and insinuate and demand that I

remain

done

controlled

not doing so is a daily battle

it is a fight for my life

for my breath

for my sanity

for my health

yeah you are interpreting this correctly

what I am saying is that I am consciously working on

being the crazy bitch

the fatal attraction whore

the baby mama with drama

the insatiable freak

that woman who is not above speaking her mind or getting what is rightfully hers

the shrew

that little part that everybody's momma has that we fear

cause

it is a lie not to be this part of ourselves sometimes

to lose it all in the pursuit of staying

done

and it is suicidal

she's come undone

indeed

completely

totally

forever

Un

Done

she refuses to breathe life into lies anymore

she does not sit idly by and take shit anymore

she is not assisting you in abusing her anymore

she is not a cog in the wheel of oppression

nor brick builder for the patriarchal white supremacist pyramid

she expects more

and more

and more

she has the gall to not accept anything less than what she gives!

she is shocking

she is wild

she is off

she got funny ways

she sum timey

she moody

thoroughly

UN

DONE

so

mote

it

be

in the name of all that is round

and juicy

and life giving in the Universe

i'm confused.

at first, i thought that there'd only be snippets of nas' assertion that everyone in this country now qualifies as the n-word. but i found a video clip!

& yeah, i can more or less see his argument -- particularly in post 9/11 america. the way the government watches us, the way our info is sold & tracked. i totally get that. none of us is safe; each of us is victimized. it may not be fire hoses & dogs, but there's always something.

but yo.
that thing about black peoples' right to vote expiring? last i heard it wasn't true. there's at least one statement from the department of justice that clarifies what the voting rights act is all about. i don't know where that ish comes from, but if it comes from the same places that those damn "pass this on to heal little melanie's eyebrow cancer" emails, then i'm gonna be disappointed in nas as a grown person. grown ppl tend to check facts before they start running off at the mouth about things like that. if someone can find me something to back up what he's talking about, i'll appreciate it. in the meantime, i think it's another bullshit urban legend.

i don't knock the john lennon reference, kelis . . . but i still, for some reason, want you to shut the fuck up. i can't explain it. i used to like kelis a lot. but since her second album went unreleased in the states & her third only had one hit (milkshake, y'all) i feel kinda like she dumbed herself down in the name of making herself 'relevant' to the ppl who'd buy her shit: teenagers. bad move. but that's another post for another time.

anita baker: the shit.

i don't care where in the states you grew up, if you were under the age of 18 between 1986 and 1995 then you probably had the pleasure of listening to some anita baker on your local r&b station's quiet storm hour (when your ass probably shoulda been asleep). some video clips to remind y'all why most of us have little cousins in the first place ...

you bring me joy:



it's been you:


that's it for now. i'm supposed to be in bed, but i am instead youtubing & making plantain patties. (don't ask)

compulsory christianity, heterosexuality, & why i can't listen to the radio in my mama's car.

part of this comes from dark daughta's post on a particular video, the other part from having the distinct (dis)pleasure of listening to the "single & saved" radio program on my way home from my mom's last night. i don't like the idea that i have to be christian to be okay or a person of faith any more than i like the idea that i have to be white to be beautiful. i think that as i've aged & explored more of the world, i've gotten into a habit of questioning more things that have always been considered necessary by virtue of being long-standing. through this questioning i've been labeled a trouble making man hating feminist, a non-practicing lesbian, an untrue queer woman & heaven only knows what else. because i refuse to stick to one thing once i gain clarity. i question the answers too, even if i don't verbalize my inquiries. sooooooo, that brings me around to a few questions:

am i so programmed, that i don't know what oppression sounds like even when it comes to a song i like?
is the christian movement against queerness (especially amongst black americans) the result of a genuine understanding of homosexuality as a sin, or is it because the religion tends to describe heterosexuality & breeding as the purpose of humankind? short answer: yes. when ppl aren't hetero, they aren't breeding. when women aren't fawning over men & actively trying to be sheep that renders the men useless. the bible, in my opinion, defines human beings as here for roughly three purposes: serving god, breeding, and suffering until we get to heaven.
is it even possible for me to, once i start to deconstruct things that are oppressive at the root, to simply dig a song/ tv program/ movie? will everything strike me as possibly/ probably racist/ heterosexist/ homophobic?

(more later)

dope girls.

