American Nightmare…tales from Carlin

Lately it may seem that I have been so absorbed in my own personal world that I have been oblivious to the happenings in the world…after all I haven’t done much blogging about world happenings. Today’s post is one that I have been thinking about but until today I just didn’t have the time to put it to paper (or monitor). Yet as I deal with the increasing stressors in my own life and think about how many of them are tied to scarcity, I realized what I am facing is just one sliver of the crazy pie we are being fed against our will.

If you have never seen George Carlin’s American Dream clip, take 3 minutes and check it out. In the bible in the book of Ezekiel 33, reference is made to a watchman who “when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people” well readers in many ways I think foul mouth comic Carlin was probably one of our many watchmen. In his way Carlin told us about the “owners” of this country but I will be damned if many of us just thought this was some hilarious shit being spouted by an old guy.

Well folks, now that we are being told that the country is broke and sacrifices have to be made, it’s awfully funny that everyman/every-woman is being asked to make those sacrifices. In Wisconsin folks are fighting for the right to bargain, in Detroit we are being told half the schools will be closed and classrooms will swell to perhaps as much as 60 kids per class. White guys are feeling like minorities and the madness grows.

Yet as a collective aside from those brave souls in Wisconsin, most of us are sitting back passively struggling to maintain the illusion that all is well when for most of us we know we are living a lie. I think about the fact that in the years since I have started blogging how many real life friends I have had tell me casually how they too are struggling, yet on the surface all looks fine. (So many struggling with basic survival, even down to having to visit local food pantries yet on the surface you would never suspect they had become those people) But because to talk honestly and openly about money in this culture is frowned upon most of us never do it…actually I have found being a big mouth about money and lack thereof has served me well. After all I never would have found out several years ago I was the least paid person on a team of folks despite having the most experience.

Nope, rather than coming together and having unity as a people we would rather maintain illusions and dreams that are nothing more than nightmares and worse case turn on one another. A few days ago when I read the piece about white oppression and the white’s only scholarship; as a Black woman, my first response was a knee jerk reaction rooted in race. Folks this is about more than race, the fact is in America race and color on some levels is so last millennium…the only fucking color that matters is green as in money. If you are part of the ruling class that holds most of the wealth, no one gives a rat’s ass about your race or ethnicity.

However we are too immature to realize that. Instead we can go ahead and see racial tensions flare up as we are all focused on what we see as racism and how whites are not aware of their privilege. Don’t get me wrong, plenty of white folks don’t realize how good the have it compared to people of color. But this is frankly a diversion from the larger issues which are that wages in this country are stagnant, yet the cost of survival has risen and not kept pace. During the real estate boom, sure many folks made boneheaded decisions and used their homes as ATM’s to fund ridiculous shit. But the fact remains that at a time when healthcare cost increased and wages did not keep pace, plenty of people used their homes as ATM’s to supplement what they weren’t earning. Plenty of folks used and are still using credit cards to make ends meet because their wages don’t pay enough plain and simple. Yet we think all is well.

Instead of getting mad and questioning why it is that families can have two college educated wage earners yet still need help for insurance costs because jobs either don’t offer it because we have been sold a bogus dream about being contractors and selling ourselves…very nice scam by the way since its harder to access health insurance and save for retirement when you are a contractor. Or the price is no longer affordable because compared to our grandparents we earn less when adjusted to real dollars. I had a job a few years ago where I had a co-worker struggling to stay insured with our company plan that was costing him $700 a month!

This morning I found myself thinking about how my grandparents who were first generation middle class blacks who worked union factory jobs with high school educations had enough money every year for a yearly vacation to Jamaica or some other fancy locale (fancy for the 60’s and 70’s). These same grandparents had a house with a reasonable mortgage, saved for retirement and had a comfortable middle class life.  Yet now their grandkids (that would be my brother and I who both hold masters degrees) scrape to get by…its already been proven that most likely Gen X probably won’t have it as good as our Baby Boomer parents. Obviously there are exceptions since I know my parents didn’t have it so good but as Black hippies that was more a personal choice rather than a reflection of society.

Nope, the owners of this country are delighted that the masses are fighting, average white guys are mad because they think the Black folks got it good. We got folks who think the school teachers have it good…how dare teachers who already on average are not paid proportional to what they actually do (don’t give me that shit either that they have summers off) are mad because we want to cut into their retirement and health benefits. Hell, even doctors have to adjust to their corporate overlords as this piece in the NY Times talks about.

It’s no coincident that it seems like we have more kids and adults on psychotropic meds (sorta interesting how drugs can advertise too on TV, so you know what drug to ask your doc for), turns out a psychiatrist who wants to get paid is little more than a well educated line worker these days slotting folks into 15 minute segments trying to get the right combination of drugs in that brief period of time…drugs that affect folks minds. This school year I have had several kids at my center who have been put on heavy duty meds and the side affects are heartbreaking. Sadly these are kids whose parents have little in terms of financial resources so if Doc Feel Good says little Johnnie needs XYZ drugs with no actual talk therapy even if the parents wanted to protest lack of access to healthcare with choices and money to pay out of pocket leaves them at the mercy of a guy who only has 15 minutes with their kid. Time is money and if doing your job in a compassionate and honest manner dings your finances, well you have to make a choice.

However all is not lost, the fact that the protesters in Wisconsin are still out there and the Democratic legislators are still in hiding does speak to the quiet fact that many of us are fed the fuck up. The fact that more and more of us are realizing we are not alone in this struggle bodes well for the potential of some real change happening. Not that hope and change Obama used to get us fired up but the type of hope and change that will make the overseers sit up and take notice; after all they need us to work so they can keep getting rich. So it would be in their best interest to break us off a bigger slice of the pie.

