Half of this is in French,

and I'm not really feeling the chorus, but I'm still quite intrigued. The English parts are kind of catchy, her hair is BALLER, she's rocking those fascinators LIKE A BOSS, and the sociologist in me wants to analyze the shit out of the last scene. It's a total reversal of the way the media generally represents relationships between people of this particular combination of races and genders. 



Also, this is Inna Modja's second time being mentioned on le blog. (First time is here.) This means she's officially cool.

All I want for Christmas is a fro this gorgeous:

But my mommy got me lots of hair accessories and a new detangling comb! So I'll def be working what I've got!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Watching Christmas classics on DVD like a BOSS.

And I wanted to pause to tell everyone that my favorite Christmas movie characters, the ones nearest and dearest to my heart, aren't any of the heroes. Not Rudolph or Frosty or any of the 90374593749347 Santas. Not even a more obscure hero like Jack Frost. Nope. Most special to me will always be the Misfit Toys. 



I don't care that this movie is older than my mother; I feel like they'd just GET me. We're ALL misfits, it's true, but I feel like it's a very small percentage of us that embrace that misfit identity. And maybe the rest of the world doesn't try to cast us away to deserted ice-covered islands anymore, true, but...I still feel like we should stick together. I <3 being different. And I <3 the Charlie in the Box, the spotted elephant, the sinking boat, the swimming bird, the train with square wheels, and all the other misfit toys. I just so happen to think they're quite charming. 

What's the matter with misfits? That's where we fit in!

Whenever a woman says, “I hate girls; they’re catty bitches,” a patriarchy fairy gets its wings.

Reblogged from freedom fighter 

Once upon a time, I used to say variations of this. That time was basically 8th grade after an incredibly stupid fight with my best friend that left us not speaking for a few years, but the sentiment carried on for a good while longer, and for almost all of high school I thought it was "easier" to "get closer" or "be open" or "be myself" with my guy friends than it was with my girlfriends. One of my biggest shocks upon coming to college was developing such instant close friendships with so many girls. It was a big change for me. But not as big a change as the fact that once upon a time, I used to say variations of this. Once upon a time, I was an ignorant bitch who paid no mind to the social and political implications of the words that came out of her mouth, and who bought into racial and gender-based stereotypes without allowing herself to see the complexity and heterogeneity that is any subset of humanity you could possibly choose. Once upon a time, I was an ignorant bitch who went around saying things like this. Don't let that be you. 

Someday Professor Maya will look just like this:

Bianca, Natural Hair Style Icon over at bglh

You can't ban love, but it's most beautiful when the whole world can see.

Petty Officer 2nd Class Marissa Gaeta and her fiancee, Citlalic Snell, participate in the Navy's time-honored tradition, the Homecoming Kiss.

I think the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell is the best gift I got all year, even if it will never apply to me directly. This makes me so happy.

So I've been hoarding my new music finds.

Sorry, my loves. Remedying that now. In order of my discovery, may I present:

Georgia Anne Muldrow:




Nayanna Holley:


http://www.nayannaholley.com/audio/01_Faith_hifi.mp3


Timothy Bloom:





and Andy Allo, whom I have no excuse for sleeping on:

It has come to my attention

That I really have no idea how to construct a professional wardrobe. I have a few pieces I've rarely worn that I bought before my Chicago internship but wound up not needing because we were basically a no-collar workplace minus a few days when we were superprofessional and I wore my interview suit, but I have no clue how to start putting together a collection of things to pick and choose from to wear to work each day. And the time to start doing that is now, because the applications are out and the interviews are coming in. I had a phone screening today for a position at Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., and they want me to come down to DC in a few weeks for a formal interview. (Keep your fingers crossed for me!) The real world is fast approaching, y'all, and my closet is woefully underprepared.

Do I start with suits or with blouses and pants/skirts? Are open-toed pumps appropriate for the office? Does it vary from office to office? Last time, my office culture rendered all the clothes I had bought basically useless most of the time, so maybe I should wait until I know exactly where I'm working and what their office climate is like. But I feel like I'll be able to shop more effectively if I start early! Are there staple pieces that are a definite must that I can begin with? I WANT TO HIT UP THE AFTER CHRISTMAS SALES, Y'ALL. lol


But seriously. Any advice on building a professional wardrobe would be much appreciated.

