This may already exist, making this post completely irrelevant in which case you could be doing something more valuable with your time. Though I do hope you’re sacrificing a minute or two to hear this amazing idea of mine that probably already exist. 🙂
What if someone could organize a Bloggers Conference? I know there are a lot of them, but this is not just any conference. Not just a community of writers sitting around tables listening to boring PowerPoint presentations from “professionals” that cost you rent money to attend, I’m talking about a fun meet-up of the bloggers you interact with daily. A stream of writing activities, individual business workshops for you to sell your material, and exciting activities against the backdrop of a relaxed atmosphere. A place where bloggers, who may not be writers in the organized sense, can come together and meet face to face. And to top it all off this is an event that is funded & supported by….you guessed it: Bloggers. We can set a date (preferably in the summer) and vote on a central location that could better assist our goals for this event. We can set up committees to assist with food, funding, transportation, activities, & promotion. A conference like this can even give us the opportunity to have an Award ceremony in which we are able to give each other tangible awards. Depending on its success, this can be something for bloggers to repeat once a year and be less expensive to attend.
dem twins lived around the corner
boys
chocolate
tall and smooth skinned like
dem twins
didn’t know they had a brother tho
till word got round bout the mind he left on his mother’s front porch
that ain’t a metaphor
his brains divided itself between the concrete and front porch of his mother’s front yard
I heard the dice did it
the way it be running across the concrete
acted like it didn’t know better
than to come walking out the palms of hands
like it didn’t smell the misery of struggle between the cracks
like it ain’t hear the whispering of people on top the rocks
feel the oppression slipping outta the hands of wanna be gangsta’s
why it ain’t just stop before turning up numbers
maybe dem twins woulda still had a brotha
it was a block of them that seen it
almost as normal as a street fight
the way lives don’t matter in the hood
all because of dice
and dollar bills
ain’t know dollars were so expensive
till it expended ole boys life
I wonder if he rolled a seven or eleven
Wonder what he ate for dinner last
Or how that dolla ended up in his pocket
Or if the dolla knew what was coming
But anyway it was a block of them who seen it
some got carried off to hide outs from ole boy
and some was taken out of school
I wanted to go too
go away from the stench of prophecy behind my house
away from the Isaiah’s and Deuteronomy’s leaning against they mama’s voice
making it sound all crazy like
and dem Leviticus’s standing on the corner
akin like the ground wasn’t still warm from ole boys blood
just around the corner from my house
when I found out
that the twins had a brotha
I picked up your scent going out the door this morning. I should have known that the impulse of a summer dress, short sleeved and cool, and the sliding of my foot into sneakers meant you were not far away. Instead, I would let my sweater drape over my arm and sniff the moisture you left hanging in the air. It wasn’t very bright out, but budding flowers and children laughing was enough. Did not need to see the sun lean its body dramatically over the clouds to feel the heat of spring on my skin. Bright colored birds sang a joyful tune on into the sky, and the curtains moved against the window sill just as seductively as the tree branches swayed leaves to and fro. And as my husband presents me with a pot of African violet, with petals all soft and blooming, and my neighbors resurrect house chairs for a spot on the porch, I know that spring has arrived. Welcome.
An article was recently published about the rise of Natural Hair among black women on TV. Below is the featured article. What are your thoughts? Is there a conscious awareness connected to the sudden surge of natural hairstyles from Blacks? Do you think it matters what state the hair is in?
The Problem with Natural Hair on TV
by Taylor Bryant
“If you tuned in to “How to Get Away with Murder” recently, you know that Viola Davis has spent some screen time without her wig on. It proved not only to be a raw and emotional episode, but it displayed a rare moment: a Black woman with natural hair on a mainstream TV network.
Turn back the clock 20 years, and you’d be hard-pressed to see a Black actress with hair that was anything other than just-got-out-of-the-salon laid. Flip through the tube in 1995, and you might find: the ladies from Living Single, all with straight strands (with some weaves thrown in), the freshly blowdried ‘do’s of Laura and Harriette on Family Matters, and Gina and Pam’s permed-out hair on Martin. Fast-forward a couple more years, and there’s some more representation with a two-for-one curly appearance in the form of the Mowry twins onSister, Sister. But, even their coils were straightened later in the series. As writer, fashion expert, and image activist Michaela Angela Davis points out, non-curly hairstyles that dominated the small screen in the ’90s were very much a sign of the times. “We were in a very conservative moment,” she says. “Relaxers were easier to get, easier to use, weaves came in…and getting straight hair just got more accessible.”
