Tag Archives: society

How Organized Religion Has Fucked Up Black People For All Eternity

According to Facebook, I’m a Rising Creator and Writer which is so amusing to me because all I do is put down the random thoughts that be swirling around in my discombobulated brain. As a Rising Creator, when I’m on Facebook, I read the comment section of various posts that are popular, and I’ve come to a sad conclusion: Black people have a fucked up mentality when it comes to women and female sexuality which is due to the religious indoctrination we received when we were brought to this country to be chattel.

A Great Black Woman Writer

Just a disclaimer: I noticed this long before the internet existed but the Black social media has really exposed how backwards and dumb people when it comes to women. Black women are expected to be the work horses for the entire community. We are literally expected to work ourselves to death for a community that wouldn’t piss on us if we were on fire. Zora Neale Hurston said it best: “De nigger woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.”

Now what does this have to do with religion? Black folks have been taught that women are lesser beings than men and it is their duty to serve men and the entire community. This idea that women are lesser than men comes from Christianity. That women aren’t worthy of anything but being a walking womb that cooks and cleans. Even Black folks who claim that they aren’t religious anymore hang to that belief.

Let’s talk about female sexuality and Black folks. If a Black woman revels in her sexuality, she ain’t nothing but a two bit whore who is not worth two dead flies. She’s not worthy of marriage but the men of the community don’t have a problem with pumping some babies in her. The irony of having sex with a woman who is considered a hoe but not using a condom. Just past stupid.

Black women keep this mentality alive due to competition for crumbs of affection from Black men. If they dog out the whores and put themselves in alliance with the men of the community who call these women whores, perhaps they will get some attention. But all that they get is a wet ass, and some babies too.

For some reason, Black folks believe that hanging on to these tenets of organized religion is going to help us collectively. It’s been an online movement that is encouraging Black folks to go back to the 1950s when Black women were happy housewives and Black men took care of their families. Which is a major distortion of history because Black women have always worked in this country and was never afforded the opportunity to be a Stepford Wife. Their incomes were needed to take care of their families, along with the husbands incomes. I suspect that the men just want to go back to a time when they could beat women’s asses with impunity and without repercussions. The women are just tired of working and want a man to take of them financially, not understanding that being at a man’s mercy financially is dangerous as fuck. And once again, religion plays a part in this because yes the Bible states that men are supposed to provide, but it was written thousands of years ago and we are living in a capitalist society. A family needs 90 incomes in order to live comfortably in this country.

This chokehold that religion has on the Black community is making it impossible for us to evolve and if anything, the community is going back to the Stone Age era when if a man wanted a woman, all he had to do is club her upside her head and drag her off to the cave. And I suspect some sisters would be totally fine with this as long as they had a husband.

A Dedication to My Great-Grandfather Hark Allen

A Civil War Veteran

Happy Memorial Day to my Great-Grandfather Hark Allen. Originally named Hark Barrow, he was a runaway slave from the Barrow Plantation who joined the Northern side of Civil War, gained his freedom, and changed his last name to Allen. Lived through the pandemic of 1918 and almost saw the Great Depression. Lived until he was 83 years old. If he had been killed during the war, I wouldn’t be here right now to tell his story. So thank you GG daddy for having the courage to escape and make a life for yourself. I’m proud to have your blood flowing through my veins.

PTSD, Black Youth, Drugs, & The Lack of Empathy

My baby Girl

My daughter is 22 years old and she’s been through a lot mentally over the past eight years. She’s lost so many friends to murder on the streets of Chicago that it’s heartbreaking. Some of her classmates from grade and high school. Friends from the various neighborhoods we have lived in. So many lost children because that’s the way I look at the younger generation because they could be my children.

Black children and young adults are dealing with trauma. The trauma of seeing their friends being killed at the hands of each other due to gang violence. The trauma of having friends struggling with drug addiction and who have committed suicide because they got tired of existing. The saddest thing about this trauma is that the no one cares. Not society and and the not the community that is supposed to love, protect, and nurture them. Not even their parents in some cases. Due to the trauma, they have PSTD and the ramifications of this is going to affect the Black community for generations.