in streetwise terms, the word dope only means one thing: the illegal, illicit shit. usually coke or heroin. it's the norm to be a dope girl nowadays. you have a kid or two. job corps really didn't do for you what you thought it would. that welfare-to-work medical assistant training is fine but the pay caps out at $32K per year depending on where you live -- and if you've done welfare-to-work, you probably have babies to feed. so what's a girl to do?
you start pushing weight, or boosting & selling the hot shit on the street. or, you get two jobs -- maybe three -- so you can handle your business.
i'm not saying that this is what happened to gina hunt & andrea yarrell & their children, but damn if it doesn't seem that way. i'm not okay w/ this shit. it bothers me to no end that they were targeted for robbery and killed over some weed & money. i'm fucked up about the comments ppl have made as to the whys of these murders. i'm not okay with pointing my finger at any woman who seems to have chosen to push weight (or strip or prostitute or do any of those "bad" things) so she can maintain a fucking roof over her fucking head. i'm not gonna knock anybody because i know for a fact that in the past 2 years i've been so desperately broke that i wondered if selling weed was a better idea than dayjobbing it. no lie. & heaven only knows if i'll find myself there again. who knows if any of us will be in that position? over and over again, ppl are saying it's all about what the mothers did before that point. my god, is it really like that? you mean to tell me that before the killer shot that he couldn't have decided to do something else? he couldn't just walk out? what the fuck? but i guess if their house had been mistaken for a different house, it'd be okay. these girls weren't euologized as ph.ds or neurosurgeons -- cuz rich motherfuckers get into drug shit too -- so i'm under the impression that just maybe it wasn't about the fun or glamor of selling dope. i'm pretty sure that these women knew that it's not cute out here -- it weapons were found in the home, they probably knew what the norm is. there's no honor among thieves, obviously. shooting babies? for what?
my heart's broken by shit like this. i understand that murder is par for the course, and i know that folks are transitioning at what seems like an alarming rate. but the way this shit went down really breaks my heart. sometimes i understand why so many folks say "some days it doesn't pay to wake up black." apparently, it doesn't pay to wake up female, mothering, black in this country.

fuck. what is wrong with people? these cowards won't even admit to who shot whom. pointing fingers and laying blame at others' feet, like that shit's gonna help shit. so damaged. so damning.

may these lives be lost not in vain, but to teach valuable lessons to those who hear of the events. may there be rightful, righteous justice visited upon the heads of the killers. may the families of the lost/ loved ones be comforted & edified by the outpouring of sincere support from wherever it comes. it's not often that a mother or father has to bury a child or even a grandchild -- but i pray that those left behind are able to heal.

i don't even know what else to say. peace to the mothers & children.

i did it because it felt good.

i ate that whole container of hummus
devoured that bottle of cheap ass white wine
walked around my apartment in just a pair of heels -- by myself
watched some porn
flirted endlessly with no desire to take it further
bought that pair of lace panties
cut all my hair off
slathered myself in coconut oil
stayed in bed an extra three hours
packed a bowl & smoked myself silly
enjoyed a sandwich with two kinds of meat and a cheese on it
wore a skirt w/ no panties underneath
copped a pair of sexy shoes for no apparent reason
fucked around w/ your homeboy
got some extensions put in my head
drank a whole pitcher of lager & three shots
danced w/ a girl
gave out a fake name @ the club
went bonkers on the clearance rack
got my nails done
kissed a baby
smiled at strangers & said 'good morning'
started a blog
spent 30 minutes in the dressing room & didn't buy shit
ignored that phone call
had a glass of wine w/ lunch on a monday
wore jewelry that didn't match my outfit
left work early to go on a weekend trip
pretended to be younger than i am
lied & said i was older
downloaded an album
wore some crazy looking outfit
called someone a dirty name
got nasty on the mic
played dumb
snickered when someone got fired
called out sick just so i could have sex all day . . .

is akon trying to be deep?

the video:


the lyrics:
Life come and go
So let the history be told
We're all out here
Hustlin' to make our way
And while you're stumblin' and fallin' (stumblin' and fallin')
Why don't you pick yourself up now (pick yourself up now)
You see we all out here
Working day by day

So tell me
How can we work it out
On that day when its time to share the gold at the end of the rainbow
How can we work it out
When good and evil meet
The day you kiss his feet
Cause it will soon come

You soon lose track of which way is up when you're always being put down (being put down)
You gotta be strong and do what you feel in your heart
Regardless of who's around (regardless of who's around)
I know it might seem bold
But thats all we have (all we have)
Many centuries and we're steady getting old
Clutchin' on to what we never had

Sooo
How can we work it out
On that day when its time to share the gold at the end of the rainbow
(how can we) How can we work it out (how can we)
When good and evil meet
The day you kiss his feet
Cause it will soon come

How can we work it out
On that day when its time to share the gold at the end of the rainbow (share the gold)
How can we work it out
When good and evil meet
The day you kiss his feet
Cause it will soon come

How can we work it out (dada)
Dodo (how can we work it out)
How can we work it out (dada)
Dodo ohhhh (dada)
How can we work it out (dodo)
Da da How can we work it out (dodo)
(everybody sing along with me)

How can we work it out
On that day when its time to share the gold at the end of the rainbow (that pot of gold)
How can we work it out
When good and evil meet
The day you kiss his feet
Cause it will soon come (yeah)

How can we work it out
On that day when its time to share the gold at the end of the rainbow (that pot of gold)
How can we work it out
When good and evil meet
The day you kiss his feet
Cause it will soon come (soon come)

How can we work it out (work it out, work it out, work it out...)

knowing this man's popular singles/ collaborations, my eyebrow is raised. yes, i know he goes home to the continent & i know he helps folks & I KNOW about the humanitarian shit.

but i wonder why this single hasn't blown all the way the fuck up.
hmmmmmm.