How dare you? The story of Kelley Williams-Bolar

For the vast majority of women bringing a child into the world triggers something so deep and so primal within that until we take our last breath we will forever be conditioned to put the health and welfare of our child first. (Obviously there are exceptions) I saw this clearly in my mother’s last weeks and days, after having brain surgery to remove a fast growing tumor, when she finally became conscious she was not the same person she was prior to the surgery. But she never forgot she was a mother, the last conversations she was clearly able to articulate centered on my brother and I, telling my father to remember our birthdays, etc. One of the last conversations she had with me was by phone and she was so weak…yet when the nurse put her on the phone, she whispered daughter.  So weak that she could not utter my given name yet she knew I was her child.  It was at that moment I realized that mothering never stops; it simply changes shape even when our children become adults as I am now learning with my own son.

That said, no matter what our financial circumstances we all want the best for our children. In today’s world we are seeing a revolution in mothering which we see clearly being played out within social media, on television and books. Many women in my generation (Gen X) are refashioning our lives to be the best mothers we can be for our children as evidenced in the rise of stay at home mothers. Yet for women with meager financial resources, doing one’s best can take many forms, going to school so that we can eventually get better paying jobs, etc.

This brings me to Kelley Williams Bolar, a Black mother currently serving a 10 day sentence in Ohio. Her crime? Sending her children to an out of district school as her local school was neither safe nor adequate. Ms. Williams-Bolar made the choice to do the best for her kids by sending her kids to an out of district suburban school that incidentally her father, the kid’s grandfather resides in. However this is a crime. The reality though is that this sort of thing has been going on forever, perhaps if schools were not funded so unfairly in our nation a parent would not have to make the decision to break the law in order to make sure that their kids receive an adequate education.

I won’t say that Williams-Bolar didn’t break the law but her punishment for a crime that if we are honest is victimless is 10 days in jail, probation and community service. More importantly because she was convicted of a felony, she now risks being disqualified to teach. See, Williams-Bolar is a senior in college looking to pursue a career in education; she currently works as a teacher’s aide. Apparently the judge wanted to make an example out of Williams-Bolar and deter others from skirting the law. Now as you can guess, the area Williams-Bolar resides in is predominantly Black and poor and the schools she sent her kids to was predominantly white and middle class.

There are some who are saying that race should not be an issue, but let’s be honest. Do you think this would have happened had Williams-Bolar been white? Of course not! Oh, she may have been caught and there may have been repercussions but a felony? Not likely.

While mothering and motherhood is simply not valued in this culture, I think it’s even less valued when the mother is a woman of color. Historically Black women were not allowed to mother our own kids; instead we were forced to mother other’s kids. It’s why the image of the Mammy still exists, we are seen as mothers of others but not our own kids. I think this is why it’s shocking to some when we see a Black mother fighting to mother her own kids and give the best we can to our kids. It’s why Black stay at home Moms are still perceived as oddities even in solidly middle class neighborhoods. It’s why when a Black mom shows up to be a class helper or accompany the class to the field trip we are looked at with skepticism. Its why even in the blogosphere there are literally only a handful of mothers of color whose blogs are highly rated and last time I checked while there are plenty of Mamas who have turned mothering into a money making venture with blogs that are producing real income and book deals. I have yet to see a Black or Latina mother receive these same accolades and rewards. Our mothering is simply not valued. This along with classism and racism is why Kelly Williams-Bolar is sitting in a jail cell as I type this separated from her kids with her future looking not too bright.

The only real crime in my eyes that Kelley is guilty of is wanting a better life for her kids yet doing that in a system that does not value her as a mother, a woman and most certainly a poor person.

Because your mental health is important too

As 2010 draws to a close I find myself in a rather introspective state, there has been a lot of meditation and reading and plain old trying to figure out my place in this world and in my life. This year has brought a lot of changes for me personally, seeing my eldest child turn 18 and head off to college has most certainly been one of the bigger milestones. Since the laws state that at 18 a person is an adult I have been grappling with redefining my relationship to him and what that means. I am always going to be Momma and he is always going to be my baby yet I know he needs space to find his place in the world.

This year has also seen me take a more active role in the life of my own Dad who is my remaining parental unit and who we will be presumably welcoming into our daily life in a matter of days. I have also seen the organization that I run grow by leaps and bounds, our annual budget has doubled yet we are still a small grass roots organization and it means that even though I have a fancy sounding title, I still deal with much of the minutia.

My marriage this year has experienced some shifts, mostly good but at times painful as we both seek to find ourselves in middle age and adjust our new selves to the larger union of our family. Then there is my body, I am at the age my mother was when she started a cycle of regular doctor visits and an ever growing arsenal of pills to manage conditions. Thankfully the shifts in my body have not necessitated medical interventions but I am officially at a point where the body I reside in has informed me that it is no longer the body of a young woman.

Needless to say in juggling a year of change it is easy to overlook one’s mental state yet coming from a line of women who never paid attention to their mental state and in my opinion reaped the disastrous effects of that decision in their body, I seek to break with that tradition. Yet I was reading this piece that once again reminded me as a Black woman, I am not alone in when it comes to how I treat my mental health.

Let me be clear, all women regardless of race or ethnicity carry heavy burdens; it’s the legacy of a patriarchal society. But for women of color specifically for Black women frankly most of us are just not used to addressing our mental health, I think about how many years ago I sought therapy to learn how to deal with my family…yes, I did. I love em but they were driving me crazy. However at that time in my life I was ashamed that I was in therapy because as a Black woman I felt I should have been strong enough to deal with these issues on my own. Though over the years I have noticed with my white friends they have no problem admitting they are in therapy and or using medications to address depression, anxiety, etc.

So much of what holds Black women back from addressing mental health is frankly half baked stereotypes that only “crazy” folks need that stuff and frankly it’s killing us. This year I saw many of my Black peers lose parents but what is crazy that for friends in their 30’s or early 40’s they are losing their parents at ridiculously young ages like 57, 58 or maybe 60. Of course I lost my Mom when she barely 50, so I know all too well how hard this life is on us as a people yet the idea of checking out early scares me so I strive to take care of myself despite the fact that it’s hard.

