With your answers, please remember we are in the SYW world which may not always match our reality.
How many languages do you you speak?
American English with a smattering of Spanglish!! Meaning I speak Spanish but poorly. Must improve my Spanish speaking skills once I retire.
What are some words that just make you smile?
FREE MONEY!! LOL!! CHOCOLATE!! VACATION!!
If you were the original architect of one existing building, which building would you select?
Perhaps the Flat Iron Building or the Grace Building in New York City. I like the shapes of both buildings. Here are links with more information on both edifices.
Would you rather have telepathy or telekinesis? (Telepathy is the communication using your brain waves, telekinesis is channeling the energy onto physical objects to cause substantial, observable physical changes.)
Telepathy. I would think that this skill would be more useful in understanding and communicating with other living beings human, animal and plant life.
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
SUMMER!! Hooray for Sun, Sand, Beach, Baseball, Brooklyn Botanic Gardens, walks in the park and Heat!! Also last Thursday was wonderful. Quiet in the Main Building and I had a great time working overtime in the satellite building. I enjoy working in the satellite galleries so much that I’m going to request a transfer. Speaking with one of the supervisors over there I learned that his wife had given birth to a baby boy two months ago!! Great baby news!!
In the upcoming week and weekend I look forward to attending a Brooklyn Cyclones ballgame (minor league) and attending Curlfest an event for Black Women who wear their hair Natural! Naturalistas Rule!!
This is another non-PC post dealing with racial attitudes. If you’re white this blog post is gonna Fuck with you to the utmost. I pull no punches and make no apologies for my words. If you don’t like it feel Free to Unsubscribe. I don’t give a flying Fuck.
Often my colleagues of Color and I will talk about the racist comments and insults we get on a daily basis while performing our jobs as Security Officers at the museum. One encounter by a Black co-worker who is a retired Marine Officer and who is multi-lingual especially sticks out. A white visitor told him he was an Uppity Nigger. His response, “I come from a long line of Uppity niggers and am proud of it.” I’m sure that white patron had no answer for that one.
Basically during my tenure at the museum patrons have cursed me in every language know to mankind and called me everything but a child of God.
Now let me back track to my encounter this past week with a dumb-ass old white woman who had the nerve, gall and audacity to come up to me and compare my beautiful cornrows to a Medusa sculpture. I was raised to respect my elders but there are times when you just want to slap the shit out of old white people whose minds are still stuck in the early 20th or 19th Centuries. Then there are the trust fund babies and wealthy white folks of privilege who have that “To The Manor Born” attitude to most workers of Color and especially Black workers.
Dear Folks of the Caucasian Persuasion. Do Not Touch my Hair. This is not a petting zoo. Do not ask me stupid questions like, “Do you comb your hair?” Do Not compare my braids, locs or cornrows to Medusa and I won’t say anything about your wrinkles, age spots or your open audacity and stupidity to think you can come up to any random Black person that you don’t know and just spew the first idiotic thing that issues forth from that pie hole in the middle of your face. And No you Do Not have the right to become offended if I call you out on your arrogance and foolishness. Keep your ignorant racist sexist dumb words and attitude to yourself! Don’t get it Twisted. Mammy and StepAndFetchIt are long gone. In fact do me a favor. Shut the Fuck Up and stop commenting on my appearance! Don’t Fuck with the African Goddess! I am a Proud Uppity Black Woman with Attitude. Don’t you forget it.
I don’t have too many problems with other working class whites. We are more or less sailing in the same ship but if you’re Black and you commit the smallest infraction of the rules we get thrown overboard. Most of the problem lies with the 1%. The “Beautiful People.” The Society Matrons. The Trust Fund Babies. Tea Partiers formerly known as the “Moral Majority.” You know them. The patrons who attempt to give you half chewed gum and candy or some sort of other garbage thinking you’re a fucking janitor. I tell them them the trash can is located in the nearest restroom.
Caucasian Americans let’s get re-educated. No I don’t look like another Black person you may know or see on TV, in the movies or in magazines. Black people have the most diversity of skin color, hair textures, and hues than any other race on earth. Unless that particular Black person is an identical twin there goes the notion that we all Look Alike.
If you don’t know me. Don’t touch me. Keep your hands to yourself. Hey you never know. The Black might rub off!
Yes I speak proper English and not Ebonics. Sure I can lapse into slang but only around my friends. Stop saying how you’re incredibly amazed at how “articulate” I am. That’s a back-handed compliment which is really an insult in disguise. Quit being so condescending.
No I absolutely Do Not take or sell drugs. Black does not equal drug addict. However it is obvious that you do since you seem to know so much about illicit drugs. No I’m not here to be your sex slave. Don’t even go there! For I will put your sorry ass out of my galleries. If we were out in the street my foot would be up your ass! You may have gotten away with raping my Great, Great, Great Grandmother back in slavery days but today I will not only knock you silly but cut off your minuscule package and shove it down your throat.