Decorating Alone, Or How Father Time Stole Christmas

I've been fighting them on this for a few years now, but ever since I left for college, my family has slowly but surely been boycotting Christmas. Well, "boycotting" may be a strong word...at the very least, they're rather disinterested. My mom dragged the dusty boxes of decorations up from the basement, but has left them sitting in the living room for weeks, bothering only to put a wreath on the front door. Her excuse is that I love putting decorations up, so they were "waiting for me." (Feel free to roll your eyes.) When I told my siblings I wanted to put the decorations up, their response was, "Why?!" My brother and sister also adamantly refuse to get a tree this year. They say there's no point. They didn't want one last year either, but I wore my mom down. As it's mere minutes from being December 21st, however, I think this year will be the first year of my life we don't journey to the Christmas tree farm to pick out and cut down our tree. The tradition is dead. My brother asked me what I wanted for Christmas via text, and my dad and I have lost all forms of surprise. I want to sneak out to Walmart tomorrow to get the ingredients to make Christmas cookies surprise the family when they come home from school on Friday, but somehow I just don't think they'd appreciate the time I took to mold each little piece. It seems there's no point in even hooking up the DVD player to watch Rudolph, Frosty, and The Year Without a Santa Claus; I'll watch them on my computer.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my entire household is void of Christmas spirit, and no one cares but me. I went away to school and my family became Grinches! It's the middle of the night, and I'm sitting in my living room surrounded by garland that I wanted to wrap around the banisters, but I can't find the staple gun, and I'm a little PMSy, so I'm just wallowing in how useless it seems to decorate if I'm only decorating for myself. 

What happened to my family? Once upon a time we started decorating the very first weekend of December. Christmas music was always playing throughout the house, and the tree was the featured object in the living room. It was always so big that we couldn't put the angel on the top because the top bent over against the ceiling already, and decorating it was an EVENT that the whole family had to be present for. We made what seemed like more cookies than we could possibly eat (though that never proved to be an issue). We left cookies and milk out for Santa, and reindeer treats for Rudolph, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen. Our lights outside were never particularly fancy, but they were bright, and made me feel warm and fuzzy inside when I came home at night. We all sat down to watch our Christmas movies together on VHS--the old Claymation Rudolph and The Year Without a Santa Claus movies, the animated Frosty, Charlie Brown Christmas, classics like The Preacher's Wife. Once upon a time, we were jolly.

And then we grew up and apart. My little sister is graduating from high school this year. My brother is a year younger than her. They're working on Christmas eve, for goodness sake! I can't speak for certain, but to the best of my understanding, after I left for college, there were individual rooms on individual floors of the house for every member of my family (we have a split-level house), and my family basically stopped regularly interacting throughout the day. We're not close anymore. No one has come out and directly said this, but it seems to me like everyone feels like the whole Christmas thing is too family-y for us to engage in. Like we outgrew it or something. WHO OUTGROWS CHRISTMAS?! It's the most wonderful time of the year! 

I will admit that it gets harder to think of things to ask for for Christmas as I get older. Well, even when I was a kid, I was never the kind to have a Christmas list that went on for miles and miles. I never really asked for big things; I'd much prefer a collection of little things. I was the oldest, and I feel like I always knew Christmas was a struggle for my mom [and my ex-stepfather of whom I don't like to speak], so tried to not be much of a burden. My dad has always half-criticized and half-condemned me for never asking for anything, and not much has changed. Now, generally speaking, when I want/need something, I just buy it. But I do generally keep a wishlist, or more accurately, a list of things I haven't gotten around to purchasing for myself yet, that can be picked and chosen from for gift-giving occasions. I understand that maybe not everyone does this, but it can't be too hard to wrack your brain and go 'Oh, I could use...' or 'What would make my living space/wardrobe/morning routine/study habits/any-other-aspect-of-my-life better?' 

And I love GIVING presents so much! I love scouring the internet for hours on end while I should be reading / doing my damn thesis, clicking the next button thoooouuuusands of times until I find THE PERFECT PRESENT when I'm surprising someone, or the best-rated-and-coolest-featured-in-a-particular-price-range of a specific thing I was asked for. I love wrapping it and that feeling of anticipation you get before the exchange. I love the shininess and the colors and the warmth in the midst of the cold that the season brings. I love getting to be a kid and an adult at the same time. I. love. Christmas. And I don't care what my family thinks; I WILL BE JOLLY! 

