My mama left this world 15 years ago today and it hasn’t been a day in those 15 years that I haven’t thought about her. Especially now since I’m getting older, going through perimenopause and it’s many questions I would love to ask her.
Like did she cry like a broken hearted woman one minute and then be ready to beat someone’s ass the next minute? And after crying and raging, find herself giggling madly like a teenager? Because that’s me on a regular basis and I wish she was here so we could giggle together.
Like how did she feel when she became a grandmother? Did she look at her grandchildren with so much love and awe that her heart literally jumped for joy every time she saw their faces? Because that’s how I feel about my grandson. I wish she was here to see his face because I know she would have loved him to pieces.
And how did she feel about aging as a woman in a culture that hates all women but has a particular vicious venom for older women? All these questions I can’t ask her because she’s no longer here. That reality has saddened me for 15 years. That reality has left a bitter taste in my mouth, in my heart, in my soul.
I have so much to live for. My children, my grandchild and the new one who’s scheduled to be born on my mother’s 90th birthday in May but it’s a piece of me that was lost on December 6, 2006 when she became an ancestor. And that’s okay. We live in culture that shames people for grieving if it goes beyond the allotted timeframe that’s deemed acceptable. But I don’t give a fuck. I have the right to grieve for my mother forever. And I will.
The Bronzeville neighborhood means so much to me because much of my family’s history has been entwined in this area. My family started migrating from Mississippi during the 1930s. My Uncle Joseph was the first Allen to make the trek to the Promised Land and for him, the journey was bountiful. He started a Ma and Pa grocery store on 45th and Wabash with the help of his wife, my Aunt Edna, who worked as a laundress. With the proceeds of both their earnings, they purchased two buildings, including the one where his store was located. After that, the rest of my family, including my grandmother, with hope high in their hearts came to Chicago to make their fortunes. Some succeeded and some did not. However, that was not really important. What was important is that they had the opportunity to succeed, an opportunity that had been denied to them in their hometown of Itta Bena, Mississippi because of the rampant racism that existed. My own experiences with Bronzeville started in 1989, when my mother, my daughter and I moved to 49th and Prairie. We lived there until 1992, and despite of what anyone says about that area, I had a ball. I never knew such colorful characters actually existed outside of the many books I had read.
Bronzeville got its name because of the mass influx of African-Americans who came to Chicago that settled in the areas between 29th and 51st Street, during the Great Migration from 1915 to the 70s. Bronzeville was once a city within a city, with its own stores, several newspapers and strong churches. This neighborhood was dubbed the Black Metropolis because of the many opportunities offered to blacks. It became a magnet for African Americans, who migrated from the South in droves. Jobs were plentiful and there were many black-owned businesses such as banks, insurance companies and funeral homes. There were many social institutions to help the disadvantaged and activities for people to immerse themselves in. The nightlife was fantastic. Musicians came from all over America to play at the Regal Theater and The Savoy. There were several famous blacks who lived in Bronzeville and they include: Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Ferdinand Barnett, Robert Abbott, Lionel Hampton, Richard Wright, Gwendolyn Brooks, George Cleveland Hall, T. K. Lawless, Jesse Binga, Anthony Overton, and Richard R. Wright. These African-Americans contributed many gifts that would stand the test of time.
However, despite of its rich history, Bronzeville has faced a severe reversal of fortune. The losses of the stockyards and steel mills to different cities have pushed thousands of people out of the job market. Public housing projects – Stateway Gardens, Robert Taylor homes and the Ida B. Wells homes, created to give people better housing, trapped people in poverty and fear. The middle classed has moved to the suburbs. Retail businesses and lending capital have fled to safer pastures. This once proud Black Metropolis is now one of the poorest in the entire nation. The majority of its young people drop out of high school. Joblessness is the norm. Drugs and violence are rampant.