Sistas, just as we take care of our hair, the kids, our man, and others…we have got to start taking care of ourselves. It’s really that simple. You and I both know it’s not normal to walk around with a continuous pit in our stomachs, headaches, panic attacks…yet we do. Why? In many cases fear. I admit there is a shortage of culturally aware clinicians to work with us, fact is in addressing our issues culture is an issue. I know I have had many white friends tell me that perhaps my family of origin is toxic and I need to cut em off. They probably are toxic but they are the only family I got so I need to learn to live my life and deal with them but at the same time preserve my mental health. I was lucky that when I was in therapy I found a therapist that got it, she understood the dynamics of Black families and knew that cutting them off was not going to work instead giving me tools to work with them and allowing me to preserve my sanity.

So as we bring 2010 to a close I invite you to join me in my quest to take my mental health as seriously as I take my physical health.

Raising Black and Brown Babies

As much as I love the exchange of information and communities that can form online I have to say that there are areas where I feel it’s very limited. No matter who we are and how open minded we see ourselves the fact is we bring our lens to how we interpret information. In the US, our race, class and gender greatly inform our views even down to the politics of how we parent our children. In the past 24 hours I have read two pieces and the resulting comments that really bring home the point for me as a Black woman raising brown kids that no matter what parenting philosophy I choose my experiences as a Black woman in America shape my views. In this first piece we have Erica Jong discussing the parenting style known as attachment parenting and in this second piece we have a great blogger who happens to be Black dealing with her brown boy asking for a white doll. I realize they are both lengthy but I encourage you to read them.

I not going to get into specifics but I will say that what I was struck by in reading these pieces was how much as a Black woman that shapes how I raise my kids. To be honest I feel I live (and most Black/Brown folks) in a world that requires no matter how progressive I am as a parent that I instill in my kids some things that white folks will never have to worry about when it comes to raising their kids. In order to do that I must start early in childhood, I believe I have moved far away from the harsh manner in which my parents raised me. I don’t spank, I don’t yell, I allow my kids a voice but at the same time I understand that black and brown children if they are caught out in the world expressing themselves no matter how cute and articulate that as they grow older the stakes get higher. What am I trying to say? Well as the mother of an 18 year old brown boy, I will always worry will my son become a victim of police brutality? I can’t imagine my white friends have that worry but I know that every Black and Brown mother I know raising boys has that fear. All it takes is a simple traffic stop for my son’s life to end.

This reality was brought home recently when speaking to my former mother in law who happen to be an attorney and she was telling me about this story. Apparently I missed it in the news but you have a young Black man whose life was ended too early. Sadly these things are all too common in Black and brown communities. My former mother in law was talking about how this story made her fear for my son, her only grandchild. I almost laughed but simply said I understand. See, since my son hit that stage at about 14 or so when his height exceeded mine and he looked less like a boy and more like a man, I have feared for his life. Oh, I know he is a level headed kid who while he will make mistakes often will try to do the right thing but may fall short. We all do, no one is perfect. Problem is we live in a world that does not give black and brown bodies the benefit of the doubt.

I fear that my son could at any minute become a victim of someone else’s stupidity. I fear that as my girl grows up she will internalize the images that say black and brown are not beautiful yet she will be a prime candidate for the boys and men that will be eager to use and abuse her.

I realize some might say gee…you live a grim existence. Nope, I live the life the cards dealt and understand in ways my parents never did when they tried to raise me in a color blind (to some degree hippy fashion) that the world is not kind to black and brown bodies. I understand that as a Black woman, shit happens to brown and black bodies at a greater rate than it happen to white bodies. I understand that sadly the political is not just a discussion I have online but my reality. Black and brown bodies in this society break down faster than white bodies; we are bombarded by stresses on every side…as bell hooks said in Sisters of the Yam “Life threatening stress has become the normal psychological state for many black women (and men). Much of the stress black people experience is directly related to the way in which systems of domination-racism, sexism, and capitalism in particular disrupt out capabilities to fully exercise self determination.” It’s why as a Black woman raising brown kids, my children know how to breathe deeply and my son started taking yoga. It’s probably why whenever I go to the doctor they seem amazed that my blood pressure is good, it pisses me off yet I know I am the same age my mother was when she had to start taking the blood pressure medicine. It’s why in the late 30’s Black and Brown bodies slowly start breaking down almost certainly insuring we will leave this planet earlier than our white counterparts.

I share this all to say that if we as a culture want to have a true discussion on parenting and motherhood in this society that first thing we must be willing to look at is the differences that impact us as mothers. Yes, we all want the same thing for our babies but the means by which we get there may different. It’s why in Black and Brown communities the need for a village from my perspective is stronger than in the white community. I know I cannot parent alone, I have tried. Yet for my white sisters many are okay without that village yet they often have greater supports, partners who often can earn enough to provide. While my white sisters also deal with the fact that as women in this society they are still not valued as much as men the fact is with whiteness comes a level of privilege that is harder to access if you are Black or Brown.  While most certainly lower income whites face many of the same struggles that low income and even middle class Blacks face the fact is whiteness is at times less stressful.

To come together as mothers concerned about the world and raising kids, I need my white sisters to understand that while my methods of raising kids may differ from you, it’s only because our reality is different.  Once there is that acknowledgment then I think as women and mothers we can come together to address the inequities that face us all.

Words matter

I swear I did not want to write anymore posts associated in anyway with the online blitz No Wedding, No Womb. At this point it seems to me it was a good idea that went terribly wrong, make no mistake there is some work that needs to be done in the Black community, yet I am not sure an online campaign is the most effective way to affect the change that the organizers and many involved want.