...But what's the point of coming home for the holidays if you're the only person celebrating? What's Christmas without traditions, without joy, without spirit? No one ever wishes anyone an apathetic Christmas...

 

I know it's the holidays, but

don't forget to do right by yourself this holiday season.

Reblogged from Learning My Whole Life (the newest blog I follow!)

Fish and Grits

I love fish. I love grits. I have for as long as I can remember. And for as long as I can remember, I have been conceptually aware of the fact that Black Southern people tend to eat these two beloved foods of mine together as a meal of sorts, but I had never actually witnessed or experienced it. Mayyyyyybe once when I was a kid and too young to appreciate the diversity of food experiences I had in Georgia, but that's besides the point. To the best of my knowledge and understanding, yesterday morning I had fish, grits, and homemade biscuits for breakfast for the first time.

And I think fish and grits and homemade biscuits is a good place from which to start examining my relationship with my extended family. I know that they exist. I know things about them. I have encountered them in bits and pieces over the years without any strongly averse reactions. But generally, I have a tendency to be...ambivalent about my family most of the time, though that can shift to downright negative whenever my mom/brother/sister is getting on my nerves. But the truth of the matter is I just don't really KNOW my family. I have always lived with my mom and my younger [half-] brother and sister, but sometimes I still struggle to feel...intimate with them. And my extended family? I don't really feel like I have personal connections with them at all most of the time. 

Okay. Slight interruption for some backstory: my close family (i.e. mom, brother, sister, Nana, my mom's younger sister, and cousin) took a whirlwind roadtrip to Georgia this weekend because my mom's oldest sister was in the hospital having non-invasive but still pretty damn serious surgery. Despite being the oldest of the three girls my grandmother had and living in Savannah and not really seeing us but once every other year or so, she's somehow the sibling of my mother's to whom I feel the closest, and so I changed all of my plans about when I was coming home for break and what work I was doing when and the additional hours I wanted to make at work to get some extra holiday cash and came home early to make this gargantuan trek with my family. It was a 54-hour trip, in total, and we spent at least 37 hours of it on the road, but I think all of the adults involved would say it was worth it.

I'm just trying to figure out whether I count myself among that crowd. I'm really glad we got to be there to get my aunt back home and settled in after her operation. I'm sure that she knew she was loved, which is a wonderful feeling at any time. It was good to see my other uncle and aunt, who I hadn't seen in a good 7 years, and they fed us well. I got to see my (not-really-) great-grandmother, who had a stroke earlier this year but is doing incredibly well for 91, and I know that she was incredibly pleased to see us. Then we visited a paternal cousin of my mom's who evidently hadn't seen me since I was a toddler and didn't know my brother and sister at all, and then we trekked to the BACKWOODS to see my grandmother's sister, her family, and my actual great-grandmother, whom I hadn't seen since I was 9. After praising Jesus three times in the first five minutes of our visit and openly complaining about his son who recently married his fourth wife, an "ugly, look like she got rolled around in the mud cracker"--I kid you not--my great-uncle asked about school and he and my great aunt both separately said how proud they were of me, and maybe this is rude to say, but it all just felt like such a facade. 

I don't know my extended family. We are strangers to one another, strangers who were raised with enough common decency to be polite to one another when we meet, but strangers nonetheless. I was unnaturally quiet around my extended family this weekend, because I just have no idea who they expect me to be. But it has come to my attention that I never quite give "myself" the chance to be who they expect. I kind of give them no one instead, and that just isn't quite fair to anyone.  