Even with all the adversity Bronzeville has faced in recent years, this community still has several strengths – beautiful old mansions, a great location near public transportation and the Loop, many churches, and a history so thick that you can feel it. This blog will discuss two things that were very important to the Bronzeville area during its heyday: housing and religion. It will discuss the hard time black migrants had getting decent housing due to overcrowding, segregation and what solution was taken to correct it, but ultimately caused a bigger problem. It will also discuss the religious wars that took place between the old guard blacks that had already settled in Chicago and the new immigrant blacks. There has been a great deal of renewed interest in the Bronzeville area because of its rich history, so hopefully, some of the money spent on other areas in the city of Chicago will be spent on this beautiful city within a city, the city called Bronzeville.
Religion Wars
The Great Migration forced the established African American community in Chicago to make major adjustments and accommodations for its new inhabitants. Historically, black churches had, like their counterparts in the South, resisted any involvement in social issues. The arrival of hundreds of thousands of migrants, however, simply could not be ignored and churches, being the black community’s richest and most influential institution, were quickly called to action in the effort to help migrants properly adjust themselves to life in Chicago.
African Americans already living in Chicago were known as the Old Settlers and they were aware of the major implications the Great Migration would have on their lifestyle. The Old Settlers had striven to establish respect from whites and a sense of equality within the city’s socioeconomic system. With the arrival of the Southern blacks, most of whom unfamiliar to city life, the Old Settlers feared that the progress they had achieved would be dashed. White people would probably equate them with the thousands of uneducated, fresh from the country migrants. Most importantly, the Old Settlers realized the enormous strain placed on many of the migrants who, having fled the South for better opportunities arrived in Chicago lacking housing or a sense of direction. From the migration’s outset, African American Chicago area churches bore the brunt of the responsibility for helping guide the migrants.
The Old Settlers also worried that the temptations of Chicago’s nightlife would be too much for the green as grass migrants. Down South, the church was the center of social life. Chicago, on the other hand, provided numerous outlets for entertainment (bars, nightclubs, taverns, gambling halls), many of them deemed by the ministry as deviant and destructive. African American social activist Richard Wright, Jr. emphasized the importance the church played in welcoming migrants to Chicago. He said, “Get these Negroes in your churches; make them welcome; don’t turn your nose and let the saloon man and the gambler do all the welcoming. Help them buy homes, encourage them to send for their families and to put their children in school” (Sernett, Promised Land).
One of the first churches to help the immigrants was Olivet Baptist Church which is located on 31st and King Drive. This church assumed a major role in the process of aiding migrants. The Rev. Lacey Kirk Williams, the minister at that time, sent members of his church to several Chicago train terminals to meet incoming passengers. Church members greeted the newcomers and immediately directed them to places of assistance. Olivet quickly transformed itself into a social service center for migrants, providing them with food and clothing, while assisting them in the obtainment of housing and employment. They also hosted a wide variety of social, educational, and recreational activities, and soon gained a reputation throughout the South “as an oasis of mercy in the urban desert” (Sernett, Promised Land).
There would be major clashes between the migrants and the established Old Settlers, some of which concerned religion but most of which had to do with class status. The new migrants did not like the Northern churches. They felt that these churches were cold and impersonal. They were used to the expressiveness of the churches down South and to them; the Northern church services were restrained. The established Northern blacks felt that the new migrants were countrified and embarrassing. They liked the calmness of their church services and did not want change. They were also concerned about their own hierarchy in Chicago.
Some churches compromised their traditional religious practices in order to accommodate their new members. They incorporated gospel choirs, and added new, more vibrant songs to their traditional church hymns. Ministers livened up their sermons by interjecting “shouts” and encouraging emotional responses from the congregation. Still, the migrants still found themselves set apart by their class status, appearance and demeanor. The condescending attitudes toward the migrants by the predominately upper-class church congregations did not help the situation. They made fun of the migrants’ clothes, accents, and lack of education. It always amazes me that in spite of all the racism and contempt we have endured from other cultures that we would treat each other so shabbily.
Some of these migrants eventually left these churches and started their own denominations. The churches came to be known as Storefront Churches. These churches tried to recreate the Southern rural churches that the majority of the migrants were used to. E. Franklin Franzier explained that the storefront churches “represented an attempt on the part of migrants, especially from the rural areas of the South, to re-establish a type of church to which they were accustomed” (Sernett, Promised Land).
