The Potty Mouth Granny

  • What Is Black?

    “Black” is not a single thing. It’s a constellation. Black is a people, first—descendants of Africa scattered by history’s rough hands: trade winds, chains, migrations, love, survival. Not a monolith, not a hive mind. Nigerians, Haitians, Gullah Geechee, Afro-Brazilian, Black American, Somali, Jamaican—different tongues, foods, rhythms, gods, jokes. Same sun in the bones, different stories…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • Black Walnut Ice Cream

    The weirdest things can unlock childhood memories. Yesterday, a friend mentioned how his mother used to eat black walnut ice cream, and suddenly a whole flood of memories came rushing back to me—uninvited, vivid, and sweet in that bittersweet way only the past knows how to be. Memory is funny like that. It doesn’t knock.…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • What cities do you want to visit? London, Edinburgh, Dublin, Paris, Rome, Athens, St. Petersburg, Lagos, Agra— I’ve read my way through these cities. Through their histories, their ruins and revolutions, their narrow streets and loud silences. Before my soul leaves this earth, I hope to see these places.

    thepottymouthgranny

  • A Slight Poem About The Cat

    Now despite his age, this cat is still bad as hell. Sixteen years old and still jumping on counters. Still starting shit. And he knows how to create different meows he knows is going to make me mad as hell and pick up a broom. I swear to God he does this. So therefore despite…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • The Madonna/Whore Complex and Black Folks

    The Madonna/Whore Complex is already a cracked mirror. When you angle it toward Black people, the glass doesn’t just crack—it shatters, because race rewires the whole thing. Quick grounding: the Madonna–Whore Complex is the psychological habit (popularized by Freud, refined by feminists) of splitting women into two moral bins. One is pure, nurturing, worthy of…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • The Social Construct of Masculinity

    Masculinity is a social construct—and that doesn’t make it fake. It makes it designed, like money, borders, or the concept of “professionalism.” Real in its effects. Invented in its rules. Biology gives us bodies: hormones, muscle distribution, voices that drop or don’t. That’s the raw clay. Masculinity is what societies sculpt out of that clay…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • Happy Thanksgiving

    Earlier this year, I learned that I had a mass in my right breast and had to have an immediate following mammogram. When I received the abnormal results, I put it away in the part of the brain where you put information that you’re not ready to deal with but late at night, I would…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • Bugs Bunny and Books

    I lead such a dull existence these days. It’s Saturday night and I’m in bed reading a book with the sounds of Bugs Bunny playing in the background. Surprisingly enough, I’m content. As an old broad who survived a lot, this is it for me right now. It’s a beautiful kind of peace when you…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • What’s something you believe everyone should know. History. There are so many people in this country who don’t know a damn thing about the history of the place they live in. They don’t know the Constitution, the laws of their state, or even their own city. Couldn’t tell you who their local politicians are if…

    thepottymouthgranny

  • The Normalization of Foolishness

    I will be 55 years old next month if the creek don’t rise, and I’ve never seen such foolishness from a standing president of the United States in my whole damn life. And people are acting like this shit is normal. Somewhere along the way, we got desensitized. Outrage fatigue set in. Every new scandal,…

    thepottymouthgranny