However last night while relaxing with a glass of wine and chilling on Twitter, I ran across a blog post that was tweeted by the NWNW organizer and my blood pressure shot up. Frankly in the last two weeks since this campaign has started I have read many things that made me shake my head but as someone who goes online to relax, I have kept my thoughts to myself. This post was just over the top but it made me think about something few people ever truly want to talk about and that is that words matter. The words you choose to speak or write are powerful.

If there is any doubt to the power of words ask anyone who has suffered abuse, physical abuse is horrible yet in most cases the physical pain goes away. However to anyone who has ever been verbally abused, the words never quite go away, they live in continuous loop in the back of our minds coming out at low points to remind us that we aren’t shit, etc. It can take years to erase negative words that dehumanize us…I know because I have been there personally and I have seen it with the families and youth I work with. Tell someone they are a little shithead and watch how they grow. If there are no positive words going in, eventually that little shithead becomes a shithead.

I realize that many that read this blog are not Christian but as a Christian myself I have always been struck by the fact that even the bible addresses the power of our words. In the book of James Chapter 3 there are many verses that attest to the power of the tongue. Verse 6, and the tongue is a fire, a world of inequity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell. Verses 8 and 9 read “But no man can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil full of deadly poison. With it we bless our God and Father and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God”. This Chapter goes on talking about what the tongue can do. Yikes, the potential to do damage is great when we do not mind our words.

Which going back to this campaign to address the issue of out of wedlock births in the Black community, how is it effective if we use language that tears people down? Referring to children as bastards and illegitimate? Yes, once upon a time a few decades ago such language may have been the norm but it’s not anymore. Once upon a time it was kosher for white folks to call Black folks nigger but most white folks understand that in 2010 if you call a Black person a nigger it will be bad for your chances of long term survival. The only white folks that walk around calling Black folks niggers these days are ones that wish to dehumanize Black folks. Even those white folks don’t walk around yelling it in areas filled with Black folks because they understand it’s not socially acceptable. And in most cases they have a strong survival instinct to boot!

To help people we must understand where they are coming from, in my line of work I have seen what happens when well meaning ill informed folks pop into volunteer and it’s not pretty. To be frank it creates more drama than the so called help gives. That’s what I feel is going on when we have groups of Black women calling other Black women lower class and hoodrats. By the same token it’s no good when we start having to go below the belt and using words such as bitch, cunt, and sell-out and so on.

Language is often used to dehumanize people, I imagine that while my ancestors hundreds of years ago were dragged to this country in shackles and didn’t know what was being said about them, its safe to say they could figure out it was not good. I know many will discount what I just said after all that was so long ago, but I still believe there are pockets of the Black community still impacted by the scars from so long ago and yes language mattered then as it does now.

However the issue of language being used to dehumanize others goes far beyond Black women and our struggles. It seems that bullying of our youth is on the rise, when I was a kid you got bullied at school but at least you got to go home and catch a break. Now thanks to the advent of social media, kids can be tormenting at home as well as at school, at school a kid may be facing physical threats but when a kid is bullied in cyber space that kid is being abused with words. Carelessly tossed around words have created situations where we are seeing kids some not even in junior high school taking their own lives.

Words and the way we choose to use them hold power and if we use our words for the collective well being of all we have the ability to affect change on a grand scale yet when we use words for our own personal gain we do so on the backs and psyches of others. So as we start a new week, I challenge you to be mindful of the words you are using.

The White Man Can’t Save You

I swear people must think Black women are some of the most pathetic creatures on the planet. Every where I turn I am bombarded with media images that seem to say we are sad and lonely or else we are sex crazed hoes who are thinking with our vaginas and not our brains and thus contributing to the planet’s overpopulation problem. I guess the only happy Black women on the planet are First Lady Michelle Obama and the queen of daytime talk Oprah Winfrey. Actually  there are plenty of happy well adjusted Black women, but if we focused our images on these happy Black women I guess nobody could earn any cash exploiting those of us with fears and insecurities.

The newest self help remedy for college educated Black women is apparently to get a white man. In the last year or so it seems there has been an increase in the number of writers and self help folks suggesting that for the lonely Black woman waiting for her Black knight in shining armor that what she really needs is a White knight in shining armor…frankly its starting to annoy me.

Now I know there are some who may say, wait a damn minute the name of this blog is Black Girl in Maine? A name like that pretty much might be a tip off to the fact that since I live in very white state, there is a good chance that I have a white partner. Yep, I do. I have been married to the resident white man going on 13 years so many might ask how dare I talk shit about Black chicks hooking up with white men. Truth is anyone who has read my blog any length of time knows that I am not a cheerleader for interracial pairings. Don’t get me wrong, I love my husband, our kids and my life but the truth is interracial relationships require a lot of work. Frankly all relationships require work but when merging two ethnicities together to create a family, especially when those two groups bring great historical baggage it is not something to do lightly.

I am all for relationships that happen naturally, in my case. I had sworn off white men after a brief marriage in my late teens to a white man that produced my son and one of the most acrimonious divorces ever. Yet God and the universe decided to play a joke on me since I said I was done with white men, my current husband was brought into my life 15 years ago. We were co-workers who often chatted at the water cooler, and the truth is I didn’t see him as anything but a work buddy. In fact when he asked me out on a date, I said hell fucking naw. Only saving grace for the Spousal Unit was the fact my mom said hey why not? So I said, why not?, I didn’t have any plans that weekend besides the man did ask me out in a beautifully written letter (my hubby is a writer) and included a pound of coffee beans. (He knew my passion and vice was good coffee) So I said why not and the rest is history. No, we did not fall head over heels in love but we are both children of the working class and have personalities that are complimentary.