Of course, the established black churches felt that these churches were a slap in their faces. They felt that these churches were a disgrace to the African American race and nothing more than a minstrel show. The preachers from these churches were derided for their lack of formal training and were subjected to accusations including defrauding their flock of money, being agents in the numbers racket, and of immoral sexual behavior (Sernett, Promised Land). However, despite the criticisms, storefront churches persisted, and exist to this very day, their presence a testament to the strength of the Southern migrants willingness to keep their heritage and an unwillingness not to bow down to those who looked down their noses upon them.
Decent Housing but At What Cost?
The new migrants having settled the issue of religion now had to deal with housing. The majority of people lived in tenement housing and there were many horror stories about overcrowding, rats and insects. However, living conditions in Chicago, though overcrowded, were similar to housing conditions in the South. Down South, most migrants lived in three or four room cabins. It was not uncommon for as many as five people to sleep in one room.
But this was The Promised Land, and things were supposed to be better. As soon as they were able to get themselves together, they moved. Living conditions were used as a measure of the success or failure of migration. A family succeeded when they secured a place of their own.
One of the most popular living spaces for migrants were kitchenette apartments. These apartments were called that because everything was enclosed in one room, including the kitchen and are similar to what is called an efficiency apartment today, except a bit smaller and housing more people. Families of four and up lived in these small spaces. Many families took an apartment like this, dreaming of the day when a better life would come along. I came to know this type of apartment very well. My mother, my then-baby daughter and I lived in a kitchenette apartment from 1989 to 1992. We had been burned out of our previous apartment and lost everything we owned. We needed to start off from scratch and save some money in the process.
Unlike the migrants, we did have two separate rooms. The kitchen was actually pretty large and so was the bedroom/living space but we had to share a bathroom with the other tenants. It was a unique experience living in that building. There was a pimp and his two ladies of night living down the hall, and they would fight everyday. Sometimes, the girls would fight each other and on other days, would join forces and beat up the pimp. A lady named Dorise lived across the hall and she would get drunk everyday. Her boyfriend was a drunk too, and one time when he was laid out across the lawn in a drunken stupor, someone stole his brand new Reebok gym shoes off his feet. When the first of the month came (check time), the tenants of 4949 South Prairie would party like it was New Year’s Eve. It was truly an experience I will never forget.
By the 1940s, as more migrants flooded Bronzeville, there was less and less space for them to move into. Already decrepit apartments became overcrowded and the living conditions became worse. To alleviate this overcrowding, many blacks attempted to move to into neighboring areas and out to the newly emerging suburbs. However, they were met with massive white resistance, both political and violent, forcing them to stay confined in the overcrowded and dilapidated slums of the South Side. The City of Chicago needed to do something about these conditions; there was a serious housing shortage and the migrants either did not have the money to move elsewhere, or could not because of white resistance. The Chicago Housing Authority, a government agency, attempted to solve the housing problems of the South Side by building affordable housing projects.
The first of these housing projects to finished were the Ida B. Wells Homes, and they were completed in 1941. The next to be finished were The Dearborn Homes, which are located from 27th to 30th streets and from State Street to the Rock Island Railroad tracks. They were completed in 1950. They were designed by Loebl, Schlossman and Bennet and represented the CHA’s first “high-rise” public housing project. They ranged from 6 to 9 stories. The most notorious of the housing projects built by the CHA were The Robert Taylor Homes, Chicago’s (and the country’s) largest housing project. They were completed in 1962. They were named after Robert R. Taylor, the commissioner of the CHA from 1938-1950. Robert Taylor resigned from the CHA in 1950 after realizing that the political forces in Chicago would prevent the CHA from building unsegregated public housing. These political forces wanted blacks isolated and segregated from the rest of Chicago. And it worked.
The Robert Taylor Homes, consisting of 28 identical sixteen-story buildings practically guaranteed segregation because it was built in the middle of the slums of Bronzeville, keeping its over 28,000 residents isolated. By stacking people literally on top of each other, the CHA was able to house many people on this two-mile piece of land. The architects, who designed this madness, had hoped the open space surrounding the Robert Taylor Homes would give its residents a sense of closeness to the outdoors, making The Robert Taylor Homes a suburbia within the city. However, the land surrounding the buildings served more as an isolating factor Because of its isolation, these projects became a hot seat of criminal activity, which included drug trafficking, gang wars and murder. Public housing, instead of giving the poor an outlet of hope, continued the vicious cycle of poverty and turned Bronzeville into a ghetto.
