Flatland Diva

Grown And Sexy

2026-01-16T23:47:00.000-08:00

At 51, I've seen the light. I am no longer interested in labels. Haven't been for a while, actually. I have friends. Not like a rosters, just a few friends. We don't play kid games. We're mature about our shit. For the most part we are honest about our entanglements.

I have this one friend I'll call Hot Stuff. He's a yellow fellow. Very pretty. My neighbors have been beside themselves every since he's been visiting me at my new crib. Why people get jealous of others and have to hate instead of congratulate I do not know.

Beyond looks, Hot Stuff is a man of substance. He's thoughtful, understanding and kind. A lot of young brothers could learn a lot from someone like him. He takes good care of his family and even works 2 jobs to make ends meet.

I have another friend I'll call Boss who has been looking out for me for several years. We always have fun when we get together and he always spoils me.

However, since I got on the radar of some hateful muthafuckah, I have been labeled as some dirty whore. When did Oakland become so puritanical? It's okay for men to date. They get considered big studs but when a woman does it she's a hoe?

I'm not a hoe and I resent the connotation that I am based on mistakes I may have made in my past. None of you reading this right now can call yourselves perfect, can you?

According to a story I read in The New York Times, Generation X'er's are having better sex than Generation Y and Z. It has something to do with our willingness to explore. They, on the other hand were raised by helicopter parents, have been sheltered and simply don't know how to approach the opposite sex.

I have all of Downtown Oakland in my business and that of my family. I had no family to spend this Thanksgiving with so I went around the corner to City Team, a community resource center, to have a Thanksgiving meal. The food was good. The Black people were nice but the knuckle-dragging troglodytes were extremely rude. I shouldn't of let them get to me but I did and I launched an attack back, threatening to pepper spray them. I didn't want to risk a stay in Santa Rita, so I just bounced.

I'm a creative. I don't expect everyone to understand my lifestyle. However, that once was the beauty of America. Growing up in the 70's and 80's I read Free To Be You And Me, a book and film put out by Marlo Thomas (of “That Girl” fame). saluting values such as individuality, tolerance, and comfort with one's identity. A major thematic message is that anyone—whether a boy or a girl—can achieve anything.

I was raised in the suburbs at the age of 8. I learned more about the nuances of life. These young Oakland niggas know nothing about nuances. They are products of the Oakland School District. Most of them just got passed along. I can't expect them to understand what it is to be grown and sexy. I've been maligned by Latino youth who have enlisted the help of naive Blacks to assassinate my character because I had the nerve to exercise my right to free speech and call Black-Brown unity for what it is– a myth. I have over 30 posts on my blog. I wrote one about them and they go Def Con 10.

They have hacked my phone, shared my pictures (even my nudes), call me names as I listen to YouTube Music and have all of Oakland thinking I'm retarded, has AIDS and smell bad (like they didn't learn anything in school about pheromones). It has taken my male friends to ground me because a weaker person would have admitted themselves into a mental institution by now.

I'm not changing. I'm growing. I contacted a lawyer to fight against the Latinos who have violated HIPPA to stick it to me. I plan cases against Walgreen's, Western Dental, Quest Labs and a gastroenterologist's office for sharing my medical records. What I do in my crib is my business, not anyone else's.

I feel like I live in a human zoo of the 19th and 20th centuries. They watch, stalk and harassed me all my waking hours. I've lost all anonymity. The troglodytes doing this to me say I'm stupid. I say I'm transparent. There is no shame in my game. I'm just living my life, chasing my dreams. My American Dream would never include trying to ruin someone's life for exercising their rights. The first one at that. These Latinos have a lot to learn about what it is to be an American.

Bottom line– Black people are the sexiest people on earth. We have the swag and cool other ethnicities seek to imitate. Our cultural has gone global. When I go out to restaurants others are always ear-hustling. It's so annoying. Like they are looking to get the secret of our charisma. Sorry, Brah. They are rooted in our melanin. It can't be easily sought or bought.

Daddy Issues and Memories of My Father

2025-12-01T20:33:00.000-08:00

In our own way, we are all scientists. In the concrete jungle, the mating scene is an exercise in Social Darwinism. We are drawn to select the best in the bunch and then we put that person under our microscope even further. I've spent my dating life either choosing or being chosen by men I very consciously compared to the very first man unconditional love ever flowed through and that's my Dad.

Indeed, there seems to be something to the Freudian notion that we play out our relationship with our opposite sex parent with our opposite sex partners. Men love to accuse an unstable girl of having "Daddy Issues." I've heard my homeboys say this about women a hundred times. Yet, most men I know want a Mommy in their women but would never acknowledge that fact.

I decided I would take a microscope to my own life and look into my own so-called daddy issues. I had a few memories and thoughts.

As a baby growing up in a townhouse apartment on Oakland's High Street, I was mostly a Daddy's Girl. My dad would pick out my puffy Black Power 'fro and combed and braided my ponytails as my hair grew. He would take me to the A&W Drive-Thru in the Fruitvale District, carefully maneuvering the town's hills with me strapped in the stock adult-sized car seat. Child car seats were not the law then. Instead, my father would stretch his right arm out over my tiny body as if it were a steel bar only covered in mahogany flesh as we entered intersections, met stoplights and crossed crazy drivers. Funny thing is that I've been searching for that sort of security every since.

During the fall of my second birthday my parents divorced. Irreconcilable Differences. Daddy quickly remarried a woman from his hometown in Tennessee in the summer of 1976, year of The Bicentennial. My stepmother came with a new older brother, my only brother. We would play and laugh with my older sister, having a genuine bellyaching good old time. By the time I turned 4 my dad informed me that he, a Vietnam vet, would re-enlist in the army. This was the first time I felt heartbreak. My Daddy, my protector, was going away to lands unknown to me. It would be 8 years before I would lay eyes on him again.

When Daddy left, I didn't just lose my king, but I lost a little piece of myself too. Sure, he sent cards and checks and I received the occasional phone call from Colorado, Germany or South Korea, however, for all intents and purposes within the hood, I was a fatherless child. I clung to a photo my father took shortly before he left Oakland of him dressed in a Saturday Night Fever chic white suit, wearing a gold chain and a Fu Manchu mustache, leaning on one knee prominently with a toothy smile.

That summer I was molested by family members. There was no one to hold the culprits responsible, really. Virtually fatherless, there was no one there to exact my revenge. I was accused of being fast, yes, at 4 years old. The shame pained me to my core and I was determined not to be a victim again. Food became my protection. I took to eating butter to quicken my fattening. In my mind, layers of fat could protect me from predators sexualizing me anymore. By the time I entered the first grade I weighed 100 pounds. My mission was accomplished.

By 12, my body had been stretched passed capacity. In regard to my father, I teetered on feeling a sense of abandonment and then cared for when I received phone calls and gifts. My father sent for me that summer. He had just been stationed stateside. I was not the little darling anymore but an obese adolescent. He knew nothing of the abuse. A stern man, Daddy was dismayed by my posture, stance, walk and weight. For him my obesity showed my weakness. Again, I felt shame. I was on course to becoming a 300 pound woman. A lifelong battle with my weight began. By 15, I shed enough fat to be considered a thick treat. As much as I loved the attention I feared it. Sexual objectification unsettled me so much because of my past, however, as I grew into a woman I learned to compartmentalize my sexuality from victimhood.

I stopped talking to my dad about men every since he accused me of acting like I was looking for Mr. Goodbar when I was in my 20's. Like most women, I turn to my mother and my homegirls. Homeboys offer harsh truths and are often right on the money about the men I date. I've shared moments with men who have made me feel as special as Daddy's little girl, but never as safe as my Daddy could with one outstretched arm.

That sense of safety has never been simulated. I'd like to say I've stopped looking for it. In the concrete jungle you just can't expect your inner girl to be indulged. In a landscape of Social Darwinist, no one gives a fuck about how you think or feel but the people who love you. I've come to realize that I expect a lot from the men who claim to love me or want to be more than friends. After all, I think I'm a great thing. Maybe it's because I'm a Taurus that my love is demonstrative. Insofar as I show love I expect to receive love action in return. Talk is for the birds.

Upon my own scientific examination, fear of abandonment and a love of emotionally unavailable men seem to top the list of my so-called daddy issues. Classic, right? No doubt these "issues" have bleed into my love life. However, what a man may consider a daddy issue I call having standards. A man is not going to come in and out of my life and if he can't give he will get the door.

My daddy and I still have issues. I resent the fact that he never came back to California. On a bad day, I feel like I was left like a sack of potatoes. I think if my father had stayed, a true Alpha male, the abuse would never had occurred as my abusers would not have dared. I have to remember that times were different then. Folks didn't expect there to be predators within families and daddies of yesterday were not as involved as they are today. The upside is that I was able to become my own person as I didn't have to live in his shadow. He still defines me as being weak as he's never understood the artist in me. I see myself for all that I have survived as tough as nails underneath the soft exterior.

At the end of the day, I know my daddy loves me and that I love my daddy. The fact is that his replacement is not on the scene. At best, my Ph D in Love will score me a really good dude, not another Daddy.

What Whitney's Death Means To Me

2025-11-08T08:49:00.000-08:00

Whitney Houston's death shocked the globe. Houston's songs were a fixture for three decades. If you lived through the '80s and/or '90s chances are Houston's voice had graced your ear in some memorable way. Since her passing she has been honored from Detroit to Dubai.

She was to pop music what Billie Holiday had been to jazz. She left this life the most awarded singer of all time. We hear little of this Guinness Book of Records fact in the media these days. Her greatest accomplishments have been usurped by her greatest fail, orchestrating her very own death with drug and alcohol abuse at the age of 48. How will she be remembered?

Whitney Houston was my generation's answer to Diana Ross. She was statuesque and glamorous with a voice of pure soul. We presumed she had a certain class about her in the early years and readily put her on a pedestal reserved for virgin princesses. I suppose it was a lot of pressure being R&B royalty at 22 and in the mid-80s. Cocaine was ubiquitous in Hollywood and omnipresent back home in Newark, NJ. Add the pressure of living in the public eye and the excess of a music business celebrity lifestyle and Houston's eventual drugs addiction can read as probable.

By 1992 Houston had married Bobby Brown and rumors of their drug use circulated through the Black community. Some said Bobby got her hooked on coke. Some said don't believe the hype and contended that Bobby was simply on marijuana before Whitney introduced HIM to coke. Still, some couldn't truly admit that Whitney was an addict until watching her and Bobby's reality show, "Being Bobby Brown" where their strange behavior could only be explained as that of folks hiding something. When that tabloid shot surfaced of Whitney's vanity sink covered in what was suppose to be her vice trash-- cigarette boxes, a beer can, some crack rocks on a plate-- her public image noose-dived. She spent the years since on the fringes.

Bill O' Reily proclaimed on his show that Whitney wanted to kill herself. Some folks were in an uproar over his statement. Albeit he was curlish with his words, I think he made an interesting point. According to Sigmund Freud, all self-destructive behavior can be explained by a death drive, a death wish, we have as humans in this society to kill the pain of living.

If one subscribes to Freudian theory, the compulsive, repetitive behavior of abusing drugs and alcohol was Whitney's way of living out her death wish. No one would imagine on a conscious level Houston wanted to leave her prized daughter Bobbi Christina. However, she knew the dangers of her lifestyle but continued on a destructive path as her demons took over. Houston clearly lived in a world of pain and pressure as even she knew her voice was no longer The Voice. Under normal circumstances it's difficult for a singer to maintain the voice of her youth into the golden years. However, with abuse to the cords and body a singer cannot often maintain her optimum sound.

Yet she did what all great talents do, she mounted a comeback.

Many great women in the music industry have fallen victim to drug abuse and premature death while navigating the scene. Phenomenal singers from Billie Holiday to Janis Joplin to Amy Winehouse suffered from infamous addictions before untimely deaths. Fast and loose living is not a recipe for longevity.

If only she would leave Bobby they said. She finally left Bobby. Still, her drug addiction ensued. Ray J, her sometime companion, claimed he had no knowledge of her cocaine use. Either the man is an idiot or he's lying. Neither of these possibilites bodes well for his character in my opinion.

Houston's life will serve as one of the great cautionary tales of fame, love and drugs. While watching her tell her story to Oprah in 2009, I was struck by what a survivor she was. A real tough broad. May she alwaysbe rememberedas TheVoice. She certainly will be to me.

To Catch A Snake

2025-11-03T11:20:36.571-08:00

To Catch A Snake

When I was 3 years old I was playing alone on our balcony when I saw a jump rope miraculously turn into a green snake and slither across the cemented ground. That's when I knew that I could see and sense things that others could not.

I had the gift of discernment. Fast forward to 2025. According to Chinese astrology, we were living in The Year of The Snake and I have been bitten, I suspect, by a good friend.

I met her nearly 20 years ago on a junior college campus where I took a Statistics course. One day after class I was walking to my candy apple red Mitsubishi Eclipse when I heard a voice addressing me from behind. The voice flagged me down with a bevy of, ”Girl, girl, girl.”

I turned around to discover a woman who was as wide as she was tall. She had dyed blonde hair and gang tattoos all over the parts of her body that I could see. I stopped to talk to her. She asked me my age. I told her. I must have been about 32. She said she was looking for a girlfriend for her son, who had to have been 6 years my junior. I let her know that I was in a relationship but that I was flattered.

The following week our instructor put us in a group together with several other students. We gravitated to each other and would hang out outside of class and group meetings.

The first thing I noticed about Linda was her loud mouth. She always had to be heard and have the last word. What I've learned in life is that the loudest person in the room is the weakest, most insecure person in the room. Let's say she was very insecure. Anyway, I passed the class but she didn't. Nonetheless, we would stay in touch.