On Sunday, I had the pleasure of seeing StickFly,

the brand-new Broadway show being produced by Alicia Keys, starring Dule Hill, Mekhi Phifer, Tracie Thomas, Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Rosie Benton, and Condola Rashad (yes, Rashad, as in Phylicia Rashad, better known as Mrs. Claire Huxtable). The African-American Studies program and Professor Imani Perry took my Diversity in Black America class and some other undergraduate and graduate AAS concentrators to see it, and all I can say is WHOA. This show is PHENOMENAL. Even though it was two of the stars' Broadway debuts, most of the acting was absolutely impeccable. It felt so natural. It reminded me of how much I miss things that aren't full of song and dance. I saw so much of myself in this show that it felt like home.
I liked this show in the same way I like Awkward Black Girl. Well, let me say that I loved the main female character the same way I wish J was a tangible person in my life rather than just a character I idolize on the even-smaller-than-small screen. She felt so incredibly real. [Basic premise: girl from a lower-middle-class background goes to a prestigious college, gets engaged to a bougie dude who grew up in Martha's Vineyard, goes home with him to meet the in-laws, awkwardness and hilarity ensue.] So many people in my class were hating on this character when we discussed in class on Tuesday, and I was like, personally offended for her. It was like they didn't see her feelings and reactions and awkwardness and confusion as valid or legitimate, like there were all these unwritten rules she was just supposed to somehow inherently know. Didn't she learn anything at Hah-vahd or what? Anyway, everything that she didn't understand, the way she expressed herself, the problems that mattered to her, and the ways she tried to get them dealt with all made so much sense to me. 
She was one of those people caught in an awkward class limbo that I'm going to find myself in soon. Raised in "a house full of books and never enough money," she gets into the best school in the country and meets, mingles with, and befriends upper-middle and upper class people. She gains this incredible education and access to this new crowd of people, but that degree doesn't just come in a deluxe package with all the cultural capital needed to succeed in this new world that same degree propels her into. I'm going to have that same struggle in the blink of an eye, and I just so wanted them to meet somewhere in the middle.
But she's FAR FAR FARRRRRR from the only character with a stack of issues, and the way it all comes together is just wonderful. The relationships are incredibly well put-together, and everyone plays off of one another so well. There's even Scrabble involved. I recommend this show so highly--and some tickets are as low as $35, so go go go! (And check out a one-minute clip here!)

Hairspiration

Reblogged from As far as i'm concerned...

Reblogged from Fuck Yeah Curls Curls Curls

Reblogged from 18° 15' N, 77° 30' W

It rained today

and not one fuck was given. I <3 my kinky-curly hair.

A Declaration for Self-Affirmation:

I am me.

In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me.

There are persons who have some parts like me, but no one adds up exactly like me. Therefore, everything that comes out of me is authentically mine because I alone chose it.

I own everything about me-my body, including everything it does; my mind, including all its thoughts and ideas; my eyes, including the images of all they behold; my feelings, whatever they may be – anger, joy, frustration, love, disappointment, excitement; my mouth, and all the words that come out of it, polite, sweet or rough, correct or incorrect; my voice, loud or soft; and all my actions, whether they be to others or to myself.

I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears.

I own all my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes.

Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing I can love me and be friendly with me in all my parts. I can then make it possible for all of me to work in my best interests.

I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know. But as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for the solutions to the puzzles and for ways to find out more about me.

However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is me. This is authentic and represents where I am at that moment in time.

When I review later how I looked and sounded, what i said and did, and how I thought and felt, some parts may turn out to be unfitting. I can discard that which is unfitting and keep that which proved fitting, and invent something new for that which I discarded.

I can see, hear, feel, think, say and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me.

I own me, and therefore I can engineer me.

I am me and I am okay.

~Virginia Satir

Source: But I Love Me More (the newest blog I follow)

If this dress were a tank over some jeans,

I would be coveting this look to the extreme.

Reblogged from As far as i'm concerned...

 

REBLOG IN ALL CAPS:

found on freedom fighter.

I'm pretty sure y'all can figure out what it says. 

And I'm 100% down.

The women are participating in a feminist march in Santiago, Chile.

I'm ignoring the top left circle in this diagram for a little while

and I'm not even gonna front; it's really nice. 

Reblogged from freedom fighter.

Now don't worry. I'm not saying I've sworn off love forever and will never look again. I'm not saying I'm done with relationships or [once I enter the real world in a concerningly short period of time] dating either. I'm just saying that right now I've found a happy balance with the rest of my life by putting more time into focusing on the bottom circle, and ignoring the top left without neglecting the top right. I'm learning a lot about myself and redefining what I think is or isn't okay, which hey, is what this whole development in college thing is all about. I want to spend time making sure that the people who matter to me won't disappear from my life after graduation this time around. I'm also having fun exploring my sexuality and my nature as a sexual being. And school is generally going well and I feel way less stressed than I'd previously have expected this year would feel. So...I've changed a lot over the course of this semester. But don't be alarmed or concerned. Don't think I'm secretly depressed and just passively letting things happen to me. I'm actually doing hella good.

Words of wisdom

Reblogged from Afro.Art.Chick

Good rule of thumb:

Reblogged from Street Etiquette