Conclusion
Bronzeville was once a bustling center of activity for African-Americans who wanted to better their lives. Once the jobs left the community, it took the heart out of Bronzeville. The projects took its soul. What is left now is an empty shell of broken beer bottles and shattered dreams. There has been a great deal of renewed interest in Bronzeville, and some of the old, abandoned buildings have been rehabbed. New businesses have come back and put money in the community. If this interest continues, this neighborhood can be great again, but two key ingredients are needed to make this dream come true. The churches of Bronzeville have to take a more active role in the lives of its inhabitants, like they did in when the Migration first started. The ministers cannot turn a blind eye to the gang violence and drug activity that still plagues this area. The residents of Bronzeville also have to take a stand and not allow their neighborhood to continue its descent into the gutter. The residents have to teach their children about Bronzeville’s rich history. Bronzeville was built on the blood, sweat and tears of black migrants who came to Chicago with nothing in their pockets but dreams and a hope for the future. The children of Bronzeville should never be allowed to forget this. Bronzeville is the proverbial diamond in the rough. Let’s hope its shine will come through.
For some reason women stay their asses in the business other women’s pussies. Yes I’m going to be vulgar because I’m tired of these broads because they are dangerous to womanhood collectively .
Due to patriarchy, many women believe if they adhere to outdated ideology about female sexuality, they are better than the women who live their lives according to their own standards. So they spend their days and nights worrying about shit that has nothing to do with them. The original Coochie Cops of Patriarchy because patriarchy couldn’t exist if wasn’t for women willing to throw other women under the bus for crumbs.
We have enough police in the world and women don’t need their own kind policing their sex lives. How is someone else’s sexual activities going to affect your life? But for some reason, these chicks don’t get it. These women call sexually secure women whores, sluts, and tramps, all derogatory titles created by the patriarchy to shame women who revel in their sexuality and to make the Miss Priss chicks feel superior.
What these ninnies don’t realize is that it’s all game. The same men who talk shady about so called whores can’t wait to get between the legs of a whore. Will spend their last dollar on a whore. Prostitution is the world’s oldest profession and men are the ones who keep this profession in business.
I do believe that the Coochie Cops of Patriarchy are some wretchedly unhappy women who have never had an orgasm in their lives and are just jealous of those who nut on a regular basis. Just imagine if these women used that energy for themselves instead of being bothered. They would be happier and filled with satisfaction. Hopefully sexual satisfaction.
One of the easiest ways to make money via the social media is to exploit the insecurities of Black women. Black women in this country have been told by the dominant culture and their own kind for centuries that they are ugly, masculine, and as a whole, unlovable. As a result of this never ending propaganda, too many Black women suffer from low self esteem and are highly male identified. The definition of a male identified woman is in the link above but my own personal definition is a woman who will sell her soul and her first born child for some dick. I hate to sound crass and uncouth but it’s the truth and there are individuals who know this fact and have decided to make some money by capitalizing on this need for the ding a ling.
In either 2015 or 2016, I came across this chick name Ro Elori Cutno via Facebook. She claimed to be an expert on relationships and all the fellas loved her dirty draws because she advocated for women reverting back to their “natural” role as a subservient, meek, mild, wet hole for men instead of striving for an education and a life outside of striving for husband.
She even had the audacity to start a “Wife School” and charged desperately unhappy women $30,000 to attend. The school was in Paris and not only did the attendees had to pay their transportation costs but they had to live in a shady boarding house with their other clueless brethren. And then she set them up with some truly unattractive men who just wanted a green card and they got married and rode off into the sunset broke but at least they were married!
But eventually, all good things come to an end and shit got to stanking for Ro. She got caught up being a shyster doing shiesty shit and now she’s in Senegal trying to exploit more guileless women but in her wake, another generation of femininity gurus have picked up the flag and are juicing Black women out of their hard earned coins. Now it’s the “femininity” scam and this new crop of people are making coins telling Black women that if they wear pink and speak softly, Prince Charming is going to pull up in a Rolls Royce and sweep them off to a mansion where they will rest in their femininity for all eternity.