Our friendship quickly turned rocky. We had a love/hate dynamic that I found troubling. We would go months without talking. I couldn't stand how competitive she was with me. She had been a teenage drop-out/runaway at 13 turned into a teen mom at 14. She liked to wear a facade of toughness and for the most part I would let her. I really didn't care either way.

We did the on again, off again thing some friends do as if they were lovers. I really grew to trust her because she groomed me to look at her as though she was my consigliere. You know how you get a vibe off someone that they are not cool people to be around? I catch vibes all the time as an empath. So, let me tell you how shook I was to find out that my good friend was not really a friend to me.

I suspected there was something odd about our bond when she got 2 cars just like I had– a Mitsubishi Eclipse and a Ford Focus. Wouldn't that throw up a red flag to you? On some Single Black Female shit, am I right?

I'm a Taurus and she's a Gemini. It's said that we can find harmony in our friendship but I'd have to say Katie provoked the majority of our quarrels. She would turn on me like a vicious, junkyard dog. Truth be told, she was just a mean girl.

During our last hiatus Katie (name changed for privacy) got a body by Stanford Medicine. She dropped 125 pounds and got all the surgeries to remove her flabby skin. She also had her gang tattoos removed. I was happy for her.

I, on the other hand, had picked up 25 pounds since we'd last spoken. I'd gained the weight while caring for my mother in her last days. She was very dejected to hear about my mother's passing. However, as soon as she could she had to point out the irony of her losing weight and me gaining weight. I was like, “whatever.”

I made the choice not to fall into the trap she tried to set up for me. I'm too mature to be jealous of the next female. What I felt was that I was dealing with someone with the emotional intelligence of a goldfish. In The Year of The Snake I found one that I called a friend. I began to hold her at arm's length. This is something I had to do with the contrarian. The thing is that I loved her but I love myself too much to deal with someone I can't trust. Toxicity is not my get down.

I have a gift for picking up vibrations. Katie gave up good vibes until she turns into a transformer. Then hold your hats, folks. In the last couple of years I've been single. Not much to write home about. While we were on good terms, Katie would always probe me for information about my dates. I look at it as a little invasive but I didn't see the harm of sharing these things with someone I considered to be a good friend.

One thing I noticed about Katie that I never liked is the amount of gossiping she engaged in. I should have known that she was spilling my tea as much as she spilled everyone else's.

Her treachery was confirmed to me last week when we fell out for good. It started with a simple text I sent her on what I thought was the day after her latest surgery. I basically texted her, “Tag bitch, you're it!” I didn't think much of it. We curse all the time. Well, she decided she'd get all bent out of shape. She reached deep into her gutter world to accuse me of “opening my legs” to 7 men. I was flabbergasted. First off, I'm grown. I don't report to her. Second, that's a straight lie. And third, we can't all let cobwebs form over our stuff.

I will not use this opportunity to bash her because I was raised to have more class than that. I'll just say she's in no position to judge me. None at all.

So, I find that I must ghost a good friend because she's a snake. I know with certainty that she spread my supposed business in the streets. The best parts of her will be missed. But that Alpha female energy won't be missed.

If there's one thing I learned from Coppola's Godfather saga I would say it would be to keep your friends close but your enemies even closer. I'm still trying to figure out which end of the spectrum Katie is on. Who really sent her my way. Time will tell.

My Memories of Philo: How Kevin Weston Lives On

2025-11-03T08:11:00.000-08:00

Until I got the call from an old colleague that another one of my former colleagues from my Pacific News Service days was diagnosed with an extremely rare form of leukemia and that he was in fact weeks away from dying, I didn't realize just how much I loved Kevin Weston.

He wasn't just a friend, sometimes a rival, he was my brother. He meant so much to so many and my gut burned while my heart bled to think he wouldn't just be around the Bay, pen and paper in hand, speaking truth to power as our key mentor and boss Sandy Close, Executive Director of PNS, had always encouraged us to do. What the fuck now? He passed a little over a decade ago and he has been memorialized all over the Bay. It's time I tell folks the Kevin I knew.

I recall the first time I saw Kevin. He was lounging on a cyan blue loveseat fitted next to Malcolm Marshall, son to Mr. Joe Marshall who had a long running show on KMEL radio, what at the time was the Bay Area’s premiere Hip Hop station called Street Soldiers that encouraged wayward youth of all persuasions to do better.

Kevin sat there, round eyed, hair long yet crowning his hair in waves that defied gravity in its majesty. The thing I remember most were what I'd learned would be his trademark headphones that he wore like a W.A.S.P. wears her favorite pearls everyday. He was a cool cucumber from the get.

It was a Monday which was the day we held our editorial meetings. I was curious what this cat had to say.

We circled the motley seating and got down to business with an assortment of 20 or so writers and editors. We discussed the hottest topics of the day. What I was left with about Kevin, Philo to his friends, was that he was a quiet genius. He could tie events together that would appear incongruent to most.

In no time Kevin was a regular around the office in the Transbay Plaza across the street from the Transbay Terminal in San Francisco's Financial District. Boy, those were the days.

Picture it. It was the mid-nineties. All these foreigners weren't hear yet. The Bay was not besieged by mid western Hoosiers. Local talent actually had a shot at landing good jobs. I went from being a founding member of the youth paper I named YO! Youth Outlet to become Senior Editor of our monthly rag in a matter of 2 years.

We were bumping shoulders with movers and shakers, from Maya Angelou, to Toni Morrison, Gloria Steinem, Pam Grier, Eric Benét, Robin Williams to the darn so-called inventor of the internet, Al Gore himself.

Let's not discuss all the great places we could have lunch. Being in power positions during our lunch hours we sometimes run a couple hours long. We got to write these meal breaks off as brainstorming sessions. We'd hit up Pepito's just below our office that made the best burritos ever.

I had phenomenal mentors like our Editor Nell Bernstein, Joan Walsh, Lisa Margonelli, Hugh Pearson and photographer Rick Racamora. Our most famous colleague Richard Rodriguez got famous for writing about bilingual education, ESL, Hunger of Memory, but he was never interested in assisting Black youth.

Kevin and I had a special bond. We made the cover of the most popular paper in the world, USA Today, together. The topic was OJ Simon and we set the media and nation ablaze.

Kevin actually got a chance to go on Rolanda, which was a popular talk show that rivaled Geraldo and Sally Jessica Rapheal. I was down south at a family reunion and wasn't answering calls which was just as well. I don't much like public speaking.

Eventually, Kevin even made the New York Times. These gained him much respect from the young men in the office, particularly Russell Morse who hung around him like a puppy dog.

One memory sticks in my mind. I was all of 21, living in the Polk in my own studio. My rent was $525, I kid you not. I waited for the new Junior Mafia project with Biggie Smalls as I wrote a lot of Arts & Entertainment pieces. I copped one of the first copies of it from the Tower Records on Van Ness.

I called Philo on my landline and told him he had to come through and hear it. So, he slid by and I played the slaps. The stand out was Get Money. We loved it. It represented a change in zeitgeist from earning a living to just getting it by any means necessary. If you weren't born yet, you really missed out.

We smoked some bomb and climbed the fire escape to reach the roof. The view was gorgeous. We were feeling a little naughty so we looked in a few of my neighbors’ windows and laughed at the naked ones and lost it when we caught one jerking his chicken.

The last time I saw Philo was at PNS reunion around 2010. He embraced me and pinched my cheeks. His soon to be wife Lateefah Simon who I interviewed for Ms. Magazine (She won a 6-figure prize being honored with a Mac Arthur Genius Award).

It was great seeing the whole gang. I corresponded with him on messenger to let him know that I was praying for him and his family. Shortly before he passed away I posted a picture, chest out, chin up, hair long, arms akimbo. Kevin left a one word comment, DIVA. I was touched. I even shed a tear.

I couldn't make his services. Some homegoings are like that. I didn't want to break down in public withoutsomeonedesignatedtocomfortme. Kevin meant so much to those he crossed paths with. He was a leader. He made white boys like Russell Morse feel cool. It seemed like everyone wanted to claim a piece of Kevin. I preferred to step back and give the floor to Lateefah and their sweet baby girl.

The Diva in Flatland Diva is all Kevin “Philo” Weston. It's my homage to him as Flatland is a moniker I acquired from Huey P. Newton's first paper that Sandy Close edited, The Flatlands.

Can you see how I'm a little miffed that Google and Yahoo are trying to erase me by removing my blog from its search engine yet every hate group under the sun gets love from Silicon Valley? I’m indigenous. You are all invaders to me.

Rest easy, Philo. In Jesus's name I pray, Amen.

Photo by Unknown

Photo by Rick Rocamora

Photo by nephew to which Philo named me DIVA. Thanks for everything Kevin. Even the last meal of Chicken Masala we ate around the corner from the office when I was so manic you had to talk sense into me between bites of chicken and rice. Lol. Miss you.

Let It Go: Afghanistan Must Stand On It’s Own

2025-09-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

By Andrea N. Jones

Im an old tyme Black American who is beginning to feel a certain way about immigrants and foreigners. Like, maybe they’re just using us. Many Afghans have been upset about our withdrawal from their country. We only spent 2 TRILLION DOLLARS+ taking care of them the past 20 YEARS. Yet, they are so DEPENDENT that they have the nerve to guilt us for leaving all over the AIRWAVES.

I say “Oh well, I show hate it.” Afghans are very basic being they come from a land of dirt rocks and opium poppies. They believe the calendar year to be 1391. The way they treat women is worse than a dog fares there. They’re ass backwards in thinking to the point that a Taliban could arise with such crushing force to democracy there. I know how democracy is also fragile here, which has been apparent with the rise of Donald J. Trump.

However, the irony is that they and other foreigners can give TWO FUCKS about Americans. In fact, they look to take ADVANTAGE OF US at every turn. If Afghanistan descends into hell, Afghans have NO ONE to blame but themselves.

Expect The Taliban to be a threatening fixture against the U.S. government for the next 100 years. They here, as it were..

Do you know what AMERICANS could have done with that money? Do you know what Black folk could have done with 2 TRILLION DOLLARS+???? Come on now. However, the United States government would rather give $2 trillion+ to Afghans than they would to niggas.

RACISM IS REAL. BLACKS ARE ALONE. ADOS (American Descendants of Slavery) stand alone.

In high school, my closest friend was Afghan. I’ll call her F.N. I met her the first day of freshman year at James Logan High in Union City, California. She literally came up to me while our school I.D.’s were being made and said to me this, “Hello, my name is F. I heard your stepfather is an alcoholic. My father is also an alcoholic. Let’s talk.” From that point onto junior year, we were nearly INSEPARABLE.

I very quickly discovered that F. loved all things BLACK. She devoured books on The Harlem Renaissance, watched Spike Lee movies with me and listened to my music from artists like Minnie Riperton and Stevie Wonder. All this CULTURE she received directly from me. I felt like a DOPE PUSHER because of the way she always needed more. Anyway, with years and distance, we grew apart.

Fast forward 20 years. We’re both journalist. However, this bitch beat me to a publishing house and released a book entitled Opium Nation, a memoir. Within it, she mentioned me NOT ONE time. Instead, she created a fictitious composite and made the girl AFGHAN. FAKE BITCH.

In fact, at the book signing I attended of F.N., her twitchy-eyed sister couldn’t WAIT to run up on me talking about, “How does it feel that your BEST FRIEND published a book?” I just stared at the hoe. Wtf! Bitch, yo hoe ass sister is NOT MY BEST FRIEND. She’s a liar, cheater (constantly cheated in her A.P. classes), shoplifter and likes sucking white dick. How can a sheisty OPPORTUNIST be my best friend?

I spoke to F. recently, at which time the hoe told me, “Nicci, no one owes you ANYTHING.” Lol. I thought to myself “Okay, Fucktard. I don’t owe you shit either.” So, in kind, America owes Afghanistan nothing.

Afghans owe themselves the ability to think on their own feet; to stand on their own. Self-determination is everything when it comes to organizing a civilization. If one can’t get with the Age of Aquarius we’re currently influenced by, according to the ancients, when man has gone from needing a middleman to think to man being able to think for himself, there’s little I can do to help them.

I distinctly remember an occasion that has always stuck with me. Fariba came to visit me at my home in San Francisco’s Polk District. She went to great lengths to let me know that she was “white.” I couldn’t believe this shit.

The only reason the government considered Afghans white in wide ranging comfortable was in order to boost white folks' census bureau numbers. Whites are very desperate to appear as a majority body politic.

I hear Iranians (Persians) are also on the fast track to being white in America. Foreigners come here and surpass blacks not because they work much harder but, in my opinion, because of their proximity to all mighty whiteness.

I’m airing Fariba Nawa out because I have decided that I owe this hoe nothing as she is a BACKSTABBER. So, I thought it was only RIGHT I return the favor. I REFUSE to carry the water of people who mistreat me any longer.

People say don’t poke a panther and they’re right. 👀👀

Chris Rock, Call Me: Why I Need To Date A Baller

2025-09-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamt I was dating Chris Rock and it was nothing short of magical. I woke up to the revelation that for the most part I've spent 25 years dating the wrong kind of brothers. Not only have these black men been spiritually broke but they've all been financially strapped, making under 100K a year while living beyond their means.

Being both a writer and uberly politically conscious has not made making money my strong suit. I've been considered "financially immature" and have even been asked to disclose my credit score on a first date by a man who presented himself as well-to-do for being an entrepreneur who inherited a million dollar home in San Francisco. Most writers struggle and for those of us with a sociopolitically conscious it's even harder to make ends met. However, I make due with what I earn.