The conclusion that I’ve come to is that Black folks don’t give a fuck about Black children. If they did, they would raise them properly, make sure that their homes were a haven, not just a place to lay their heads down at night.

They would understand that parenting doesn’t stop once the children become teenagers. So many of the crimes taking place in Chicago have been committed by teenagers under the age of 16 and the crimes were committed at night past curfew. Why aren’t these trifling ass parents concerned about where their children are? I’ve seen activists whining about how the teenagers need something to do and that’s why they’re out at night. Lies. It’s something for teenagers to do during the day but their parents aren’t interested in signing up for the various programs. It’s no reason at all for teenagers to be roaming around past 9pm. What youth centers exist that is open all night long for teenagers? No where in the world because they are supposed to be home.

From Back in the Day

I love Blackness but I’m so tired of Black folks making excuses for stupid shit. Justifying bad behavior in the name of Blackness. Ignoring the new generation of young drug addicts who are strung out on pills and Lean. Worried about petty shit while our children are suffering and self medicating themselves to early graves and to the prison system.

That’s my baby in the picture above and she’s been loved and nurtured her whole life and how could I not? I carried her underneath my heart for nine months. She’s my legacy to the world along with her older sister and brother. The streets weren’t going to take my babies away as long as I had breath in my body and I wish more Black parents thought like me.

Trauma & Fear – Inevitably Intertwined

I’m coming to realization that I’ve been traumatized since being diagnosed with epilepsy. That I live with fear on daily basis. Let me explain why.

Having grand mal seizures is one of the worst things that can happen to a human. You never know when it’s going to happen and when you come out of one, your brain is so discombobulated, you can barely function.

The last grand mal seizure I had was back in January. When I came out of it, I didn’t even know what year it was. The ambulance attendants weren’t going to take me to the hospital at first but when I told them that it was 2009, I was trussed up like a hog and hauled off to the emergency room.

My son told me that I was sitting on my bed, just shaking and screeching with my eyes rolling around in my head. He just held me until the ambulance came. Just imagine his trauma. Seeing your mother like that.

I have had two seizures outside of my home. Once while waiting on an Uber outside of the local Walmart and one at work. When I had the seizure outside of Walmart and came to, I was in the back of the ambulance and my first instinct was to start fighting the attendants. I mean I woke up alone with two burly white men surrounding me. Life ain’t no fairytale.

The one at work happened while sitting at my desk. My co worker told me that I was just sitting there when I hit the floor convulsing and foaming at the mouth. It was so hard returning back to work knowing that the people I work with saw me at my absolute worst.

So I’ve come to realize that I have been incredibly traumatized by these events. I live in fear that I’m going to have a seizure while riding public transportation. While walking down the street surrounded by complete strangers. When I had that seizure almost three years ago outside of Walmart, it was a different time in history but now it’s different. People have gone completely feral and have thrown off all semblance of civility. If I had a seizure outside of my home or work, it is likely I would end up on social media buck ass naked with my personal possessions stolen and molested. These are the times we are living in.

Two years ago, my son moved to LA because he accepted an offer from TSA. Found an apartment and was doing fantastic but abruptly, he resigned. Told me that he was tired of dealing with the public but I believe that he was worried about my health and wanted to be near me. I feel guilty, so guilt ridden.

My baby girl hovers around me like an old mother hen and I’m feel guilty for that. She’s a beautiful young woman who is about to graduate from college next month but she spends her weekends underneath me.

I’m traumatized and I’ve traumatized my children. I live in fear and so they. I do my best not to beat myself up about being an epileptic but it’s hard, so damn hard. My biggest fear is dying from a seizure, and not seeing the people I love again. Leaving my children, grandchildren, friends, and other family. I’m not a spring chicken but I still have a lot of living to do. Places to visit, people to love. I want to live damn it that’s all.

Black Mean Girls & Why They Are Beyond Trifling

I have noticed that it has become very trendy to be a mean spirited, spiteful, bitchy woo Black woman and this blog will discuss the reasons why this is trending and why it a pitiful phenomenon.