It’s so many of these women and men getting paid off the insecurities of Black women that it needs to be a crime but I really don’t feel sorry for these women and maybe it’s because I don’t understand their mentality.
I’m Generation X and I was raised by Black women from the Silent Generation and Baby Boomers. Beautiful chocolate and caramel brown sisters who who were soft and feminine and wore big hats and fur coats to church every Sunday but didn’t have an issue with stepping out of character and cracking someone upside their head if they needed to.
My Matriarchs
These ladies including my mother who is not in the above picture taught me everything about femininity and womanhood. How to behave properly in public spaces. How to walk away when a man is treating you like shit. So many life lessons and it’s sad that it’s too many sisters who didn’t receive these lessons as young girls and are now willing to pay complete strangers to learn how to be a woman. Paying thousands of dollars to get attention from men not worth two dead flies and who need some lessons in masculinity if you ask me.
While cruising the Black social media streets, I’ve seen several folks sniggering over the opioid epidemic that’s currently plaguing White communities throughout America and while I understand the cynicism, some of us need to stop casting stones and look at what’s going on in our own backyards. Because it’s a whole lot of young drug addicts running amok causing chaos and mayhem but no one wants to talk about it. So I will.
Pill addiction in the Black community amongst the younger generation is running rampant and people are either ignoring it or acting shocked when the reality slaps them in the face. Rappers glorify opioid usage and brag about popping Mollies and unfortunately, too many young people have been heavily influenced by these fools and have become addicted.
According to a study conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Heath Services Administration, it’s been a 40 percent increase of Black drug overdose deaths between 2015-2016 as compared to the overall population at 21 percent. And between the years of 2011 and 2016, Black folks have had the biggest increase in opioid overdose deaths, particularly for synthetic opioid drugs such as fentanyl.
I wasn’t one of the people who were kee-keeing about the opioid addiction problem in the White community but I do remember how crack addicts were treated back during the War on Drugs. Crack addicts were thrown into prison like trash and given no empathy or treatment whereas today, this opioid drug epidemic has been called a health crisis. Because the face of the addicts are White and suburban, not Black and from the inner city.
So as cynical as I am about this system I live in, I couldn’t help but put a correlation between the reckless crimes being committed in the city I live in which is Chicago and the rise of the opioid addiction in the Black community. I’ve seen mugshots of criminals who are usually between the ages of 18 and 35 and I see absolutely nothing in their eyes. Not a trace of humanity or common sense. A graduate student from the University of Chicago was murdered by one of these monsters and he gave the criminal everything he wanted and he was still shot down like a dog in the streets. The only reason his murderer was caught is because he sold his victim’s laptop and phone at a cellular store and it was on video. Crackheads weren’t that stupid back in the day because at least they waited until night to commit crimes and this murder took place at 1:54pm.
The long term ramifications of the opioid epidemic in the Black community is going to be horrendous. The community has barely recovered from the crack era and its existing on fumes. Imagine how the children born from this era in Black history are going to be affected. So my advice to the Black community is to take those blinders off and really look into the faces of the younger generation. Today I was almost pickpocketed by a young man while shopping in Walmart and if I wasn’t so cognizant of my surroundings at all times, I would have been robbed. He was too close to me for my comfort and I turned around and looked at him dead in the eyes. He scurried off like the piece of shit he was and left me in peace but another woman might not be that lucky.
It was a year ago this month that I received an invitation from a friend to join Clubhouse, a new social media app that allows people to interact by audio. It allows you to create different rooms discussing any subject that you would like to talk about and you have the option of inviting people to your rooms or you can ramble all by yourself. You can also drop in other folks rooms and listen to conversations, and if you want to join in, just raise your hand and wait to be added to the queue.
It’s a really cool concept because you can have conversations with thousands of people from all over the world with this app and as a sociology major who loves to study the interactions of humanity, I thought this was a wonderful idea but as usual, humans fuck everything up. Clubhouse has a dark side and let me explain why.