To top it off I've spent the last 16 months caregiving for my mother who is terminally ill with cancer. So, needless to say, I've been deemed not fit for the dating pool as there is no romance without finance. In today's economy a sister is expected to earn if she's ever expected to be considered marriage material for most brothers.

Your average black man (perhaps due to his inferior earning power compared to white men and even sisters) seems to believe that if a woman is not financially secure enough to take care of his wants she's not worth dating, forget about marrying. A part of me gets it. If they're out there grinding harder than a monkey pumping at an accordion on a fool's shoulder, they expect you to do the same. Hell, I'm the woman (new mommy), I'm suppose to pump even harder than them as they are well aware of all the sisters out there making it happen. Thus, I'm viewed as being a burden and easily replaceable.

I've spent many a day as of late feeling completely inadequate. I've shed many tears of loneliness and sadness. I'm slowly losing my mother because "Killer Kaiser," her HMO, neglected to diagnose her cancer at an early stage even though she practically lived their with appointments.

She's all I've got as my father wants nothing to do with me most of the time because of my views. My stepfather has been a rock to me which has been a blessing. However, let's face it-- this is a cold world without a loving mother of your own in it.

All these years she's been here for me, almost providing a bridge of love and care I would have loved to have gotten in a good long term relationship but never found. What now? What do I do now??

I've just been lost.

And then I have this dream. It's turned everything I've been feeling about my situation on it's head. Instead of waking up more drained than I was the prior night, I felt rejuvenated.

Now, I ain't saying I'm a gold digga. But I've definitely been messing with the wrong negus.

I've been dating men who buy into the notion that the system is somehow right. That a college degree equals excellence. That it's cool for people to discriminate based on earnings and credit scores.

Sadly, most people are conditioned to think this way because it's been force fed to them by the dominant ruling class from birth. Even Suze Orman can see through the game. That it's rigged against the majority of people, particularly so against so called minorities.

A truly woke person wouldn't expect the person they're in a relationship with to sell out in order to love. But capitalism edicts this. As the black thinker/lecturer/author Shahrazad Ali states, there are plenty of financially successful black women out there but it doesn't inform whether or not they can make a good wife and a happy home.

Enter Chris Rock. He's a white hot talent who is solidly in the black financially. A black man like him, a shot caller, isn't looking for a woman to match him dollar for dollar because like Jamie Foxx says, he's got his own.

My dream revealed to me what I knew all along-- capitalism is for shit. Which is to say our economy is no good for the artist who doesn't burn a searing hot brand to their flesh as was done to mark our ancestors in chattel slavery.

After all, a good conscious daughter helped turn this black man...

into this black man...

doing amazing things for the black community. And she isn't a millionaire. Kaep is still a baller even though so called owners don't want to touch his fire now that he has refused to pledge allegiance to the flag or whatever. What Colin Kaepernick knows is that mo' money isn't everything. He's discovered that all love, such as that All-American love, isn't good love. But black love shared within the community is everything. For some of us it's all that matters.

So, I'll keep hope alive that a true baller, shot caller, will cross my path to make a beautiful life with me and not my pocketbook.

Why Tupac Claimed Oakland

2025-09-18T21:52:00.000-07:00

They say I talk a lot of shit. They say I deserve the mollywhoops I get. I say, no, I’m just really from The Town– Oakland, California. It’s an Oakland thing and you might not understand. I'll explain. Oakland is Home of The Mack, Home of The Player, Home of The Game. Watch Goldie in “The Mack” if you’re truly so young or too clueless to get it (no offense).

Black people have had to make lemonade for 500+ years since coming in contact with European colonizers. When the strongest among us are knocked down 9 times, we get up 10. Tupac would prove to be one of the strongest among us. He was raised in Baltimore, Maryland and later moved to Marin City, California with his sister and mother, Afeni Shakur, at 13. Still, he bypassed San Francisco, The City across the bay, to claim Oakland. It wasn't long before Tupac hooked up with Sock G (Mr. Humpty Dance) and Digital Underground on the Oakland-Berkeley border. There's good reason for this and it's rooted in Oakland history.

Today, Blacks are gaslit when we discuss our plight in a country we built, in a world we have been great stewards of for a couple million years before other races existed. Gatekeepers limit our educational and career choices. We are treated like basura (trash) half the time by anyone and everyone (sometimes even our own).

Here in Oakland, the Black community takes pride in being, as we say, “off the plantation.” We believe our black bodies are our own. By and large, we don’t look for trouble but when it comes we are not afraid of a fight. We'll give you the business in a minute. The revolution is in our words.

Back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Oakland was a hub of urban activity and entertainment. We had a vibrant street culture that grew out of segregation. We became known as the home of pimping from the great amount of sex trafficking taking place here as it was the end of the line for the Transcontinental Railway from the east coast and, you know, white boys get horny.

The railways employed Black men to cater to the needs of its passengers as Pullman Porters. Many of the passengers were white businessmen. Along the way, Porters would ear-hustle information that they would share amongst each other and people in the Black community here at large. We were more sophisticated and progressive than other Black communities throughout the country which is why the Black Panther Party thrived here.

It's the knowledge that was freely shared that had awakened a young Huey P. Newton, a transplant from Alabama who founded the juggernaut Black Panther Party and later would radicalize and season Tupac Shakur, the son of the influential and powerful Black Panther member Afeni Shakur.

I’ve run into numerous women in the streets of Oakland who have sang the praises of Afeni and her care for them at the time of the struggle times of the 1960's and 70's, from the Panthers’ founding to its dissolution around the height of the crack epidemic. They credit Afeni with keeping them focused on liberation and not getting caught up with older male members whose natural desire was to gravitate towards available sex from the younger female members.

One member named Cynthia told me that Afeni, frankly, kept everyone “in line.” She also provided safe shelter to younger female members who may have runaway from home to join the movement.

In the 90's I attended a symposium held for Afeni Shakur. I was juiced to talk to her afterward as this was about 2 years after her son Tupac's death. Just as i was about to approach her the whote girl I brought along had an absolute meltdown. Me, honestly, trying to be a good girlfriend left before ever getting to speak to her. I can only blame myself for being so foolish. That girl and I don't even speak anymore. I had so many questions and although I didn't plan to take up too much of her time. It was an act of sabotage although I didn't realize that at the time.

Tupac was a rap god of women, weed and weather like no other. He mixed together sex appeal for the ladies, strength for the men and anti-oppression for the whole community. I believe he claimed Oakland because brothers in The Townv are different. They are on a 24/7 hustle to get to the bag. There is money to be made in the bay. This is still Gold Countr.

A key tenet of The Pimp Game in The Town is "pimps up, hoes down." Tupac made hoes of his enemies, eviserating them in 16-bars. He was quite curlish. "That's why I fucked yo' bitch, you fat motherfucker" he rhymes in Hit 'Em Up. Ouch!

Tupac was a Black man who wore the weight of our community on his shoulders when most Black celebrities are paid very well to turn a blind eye to the plight of our people. Oakland is a Chocolate City where Blacks take pride in our joy and beauty.

Many subscribe to conspiracy theories that the government was truly behind Tupac's murder and not the two suspects that were at one time under investigation. This is due to the fact that he was viewed as a threat to the American society's systematic racism towards Blacks since the colonists made oppression the status quo.

However, with Oakland being the home of modern, high-tech surveillance with programs like COINTELPRO a counterintelligence program that's purpose was to use the resources of the FBI to prevent the rise of a so-called Black Messiah.

Then they flooded the community with drugs, guns and gangster rap. Tupac committed what Black Panther Chairman Dr Huey P. Newton called Revolutionary Suicide by bucking racism to be the voice of Foundational Black Americans (FBA). Unapologetically, at that.

Millions around the world were shook when the 25 year old was murdered by an assassin who escaped justice for nearly 30 years now. Even though things often change, since Tupac's death, The Bay Area has never been the same.

Tupac was hot-headed but he didn't deserve to die. Sadly, Black lives don't matter to colonizers and they never will. White supremacy like the Charlie Kirks and Nick Fuenteses don't believe in empathy or compassion and believe we should normalize suffering. How can you follow Christ and believe in its core tenets.

They're running an old con game they inherited from their ancestors. They are Romans masquerading as Christians. Don't believe their hype. The white man is the biggest liar of all time. Just look at your president. Need I say more?

This is why we must stand firm on protecting our hard-fought for Civil Rights that every other subgroup has benefitted from more than us. Tupac embodied the bold spirit of Oakland's Black community. Even though we are not hegemonous we have united in the past and we must continue to do it.

These white Christian Nationalist are busy. We need to match their energy. Malcolm X said that America was unique in that here we had the opportunity to have a bloodless revolution Ibelieve Tupac would agree.. Tupac is heavy in my playlist as a reminder that I'm a powerful being, grown, an individual and proud of my lineage.

Stay vigilant and safe. Theocrats are determined to usher in The End of Days because much to their shearing they up and realized that they are outnumbered by POC (whites comprise only 7 percent of the population so they'd rather take everyone out with them in a Reverend Jim Jones move). Don't drink the Kool-Aid. Tupac wouldn't.

Your Mental Health Care Provider May Be A Racist And Other Startling Facts

2025-06-04T01:27:00.000-07:00

By Andrea N. Jones

"Just as no one can be forced into belief, so no one can be forced into unbelief." -Sigmund Freud

I stood in my driveway, hands high above my head. At least 4 officers (none black) proceeded to raise their gun directly toward me. My heart skipped a beat. Words came to my mind like they always had in times of crisis. I thought, " Oh, shit," trembling, "they're here to kill me."

With 4 guns pointed in my direction, I was sure I'd be killed if I moved an inch. I couldn't breathe.

I went catonic while exclaiming, "If you shoot me, I will become the second most famous resident in Hayward because Oscar Grant (a young black man who had been murdered on the Fruitvale BART station's platform six years prior on New Year's Day) will always be the first!!!" These words may have saved my life because as soon as they were spoken the officers/overseers/crackers lowered their weapons. However, I was not totally off the hook.

The officers/overseers/crackers tossed me to the ground, handcuffed me and tried to toss me in the back of a police car. I was not having it. I did not trust these officers/overseer/crackers at all. I did not trust him with my black body. Perhaps if my body were white, even Asian, I may have thought differently.

But due to the fact that I had experienced extreme racism from the Hayward Police Department before, I was fearful and had to act. I proceeded to go limp as I'd seen the civil rights activists doing countless film footage. Once my ambulance had arrived only then could I breathe.

Thing is, every time I tell that story I could tell some folks hardly believe me. Why would the cops do such a thing you might ask. Because they're dicks. Dicks to the mentally ill. Frightening fragile. This is what I'm used to and it has been my life and my experience.

I was 5150'd and driven by blaring siren to John P. George Pavilion, the notorious local county mental hospital, for evaluation and treatment.

At the age of 22, I was diagnosed with an invisible illness that would shape the rest of my life. That illness was Bipolar Disorder. I wailed like a baby for weeks on end when I found this out because, not only did I instinctively know the diagnoses was true, I knew my life would never be the same. In fact, my worst fears have been realized.

At 40, I can sit back and actually see all that I have lost-- friends, so-called family, jobs, possessions, love and status.

At my height, I hobnobbed with international players and at my lowest, I sat in county clinics full of drunkards and addicts just to get my meds. The disorder is quite common among writers. I feel that what most people don't know won't hurt them, so this part of my life I share with very few people. It's just not everyone's business, you know?

I've been taking my meds for months as prescribed by my outpatient doctor, however, I have recently experienced a symptoms' flare up that needed to be managed. I was hesitant to go to the local psych facility. Like the county clink, Santa Rita, once they get you, they have you and there's just no telling when you get to leave that hell behind.

My best option was a nearby mental hospital, John George Pavillion, where the staff knows me very well. Or, so they think. I've been coming here for more than 15 years. Getting 5150'd is not the business. It's been a 15 year history of terror for me and it goes much like this:

1) Family member calls the cops on me to get me 5150'd (placed under custody for a 72-hour psychological hold) with a simple "white lie," like, "she's threatening to kill me!" The Hayward Police Overseers/Officers/Crackers are quick to declare my rights modified on the spot.

2) I am swiftly 5150'd and taken by ambulance to the county psych ward at John George Pavillion for evaluation. I am always admitted.
3) I always get in trouble with the staff for being willful.
4)I am warehoused and given activities to perform to justify the staffs' paychecks.
5) I go to court with an advocate or public defender who sits on his ass while the prosecution defames me as a violent, psychopathic, maniacal drug addict (because I carry a medical marijuana card).

6) Eventually, I am released for good behavior and I am forced to go about the business of rebuilding my life, from what may be scratch, yet again.

It's become clear to me that my latest in-patient doctor is absolutely colorstruck. If you're light-skinned and act like white is right, y'all may as well be related because you are for sure getting out of this piece in a minute. If you're black and radical like me, you are treated like nothing less than an enemy of the state. Europeans have performed great studies on racism and health care disparities among their populations.

Studies in England and Wales suggest that a great disparity does in fact exist between the ethnicities:

The first census report published in 2005 showed that the black patient experience was in stark contrast to their white counterparts, with detention rates under the Mental Health Act 44% higher among this group. Once in the system, the data also showed that black patients were more likely to be admitted to intensive care and secure services, and be given higher doses of antipsychotic medication. They were also 29% more likely to be forcibly restrained and 49% more likely to be placed in seclusion.
Rather than seeing an improvement in this area, the figures show that the number of black patients formally detained under the Mental Health Act shot up from 2,700 to 4,600 in the four years to 2009-10 – a rise of nearly 70%.

I tried to rationalize with my doctor. I lost my job for not reporting while I was hopped up on heavy psychotropics in the hospital. He told me I would have lost my job anyway. I'm sure the stank face I gave him was the most sincere one he received all day.