The advent of reality television shows such as “The Bad Girls Club” and the entire Love and Hip Hop series has made it normal for Black women to show their complete asses on television and it has also encouraged the Black women who watch these shows to emulate their behavior. Now real talk, these women aren’t running up on other Black women starting fights offline because they would be getting their asses beat on the daily but they get online and bully women who don’t agree with them.

I have seen this behavior with my own two eyes while cruising the social media streets and it is something else. I’ve also been bullied by these chicks but because I’m an old broad, I just ignored their ignorant asses because I know that they would never be this bold in real life.

These are the same Black women who spend their days and nights whining about the misogynistic behavior of Black men who love to drag Black women for wearing weave, makeup, breathing, and then have the audacity to turn around and do the same thing to other Black women. These women don’t even see the irony in their actions because they are too blinded by their bitchery.

Another reason for this behavior amongst some Black women is low self esteem. When you have been indoctrinated from birth to believe that you are less than nothing because you were born Black and female, it is very easy to become a bully and unfortunately, this is the life of a lot of Black women.

Imagine growing up being told that you’re nothing but a fast ass hoe since you were a child. Being told that you are ugly, Black, and not worthy of anything in life. And this has been the life for many sisters but instead getting into therapy, they take it out on other Black women.

And lastly, some Black women just aren’t shit. They are petty, they are miserable, and are filled with bile. They are filled with hatred against Black women because they hate being Black themselves. They would sell their souls and their first born child to become a white woman in another lifetime and they should be avoided at all costs.

I don’t understand this mentality because despite all the shit I talk, I’m the original Miss Nicey Nicey. I love children and animals and I’m polite to my elders. Whenever I see a fly ass Black woman, I bow down to the goddess that she is and tell her how fabulous she is. So Black women who make the conscious decision to be a mean spirited bitch are weird to me. I hope that these women find some inner peace and learn to leave other women alone before they get their asses beat.

2022

This year was filled with some highs but mostly lows. The highs were the birth of my second grandson and attending a Duran Duran concert. And getting one of those “good” government jobs that Black folks aspired to for decades. But it was a rough year for me again because I lost more people I loved and other folks I know lost people that they loved too. Grief is a motherfucker.

Since October, I’ve lost a cousin and five friends. My social media friends have lost family and friends. It’s been a season of tears for so many of us and it seems like we are drowning in sorrow.

This aspect of aging is something I wasn’t ready for. As a child, you worry about losing your parents but you never think about losing your siblings, cousins, and friends. Childishly, you think that you and your crew are going to grow up and old together but that’s not true and it’s a bitter pill to swallow.

I’ve cried so many tears in the past three years and just when I think my tear tank has officially dried up, I lose someone else and the tears start flowing again. I’m so tired of losing people I love.

An Analysis of Betty Friedan’s The Problem That Has No Name

In an excerpt from her book, “The Feminine Mystique”, Betty Friedan defines women’s unhappiness during the Fifties as ”the problem that has no name.” She identifies “the problem that has no name” as upper-middle class suburban White women experiencing dissatisfaction with their lives and an inarticulated longing for something else beside their housewifely duties. She pins the blame on a media perpetuated idealized image of femininity, a social construction that tells women that their role in life is catch a man, keep a man, have children and put the needs of one’s husband and children first.

According to Friedan, women have been encouraged to confine themselves to a very narrow definition of “true” womanhood, forsaking education and career aspirations in the process by experts who wrote books, columns and books that told women during that era that their greatest role on the planet was to be wives and mothers. The role of a “real” woman was to have no interest in politics, higher education and careers and women were taught by these experts to pity women who had the nerve to want a life beyond the cult of true womanhood.

If women expressed dissatisfaction with their charmed lives, the experts blamed their feelings on the higher education they received before becoming a housewife. During the fifties, little girls as young as ten years were being marketed by underwear advertisers selling brassieres with false bottoms to aide them in catching boyfriends and American girls began getting married in high school. America’s birthrate during this time skyrocketed and college educated women made careers out of having children. The image of the beautiful, bountiful Suburban housewife was accepted as the norm and women drove themselves crazy, sometimes literally to achieve this goal.