I am sure a few of you are saying well that sounds good, why shouldn’t another sista have that? The fact is despite how good we are together, the nastiest arguments we have ever had to the point of threatening our relationship and our family have almost always centered around issues of race. Early in our relationship, he lost people he had considered friends and while our families have more or less accepted the other it was still an adjustment. It’s often the day to day shit that causes problems. Racism is a fact of life and there are times here in Maine and back in Chicago when I come home after encountering shit and he just can’t get it. There have been times in raising our daughter when things have come up and he had to work very hard to get it.

One of the degrees I hold is in African American studies and there were times many years ago that the deeper I went into my research that it took a lot not to get pissed at the Spousal Unit. I wanted to become a professor of African American studies but for the sake of our family I had to let it go. Maybe I am an asshole but I could not study what I was studying and come home and sleep next to a white man without giving him the side eye.

I just read this piece that gave what I considered rather superficial reasons for dating white men, in many ways white men have far more advantages than Black and other minority men there is no denying that. On the other hand those advantages came at the expense of others. To put it plainly, white men got a head start in this society. Hell, even my husband who hails from working class roots acknowledges that. Our fathers were both blue collar workers yet my father in law thanks to his union supporting him and a few other breaks that white guys get was able to create wealth in the form of real estate whereas my father who at one point was a teamster got jack and was always the last guy hired, first guy to be let go.

It is my opinion that interracial relations can work but they require both partners to have the willingness to get emotionally raggedy when it comes to issues of race and be willing to do the heavy lifting. I have known more than a few white folks who frankly are not willing to acknowledge their own privilege and for the Black partner in those cases they simply must become a white person in Black skin lest they threaten the relationship.

Look, at the end of the day, date whoever you want to date and love who you want to love. But to seek out a specific group because we see them as the cure for all that ails us is well frankly silly. Yes, that white man may not have any baby mamas, a jail record and is gainfully employed but you need to enter such relationships with your eyes wide open.

If I were to give dating/love advice to a single Black woman I would say love yourself, find happiness within you and generally when we are happy things happen.

God, boys and custom made suits..the strange tale of Eddie Long

I must admit that as my fellow Mainers have discovered my little piece of the blogosphere its been a great feeling to be included within the ranks of really cool bloggers like this and I am thankful for my fellow bloggers who have mentioned me on their blogs. At the same time it is sometimes awkward as this blog was originally about me connecting with other folks of color and as such I do tend to blog on issues related to race. I admit the past few posts have been about race but as a Black woman even living in Maine one of the least racially diverse states in the country while I am a Mainer by virtue of location; I am a Black woman first and foremost.

Today I have to talk about the Bishop Eddie Long of Georgia. Regular readers know I don’t talk a great deal about my faith on the blog in part because this is not a spiritual or religious blog. Yet there are times when I do feel the need to go there, this is definitely one of them. I have made no secret of the fact that since my Mom’s untimely passing six years ago, I have grappled with my own faith. Finally accepting that is it simply not possible for me to get all the answers as long as I am earth side. Though as a follower of Christ, I do think some things are clear despite the fact that many folks who call themselves Christians are not clear on those facts.

Let’s get back to good ole Eddie Long. He is the pastor of one New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, right outside of Atlanta, Ga. In the past 20 years according to published reports he has taken what was a modest church of a few hundred and turned it into a mega church with a reported membership of 25,000 folks. Long who is officially called Bishop Long, has entertained presidents, celebrities and other well heeled folks, hell the man lives in a 1.1 million dollar home reportedly wears custom made suits, drives a Bentley and has a bodyguards. His ministry as its called focuses on prosperity…he has been quoted as saying that Jesus was not a poor man and that God does not want folks to be poor. I can only imagine based off the snippets I have seen of the good pastor, oops Bishop that he makes his congregation feel really good.

It’s such a shame though that the good Bishop who while he has been seen with his iPad clearly must have only skimmed the bible and missed the parts where Jesus talks specifically about the rich. In the book of Matthew Chapter 10, Jesus clearly states “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter heaven” In fact if there is one clear message that any one who has ever spent any amount of time in a bible specifically the New Testament can take away is that Jesus was not all that fond of rich folks. That takeaway can be held by Christians, as well as folks who only accept Jesus as a historical figure who did good works.

So if Jesus was adamantly against wealth and one is a follower of his more importantly a pastor or oops a Bishop, one might deduce that those who preach ministries that harp on obtaining earthly wealth are already off track and perhaps are not reading about the same Jesus who fed, healed and helped folks. After all that Jesus was lacking so in earthly objects that he actually had to borrow someone’s donkey.

So can we say that the good Bishop Long has perhaps lost his way? Yep, that’s what I am going to say but clearly none of the 25000 folks who attend his club…oh my bad church, clearly never saw reason to question the good bishop. Well it seems the good Bishop finally has done some things that has folks wondering though I wonder how many of his members will continue to accept this self professed imperfect man who now stands accused of coercing young men into having sexual relations with him.  It appears that while the public Eddie Long liked to rail against homosexuality to the point of actively supporting bans on same sex marriage and in fact his church runs seminars to “cure” homosexuality. The private Eddie Long is accused of engaging in the same activities he stands publicly against. Now I am sure people will say I am condemning the man before the facts come out but after watching the man make a spectacle of himself in a custom tailored suit that Captain James T Kirk would have been proud of, and stating that he is a David going up against a Goliath and that he is an imperfect man…well I am not too hopeful that these allegations are false. Perhaps if he were not living a lifestyle that is so clearly not biblical, again he is a Christian should he not live a lifestyle in accordance with the tenets of his religion? Imperfect or not?

More important than Long in all of this is how easily lead astray folks are, there are clearly members of Long’s church that would bet everything they have to prove this man is being falsely accused. Yet in the Black community in addition to the out of wedlock issues we also have issues in our churches. Truth be told most churches have issues but Black churches have power structures that give too much power to too few people and those who dare to speak out risk being ostracized by the community. Early in my father’s preaching career he was tossed out of a church for telling the senior pastor that if he (the senior pastor) was going to preach that all members must give tithes and offerings that the pastor himself needed to do the same. Good preacher didn’t like that and my Pops was shown the door.