My boss and I were hella cool. He didn't know what he was talking about-- typical white male, afraid of the impending black planet seeks to destroy my black family and love relationship by separating me from the ones I love and love me back.

Meanwhile, I've seen many white, brown and Asian patients regain their freedom as I sit here waiting for mine. Some of these patients have been violent, aggressive and exhibit more pressured speech than I do, but they are not warehoused. Their lives are valid to Thomicini, while mine is not.

I've come to see myself as a political prison here on my 22nd day in John George Pavilion. I fear no man as man can only take my life while God, He can take my soul. I let my stance on my involuntary hospitalization be known. Before I was kidnapped by night-riding, overseers/officers in the middle of the night, I was very active on various media sites doing my part to serve and make a difference. Since I've been institutionalized, I think of Angela Davis (and all political prisoners) daily. What a strong sistah!

I write about nothing if not inequality in the heart of the S.F.-Oakland Bay Area, yet here I am, a victim of the beast's system and racist/white supremacist paradigm. So, I do my time knowing how much harder sistahs like Ms. Davis had it paving the way more than 60 years ago.

My doctor, a Dr. Asseipe, is nothing short of a basic Reaganite. He sports the Colonel Sanders white hair and beard and is partial to sweater vests. He warehouses me here with no plan. I wonder if he plays god with me or mere devil because he has given me nothing resembling a release date. All I am told is that I am still "not well" yet. Shiiiiit.

If well means I am no longer irreverent and I stop speaking truth to power, he might as well curl up and die today. Because the day I loose my spark and spunk will be my last living day as well.

Simply put, I could never be white enough to please Dr. Assmuncher, and frankly put, I love my black and wish to be no other.

So, I must wait four more days to hear the judge's verdict which will seal the fate of my upcoming fall season. I'm a Jones. A double Jones (on both sides)! I am not easily impressed by doctors. I really haven't the time to sweat an asshole, would you?

"As a black woman, my politics and political affiliation are bound up with and flow from participation in my people's struggle for liberation, and with the fight of oppressed people all over the world against American imperialism." -Angela Davis

Driving On Fire

2025-06-01T08:12:00.000-07:00

Momma's Firebird

by Andrea N. Jones

Picture it– the year was 1976, the same year as the great Bicentennial.

I was a toddler and my mother had just divorced my father. She ended up buying a sweet, brand new, silver Pontiac Firebird with red vinyl interior. She, my older sister Rhonda and I would be mobbin' around the streets of Oakland, day and night. I never minded that it was a two-door and I had to crawl my way to my back buckle seat. What I did mind was getting in on hot summer days because the interior would feel hotter than the sun and my little brown legs would sweat then stick to my seat.

It was always so cool when my mom would pick Rhonda and me up from the roller rink or the movies at the Eastmont Mall. Our friends loved packing in, we didn't grow up on car seats and seat belts, you dig?

My mom worked hard 5 days a week at Southern Pacific, starting out as a Switchboard Operator and moving up to Accounts. We were living for the weekend. Mom would bump The Commodores, Earth, Wind & Fire, Teddy Pendergrass, Rick James or Parliament as we'd make our way up to the Oakland Hills to an affluent community up Skyline Drive, past the Oakland Zoo (Knowland Zoo then) and visit her brother, my Uncle Jimmy, his wife Aunt Connie and my cousins James Jr., Darryl, Tommy and Roxanne. We would PAAARTA!

Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Connie were our black Ozzie & Harriet. They were wholesome but not stuck up. We'd be met at the door with some light barking by their German Shepard Keno as if he were the court announcer. People still smoked indoors back then and us kids didn't do all that fake coughing and carrying on these brats do today. No, no, no. Liquor and beer flowed but no one there ever struck me as being drunk. To this day, I've never tasted cleaner, fresher comfort food in all my life than that prepared by my Aunt Connie's hands. I swear she sprinkled magic over her dishes.

The whole gang would be there, even my dad and his new wife, what seemed like every weekend. Uncle Chester, my grandmother's ginger-headed brother was always there with a sweet smelling cigar between his lips and a toothy smile. He was a prominent dry cleaner and a past Ebony Magazine Who's Who who's Operatic and Barbershop Quartet baritone voice could make a grown man cry. His son Ricky would be in tow, my quietest cousin, a good boy who was all eyes and dark, shaggy hair. The Raiders game would be on. Those were the Madden years and we were kicking ass! At night we'd watch that dirty, old Englishman Benny Hill until I fell asleep and woke up in my bed down the hill at my mom's home on 75th & Mac Arthur to a brand new day.

Those were the days. That Firebird wasn't just a car, it was a statement. It was my mom telling the world that she, Linda Jones, was free, fly af and was not afraid to flaunt her and her girls around in sporty style. Now with 45 years passed all of our relatives that made The Town warm and cozy have since passed or moved away. I thank GOD for all the rich memories I have of them and the endearing love of family that lives in my mind through memory. Without those layers of easy living and peaceful joy, I would not be the strong, irreverent black woman I am today. Thank you! #vroomvroom #flatlanddiva #califia

Broken American Royalty: How The Black Builders of America are Being Supplanted

2025-05-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

American Royalty: How The Builders of America are Being Supplanted

By Andrea N. Jones

You gotta be like a Jones. Pretty and useful. There was a time, not too long ago, when Joneses were the envy of all family names and bloodlines. The surname means “Favored by Jehovah.”

Joneses have always been the toast of the town or village, as it were. The name Jones is synonymous with the words “cool,” “stylish,” “envied,” “admired” and “swagger.” The Jones name dates as far back as 921 in merry old England and Scotland. Today it remains the most popular last name in Wales.

However, it was only a matter of time before the culture vultures would try to steal The Jones Glow. Kids don’t know anything today about the old-school American saying “Keeping up with the Joneses.” The only thing they know about is how to keep up with a band of literal gypsies straight outta a cave in the Caucus Mountains.

These women, I use the term “women” loosely, are nothing more than troglodytes who have slithered all the way to Hollywood. Their cut up faces are more recognizable than Michelle Obama’s around the world.

Michelle Obama isn't merely a former first lady, she's a Queen. In fact, it is no exaggeration that black people decend from a rich, vibrant land that allowed for a standard of living that Europeans could never image.

I've done the research and, yes, compared to the peasants of Europe who were living with and making lovers of their livestock, black people were kings and queens.

Black scholars and academics refer to Ancient Egypt as the founders did, Kemet, which means “Land of Black Faces.” Need I say more?

Kemet is the name the ancient people of the desert kingdom used for their kingdom and thus, out of respect for them, it is the name scholars and academics use to refer to the greatest and most mysterious kingdom in all of all human history.

My bloodline goes back to the land of Kemet. My ancestors held primordial secrets that reveal an origin of man that would shock most people. After no longer being able to stop thousands of years of invasions and other attempted invasions, by neighbors to the east, my ancestors fled from their Nile Valley homeland, migrating through the Sahara Desert into Sudan, Nigeria, Ghana, Gao, Guinea, Benin and Mali. They were the forbearers of the great nations of West Africa.

Many would like to believe that there is absolutely no connection between the civilizations of east Africa, and those of West Africa, however, there could be nothing further from the truth. These places were linked by ancient trading ties. The roads that lead to Lagos are as old as time itself. My progenitors, my progenerous whispers me as I slumber. They breathe life into memories.

We, the original people, truth be told, are the only real humans on the planet. We are no less than 5 million years old. Our connection to earth dwarfs all other races by an astronomical amount. We have been the greatest stewards the world has ever seen.

Our essence has always been here. We are the great and ominous We. The Earth Goddess Nefertiti, The Mother God Isis and the world’s oldest mermaid entity Mami Wata live in me. And in you, too. Breathe, listen and be still, O, Mighty Black Queen, your truth has been hidden but it has now been revealed.

I’ll give you a basic example that illustrates how much contempt the foreign-controlled Bay Area has for its native people. Folks who pay taxes and that’s everybody, Honey. Particularly, those of us who are black. How in the hell do we not have free energy in Silicon Valley? These billionaires refuse to provide basic access to electrical outlets for people who may need to revive a dead smartphone. Smartphones are the only life line many have.

The Bay Area’s failure to provide sufficient support to its black population is nothing short of acute neglect. Urban planners call this type of marginalization “Urban Triage.” Urban Triage is when city leaders pick and choose the people in the community they want to bestow goodwill on. 9 times out of 10, it won’t be black citizens benefiting en masse. However, 9 times out of 10 it will be people who are foreign born. It is social engineering of the worst kind. The kind meant to kill.

Does it make any kind of sense to anyone that black people who have been fundamental to the state of California’s prosperity and global popularity are being thrown into the streets like last week’s garbage because social engineers think it’s perfectly acceptable for blacks to be without food, clothing, heat, comfort and shelter if they’re FICO Scores are below 750? Raise your hand if this makes any kind of sense.

I recently visited Memphis, a major city in West Tennessee, where I have discovered an embarrassment of free access to electrical power. Blacks in The Bay are getting ass raped and not even black leadership there cares.

They hate us but we’re told to love without boundarie like they're our brothers and sisters. Let me tell you something, Honey. I’ve been there and done that. I’ve had Asian friends from every corner of that weird and desolate haunted place. From New Delhi to Mumbai to Pakistan to Afghanistan to Vietnam to the Philippines. None of them give a fuck about us.

They’re here to get whatever is not nailed down. Most people around the world laugh at Americans and have a inflated ethnocentric view worldview. They cannot identify with the American Dream like the people who actually built this country and we’re simultaneously locked out of it. They do not understand the significance of the civil rights movement not to mention the black liberation movement and pay no homage to our struggle, and the fact that we built this entire civilization.

In fact, truth be told, we continue to build this country up and run it while white folks get the promotion and take the credit. Not to mention the whole kit and caboodle. Our very wealth. We are black gold. We were from the get period— from Jamestown to Funkytown to Oaktown, you dig?

Foreigners look at blacks as easy meal tickets, coming for our neighborhoods, then our wealth and then our culture. Lastly, they want to take our lives. No lie.

They want to supplant us. They are The Watchers. They watch us for cues on how to be human. Their bloodlines are heavily mixed with Neanderthal just like all the other races on the planet.

They are humanoid not human. No credible biologist or anthropologist can call these people crawling all around the globe human. Black people are the only humans on the planet.

Africans never mixed with Neanderthal. Caucasians mixed with them for an estimated 20 to 30,000 years. Believe me, Honey, many of them are more Neanderthal than human. Look it up.

You can always tell who is a full-on Cro Magnum Man by their non verbal communication and behavior. Shifty eyes. Pathological lies so big about their ancestry you could drive a Mac truck through them. Passive aggressive actions meant to burn.

I don’t even bother to be friends with most of them anymore. I have better things to do and better people to do those things with. I eat coconuts, bananas and vanilla, Honey. I don’t hang out with them. 🥥🥥🍌🍌🧁🧁

Black Americans have to come to terms with the fact that all skin folk ain't kin folk. African, Latin American and Caribbean blacks want our spot, too. As much as I respect Marcus Garvey, Pan-Africanism is a joke. Blacks were never meant to be free. Gatekeepers make damn sure we remain an underclass by denying job, housing and adequate health care.

Once the $900 trillion generational wealth transfer currently taking place is complete blacks will be assed out. Get a plan because it's truly black versus everybody else now in America.

Momma and The City

2021-10-21T21:01:00.001-07:00

By Andrea N. Jones

I stare out on California Street in San Francisco as cable cars pass up and down the slanted thoroughfare with distant memories swirling around inside my head. Memories of a young Andrea, just 19 years old, moving to the big city to take a huge bite out of it.

I like so many black girls was pushed out of my parent’s house at an early age. As much as I resented this ritual I was eager to experience adulthood. Anyway, my mother arranged my U-Haul and we drove the short distance from Hayward to The City.

I found a charming studio apartment in Lower Nob Hill or Polk Gulch. After unloading the last box into my new home, my mother gave me a big, lippy kiss, told me to be safe, watch out for strangers and pay my bills. After a heartfelt I love you, she was gone. I sat on my Murphy bed looking over my second hand furniture for about an hour figuring out my next move.

It was 1993 and I was a young journalist. I’d been at it since I was 15, publishing my first piece in the San Jose Mercury, the paper journalist Gary Webb (google him) made famous. Up to this point I would handwrite my articles then type them up when I got to my desk at my office, Pacific News Service.

My mom must had heard my internal cry for help because she rewarded my dedication to my craft. She found a Macintosh Classic for sale in the paper. Driving to Foster City to pick up that Mac was one of the happiest days of my life. My mom could be very generous like that. She would do kind things on a whim. Every branch of my family could attest to that.

Once I got the Mac, my productivity rose greatly. However, I needed a side hustle to be financially comfortable. I decided I would become a phone sex operator. I looked at it as undercover work. I took on the persona of a white blonde, 36-24-36, Kelly was my name. With Kelly, anything but pedophilia was cool.

96% of my clients were white men. Many wanted to be peed on. I’d just stand over my toilet with a tall cup of water and make a splash. Some were kinkier and wanted to be defecated on. For this, I’d pour out “lumps” of aqua.They’d go nuts. And so many requested some strap-on treatment. They loved it! I loved making $20/hr plus tips. I also got gifts like lingerie.

I spoke to my mom less and less during this time. We had a running joke about me still being a virgin when in reality I’d lost that at 16. Still, I didn’t want to slip up and spill the beans. I just knew it would hurt her to no end to know I could be that type of girl— a dirty girl.

It wasn’t meant to last for me though. After seeing Spike Lee’s Girl 6 starring the beautiful and talented Teresa Randall about a black actress’s journey through the phone sex industry and being shamed by a lame ass boyfriend I quit.

