miscellaneous

Role Models? Say who? Say what?

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 04:10:35 +0100

I was on a routine trip to the grocery store with a friend when we stopped to look at some magazines. It is not unusual for me to browse through the latest hair, fashion, hip hop, Essence, Ebony, Jet, etc. to be kept abreast of what is going on in our society and the next foolish trend that is going to emerge *smile*. This particular day the magazine gods led me to Juicy magazine (I had never heard of it before). I picked up the magazine and this is what I saw on the cover:

Below the picture of the professional groupies it says "How to Get Paid: The Girls' Guide to Fame" and then "From Eye Candy to Boss Lady". The first thing that came to my mind was "Say who? Say what?" Is this really who we should tell young girls to look up to? One is known for the man she dated and going from strip clubs to fashion week. The other one is known for a sex tape, screwing chocolate athletes, and having a famous family known for....being famous? And lastly we come to Karrine Steffans bka Superhead who is known for living on her knees and having Seven Eleven p*ssy. Now, I don't knock anyone's hustle or doing what they have to do to make a better life for themselves, but really? We can't tell our girls that they should be recognized for their intellect and not their silicone butt injections; or their mental ability and not the ability to screw every athlete, singer, rapper, and actor possible. Would it not have been better to put Michelle Obama, Sanaa Lathan, Oprah Winfrey, or someone with a little dignity and respect on the cover for young girls to aspire to be like? Beauty fades and so does the groupie legacy. Get a degree and some self respect; no one can take that from you. Ladies, you are so much more than what is between your legs and how big your butt is, Jasmine says so =)

Be blessed, be a force, be you. Peace.

JS

This is one of my favorite poems by Nikki Giovanni....

Fri, 03 Sep 2010 22:22:49 +0100

"Ego Tripping"

I was born in the congo
I walked to the fertile crescent
and built the sphinx
I designed a pyramid so tough
that a star that only glows every one hundred years
falls into the center giving divine perfect light
I am bad
I sat on the throne
drinking nectar with allah
I got hot and sent an ice age to europe
to cool my thirst
My oldest daughter is nefertiti
the tears from my birth pains
created the nile
I am a beautiful woman
I gazed on the forest
and burned out the sahara desert
with a packet of goat's meat
and a change of clothes
I crossed it in two hours
I am a gazelle so swift
so swift you can't catch me
For a birthday present when he was three
I gave my son hannibal an elephant
He gave me rome for mother's day
My strength flows ever on
My son noah built new/ark and
I stood proudly at the helm
as we sailed on a soft summer day
I turned myself into myself and was
jesus
men intone my loving name
All praises All praises
I am the one who would save
I sowed diamonds in my back yard
My bowels deliver uranium
the filings from my fingernails are
semi-precious jewels
On a trip north
I caught a cold and blew
My nose giving oil to the arab world
I am so hip even my errors are correct
I sailed west to reach east and had to round off
the earth as I went
The hair from my head thinned
and gold was laid
across three continents
I am so perfect
so divine
so ethereal
so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...

Word Bank Poetry

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:04:16 +0100

I found this in a notebook. I wrote it for a creative writing class I took in 2005. The assignment was to use the following words in a creative writing piece.

Colored    Pregnant    Blue      Clan    Black     Pain   Kinfolk   White    Shattered   Secret    Forgot   Precious

Slave   Infant   Left   Inferior

This is what I came up with:

    It is here that I was born. A simple colored girl born into a colored clan of kinfolk. Born into an unforgiving world. Forgotten in my poverty. Shattered by my pain. A soul so black and blue left
standing in the rain. It is here that I developed from an infant to a child impregnated at a young age and left to give birth in the wild. It is here that I struggled, enslaved by the color of my skin. Precious only to myself. Holding a painful secret within. It is here that I will die. Giving birth to the child of a white man. A child born to be inferior because he belonged to my poor colored clan.

Kevin A. Williams (WAK)

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:49:46 +0100

Kevin A. Williams (known professionally as WAK) is my favorite artist. He is a creator of Urban Fine Art and has the current most widely circulated Urban Fine Art series in the nation. His paintings range in theme including: Love and Romance, Spiritual, Inspirational, Fraternity and Sorority, and Barber Shop and Beauty. His paintings focus on uplifting as well as the appreciation of African American culture. Below are a few of my favorite paintings by WAK.

If you are interested in knowing a little more about WAK or seeing more of his work you can check out his website www.wak-art.com.

Peace & Love
Jasmine

Is Beauty Colorblind?

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 05:07:12 +0100

The issue of race, color, and beauty has been on my mind a lot lately. I was on facebook and saw a group entitled Black is Beautiful. There were numerous pictures of black women of different shades, sizes, ages, ethnicities, etc...and I must say in my opinion they were all beautiful. So I decided to pay homage to the different shades of beauty also. I went to google.com and somehow came across a blog entitled "Do you find black women attractive?" Here are some of the responses:

I'm black, but I like Latinas the most! Damn those are some fine mother f***ers But my black friends give me crap about not linking my own race They tease and say Jungle Fever. My white friends Black girls look like monkeys Do you think this? I just don't like the black girls at my school becuase the're so loud and obnoxius(atleast the ones Ive been around)

I think girls of every ethnic background can be attractive. And they can all be ugly.

no offence but the ones i've been around always wear coconut lotion, and that is a turnoff

Usually black women are not attractive, but if they are only half black, they can be hot. I seriously don't know an attractive whole black girl in real life.

So needless to say I was a little upset. Especially by the first and last comments. (The one about coconut lotion was just irrelevant) but n e way. The first response was by a black man stating that he liked Latina women better than those of his own race and that the black girls he know are loud and obnoxious. Even if beauty is not colorblind, ignorance definitely is and there are loud and obnoxious individuals of all races. The last statement claimed that there are no fully black women whom are attractive. Many of my male friends have stated that "mixed" or Latina women are the most attractive and are their preferences, although there is nothing "wrong" with black women. I know many black men who find dark skinned black women unattractive and will not date a dark skinned girl at all or "unless she is realllll fine". I have also caught alot of disapproval from some of my closest friends for saying that I find dark skinned men to be very attractive. Now, never have anyone of them come out and bluntly said that I was wrong for feeling that way but there has been frowns on their faces, the expression as if they smelled something foul, and one even go so far as to say my taste in men was "tart" and that I did not need to date a dark skinned man because my children would be "dark as hell". Now never did I say that light skinned men were unattractive, I find men of all shades sexy. I just felt it necessary to uplift dark skinned individuals in our community because they catch so much hell not only from other races but from our own, maybe even more so! I believe it is the variety in the black race that makes it so beautiful and it bothers me when black men and women discriminate against the dark skinned individuals in our community. Don't get me wrong...you should feel free to like who and whatever it is you like. But do not justify the beauty in what you like by ignoring or refusing to see the beauty in what is the opposite of what you like. Beauty comes in all shades, sizes, ages, races, and ethnicities; in my opinion at least. But I will ask you.....

Do you think beauty is colorblind?