To accept any human based off their credentials as the almighty truth and never question them is to set your self up for heartbreak and as far as I can see there is no biblical basis. Faith is to be in God and Jesus not man.

What is heart breaking in this Long debacle is that this bastard will probably still end up leading this clueless flock while the young men who were abused will be left picking up the pieces of their lives. Imagine how it must feel to have trust in another person especially someone you see as God’s representative on earth only to have that trust abused?

Follow up…tackling a problem

In my last post, I was blogging for the online blitz No Wedding, No Womb organized by blogger Christelyn Karazin. I admit it was something I decided to do at the last minute however my decision to participate was questioned by a few real life friends and after much thought I have decided a second post was in order. Since the online campaign hit the internet and now the airwaves, there have been many who have questioned the idea that Black folks getting married will solve the out of wedlock issue that affects the Black community. In some ways to merely say get married is a rather simplistic response to a rather real and serious problem. One of the questions being tossed around in the twitterverse after this online blitz has been what do we do next? In order to answer that question though and truly come up with meaningful solutions I think we must go back and look at what are the issues that have brought us to the point where the vast majority of African American children are born out of wedlock.

To attempt to answer that question, I decided to pull out one of my favorite books by Black sociologist William Julius Wilson “When Work Disappears: The New World of the Urban Poor” this book was published in 1996 and I think that much of what Wilson discusses remains just as salient now as when this book was published. Much of his research in this book was focused in Chicago which regular readers know happens to be my hometown so in using his text to discuss the issues I also feel a personal connection having been raised in Chicago.

In the first chapter of this book Wilson records the voices of Blacks on the city’s south and west sides where the vast majority of Blacks in Chicago live (note, its an area that I am personally familiar with as my Grandmother lived on the south side for over 40+ years until her death several years ago). A question was posed to respondents in his study of whether or not their communities had changed? Most said yes and that the change was for the worse. The biggest change being around the fact that there was a lack of jobs in the community which resulted in a rise of poverty in these same communities. (p. 15 In sum, the 1970s and 1980s witnessed a sharp growth in the number of census tracts defined as ghetto poverty areas, an increased concentration of the poor in these areas, and sharply divergent patterns of poverty concentration between racial minorities and whites.)

Let’s think about that for second it’s a known fact that going back to the 1970’s and 1980’s there was a surge in poverty concentrated among minorities specifically Blacks. When did we start to see an increase in out of wedlock births among Blacks? Now I am not about to look it up but thinking back I am almost certain the out of wedlock rates started to increase around the same time. I also know that in the 1980’s in the Black community we also saw an increase in drug usage and sales particularly with the introduction of crack cocaine. We also know that eventually we would see drug laws put on the books that would effectively send Blacks who dabbled in crack cocaine to prison for much longer terms than whites who dealt in just cocaine. See where I am going? A frame work going back as far as the 1970’s and specifically the 1980’s was laid that would impact us now in 2010.

As I am not trying to write an academic piece here I will say that Wilson goes on in deep detail in his book to capture the impact of joblessness on the Black community. In Chicago it meant seeing good jobs move from the city where the high paying were accessible to having them located in suburban areas where they were not always accessible for a number of reasons. I saw it in my own family, my Granny’s company relocated from downtown Chicago to the suburbs and eventually moved out of state. She took another similar manufacturing type job in the suburbs that required a daily commute of two hours a day and paid substantially less, she worked that job until about two years before her death at age 77.

Something as seemingly small as lack of work has the ability to change the entire structure of a community. The community effectively creates its own way of operating that differentiates from the greater community and norms, I think in the past decades this is what we are seeing with the rise of out of wedlock births.  The reality is people are not going to stop being sexual beings yet the reality is in the Black community we often have issues talking openly about sex. Many women grew up with mothers, grandmothers, and aunts whose idea of sex education was to tell you to keep your panties up and your skirt down. I suspect that we are still not doing a great job even in 2010 of talking sex when we have women like Oprah Winfrey who still refers to vaginas as va jay jay’s. My mother did a better job of talking about sex with me than her mother but the truth is it was not enough. I think that due to historical imagery of Black women as loose wanton women, many of us find it hard to have real discussions about sex for fear that we play into racial stereotypes about Black women.

I see the issue of out of wedlock births in the Black community as being about many issues, lack of meaningful employment, and lack of hope….most of the bloggers who took place in this piece of online activism are solidly middle class. There are some such as myself who admit to coming from backgrounds that were not middle class but by and large we have folks who are quite disconnected from the people who they hope to help by giving a one size fits all solution which rarely works. Marriage can be a wonderful institution but it is not for everyone and marriage alone will not cure all that ails the Black community. If Mama and Papa are married but dysfunctional who the hell does that help?

I see real help coming in the form of knowledge, for most folks reading this the very idea that knowledge is not available is hard to fathom. Yet as someone who works with the poor granted in Maine I work with poor whites I can attest to the fact that there are still millions upon millions of Americans who lack access to knowledge. People who have outdated libraries, poor schools and basically no help in breaking the cycle of generational poverty. Most of the so called programs to help the poor are little more than band aid solutions and I speak as someone with 15 years of working with the poor in Maine and in Chicago. We give a Mama a Pell grant to go to school yet no access to childcare or transportation. In some states we have rules that you can’t go to school and receive TANF assistance as you need to be working.

If someone were to ask me on a practical level how can we create change with the younger generation and reverse the cycle of out of wedlock births, I would suggest get involved in your community. Become a Big Brother or Big Sister, mentor, and financially support organizations that are working to affect change. If you are in the position to hire folks give folks a chance who may not have college degrees, pay them a living wage.  How can a man be there for his child if he cannot earn enough money?