I’d successfully kept this secret from my mother for 20 years. That was until she was diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. I didn’t want her to die not knowing this guilty secret I’d been carrying around from her.

One day after feeding her soup, I’d made my confession. She just looked at me, half way rolled her eyes and asked if we could smoke a joint. That was my mom. She never ceased to amaze me.

When she passed, I was left with a clean conscious. I knew that in those 18 months of caregiving I’d done right by Linda Patterson. Even still, it doesn’t take away my pain from losing my best friend. In her absence, I’m my own best friend. I let me know when I can splurge and when to tighten my belt.

Fall is in full swing in San Francisco. Leaves line the streets in this concrete jungle and I am reminded what a cold world we live in. I was carjacked last month. Escaping domestic violence, I had most of my earthly possessions in my car— 2 iPhones, a laptop, diamond earrings, new clothes, etc. Not to mention all my cards.

I slipped up by not minding one of my mom’s rules, don’t talk to strangers. What made it worse is that my family, the one my mother was always there for has not offered me any type of help. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Makes me wonder what good having a family really is to me.

I did some venting about it to Facebook. Next thing I know the family porn star tells me I’m about to be disowned. That really gave me a good chuckle. The truth is, there is no one alive who is qualified to disown me from my family. My mother is dead. She is the only one who could disown me, hooker. Another day, another encounter with a dipshit.

How I miss my mother’s love. I’ll curl up under my electric blanket remembering how my mom would rock us both to sleep. Watch a show my mother would love, like Billions. Fall asleep and do it all over again tomorrow without her. Her love remains in my heart though whether I’m strong enough to recall that during difficult times or not. I love you, Momma.🌹🌹🌹

When Giving Jill Scott Is Not Enough

2016-09-25T05:33:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting on my lover's black leather couch pondering my future, with or without him. See, we have a rather complicated situation just like every couple that, in my opinion, could easily be unraveled if only he'd cooperate with our flow. You see, when things are good we make bangin' hot tracks. I privately call it feel good music. But no, he's holding back and I can't help but believe it because he's holding out for another romantic opportunity, perhaps with someone who looks completely different than me.

I think to myself, "You say you love Jill Scott? I was bringing you Jill Scott, dumb ass. I could rap to you for hours because to me you were The Truth. The honest to God real McKoy. So, in return, I honored that by representing my ancestors to the utmost level of respect; as if I were Pharoah herself. Jill Scott is the utmost high Queen in the R&B music industry. Jill is real."

With THE most angelic voice and a no holds barred sensuality, vulnerability and boldness of tone, Ms. Jill Scott is in her own class. The actress/singer/songwriter/producer has all the right physical and emotional attributes my dude claims to like and I idolize her for exemplifying. We talking sweetness, compassion, even humor. I channel these qualities very naturally as well. I put it ALL on him. Had dude eating out of these hands, too.

I honestly can't tell you when we friended one another, however, I recall when he appeared on my radar. It was May 2011 on my birthday. Yes, I fell pry to a friggin' Facebook birthday comment.

At first, I thought nothing of his likes. After all, I had taken myself out of the singles' scene a few months prior. I was tired of the ritual dance of dating.

Men think they are expected to shell out, and, in my book, they still are, at least for a Starbucks coffee. For all the gains black women have made in white collar job positions, we lag behind white women who's meteoric rise to power across corporate America could only be surpassed the white male who's wages remain at a premium. Considering the very real pay gap, let him pay, girl.

Women feel the pressure to sleep with a guy if too many duckets have been shelled out for her. In fact, before the bill makes it to the table, the woman must send her date a cue as to whether he's gonna get the panties afterward or not. I personally became leary of any expensive date. "Say, Baby, let's hit up Crustaceans," could be met by my stank face. A woman has to assume that in Thee Concrete Jungle, a man is willing to manipulate the given scenario in order to simply smash.

Once we made our way into the infamous inbox, it was on and poppin. Fast forward to December when we meet in the flesh. The love displayed and felt was both mutual and monumental. I'd never felt that way before.

I don't feel like your average American broad. I am an abyss of consciousness. I feel a little more gifted than a typical middle age woman. I am a queen. People confirmed my crown and scepter are really real all the time. Grace isn't something I have to practice nor is it about anything I was taught. It's just a deeply rooted confidence in the superior quality of my genes and what exactly they can do.

I've actually been asked, "Andrea, how is it that you don't live high up on the hill somewhere?" I mentally shrug my shoulders and explain to the best that I love the flatlands. All the hills get me is a status that I interpret to be more of a burdensome status, but also alienating from the majority of folks in the community. This is why I call myself The Flatland Diva. I refuse to be the coon, the house nigga. I will never run from my people for the hills, literally and figuratively.

People are so busy doing them that they don't take the time to nurture a mutually satisfying and reciprocal relationship with the people they sleep with in any shape shift or fashion. We play adult games. You know the games. They range from "Pimps Up, Hoes Down," "That's Mine, This is Mine," "Charades," "Catch Me If You Can" and, my personal favorite, "Hide and Don't Seek."

Of course white supremacy plays a role in black male and female relationships. Approaching a post-Obamian era, black peoples are getting hip to the racism that still exist in the world and in our own back yard since Maafa or African Holocaust by Europeans began in 1526. So, it's been 500 years of our black bodies being used and abuse and we still aren't free. Our jobs our or individual plantations today. Our cars, our whips. We are told that self-branding is a virtue this time around as oppose to our ancestors being tortured by hot steel pressed against their delicate black skin in an effort to subjugate, humiliate and track them. In fact, these slaves were in all actuality prisoners of war. This war continues on the d.l. tip. If you're as versed in racism/white supremacy, you can seem them shits from miles away and smack it down without fear. With staying woke and fighting the crooked, elitist powers, it's best to fear only the fear. The Force, as in Star Wars, is with the melanated people of the world. Believe that.

White people in America truly crack me up. They sincerely believe that this country has done the black community a favor by enslaving our ancestors and presently occupying our neighborhood's with militarized police. When it comes to race politics, white peoples are little more than grown children. They still believe fairytales, as they take over our old inner city hoods through gentrification.

Where is white America's integrity? Oh yeah, that's right. Its busy sucking up pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, smacking down on goat cheese and peaches bruchetta, deeply entangled in reality show marathons, participating in orgies of soccer moms, dads and coaches, gentrifying our old hoods while training for the most trending charity 5K in the park. It is simply and quite officially out to lunch.

White America, you are quite literally stuck. You can't kill us all. We are Original, the original people who will only die when GOD (not the same as your fake Sky Daddy) says it shall be so and not a moment sooner. Like Iraq, you hate us for our freedom, reckless abandon in the face of your racist tyranny and terrorism.

We may all may be mankind, but we certainly aren't all human. Recent findings suggest that European and Asian peoples may be mixed with up to 9% of Neaderthal DNA. The only pure humans that exists are African people. Now, chew on that! The black woman's stands alone as God. This queen is the only organism that can produce every variation of DNA in the human genome. Her skin is kissed by the sun and full of light energy. Her hair defies gravity to protectively rise towards the heavens. Aesthetic perfection, her hips are curved so you notice her elegance and beauty.

After a good night's sleep I remember exactly who and what I am. It's occurred to me that first and foremost I am single. I'm starting to think I just may be too much woman for dude. I use to hate when women would say, "Gurl, he just cant handle me! As if they were lions and their men their tamers. I mean, really? I thought these women were drama queens, but I'm starting to get it now. Maybe, just maybe, The One is ready for merging lives, families and dollars.

With that said, it would be unwise not to continue to take applications for Cupcaking Season and beyond, for marriage. I ain't stupid and I ain't dumb, neither. I know when I'm on my own and that time is now. Jilly from Philly is currently a newlywed, marrying in a quaint ceremony. With her natural hair embellished with baby's breath, she was a vision. A real life Goddess of Love. She's happy. I want some of that, too. It's only right.

A 90's Throwback: Gucci Braids, Shirley Temple Curls and a Complicated Freedom

2015-12-20T04:47:00.001-08:00

Editor's Note: I wrote this piece in the 1990's for the San Francisco Chronicle. It is a piece near and dear to my heart as it looks at the intersections between mine and my grandmother's lives with black hair. Enjoy!

"WHAT WOULD YOU like done today?" the receptionist asks me as I stand in a daze before her counter.

It's been 10 years since I've set foot in a beauty college, and the question of what style to choose means more than the receptionist could know.

I can't even contemplate the question without thinking of my grandmother. Before I was born, Louise Russell, a graduate of The Madame CJ Walker School of Beauty Culrure in Chicago, was famous for the hairstyles she'd fabricate in the back of her home in San Bernardino. I heard stories of women traveling the 60 miles from L.A. to have my grandmother make them glamorous. I'd sit in her back room and imagine the scene: The pressing comb in its tiny stove, Grandma swinging her Marcels (metal curling utensils) around like Bill Pickett while managing to maintain a slippery patch of pink pressing wax on the back of her hand. These women of the '40s and '50s would ride back toward Hollywood like poised divas - hair silked, curled or waved.

By the time my baby-soft hair had grown into a thick, bushy mane, my grandmother was too old and tired to mess with so much hair. She preferred to take me downtown to the beauty college and let the "girls" deal with me. I'd sit while Grandma made arrangements with the receptionist for two

"colored girls" - a sophomore for her and a senior for me.

Heads would turn as my stylist and I crossed the room, and I'd grin back, not caring whether the women were marveling at my cuteness or at the discombobulated state of my woolly ponytails.

"Are you tender-headed?" my stylist would ask, fingering through my hair, and I'd stoically contend that I wasn't. I'd suffer through minor tugging and pulling and leave the school with bright colored bands around my neatly twisted hair and the scent of cherry shampoo and coconut hair grease in my nose.

After Grandma died, I had to resort to home-relaxers and occasional visits to over-priced, overly made-up stylists. But 10 years later, it was memories of my grandmother that pulled me back to the beauty college - this time at Laney College in Oakland. I'm still sitting waiting for my stylist when it becomes clear that the beauty college wouldn't be quite the cherry-scented idyll I remembered from my childhood.

One student with nearly 1,600 hours under her belt - almost enough to graduate - is calling out her sister-in-law for phoning in and asking if "someone at the college" could do her hair.

"I was like, "I can do your hair,"" recounts the irate stylist. She's proud of her skills, as she should be: She's hooked herself up with the same wispy golden curls that hip-hop balladeer Mary J. Blige probably pays big money for.

My student dresser, Yvette, is round and beautiful with long Gucci braids (thick twisted plaits), and reminds me of the young women dressers who used to look so old to me.

"I always did my friends' hair," she tells me as she wraps a shiny metallic smock around me. "When I started this I just fell in love with it and started dreaming about having my own shop."

Yvette takes my hair down from the loose bun I wrapped it up in this morning and fingers through it. "My hair is the same length as yours under my braids," she tells me.

"Maybe a little shorter." I confess that I've been using Mane 'n Tail, a lengthening conditioner which is all the rage. The product was originally marketed for horses and I used to have to get it in pet stores until it caught on. Now I buy it at Walgreen's. Yvette tells me she uses it, too.

We move over to the sink and Yvette opens the five-gallon bottle of cherry shampoo. She works up a cool lather with her massage and that ambrosial scent emanates from it. I scan the room, watching young women indulging other women, and listening to the harmonic chatter that could easily be confused with gossip. Sometimes the students misinterpret the talk, Yvette tells me, and feuds begin. But for the most part they get along.

Yvette tells me something else that makes me think about how much has changed since the days when Grandma did hair. Just two weeks ago, a student who was about to graduate was shot at a party. "Candy had 1,600 hours and was really good," Yvette tells me as she delicately towel blots my hair. Classes were suspended for two days. A couple of the students did her hair and make-up for the burial.

Back at her station, Yvette gives me a generous dose of brown gel to cast the wet set of my choosing. I decide on fat Shirley curls all overflowing from my crown and into my face. But just as Yvette is emptying out the bag of plastic rollers, I spot a young hairdresser with large sculpted fingerwaves and become inspired. Yvette adds enough gel to hook up some fingerwaves in the front, leaving enough hair free at the crown to make my fat curls successful.

I look in the mirror and my own face takes me back a generation or two. Back in the day, young black women's creativity might have been restricted on the job or in daily life, but they let loose with their hair, their one pliable appendage. Fingerwaves added to pincurls added to a slick roll at the back with fat curls falling from it.

But the young women of Grandma's generation didn't face the conflicts today's young women do every time we straighten our hair. Rebelling against Eurocentric beauty standards, our mothers fought for and won the right to 'fro, braid and dread their daughters' hair to reassert our African heritage and beauty. The result for a lot of us daughters is that we question our consciousness every six weeks: Am I perming for my man, my boss or me? Can I love myself with my natural hair texture?

Hair for Grandma had an entirely different meaning. She spent her childhood during the Depression caring for her six younger brothers and sisters, and her teens fighting courts and social workers to keep them. She kept them exceptionally groomed to avoid any false charges of neglect, and discovered her love for self-expression through hair in the process. By the time I came around she'd gotten quite modest about her own appearance, and went to the school not to get her hair whipped up but to be pampered. She went to be rubbed, massaged and cared for at her crown - to receive a little service for all she'd put in over the years.

By the time I get out from under the beehive drier I'm one of the last clients in the shop. Yvette removes the last moldings of a 1930s hairstyle, one Grandma might have worn in her youth. I'd gone back to the beauty college out of nostalgia for my girlhood, but when I look in the mirror I'm surprised to see a grown woman - one who makes her own choices and manages her complicated freedom. I think Grandma might have recognized her.