While we’ve seen Black women’s natural hair on the small screen before the present-day era — these kinds of landmark moments date back to Cicely Tyson’s ’60s role in East Side/West Side — it’s becoming more common, and the new movement has been a long time coming.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF ABC.
What does this modern evolution look like? Actress Tracee Ellis Ross has worn her curly crown in all its glory since 2000 on the (sorely missed) show Girlfriends, and continues to do so today, as the lead actress on ABC’s Black-ish. “I’m very conscious of how I wear my hair on the show, and yet it’s the way I wear my hair as Tracee,” she told Entertainment Weekly in December. “You hire me, you hire my hair, and you hire my ass. It’s all coming with me.” And, who could forget Davis’ wig-removal scene in earlier episodes of HTGAWM, which spurred many a think piece? According to Kent Nelson, the show’s hair-department head, Davis’ character Annalise is “unmasking” herself. “The armor and mask that she goes to work in every day is coming off,” he says. It signifies vulnerability, intimacy, and a shedding of society’s expectations. Which brings us to the problem with natural hair on TV right now: Yes, there are a lot more instances of it, but the way characters with it are depicted is not necessarily positive.
Take the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black, where the characters embrace, arguably, the widest range of textured styles in a series today (with the exception of Laverne Cox’s character, who, let’s be honest, would look fabulous with any style). There’s cornrows on Taystee, a short TWA style on Poussey, and, of course, Crazy Eyes’ signature bantu knots. “We really haven’t seen that many characters [like the OITNB ladies] on TV before,” says lead hairstylist Angel DeAngelis. “I think that’s why the show is so relatable and popular; because these prisoners look like people that are out there.”
Circa: 2012, me and Hubby on the way to New Orleans to port for our 7 day Cruise
“As far as I’m concerned, if a Black man and woman make marriage work in amerika, they’ve accomplished a miracle. Because everything is against them. Just being poor is one of the biggest obstacles. Most of the arguments are about money. It’s hard to be loving and caring when you can’t pay the bills and you don’t know where the next dollar is coming from”
– Assata Shakur
This excerpt from Assata’s autobiography is so on point that I had to share it with you. This I do not limit to Black people but all people. Marriage is something I think we take highly for granted. It is one of the oldest institutions in which requires so much work and yet receives so little praise. I just want to take the time to encourage all of my married people, especially my married Black people, since our divorce rates are higher than any ethnic group. As Assata has mentioned, it is a struggle to focus on the love you have with one another when there are so many other distractions surrounding the basics. Trying to live life, fulfill a career, rear the children, pay bills, it all gets cloudy sometimes. But we cannot allow this to damage the beauty of the coming together of man and woman. I have been married for seven years now and we’ve been together eight total. One of the things we love to do together (aside from travel) is movie night. It started as something sporadic and has now become a tradition. Now movie night is every night! Lol. It gives us the opportunity to enjoy each others company after a long day with life. When we come into the door and we finish our dinner and all the miscellaneous things in preparation for the next day; when the lights dim and the surround sound begins, we try to leave everything else behind us. No smartphone. No internet. No talk about work and bills and blah blah blah, just me and him. It nurtures our relationship in ways that are probably far more impactful than we can realize at this moment. While I still consider myself a newlywed as compared to some of you veterans, I just want to encourage you to find an activity you share with your hubby or wifey that no matter what happens in the world, it does not get in the way of your bond. In the words of Lena Horne “It’s not the load that weighs you down, it’s the way you carry it”. So shift some of that weight, get rid of some even. But find something to do together that makes the whirling world stand still. Be honest and open with each other concerning your flaws and doubts and feelings and allow the love that brought you together to be a kind of therapy within not just your marriage, but in your life. Marriage is work and anyone who tells you different is a liar. It is not easy and sometimes it can be a real struggle. It is for this reason that if you are married and have been for some time, across nationalities, if you are still married, then you are a living miracle. Never underestimate that.
“Let sincerity be the loudest whisper you’ve ever heard, laughter fill your belly to the brim with boldness, and devotion lay its head in your bosom. Say it straight, simple, and with a smile.”
This is an FYI post: For those of you trying to reach out to me on social media, here are my primary (active) social sites. Joining them will help to stay in touch with my projects and this blog. They are also all on this blog, just check the sidebar.
The PBS Blog 