Think about the fact that we have national policies that are not parent friendly, especially if a parent happens to be poor and more so if they are a poor parent of color. Let us be mindful in the language we use, I recently saw many folks on line using disparaging language to refer to out of wedlock children…that’s not cool. I also think in the Black community we need to see the village coming back together. I was thinking back to the fact that the year I stayed with my Granny, the same lady who babysat my brother as a child babysat my son. We need more of that. In some ways the Black community is deeply fractured and needs to come back together and while online campaigns are great ways to raise awareness we must do more. The work that is required will demand that to be frank we get off our asses and literally do something, we either give our time or we give our money.

In closing I don’t think there is a single answer to this issue but as I opened this post with I do think that finding the solutions will require deep examination of how we got to this point. To look for an answer without a historical perspective of what got us to this point is foolish at best and actually has the ability to be quite damaging at worst. Black folks in general are not good at talking class issues but I do think that for those leading the charge that is a discussion that will need to be had.

ETA: I think perhaps we also may have to look at how we define a family. Right now our official view point is one man, one woman and kids. Yet for many that is not their reality and perhaps we need to be mindful of that. If Black women are outnumbering Black men that means to me it’s not even possible for every so called Baby Daddy to marry the mother of their kids. Am I saying we need to institute laws for polygamy? No but acknowledge that from a strict number perspective even if wanted to see all these folks married it’s not possible. So again we need policies and procedures that allow parents to be there for their kids and create a healthy family in whatever form that takes.

Why two parents count especially if you are Black

In typical fashion I am late to the party, hey what can I say? However today Black bloggers across the blogosphere are uniting to write on a very important topic that really requires all of us to start getting involved and not just by talking but to really work towards creating change. In the US, children born out of wedlock have become a common occurrence and the truth is there are lots of reasons why couples choose not to marry. Though in the Black community the consequences are creating what I am sure scholar’s years from now will call the lost generation or maybe even the lost generations. A generation of kids raised without two individuals involved in their lives. I am not about to argue on the moral piece of why folks must get married because as someone who did time as a single Mama I know all too well that life happens but even as a divorced young Mama years ago I understood that my ex-husband and father of my son needed to have a place in my son’s life. I suspect the reason I understood that was because of how I was raised. Here are my thoughts.

My parents married a month before I was born, for years I was embarrassed that my parent’s wedding anniversary was 5 weeks before my birthday. I often wondered why they waited so long but now as I approach middle age I am just glad they decided to become a team.

Growing up my Mother, rest her soul was the light in our family. She was the heart and the soul, her death 6.5 years ago made that clear. In fact it wasn’t until weeks before her death that I spent a significant amount of time with my father. No, my parents were never separated, my dad was a good guy but the truth is he was a bit gruff and frankly at times a tad unpleasant. Think James Sr. the father in the old TV show Good Times that was the father I grew up with. I will be honest as a kid, a teenager and even as a young woman I didn’t think he was special. It actually took my mother’s illness and subsequent death to realize he was indeed special. Since my Mom’s death I have gotten to really known him and appreciate him to the point that he is moving out to Maine this fall.

Yet it was hitting my mid 30’s a few years ago that it hit me that my father’s influence was always lurking beneath the surface. While I can’t say wholeheartedly that Dad was the first man I loved he was the man who set the bar for what I looked for in a man. See, my Dad was that old school blue collar man who put family first. He worked, brought his check home and allowed my Mom to be a homemaker. I have said on this blog before I used to be ashamed that my Mom was a stay at home Mom and the fact we didn’t have much in terms of financial resources. Yet in allowing my Mom to be a stay at home Mom in the 1970’s and 80’s he gave me a gift, a framework that only now as I approach 40 I truly understand.

In the Black community there is a saying Mama’s baby, Papa’s maybe and I think in the last 20 or so years we have seen the tragic results of such thinking. A couple has a child and Mama is responsible and well maybe Daddy is around. Yet the fact is kids need two parents ideally they need them to be together but if that is not possible and believe me it was not possible for my ex-husband and I. I am firmly convinced that had I stayed married to my first husband one of us would have killed the other. Two people can be so alike and passionate that it’s a very bad thing and the best thing they can do is get far the hell away from each other. Yet when I left my ex husband it was my own father who told me that my son needed his Dad. As hard as the road has been it was true my son did need his father and the fact that his Dad has been in his life always is one of the reasons I think my son is as grounded as he is. No matter what our feelings for one another, our boy has been a priority. It’s been 17 years since we split but a few months ago when I saw my ex-husband at our son’s high school graduation we embraced. The road has been long and despite our divorce early in our son’s life we both made the sacrifices to create the best life for our son.

This is what more Black men and women need to do. I have close friends whose kids did not have their fathers in their lives and now those young adults are going off in bad directions. Yet these same women did not have their fathers in their lives so in many ways they had no idea what it would mean to not have a father for their kids?

I am convinced the older I get that kids model what they see. In other words if Mama has a string of boyfriends what message are you sending to your daughters? If she sees you doing everything and a man laying up on you or worse yet begging Daddy to send money or spend time, what message does that impart to your kids? How we expect a young boy to grow up to be a responsible young man and take care of his kids if he never saw his own father do such things? Clearly a child can grow up to do the right thing but for so many Black kids that is not happening. Considering that Blacks are disproportionately affected with lower rates of school graduation, higher rates of unemployment, higher rates of prison incarceration and the list goes on. The fact is children being raised by two parents who are there emotionally, mentally and financially can go a long way in curing much of what ails the Black community.

In the idea world, a couple would get married, have kids and stay married. Yet we don’t live in an ideal world…shit happens. However we can make a decision that if we have kids they deserve our best and judging what is best starts on being brutally honest with ourselves. If you choose to lay with a man or woman and the possibility is there that you can create a new life. Ask yourself this question, do you want to deal with that person for the next 18 years if a child is created. If the answer is no get up and leave right away. Your right hand and or a personal vibration device can take care of your needs just as well without creating a vulnerable new person in this world.