Stacey Dash and Television's Sassy Band of Black Pundits

2015-12-17T18:45:00.001-08:00

This past Thanksgiving Fox News cable anchor Brian Kilmeade asked black host Harris Faulkner whether she planned to make Kool-Aid for the holidays. The collective mouth of black America dropped. Faulkner was incredulous (as black audiences were) and swiftly stated no and moved on with her hosting segment. Nonetheless, she was clearly embarrassed as she should be. What business does she have on anti-black Fox News anyway? Faulkner is just one of many black women trying to make a name for themselves on compromising television shows. Stacey Dash is one of the most high profile black pundits today compromising her blackness for dollars.

Stacey Dash recently stunned a good half of America with her crude attack on President Barack Obama, saying he could give a shit about the safety of the American people in the wake of the San Bernadino terrorist attack. Her co-panelist went so far as to call Obama a pussy. They've both been censured by Fox for now but she, no doubt, will be back sooner than later as she serves a key purpose of the network-- to create a false sense of inclusion of blacks in GOP politics. However, I found Dash's attack on the president more offensive than white dude's simply because it came out of a black mouth.

Dash, 48, was an actress known best from her role in the juggernaut '90s hit film Clueless and, boy is she ever without a clue. Costar Alicia Silverstone exhibited more soul than Dash ever has in her role in Queen Latifah's beauty shop comedy, Beauty Shop, portraying a white woman in love with black culture as well as with a black man. Dash has no love for the black man, black women or black culture. Now a frequent Fox News contributor, Dash has a lot to say as a newfound pundit with very conservative ideas. She seems to subscribe to the notion that blacks are pathological and therefore can be contained best under Republican rule.

Dash does not fall far from the Disney-to-discussion-panel pipeline that Raven Symone stepped out of most recently with her gig on ABC's The View. Symone has said some off-the-wall things that have even led her own parents to distance themselves from her rhetoric. This past October, Symone created a firestorm when she suggested she would not hire people with black sounding names. Not only was this hypocritical, as Raven Symone is not exactly what you call a biblical name, but discriminating against someone on the basis of their presumed race is also illegal. Her father penned an open letter to the public asking for understanding, stating that his daughter Symone "sometimes says stupid shit." Pops ain't never lied.

Symone was the recent subject of a petition circulated on social media that demanded she be fired from The View received over 100,000 signatures. However, her bosses at ABC wrote a letter defending the starlet, suggesting that she is an important part of their team. Or their house. Cooning, the act of demeaning and discrediting your own race of black people through words and action in an effort to entertain, amuse and appease the dominant culture, is as good as wearing Teflon garb on television. A black pundit can gaurantee a spot in daytime or prime time (just pick a time slot) for as long as she sprews self-hating perspectives.

For some reason, television executives think coons make for great television. Tamar Braxton and Lonie Love of The Real, Sheryl Underwood and even Aisha Tyler of The Tallk have been accused of cooning on TV from time to time in recent years. Perhaps it is because the coon or the so called Uncle Tom delivers the confusion and pathology people seek to find in the black community. It is the disconnect between the pundit and the community she is an undesired member of to create controversy where there should be none. One may argue that this clan of sassy talking heads offers fresh perspectives on the black experience. However, what I find is that they regurgitate old stereotypes and myths about the black community and suppress our liberation through cowtowing to white audiences who are comfortable seeing blacks as pathological. These women think the box is the prize when in fact it's everything outside of the box that is the real gift in life. They don't offer fresh perspectives, they offer old hat.

Symone is a millennial, and as such is of a generation of young people who believe there are no boundaries. She believes she does not have to adhere to an identity carved out for her. A part of me wants to applaud her forward thinking while another wants to condemn her for being such a stone cold idiot. In Ancient Greek, an idiot was someone with no friends. I would say this girl has no friends. I would imagine the people she calls friends are no smarter than she. If she does have friends smarter than she is, they need to educate her. If she doesn't wish to go to college, the girl certainly could pick up a book here and there. I doubt she has ever cracked open a non-fiction book written by a black person. You can always tell those who have no black writers in their libraries. It's written all over their worldview.

Then there are those Sisters who surprise you. I was horrified to see that The Apprentice contestant Omarosa is supporting Donald Trump for president. This is the height of coonery. At the core, coonery is opportunism at its worst. These are the type of folks Harriet Tubman wouldn't even be able to save. She was famously quoted as saying, "I freed a thousand slaves. I could've freed a thousand more if they knew they were slaves."

There seems there will always be a class of black people who are easily seduced by the white confidence game that allows them to believe they can be a part of the dominant culture when in fact these people serve to be tokens of the dominant culture. They are tauted out to us as if to say, "You too could be a part of The American Dream," however, the dominant culture has no intention of embracing black America as part of the dominant culture. This is evident in the large number of unemployed, underemployed, undereducated and incarcerated blacks in America. American cities and schools are as segregated as they ever were and that's the way they want it.

One of my homeboys though, he could give a damn about Stacy Dash's politics. According to him, she's smoking hot fine. And that's all that matters. There in lies the rub. No matter how ugly she is on the inside, the heifer is drop dead gorgeous by all physical metrics. Black just don't crack, you know what I mean? Plus, she's rich, Bitch. Wealth comes with power and both, without vigilance, corrupts those it's bestowed upon. I get it, she's a bit long in the tooth for modeling and leading ladiehood, so why not use her self hate to make mo' money? Sure, she could buy me twice over. However, I am not for sale and I'm not buying what Stacey Dash and the band of sassy black pundits put down. Whether you realize it or not, we are in a race war with the dominant culture. As the war gets warmer, the more coons will come to the surface. We must find a cure for coonery before it's participants eradicate the few gains made by the black community left, just 150 years out of slavery and into the frying pan of a so called Post-Racial Era that gave rise to Stacey Dash and the like.

Forever Punany, With Love: The Myth of Men

2015-12-10T22:17:00.000-08:00

Sometime, do you ever just sit back and think, "Man, I've been through some shit?" Going through cheating fits right into that "some shit" category. Cheating is a hell of an obstacle to overcome in a relationship. Especially when you have no eyewitness evidence. I recently dealt with a cheater. To this day, I'm convinced the guy is part con man, part Svengali. For I was under a spell that took me 4 years to break. I'll tell you about a time I nearly broke free, the time I stumbled on his Forever Pussy.

Forever Pussy is a term I coined to describe a woman who has created a lustful contract with a man to be perpetually sexually available to a man who doesn't claim her in any sense of the word outside of any occasion the two aren't naked together. She feels her pussy power will retain his affections for the remainder of their sexual lives, perhaps even longer.

Karrine Stephens, the original "Video Vixen" and author is celebrity Forever Pussy. She's been interviewed stating that any man who messes with her must understand that when Wayne calls, Lil Wayne, that is, when he calls, she will go to him so he can, as Celie said in The Color Purple, "do his business on" her. She made the statement publicly while Lil Wayne had famously been dating Christina Milian, causing a rift in the couple's relationship. No never mind though. What forever pussy wants forever pussy thinks she can get. Stephens also expects a decent man to allow her to be another man's Forever Pussy.

I think it's kind of funny the way men and women relate to one another once the idea of sex between the two comes into play. Titalating animal energy is tempered by coy, coquettishness. The Ying and yang of masculine/feminine desire go 'round and 'round in a dance which casts a spell on them both.

By the time "it" goes down, if they've been able to put doing the deed off for some time, the passion can be explosive. I'm talking, break out the fire extinguisher because the heat might erupt into full on combustion. And, don't be a talker. Men fall in love with what they see, while women, we fall for what we hear. There is a popular meme circulating social media that states this fact and goes on to state that this explains why women wear makeup and men, well, they lie.

When presented with the opportunity to have carnal knowledge of a woman, I've been told by a very reliable, worldly man, that men will say anything to gain it. They'll whisper sweet nothings you take to mean everything. He'll wrap you in a bubble of "You are mines-This is mines." And if you are just fool hardy enough, you'll start to believe him.

So, I told this chick she was an idiot for sticking around to be Forever Pussy. I known about her being a part of his past, but I never knew she was part of his life until I found her number. I texted her and she texted me back. And so ensued a plethora of messages back-and-forth. She insisted they had a transcendental kind of love. She thought she had love but she really had was low self esteem. Her standards were way below mine. The only solace I could find was in knowing that I had higher standards than her. Sometimes when dealing with a cheater that's the only comfort you'll ever get.

I could never be Forever Pussy. It's degrading to allow anyone to believe they have the power to control your mind and body perpetually without giving you anything more than googly eyes. Once I get married so goes all my former suitors. I'll leave a trail of broken hearts behind because when I get married it's going to be ride or die love and my man will be the only single, straight man in my life. Single male friends for what? What good could come out of being friends with men who are attracted to you? When you're an attractive female, most all your male friends are attracted to you. That's just a given. I don't desire that type of energy or attention when I get married because I'm investing in my husband not my potential side action.

It's been months, but I still keep those texts. Being Latina, she went so far as to mock my blackness She sent a text to him ("So, you're with a black woman? Ew.") which proves a long standing theory I have that many Latinas think they are superior to black women because black men allow them to believe this. I've got some news for you-- limp hair and pale skin doesn't make for superior genes and most certainly not for a superior human being. She didn't know what I looked like, how many degrees I might have or languages I spoke. The mere fact that I was a Sister made her feel better than me. Brothers act like they got their Yoko Ono in exotic girls, but more often than not they've got a closet racist on their hands.

But, at the end of the day, I couldn't be more mad at her than I was at him. He hurt me to the core. He violated the sacred trust I believe we shared. After catching him in several more lies I decide to call it quits. And boy am I glad I did. I met a wonderful man. We exchanged numbers months ago and spent some time together before I decided I could not go any further with him while still attached the old dude. Lucky for me, he was interested in rekindling our friendship and it has blossomed into a new relationship. You know why? Because he's serious. He's a serious man. They say you can't turn a hoe into a housewife. Well, try turning an international playboy into a husband. It's damn near impossible. I know because I tried. Won't be making that mistake again.

Why I Walked Outta "Straight Outta Compton"

2015-09-20T12:25:00.000-07:00

The recent mid-summer release of Universal's "Straight Outta Compton" had the whole country buzzing. Never in all of my years have I seen a black centered film receive so many accolades so fast. So, when I heard people refer to "Straight Outta Compton," a biopic film about the rise of the 1980's gangsta rap group N.W.A., as the best film of the year, I bypassed a search for a free viewing online and went straight for a local theater instead.

I found that the movie missed the mark on setting the cultural context of the situation of blacks in south central Los Angeles, where the notorious city of Compton is located. Instead of exploring the national, even global, implications of their message of resistance against police brutality and the abuses of the system of racism/white supremacy on the black community, they instead dedicate a good majority of the movie reharshing the old beefs all their real fans and true hip hop heads already knew about.

After about an hour, I was convinced I was witnesses a big pissing contest on a silver screen. Like I care who sucked up behind Jerry Heller (played by"Sideways" star Paul Giamatti), who was his favorite and who in the group Heller, their music business manager, didn't give a damn about to sign and "take care of," with lucrative contracts and cash. Inevitably, supported by Black Muslim leader, Minister Louis Farrakahn, Ice Cube (portrayed by Cube's son, O' Shea Jackson, Jr.) leaves N.W.A. and releases a diss tape that puts its remaining members to shame as sycophants of The White Man.

Everyone knows that the music industry is one of the most corrupt businesses to ever operate. Even cottage labels, like Priority Records, have turned into artist farms where both the artists' musical product and integrity are siphoned off for pennies on thousands of product units, making the industry attractive to exploitive, old money interests, gangsters and thugs, like the infamous Suge Knigt. Knight is probably as gang related as Al Caponre.

Like John Gotti, Knight had become a Teflon Don in his own rigt. For example, the musis mogul survived the 1996 assassination of Tupac (Mackavelli) Shakur in Las Vegas after a less than memorable Mike Tyson match on the Las Vegas Strip. This has all changed reasonly with his indictment on murdering a man on the set of "Straight Outta Compton," in which he backed over two men in a dispute over money. One lived, one died. Knight has cried, even passed out in court, during arraignment. Guess he's not so gangster after all.

Its been reported in major news outlets that the members of N.W.A. were said to be regulars on the movie's set and were insistent Grey recapture exact details when depicting their lives.

Funny thing is they left out a couple of big chunks of N.W.A. history-- their social impact on the black community's resistance to police brutality and, well, what I would call the rise of gangster rap. Gangsta rap is a genre of Hip-Hop many black music historian believe was ushered in at the height of the conscious rap movement in order to kill the empowering unity being expressed and felt in the community. Gangster rap propagated not only a view of the police as enemey number 1, but of the next black man, one not in your so called gang set, as a close second. Murder rings out in this genre first explored by Rap forefather Ice-T as an valuable means of exacting revenge on "a nigga."

Another huge impact of N.W.A.'s gangster rap is what I call the proliferation of a "Pimps Up, Hoes Down" mental code of the streets that still reverberates in the culture throughout rap and hip-hop for some 25 years and counting. I would say the impact of this music on black male/female relations has been devastating. Let's face it. An ethnic group of men who disrespects its women will never find respect in the world, to quote both Dr. Henrik Louis-Clark and Brother Malcolm X. Today, the misogyny is so ubiquitous that many women themselves have taken to calling themselves, "bitches," "hoes" and the tamest insult of them all, "females." When Queens degrade themselves they can't bring anything good in abundance to the black community's nourishment table. These women who subscribe to this music may themselves become the thing the music creates, just another thirsty, gold-digging bitch.