I didn’t actually start interacting on Clubhouse until this summer and my God, these fuckers are insane. Rooms that last for days discussing who gets the biggest piece of chicken and weave. Makeup. Submission. And why Black women aren’t shit and deserve absolutely nothing in life but chaos and pain.
There are also rooms on this app that are created by scammers who claim they are “femininity” coaches and are charging $9000 per course, “teaching” broken women with low self esteem on how to find a rich husband. And these so called coaches are predatory women who doing this to their own kind because they aren’ shit. Making money off the insecurities of desperately unhappy women who believe they are nothing without a husband.
And the men who create rooms to complain about frivolous mess but claim they are millionaires. These millionaires have the time to argue with strangers for days at a time but no time to mentor the youth who need all the help and guidance they can get. Never ending arguments about shit that doesn’t matter and never any solutions to the many ills that plague the world. Ain’t worth two dead flies🪰🪰🪰🪰🪰.
And oh Lawd the illiteracy. These folks cannot form a sentence or express themselves in a cohesive manner but really expect someone to listen to their ramblings. My god American culture is headed down a dangerous path when its citizens will listen intently to people who espouse ignorant viewpoints about abortion on an app who don’t know their asses from a hole in the wall or basic biology. But will not listen to the voices of women because women are inferior because the Bible said so.
If you go to any article posted on the social media and peruse the comments, the first thing you will notice is the vast amount of grammatical errors and the vast amount of unhappiness from the people. This ignorance and misery crosses racial lines and it’s so telling of the current state of America.
You see, American culture sells dreams. It tells people that if they work hard, they will become wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. The men will met their dream girl with the tight little body, big boobs, and long flowing hair and she will love them forever. The women will meet their very own Prince Charming who’s going rescue them from a life of abject misery and they will ride out into the sunset living happily ever after, complete with a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence and 2.5 children.
But reality sets in. The public educational system in this country is atrocious and didn’t prepare the students and now they are adults who are for all intents and purposes, functional illiterates and they work at jobs that barely pay a living wage. They are dealing with mental health issues, relationships that didn’t work and children they don’t want. So instead of facing their problems and coming up with strategies to fix themselves, they get on the internet, harassing strangers and spreading their misery.
Do I sound harsh and unfeeling? Yes because I’m sick of their asses. Over the past two years, I’ve experienced enough trauma and loss for ten people but it never crossed my mind to get on the social media and take my issues out on someone else. Because that’s cowardly.
I majored in sociology and sociology is the study of human social interactions so the social media is fascinating to me but as laid back as I am, I’m contemplating taking a break because it’s too much. But since I’ve decided to write a blog per day for the month of December, I can’t leave yet.
So I will be around and I truly hope that these broken people will get some help for themselves. I understand more than most in this society that it’s hard trying to live up to societal expectations and that’s why I don’t bother to try anymore. It’s a waste of time and most importantly, energy. Energy is too precious to waste on the should have beens, could have beens in life. Just do you and fuck everything and everyone.
Writing is a skill that has come easily to me and I consider myself blessed to be able to articulate my thoughts in the written form but it can be frustrating. Because in order to be a successful online writer in today’s culture, you have to appeal to the masses, most of whom aren’t interested in anything beyond celebrity gossip, relationships, and conspiracy theories. Subjects I do not give a rat’s ass about because when I do decide to write, I write from a viewpoint of something that I am passion about. So being a writer can be frustrating as hell.
Like celebrity gossip. I turned 51 last month (Scorpio Woman!!!!) and I’m clueless about the newest celebrities on the block. While cruising the social media streets, I often see stories about the lives of rappers and reality television stars and I don’t know these people from a can of paint. It wouldn’t make any sense for me to write about them because it would be disingenuous and most importantly, they are boring. At least to me.
Way back during the Stone age, I had an affinity for stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood because of the black and white movies that were shown on television (during ancient times when cable didn’t exist) and I used to purchase the National Enquirer and Star Magazine every week to read about the lives of Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Collins and other stars from that era. When stars were glamorous and had some real drama, not that manufactured shit that they do now for social media likes.