Raising Brown kids in a White World

This is one of those posts that will probably come across as disjointed so I will apologize in advance but I hope  in writing it, I can work through some of my own issues…after all blogging is cheaper than therapy.

It’s school time and this year the kidlet enters school. We have been getting ready for this by attending the various screenings and Open Houses. I have been putting on my best happy face all the time stuffing down my own deep feelings related to the idea and of having my daughter start school and frankly my pot boiled over last night.

Growing up I was what folks called a good kid, that meant I didn’t backtalk my parents or any adults (considering how quick my father was to spank for small things, backtalk seemed like a great way to end my young life before it started), I made good grades in school and generally speaking I was a studious well behaved kid. The type of kid parents and adults rave about, after all I didn’t cause anyone any grief. Instead my black relatives teased me for talking “white” and made my life uncomfortable which I suspect is why I have little contact with my extended family to this day. My classmates either ignored me or made fun of me for my dark skin, funny hair and overall lack of whiteness.  Problem was deep down I was an unhappy bordering on tortured kid who in 4^th grade threatened suicide, yet no one believed me and thankfully the idea never went beyond being just an idea.

The older I get, I am convinced that my parent’s decision to send me to a magnet school that was predominantly white played a huge role in my general unhappiness. However my folks were working class and it’s a known fact that by and large working class and poor families do not value or encourage much dialogue on issues like feelings. So I held my feelings in and it was only when I got to high school and discovered weed and booze that I found a release for my unhappiness. Besides the stoners were less bigoted and more accepting of a skinny gawky Black chick. So much fun I had for the first time in my life that going to school became less important especially when I realized I wasn’t going to get my ass kicked any longer by my parents. So when I turned 18, I said fuck it and dropped out and the rest is as they say history. Thankfully I did eventually realize school is not all bad and did return to school as an adult.

The reason I share this is because the kidlet’s impending arrival to formalized education has brought up many of these painful memories, memories of feeling like I had no place, being teased for my kinky hair, shiny legs…thanks to ashy skin my Moms believed in oiling me up so I went to school glistening. Add in the fact my folks were Black hippies and were into shopping second hand long before it was hip, I was a walking outcast.

Truth is while I moved to Maine for my son, I never saw myself putting down roots here. I figured as soon as he turned 18, I would get the hell out of dodge and either go back to Chicago or maybe move to San Francisco. But life happens while you are making plans and well I lost both my Mom and Granny, became a homeowner and well the kidlet was born. On some level maybe I was thinking the magical fairies would get us out of here by the time she was school aged but life doesn’t work that way.

In some ways when it comes to the kidlet we lucked out, her previous daycare was actually diverse, but it was not in out town, it was the town I work in which has a higher percentage of low income families that somehow correlates to greater racial and ethnic diversity here in Maine. Seriously, if you want racial diversity, look for the poor people! She loved her daycare and was fortunate to have as a good friend another biracial child but its school time and she must attend the school in our town and well it’s not terribly diverse. Oh, it’s more diverse than it used to be but long story short the kidlet is only one of two kids of color in her class and the other child is Southeast Asian and does not speak English.

I know this because today when I went in for the last minute school preparations I talked to the kidlet’s teacher and wanted to know how she will address the issue of diversity and was met with a blank look. No, I really mean a blank look. She finally told me that she didn’t think there was going to be any issues because well kids don’t see race or color. Um…..what fucking planet are you on? I suppose my temper started rising when I realized that she had no clue what I was talking about considering the glazed over look her eyes got as I had been explaining some of my concerns with the kidlet starting school and the purpose of this meeting was to talk about the kidlet’s readiness for school based off the assessments that had been done coupled with any concerns I had. Needless to say I have a dilemma, there is no question in anyone’s mind that she is ready for school and from an academic standpoint I think she will do well but I admit it’s the social piece that concerns me.

This past year she was in a preschool that was far less diverse than her previous childcare center had been and already I saw a slight change in how she viewed herself, her hair was not long like so and so. Well no, your hair is curly and while it is long it does not flow like that kids. It’s those little things that concern me because it’s the fact that the standards of beauty are not a kid who looks like her. I think the fact that we have no extended family of color here also bothers me and concerns me, right now the only woman she sees that looks like her is me. At least for me when I finished with my day of torture at school I was surrounded by folks that looked like me at home. On the bright side my Pops is moving out here soon so she will have more exposure to folks like us.

I realize some readers will say well just move, in a perfect world maybe that would be possible but moving is not an option for a myriad of reasons. None worth going into but at the same time I am scared, every kid of color I know out here has at one point or another dealt with racism and bigotry in the schools. A dear friend of mine left Maine last year because she was worm down with battling the schools over the distinct lack of sensitivity to race and difference. Sorry, but no one is moving me out till I am better positioned to do so and that will be a good 5-6 years away at the soonest.

So that leaves me considering what I consider the nuclear option…homeschooling. I won’t lie while I have always been attracted to the idea, I have been attracted to it in the same way you admire your buddy who works out 7 days a week and has a killer body yet you know you have no time or energy to do so yourself. Yet while I don’t wish to put my issues on my child at the same time I feel like I need to start thinking about homeschooling in the event school is a bust. I admit it scares me, the idea of school harming her through the possible cruelness of kids and cluelessness of teachers scares me. But at the same time the idea of teaching my own kid scares me…after all what if I fuck up and scar her? What if she is like 12 and can’t read because I can’t figure out how to teach her. On some level I know I am being silly but these are my concerns. Never mind the fact that the hubster is not proponent of homeschooling though after one of the most volatile conversations in our 15 year relationship he is willing to give it a try but has his own concerns.

I tell ya raising kids is hard enough but raising brown kids in a white world at times makes it even harder.