The opening scene is set in 1986 inside a crack house where dope dealer (soon to be rapper) Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) is conducting a business meeting. Needless to say, the deal goes left and Eazy escapes with his life but not a grown folk's lesson which is you live by the sword, you die by the sword. Eazy is not alone in this aspect. A few of his associates are also living on the edge. Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) dreams of music instead of getting the day job his mom has been hounding him about. Ice Cube (a soon to be father) desires a legacy. DJ Yella (Neil Brown) is looking to increase his pussy cache and MC Ren (Aldo Hodge) appears to Be a true Creative and wants to get the anger out. They come together to form N.W.A., that's Niggas With Atttitudes, realease the LP 'Straight Outta Compton' in 1988 and history is made.

I will find a bootlegger on purpose to cringe through the end of this movie. Dr. Dre and O'Shea have gotten enough of my money the past 25 years. And for what? So Dre can hand out millions to a white school and Ice Cube can be family-friendly? These opportunist have done nothing for the community they come from. Reportedly, Dre is offering the Compton community the royalties from his latest album entitled "Compton: A Soundtrack" to a cultural center there. Who-hoo! He didn't make USC, a extremely wealthy private California university that has among the lowest black enrollment (despite being in an area where more black Californians live per capita than anywhere else in the state) in Southern California, wait to get his coin.

So, there is a buzz. We're talking Oscars now. I've heard it time and again with "Straight Outta Compton." How can I put this? Um, I don't think so. While Gray is a talented director, the film could never be a contender. If by some miracle, it does receive a nod or two, the motives of Hollywood in acknowledging this black film would be "show business" business as usual, dubious at best. In other words, this film has no shot in hell of receiving any Golden statues shaped as the Egyptian God Ptah. Nonetheless, its filmmakers are no doubt taking a que from that Earth, Wind & Fire track and dancing in September as the film has grossed nearly $200 billion dollars. The film cost a mere $28 million to produce. Can you say winning?

All and all, I don't hate this film or this classic '80s rap group. I just didn't want to stick around to watch egos at play. Glad to hear Dre has apologized for years of physically assaulting women, such as his artist and long time girlfriend Mi 'chelle and the hip-hop journalist Dee Barnes. The film would have better served itself and the audience by using a much larger lens to capture the full scope of all N.W.A. meant to my generation of Generation X'er's seeking justice and respect in a system of racism/white supremacy intent on marginalizing us and our lives, even taking our lives at will.

Writers Write, Right?

2015-04-22T19:03:00.001-07:00

I have so much respect for those writers who hash out verses daily, extrapolating at the crack of dawn, whether for the sake of money and fame or altruistically to connect their art and soul with the collective conscious, they persist in having their voices heard. I'm not that type of writer. This has bothered me since I was quite young.

Nonetheless, I began my writing career at 15, publishing my first piece in The San Jose Mercury News, a paper made famous through the reporting of Gary Webb. Mr. Webb cracked the code on the CIA Iran Contra Crack Cocaine connection. His investigation uncovered that The CIA flooded black communities with drugs in the late 1980's in his news series, "Dark Alliance." I actually invited Mr. Webb down to San Francisco from San Jose to discuss "Dark Alliance" with a group of young writers after the Merc published his series. He was the real deal.

Webb told us then in our meeting that when he spoke to people who lived there in south-central L.A. he was shocked by what he discovered. Webb reported that residents of these but communities in Los Angeles had come across abandoned train cars on various local train tracks full of loaded arms. According to sources, these weapons were dropped off by the government in an undercover operation to arm local gangs for hot wars between rival groups and to sabotage the advances made by the black community during the Black Power Era of the late 1960s 70s. He was a true newsman, who many believe did not commit suicide, as was reported, but was murdered with two shots to the back of his skull. The recent Hollywood film, "Kill The Messenger" chronicles Webb's journey of working through the journalistic scoop of the century. He was the type of writer I aspired to be-- one who could transform hearts, minds and public policy.

It wasn't long before my work appeared in major newspapers around the country. The devil of doubt on my right shoulder was eclipsed by the angel of productivity on the left. By 21, I was head deep in living a public life. There was nary a topic in my life that was not up for public consumption by me.

My identity was my writing career. I breathed it in my nose and tasted it on my palate regularly. It won me favor and critics and it paid the bills. I thought I'd conquered that devil. As it turned out, that creature was merely in a slumber.

By 26, I was struggling with a chronic illness that left me tired and shamed. At that point I felt I had to walk away from writing, my identity, because I could no longer put myself out on a limb and present myself to the world in all my vulnerability as a public person.

After being tagged "anti-Semitic" once I published a piece critiquing Steven Spielberg's look at American slavery and African resistance in his 1997 film, "Amistad," coupled with some erratic behavior of my own I was essentially blacklisted from publishing in the Bay Area. I was too tired to care at the time it all went down and the phone stopped ringing. I craved privacy and space to tend to my wounds. I didn't want to articulate the contents of my mind to everyone I knew and strangers alike because, frankly, it became too hard. There were younger, hungrier Ivy League-educated writers waiting to take my place in a San Francisco second and, in my hazy Bay fog state, I gave my desk up practically on a silver platter.

Fast forward 15 years and I've worn a few hats. I've experienced several identities, including common law wife, fashion associate, personal assistant, dental professional; they've all provided me with what writing couldn't-- privacy. I've also taken notes, working these gigs as an undercover journalist. The jobs themselves all left me with a void because the irony is that the writer in me desires to plug-in in a way that no other of my identities can ever fulfill.

For me, writing has never been about fame and fortune, although fortune would be fantastic. I've turned down offers to be on national television because I wasn't comfortable with the pace and the forum. For me, it's been about the work. It's been about honing my art to the level where the audience feels something, thinks something new, that they can relate to in a visceral way.

So, writers write, right? No, not always. Not me. If the vibe isn't there, I can't get in my zone for weeks, sometimes longer. I don't want to force the process. At points, it becomes about either racking my mind to create the perfect piece on every hot topic or remaining sane. I have to choose sanity.

I don't always want to share my thoughts because I need or want them for myself. Plus, I'm at a place where I want to write about what I want to, not what some publisher thinks sells. In my art, my integrity has to come before what's hot. I marvel at the lengths writers go to be prolific, spinning dribble for dollars. Today we have been told to brand ourselves to get anywhere in the era of social media. I can't knock their hustle. Everyone's got to eat.

I don't desire to offer myself up that way. I've already proven to myself that I am capable of human connection. Whether I write The Great American Novel or Memoir or not, I know I am (and always will be) a writer.

Spotlight—Lovie Ray Johnson, Jr.

2014-12-03T21:07:00.000-08:00

The world has a peculiar way of stealing the innocence of its children while turning a blind eye to the travesty it has committed. Producer/Director/Writer/Actor Lovie Ray Johnson, Jr. seeks to change that with his current film project, “Supernal Darkness,” which focuses on the world of child sex traffic. It is an underbelly Johnson believes powerful forces in real life society perpetuate.

Johnson’s own childhood was not as picture-perfect as many might have perceived a black military family like his to be. One may think that a church going family in the ‘70s would be immune to the sicknesses of depraved souls but Johnson was not so lucky. His first abuser would be a good family friend, his Sunday school teacher. He was 6. The trauma of this experience saddled Johnson with a huge sense of loss. “It opened my eyes to a world you should not be open to at that time,” he says.

The next abuser would be even more shocking. Shortly after moving to a new military base and settling in, Johnson, in retrospect, recalls a close family member began to groom him for the sexual abuse that would follow for several years. His greatest disappointment was that even when he presented his family with the fact that he was being abused they did nothing to address it and protect him. His childhood could be summed up as one one rife with emotion abandonment and betrayal.

All the while, his family was faithful churchgoers. Johnson himself found solace in the church. “It taught me about Jesus. [Because of that] I embrace everybody and realize everybody is trying to find their way to God.”

As soon as Oklahoma City University came calling, Johnson was out the door. Fortunately, he had a talent for basketball that won him a scholarship. He was a tenacious player and recalls playing three to four games with a broken finger. His team was amazed by this but for Johnson working through pain was nothing new. He remembers thinking, “This is what I am, this is what I do.” It wouldn’t be long before he would meet his wife on campus, a lovely Indian American woman. They wed on his birthday.

Johnson’s future looked brighter than a Jumbo-Tron. However, an unforeseen tragedy would rock his world. After receiving a professional contract to play basketball in England and being voted Player of The Year, his wife suffered complications in their first pregnancy. He flew back to The States to care for her. Subsequently his first child, a boy, died in the hospital.

His team sent their condolences with his jersey and a basketball signed by all the players. Johnson would not return to basketball and says he buried the game with his son. Today, his daughter Daesja is the light of his life. His marriage did not survive once he took to the bottle. After 7 years they called it quits and now have an amicable relationship.

Johnson sought to rebound by taking up coaching and personal training. However, he found a groove in acting. Through theater, he could exorcise the demons of his past. He decided to use his talent to tell the story of sex trafficked children, the children without voices.

For “Supernal Darkness,” Johnson teamed up with Dream Propaganda/Osse Prop to create a companion graphic novel. The Supernal Darkness movie trailer, directed by Jeff Frentzen, is available on YouTube and is gritty and visceral.

Johnson believes that the absence of both parents in the home lends itself to the vulnerability of children to predators. “We can help prevent a lot of trafficking by paying attention to our children,” says Johnson. “You have to be actively involved with your child. We need to believe our children. The way the world is today there is no one home to take care of them.”

He points a finger at western culture for sexualizing children. Recently we’ve seen an underwear line for 10 year olds at Victoria Secret. Abercrombie & Fitch sold girls’ underwear with the words “eye candy” across them. And let’s not forget those darn pageants.

He sees a connection between the sexualization of children and an underground society of pedophiles who pledge allegiances to satanic worship. “There is so much twisted up in this,” says Johnson. “When you look at kids being taken for sacrifices, the numbers go up during certain times of the year [for ritual sacrifice]. Just because we don’t believe in sorcery doesn’t mean that other people don’t.” He goes on to say, “Evil exists because powerful people want it to exist.”

In 2013, there were 462,567entries for missing children under the age of 18 into the FBI's National Crime Information Center. According to The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as many as 2,183 children are abducted each day, many by a family member.

Johnson is currently assembling a team to complete “Supernal Darkness.” In the meantime, he is also trying a hand in the beverage business with a brand of loose-leaf teas with David Edwards at the New Mexico Tea Company. “10 percent of what happens to you is 90 percent how you deal with it,’ says Johnson. “Everyone needs to do their part. Everyone has to pick their part. I’ve chosen my fight.”

Are Rioting And Looting Ever Valid?

2014-08-12T07:00:00.011-07:00

By Andrea N. Jones

So, tell me how America has changed in the new millennium? How America loves your black or brown skin now that we've reached, according to some of all races, "post-racial America?"

Ferguson, MO isn't too different from Lakeland, FL in 1938, as captured here.

Is rioting ever valid? I say, yes, it's valid. The anger is valid. A riot is quite symbolic. Black communities are treated as "liquid money," as we are called by some whites who notoriously profit in our communities where black business cannot. Most businesses in the hood are non-black owned, which is a travesty in itself. It's a stark contrast from back in the day when black businesses ruled in black communities during the segregation era.

Integration has proven to be problematic for black communities all across the country as black businesses struggle to find a market when blacks have taken their business into other communities.

Gentrification and, what I call "The Great Migration"-- the recent displacement and movement of folks in historic numbers at of the beginning of the 21st century-- has left black communities in shambles. Urban Triage, an unofficial state policy which allows the community to essentially spin out of control and let it's black citizens literally dying in the streets, is real.

Rioters destroy, what Stephen King might call, "needful things" that

they are oppressed by. What are we talking about? We're talking about shiny shit that a cop will shoot you dead for to protect his or her bosses and the business/corporate community's profit margin. It's about a bunch of crap made in China because the U.S. deindustrialized 50 years ago, cutting these communities off from life-saving employment.

People who riot do so in a deliberately defiant act against American Consumerism. This is not rocket science. The only thing the government and business understand are interrupted profit. You tell me, why should we protect the wolves (very well insured dogs) in our very communities? What, may I ask, have they done for you lately?

White folks had very little before "discovering" Africa in 1443. This, I believe, is why white people are obsessed with material things, placing them over people. Hell, they've made corporations people in this country, like that's even possible literally or even esoterically. However, it benefits the power structure/paradigm so they make it law.

The white power structure goes to great lengths to protect worthless material things and to subjugate black people in our own communities. They stole us from Africa, stole our resources and labor and continue to steal the resources and wealth of the black community in various "legal" ways.

It's time we truly unite against what in Africa is called Maafa, The African Holocaust, and be heard. What will you do to end police brutality against black and brown? Every voice matters which is why God gave us voice to begin with as we evolved from up to 2 mllion years ago (by current scientific estimates) in to the original people.

All so-called races evolved from African ancestors. In this sense, all people are evolved straight outta Africa. Black people are white folk's ancestors but they want us dead.

In the Belly of The Beast, black people continue to be marginalized, oppressed and murdered. By best estimates (mind you because data are not accurately kept by the federal government on nationwide) every 28 hours a black person is killed by a non-black officer (root of "officer" is "overseer," by the way) or vigilante.

White folks' ancestors were so sick and twisted that it's hardly any wonder why society is crazy as hell today. They came to us in 1443, presenting us with, what I call s.s.-- shiny shit, glass beads, mirrors and various cheap trinkets. We welcomed them. They destroyed us. Over 570 years later and Maafa continues. 570 plus years of stealing/killing Africans and "legally" pillaging our riches; yet (due to the dominance of our genes and skin), we still stand!

AIDS, Ebola, the lengths the world has gone to rape it's very own mother and subjugate its ancestors. If you think the white man saved us, think again. We saved him (He was dying in his own filth in Europe)! We don't need them. They need us and what is rightfully ours! Don't EVER get that twisted, k?