Friedan ultimately concluded that “the problem that has no name” is not a loss of femininity, too much education, or the demands of domesticity but a stirring of rebellion of millions of women who were fed up with pretending that they were happy with their lives and that solving this problem would be the key to the future of American culture.

The Art of Aging in a Culture That Worships Youth

If the lord is willing and the creek don’t rise as the elders used to say, I will be 52 years old in November and what an amazing journey it has been. I have experienced so many trials and tribulations during my time on this planet. From childhood sexual abuse, domestic abuse, poverty, loss of family and friends, I have been through it all and not only managed to survive but thrive in a society that wasn’t created for women who look like me.

Ignore the chaos and books and look at this old broad

It has not been an easy ride at all but I am here and grateful because too many people I loved didn’t have the privilege of growing older. The two little girls I used to play with as child who died in a fire. My brother who died on his 34th birthday. My cousin who died at the age of 46. My aunts who died at 37 and 48. My three sister-friends who died at the ages of 45 and 48. So many others in the world that I never knew but who were also loved and missed dearly by those who loved them.

However, what is so weird to me is how people in this culture don’t respect the elders and look at them with disdain and contempt. Make fun of them because they are still alive. Laugh at their wrinkles and gray hairs. Their sagging skin. Signs of living that should be considered a badge of honor instead of a curse.

It’s like the very act of getting older is something to be ashamed of and people get a thrill out of shaming the elders. As if their asses aren’t going to get older one day if they are that lucky and blessed. I guess these types of people are taking a magical fairy dust that is going to keep them from turning 40. Hmm.

This culture makes it seems like getting older is a bad thing when all it means is that you survived and have a story to tell. But so often, the voices of the elders, particularly those of the crones are shouted down and silenced. Why? I think it is because knowledge is power and gaining knowledge is a part of the aging process although some older folks are still chasing their youth and their brains have stagnated unfortunately. But it’s a lot of elders who have valuable information and y’all better listen.

Like older women. We have a ton of experience when it comes to relationships and men but often when a crone attempts to give advice to a younger woman concerning a man, for the most part, she is ignored, screamed at, and told that she is just jealous because her ass is old. As if older women in this current culture have anything to be jealous of. I am in these social media streets and see clearly what is going on in the dating field. A bunch of entitled, whining ass men, both old and young and parched, silly ass women looking for male validation. I ain’t jealous of shit boos.

In May of this year, I became a grandmother again to an absolutely beautiful brown baby boy. My widdle widdle brown sugar booga man. I’m so grateful that I have lived long to see three generations descend from my lineage and I am proud as fuck. And I hope to live long enough to see more grandchildren and great-grandchildren. There is nothing wrong with getting older because as I stated earlier, that means you survived and have a story to tell. So stop being ashamed for getting older and start cussing folks out who say something slick about your age. Fuck them and keep living.

Reclaiming Joy in Your Life

The Sociological Imagination

I majored in sociology in college because it made sense after reading the first paragraph of the textbook I had been assigned. I had been a sociologist my entire life but didn’t know it.

When I was a little girl, I used to go to work with my mother during summer vacations and we would take public transportation. I always noticed that everyone would go through the same exact turnstile when we got to the train station, although it would be several that would be empty. That never made any sense to me because why stand in line when it was another turnstile available? Ugh humans but despite of their flaws, humanity is utterly fascinating to me.

Due to sociology, the social media, and aging, unfortunately I’m noticing that people are pathologically unhappy and it makes me sad. Because life is so short and it’s precious. Everyday you wake up is a blessing and a new opportunity to start over again. Who wants to wake up mad and miserable all the time? Not me.

Childhood memories

For this new year, I’m hoping that everyone claims their right to happiness and joy. I would have thought that living through a pandemic would have awakened some people but it hasn’t. Be happy and love the people in your life. Love them with all your heart and soul. Because at times, life can be rough as hell and you never know when the grim reaper will be knocking on your door. Reclaim your life from misery and have a grand old life.