But now I am sounding like a snob so let me stop. Back to the subject. The other subject that will get an online writer a lot of attention on the internet is relationships. Especially amongst the online clique of Black folks who have discussions about relationships that last for days and usually places blame for the dysfunction that runs amok in the community upon the backs of Black woman. These conversations revolve around submission, single mothers, welfare, and who eats first, the man or the children. These subjects are talked about day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year and nothing changes except the people are getting older and their mindsets stupider and stupider.
When I see these musings from clearly disturbed individuals, I feel blessed and fortunate enough to know functional Black folks offline but I can admit that I am both fascinated and saddened by the lack of intellectual curiosity from the online Black folks, especially these so-called pro Black folks. Why are these folks clinging so tightly to the chains that have oppressed themselves and their ancestors ancestors for centuries so tightly? Bewailing about the end of the nuclear family which was created by dominant culture during the 1950s to take away the freedoms of its women. Especially when historically, the Black family was centered around the extended family concept. Geez…..
And the conspiracy theories truly make my ass itch and twitch. People have built large social media platforms spewing nonsense about the pandemic and whether the earth is round or flat. I can understand the fear about the pandemic but people claiming that the world is flat really fucked my entire understanding of life up because it’s not the 1500s anymore. I’ve been saying for the past five years that this era in American history is The New Dark Ages but no one believed me and now look. These fuckers are running amok looking like complete ninnies, spewing nonsense and rhetoric that they learned from fools.
It has been hard for me to write because I don’t feel passionate about anything anymore but my ability to write is calling me, telling me to use this gift from the ancestors. I feel so blah 80% of the time and I am doing my best to fight this feeling so that is why I am wrote this blog today. Perhaps my passion about life will come back through my writing. I hope so.
It was a year in October that I was diagnosed with epilepsy and since then, I’ve worked two jobs. Both jobs I’ve walked away from because the medication I take to control the seizures makes me so tired and discombobulated that I’m useless. The medication I’m taking is levetiracetam and the side effects are loss of strength and energy, sleepiness amongst several others.
I’m always sleepy now and have taken more naps now than the three times I was pregnant. I’m clumsy as hell and feel generally lethargic most of the time. Which is not good in the field that I’m in which is clerical/administrative. To be in that line of work, one must be detailed oriented, attentive, and on point at all times because one little mistake can be costly. But it’s hard to be attentive when you are taking medication that makes you nod out like a dope friend.
There are some who will say that I should try another medication but when it comes to seizure medications, it’s not that simple. My neurologist would have to wean me off the levi shit and then put me on another medication that will also come with several side effects and that is too much. What few brain cells I have left will not be experimented on.
So today I finally came to the realization that working a traditional job will not be an option for me anymore and that realization makes me feel so sad and useless. I fought the welfare system to obtain a bachelors degree that would make me more desirable in the job field and now 15 years later at the age of 51, a medication has rendered me useless.
I know I can work from home but I like getting out and about, going to lunch, watching people, meeting new people, having social interactions with people. I’m only 51 and this is supposed to be my life now? This is some straight bullshit.
Some little girls wanted to grow up and be a housewife. I wanted to grow up and work in a fancy office and earn my own money. To not be dependent on anyone. I’ve applied for disability and was turned down but eventually I will get it but damn. All I wanted was my own economic autonomy but my body is not cooperating. And I’m pissed, sad, and numb.
This summer was supposed to have been a great one but unfortunately, I lost two childhood friends that I loved like sisters in two months. Most people lose contact with their childhood friends as they get older but I have been fortunate that I’m still in contact with the majority.
I spent my teens, 20s, 30s, and 40s with these ladies and was hoping that we would grow old together, sitting on the porch with our canes cussing folks out but it wasn’t meant to be. But as I write this, I’m sitting here smiling through my tears, grateful that I had the privilege of knowing them at all.
So many sisters complain about the lack of friendship amongst Black women but I was truly blessed to have known these ladies. I hope that the ancestors greeted Genial and Mikki with love and I promise to keep them alive with my memories. Because what memories they were❤️❤️❤️❤️
The Potty Mouth Granny 