Racism/White Supremacy is so sick and twisted that I can hardly breathe. Looking up to white folks as a standard to live by is simple lunacy. African people everywhere are the moral compass of the world! Souljahs, unite! Its time to wake up!

Mike Brown's murder in cold blood, like all these cases of men, women and children, deserves justice. So, I ask, what will you do to stop police brutality and take the law to task? Some still think we aren't really ready for a real fight. I say the only way to prepare is to ACT prepared. Do you agree?

Wanted: Black Women and Black Men To Build A Nation!

2014-08-06T00:14:00.000-07:00

As of late I've engaged in heated debates with other black women who are ready, willing and able to date men of other races out of frustration with how many black men mistreat, neglect, disrespect or abandon them. I, on the other hand, still value nothing higher than the black family. I also have a high opinion of black men still. It's perpetual. My love spans over 200,000, when Lucy was my mother, ya dig? Enough metaphysics. I say all that to say that Black Love dates back to an unfathomable antiquity. 500 years of Maafa, The African Holocaust, cannot wreck that for me. This is why I love films like "The Wiz" (with that great opening scene of Auntie and Diana Ross Dorothy around the dining table, 20 deep; talking, laughing and connecting), Maya Angelou's only Hollywood directing gig, "Down on the Delta," Diane Carroll's "Claudine," etc. Listen to this smart, young sistah breakdown The African Diaspora's dire situation and how badly we need to come together to strengthening the black family for the good of our communities around the world.

Calling All Foodies!-- Celebrity Chef Brian Stansberry Says, “It’s About the Food”

2014-07-30T06:26:00.001-07:00

Vallejo-Bred Celebrity Chef Brian Stansberry Says, “It’s About the Food!”

By Andrea N. Jones

Brian Stansberry, 44, Executive Chef of the well-esteemed Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota and owner of High End Catering, is responsible for providing 11,000 students, along with faculty, breakfast, lunch and dinner, every day. With 43 employees to supervise at the school, he manages a $2.8 million operation. Stansberry has carved out the time to be a celebrity chef to boot with big plans to take his high end food on the road with his brand new venture, Flavor Face! Food Truck, with which healthy, locally produced ingredients and American comfort-classic gnoshes he plans to fill bellies big and small, up and down the California Coast.

Keen on cooking green, Stansberry wants African Americans and everyone else to know that they can eat healthy food and it can still be good to their taste buds. He will tell you that he is all about preparing the freshest of foods, grown locally, to create food fare so appetizing that his reputation has come to precede him. He has been tapped to cook delectable meals for celebrities such as Snoop Dogg and E-40 as well as dignitary like Rev. Jessie Jackson and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. Stansberry’s cuisine is not just for the “Who’s Who.” In fact, the Culinarian from Vallejo has every intention of taking America’s newest food revolution to the people.

Taking a note out of the playbook of conventional wisdom, he states his motto about cooking, “I believe the best way to a person’s heart is through their stomach.” At 18, while working his first kitchen job he started at first just to pay the bills, Stansberry fell in love with food. At San Francisco’s world-famous Drake Hotel, he was assigned to line setup which involved cleaning 100 pounds of squid, daily. Not everyone could contend with such a demanding task, but Stansberry took it in stride. At 21, Stansberry moved on to Seattle where he was the youngest staff member at the acclaimed Metropolitan Grill steak house. Assigned the broiler, he worked over an 800degree stove and got a taste for high end cooking—the place where fine ingredients, perfectly-timed preparation and skillful presentation meet.

Eventually he settled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After working at the Radissons Hotel for five years perfecting his craft as sous chef he was offered a position in Uptown Minneapolis at the Green Mill Restaurant and Bar that he had dreamed of, Executive Chef. “I learned the culture of Minnesota. The food they like.” His most popular dishes were the parmesan encrusted Wall-eye, bacon-wrapped jalapeño poppers and tomato-basil soup. While there, he implemented policies that turned a $1 million business into a $3.5 million enterprise in just three years. Stansberry said he made that happen by working closely with his staff, telling them, “It’s not about us, it’s about the food.” Eventually he would move on to Executive Chef at the 4-star Crowne Plaza in the twin cities.

From working at the Crowne Plaza he received an advantageous offer to partner in the opening of a wireless internet coffee shop/deli, wine bar and mid to upscale restaurant, located on the foot of St. Olaf College, the Ole Store Cafe. The accolades began pouring in. Within one year, Brian was in two featured items in the Star Tribune, Minnesota’s top newspaper, a special segment on Minnesota’s CBS affiliate WCCO-Channel 4 and received “Best Restaurant Worth the Drive” honors from Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine.

So, it’s no wonder why Stansberry was called upon one night to prepare a meal for Snoop Dogg when he came through the Twin Cities. “Snoop wanted friend chicken, rice & gravy and macaroni & cheese,” recalls Stansberry. “People think fried chicken is the easiest thing to cook, but it’s not.” Stansberry hesitated at first as to whether he wanted the undertaking. Could he pull it off in the amount of time he had? Traveling to Snoop’s hotel, would his fried chicken lose its heat and crisp? In the end Stansberry knew he could make it happen. ”They loved it,” says Stansberry. “They absolutely loved it.”

When asked about cooking for E-40, Stansberry fondly speaks of the rapper. “I grew up with Earl Stevens,” says Stansberry (Stevens being E-40’s birth name). “When he was touring in Minnesota he called me up and said, ‘Hey, B. What can you do?’ I asked him what he would like and he said he wanted seafood. So we did Garlic Roasted Cherry wood-smoked Dungeness Crab.” 40’s entire team devoured the food. Now everyone from B-Legit, Juvenile and Keak Da Sneak to Too Short call Stansberry when they are in town and Chef Brian happily hooks them up. Recently his team hit the set of his brother’s, the video directing phoneme Taj Stansberry (who directed the YouTube record smashing Hit The Floor featuring Pop Sensation J. Lo) set feeding featured Kingpins of Rap Rick Ross and Lil’ Wayne. 2Chainz and Swiss Beatz (Alicia Key’s producer husband), also have recently enjoyed the chef’s food fare.

He’s also cooked for global politicos. Reverend Jessie Jackson dined on Bronze Salmon, Hillary Rodham Clinton enjoyed the Caramelized Ginger Lemon Torte and for the President of Bolivia, Stanberry prepared an authentic Bolivian dinner, replete with ingredients he had to source out of state. He is currently preparing a menu for the king and queen of Norway. Not star stuck but very humble, Stansberry will tell you in a heartbeat that it’s not about him. It’s about the food.

Right now, Stansberry is really into perfecting his sauces, rue in particularly as he is really into gumbo right now. He also has taken on fusion cuisine—taking two world cuisines and combining their ingredients to create innovative food experiences. “I’ll take two cultures, like Italian and Mexican and create something,” he says.

Stansberry is most excited to throw his chef’s hat into the food truck ring by taking his high end food to the streets. He sees a street food revolution happening in America from coast to coast. “I believe the food truck revolution is really serious,” says Stansberry.” You don’t have to pay the property taxes, you don’t have to rent a big building and you can go everywhere to serve people your talents.” Stansberry states that America is beginning to catch on to street food, but it’s been a common way to chow around the world. “If you travel to Thailand, Australia, Italy, Jamaica, they all have street food and vendors,” says Stansberry. “[The food] is not pretty, it’s not expensive but it’s done well and from the heart. It’s done straight from the soul, like music.” As many as 2.5 billion people around the globe eat street food every day. In fact, Chef Brian will be touring Thailand later this year to do his on study on street food vending.

Stansberry has envisioned a statewide food tour up and down the California coast in his spanking-new truck company, Flavor Face!, that will cater to The Stars beginning January 1. The menu will feature Chef Brian’s signature “Stick-N-In-Movin’“ items: Mac-n-Cheese on a Stick, Spaghetti-n-Meatballs on a Stick and Tuna Tartar on a Stick.

“Music, food and people go hand and hand,” he states about his appeal to the Top Artists he feeds. When he goes H.A.M. (Hard as a Mutha) in the kitchen, he sets his timers to his own playlist. It’s not uncommon to find this celebrity chef cooking to Sade, Confunkshun or George Benson. However, when he goes real hard in the kitchen, it’s all about bumping Mac Dre or Ice Cube.

Stansberry might say that the two hearts he loves nourishing the most with his food belong to his two daughters, the both of whom he’s is currently putting through colleges. Stansberry sees cooking as both an art form and a way to make it out of tough circumstances. “A lot of my friends are dead; a lot of them are in prison. [Cooking] has been a way to stay off the street and work at my craft. It’s a way to be better as an individual. To young, prospective chefs, he offers words of advice: “Eat everything, taste everything and travel as much as you can. Learn other cultures, languages and terminologies. And look and listen.”

-Contact Chef Brian Stansberry, owner of High End Catering at bdown66@yahoo.com, on Twitter @FlavaFaceCo or on Facebook.

A Poetess Breaks Maafa Down for the People

2014-07-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

Post by Yacub Majeed.

Poetess Sunny Patterson holds no punches. Pow...pow, pow, pow! Take that, Beast!

Love & Vodoo--The Curse

2014-06-23T13:55:00.000-07:00

"There are wonders enough out there without our inventing any."
-Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Commitment is more than an involuntary stay in a sanitarium. In a romantic relationship, any significant personal relationship, for that matter, commitment is fundamental to the love and positive energy that flows through the union. What's real tends to last. What's not tends to fall apart easily and disappoint.

But really, at the end of the day, for me every since I saw my first disaster movie called "The Day After" in the early '80s, I've been mildly concerned with survival should the shit hit the fan. So, for me, I'm thinking who is not going to ditch me, but love, care for and be with me should the Zombie Apocalypse actually go down, you know? Who's going to have my back should civilization unravel tomorrow but me? As I have no children, my primary concern will be for my aging parents. I must prepare, as I just hit 40, to be my own savior. Wow.

After I found out my sophomore year of college that Walt Disney was a known racist, I ditched all hope in the princess fantasy. It was bull, a simple product; and at 20, completely obvious as it was hard to find a gentleman, let alone a prince. Do some women get a taste of it? You bet. But only about half the people who take "the plunge" and have "the wedding" can get through the tough times to actual sustain long marriages. It is a rarity in these days and times for people to be married 40, 50, 60 years. If so, I wonder, how many of those years are spent truly happy? How many are tested by infidelity, mental and physical disorders and acute boredom? How many bounce back?

I was actually confronted with the news that chances were I would never be happy in love around the age of six. Yes, six. My grandmother, the matriarch of my mother's family, delivered the bad news. By this time in her life she was an ordained minister and missionary, so it was only appropriate she deliver this oral history down to me. I was her youngest grandchild.

One summer night in the San Bernardino Valley, as the desert wind howled and the window a/c unit chilled the dining room air, we sat around the dining table after dinner one night and she told me about our family curse. She spoke in hushed tones. A terrible pox was put upon us because of jealousy and romantic love. You see, my grandmother's mother started the whole thing.

My great grandmother Helen Young was from a well-to-do African-American family. Upon graduating college, no small feat for a Black woman at the turn of the 20th Century, her father arranged a marriage for her with an African prince. If great grandmother Helen would have gone through with it, explained Grandma, we would all be princesses today.

Great grandmother Helen had other plans. By a twist of fate she met and fell in love with a half Black, half Irish musician with a penchant for booze. Grandma actually minced no words, describing her father John Russell as a "bum." However, he was her mother's heart's desire. Upon cancelling her engagement to the prince she was disowned from her family. What's more, the prince, distraught, was said to have gone to his witch doctor for retribution against his runaway fiancee. The witch doctor then put the curse on our blood that no Russell woman would ever be happy in love.

One might believe from the family track record that the curse took. Cut off a couple of my fingers and I could still add up the happy marriages on my mother's side, with one hand. I think that curse followed me back to The Bay.

I've wondered what, if anything, that old witch woman had to do with the situation I find myself in now. Pushing 40, a successful relationship had eluded me. I've had passionate relationships, even lengthy ones (seven years lengthy), but not one I could say was with the person I've really been looking for. The person I've always wanted possessed qualities I'd never experienced in a partner; foremost he would accept me at the place I showed up at and would be willing to grow and build a life with me.

My current relationship of nearly three years has by far been the most promising. We love and respect one another as we are. Our greatest challenge has been the two thousand miles that has separated us the majority of the time. After careful consideration I have decided to close that gap by moving to his state so we can get on with building a life together. It's a big step for the both of us. I'm not taking any chances. Sage, myrrh and frankincense will be burned in our space before I even unpack. My second biggest challenge will be controlling my mind. I'm sensitive and I tend to over-think everything. I suppose because of my life experience often being dictated by Murphy's Law, I just realized how often I wait for the other shoe to drop; in other words, for things to fall apart.

My boyfriend thinks my "curse" is hogwash and says we create our own fate. Part of me agrees. My Great Grandparents had many good years crisscrossing the country in a traveling jazz band, having eight kids along the way. The other part of me isn't so sure. For all of civilizations advances, life is still a great mystery. Who's to say that witch doctor didn't conjure up a magical link between this and the spirit world so strong that it may affect the outcome of this love relationship that I'm working on being my last? Ahh, there's that over-thinking again.

Curse or no, I must believe in the power of our love to overcome all the new trials and tribulations we will be facing together. For, in my heart, I truly believe that living in love creates the best luck of all.

Janet & Michael Jackson - Scream (We About That "Public" Life) #Scream #Vox #WeGrind #HAM

2013-08-02T04:23:00.001-07:00

"No I'm not feeling myself; No I'm not trying to be hired to do parties, I'm not trying to do anything special here except consolidate my mixes, that all" -Anonymous DJ