You insult me to my face and make snide remarks behind my back. You extend your hand in supposed friendship and support, with that phony shit-eating grin while telling me “I Voted for Obama!” Really. Oh joy! How white of you! You know what? I don’t want to be your friend. You would not survive a week No Not even a day in my Black skin. You need to back the Fuck up and get out of my face with your hypocrisy. My patience is gone and Love Don’t Live Here Anymore.
If you were a pen, what type, style and color would you be?
A Fountain Pen with purple ink. I often feel like an anachronism. One born out of time, meant to be in another century. As a kid I had some fountain pens and I loved them despite the fact that they could be messy. One just had to learn to tame that ink! LOL!
Fountain pen
How many languages do you you speak?
One. English. Took Spanish in High School but that was over 30 years ago! However living in New York does give me opportunities to use my rickety Spanish skills. One day I will master the Spanish language.
Are you a listener or talker?
I listen but really enjoy talking more.
Rather Have: Which would you rather have, 2 million dollars or true love?
True Love. Uncle Sam would take most of the $2 million leaving me with not much left. However with true love you never know. Perhaps my next man will be a millionaire and I’ll have both Love and Wealth! 🙂 LOL!
Bonus question: What are you grateful for from last week, and what are you looking forward to in the week coming up?
Being able to spend time outside enjoying New York City and today having fun hiking the Ramble Nature Trails in Central Park. I’m becoming a Real Rambling Rosie!! 😀 LOL!! Check out my pictures: http://roamingurbangypsy.com/2015/09/07/rambling-through-central-park/
Looking forward to my upcoming vacation!! Yessssssss!!!!!!!! More rambling and exploring the Big Apple!! Booyah!!
Black in America ~ Kujichagulia — Self–Determination
Obsidian Ebony Sioux Blackfoot Visions
Stephen and I in December 1961.
My family ranges from pale white with blue eyes to Darkest Black. However I really had no idea of my Rainbow family until Aunts passed away and then when my father died in 1995. Then I was confronted with somebody who had white skin and blue eyes saying that they were my cousins. I always knew my Paternal Grandfather had been married twice but it was then that I realized his first wife must have been white. That was probably the real reason he left Petersburg, VA and moved to New York during the early 1900s…
As a child during the 1960s, I remember being called Tar Baby. I remember my mother who was light-skinned but who suffered under Jim Crow in Dayton, Ohio saying, “If You’re white you’re alright. If your Brown stick around. If you’re Black Get Back!” Every day on the playground of a Black school Black kids would taunt me. Tar Baby! African! Monkey! I came home crying every day. My Dad who was Dark-Skinned always told me, “The Blacker the Berry the Sweeter the Juice. If the berry’s too light it has no use.” That would give me comfort.
Defiant precocious DeBorah
However it took decades before I was comfortable in my Black skin. But the pigeon holing by the Black Community, My Community was very evident in the 60s and 70s when I was coming of age. I don’t have what many Black people define as African features. Whatever that means. From a child even until now Black people, white people and other Peoples of Color will ask me if I’m part Native American. The answer to that question is Yes but if they looked closely at the African continent they’d find Black people with all manner of varied facial features. But nobody does. They just assume.
My Speech. My Dad taught me to speak what he called “The King’s English.” Slang was not allowed in our home. As a result Black people say I sound like I’m white or that I speak proper. Excuse me but aren’t we all supposed to speak English instead of Ebonics?! White people say I’m very articulate (unsaid ~ “for a Black person) It’s a No Win situation.
First Dance with My Father
The kinky nappy hair did not help. I was called Brillo pad. There was the evil straightening comb with Dixie Peach and Ultra Sheen (hair grease). My Mom telling me to bend my head so she could get to my “Kitchen.” My hair was so thick, teeth broke out of combs my mother attempted on my Kinapps. Then came 1972 when my Dad decided that I was going to get an Afro. Watu Wasuri Use Afro Sheen. Then I was Beautiful. Angela Davis Black Panther Party Soul Train Beautiful. In the 80s I surrendered to Jheri Curl Juice. Since then I’ve been pig-tailed, relaxed, braided, loc’ed and now with my not so thick Menopausal hair I’ve returned home to my Afro. Not as Fierce. Somewhat wiry and thanks to L’Oreal always colored various shades of red.
The new stigma for me now, Ageism. Being a Black Woman over 50 who thanks to that once hated Dark Skin now is grateful because Black Don’t Crack!
1961- A Very Good YearLittle MeMMC 2002 GraduationVictory Salute at Seven Bell Fitness Gym
Espiritu en Fuego/A Fiery Spirit 