My body's too BOOTYLICIOUS!!

Black women have for a long time been criticized, while at the same time, envied for their physical features. From the plump lips, that Angelina Jolie gets praised for, to the bodacious behind that put Jennifer Lopez on the map, features that are typically found in black women, are criticized until some “other” is lucky enough to have them.

Most recently, Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, criticized Michelle Obama for having a “large posterior,” as she attempts to encourage others to maintain a healthy lifestyle by eating right and exercising. To Jim (can I call him Jim?), being healthy and also being curvy are mutually exclusive. You can’t possibly exercise as you promote, and also have an hourglass figure. In his mind, the natural figure of most black women symbolizes obesity, unhealthy eating, and lack of exercise. Why can't we just live our lives?

I’m sure that most black women would disagree with Jim (yea, I'll call him Jim). In fact, I run sometimes with the Black Girls Run group in Atlanta. There has to be over 300 black women that come out at least once a week to run 3+ miles on the downtown streets, the rolling hills, and the off-road trails of Atlanta. This confirms for me that many black women are making healthy choices. Running is allowing these women to be more psychologically healthy, physically healthy, socially healthy, and accountable for their lifestyle. Each time I go, I see familiar and new faces: short women, tall women, skinny women, plus-sized women, mature women, younger women, novice and experienced runners, but through all these differences, we all have one thing in common….booty. And we literally turn heads and stop traffic. Though we may differ in many ways that I feel some sort of way naming here, most of the women that come out have a curvy figure that really is the natural shape of black women, whether others deem it healthy or not.

You see, Jim Sensenbrenner, and any other nonbeliever of the black girl booty, black women can bring home the turkey bacon, fry it up in a pan, eat it with some asparagus, and then go running after, and still preserve a healthy lifestyle and an even healthier booty. POW!

Forgive, Forget, and Follow: The Chris Brown and Rihanna Story

I know that all of us are much too familiar with the age old adage, “forgive and forget.” If someone wrongs you, you must not only forgive that person, but also forget whatever infraction or inappropriate behavior he or she exhibited. We must move on, and not hold onto that bitterness, but let it go. It’s at that time, when we let it go, and move forward, where true healing and peace can show itself.

I agree with all of these things, and have experienced the beauty of true forgiveness at work. However, I was reading a few blogs recently about Chris Brown and Rihanna that seemed to have missed this “forgive and forget” lesson in Sunday School. First, one blog exaggerated the idea that Chris Brown had purchased a home, a “near-punching distance” to be exact, away from Rih-Rih (my personal nickname for her), And what is that distance you might ask? A whopping 8 miles! I don’t know about Hollywood, as I have to love it from a distance, but eight miles away from someone else is nothing to write a blog about, as if they were close enough to borrow sugar, eggs, or even an iPad to read this blog trash.

As I read further, bloggers were shaming Rih-Rih for following Chris Brown on Twitter, as if they had signed a friend contract like that on the Real Housewives of Atlanta. If we have been taught to forgive and forget, why are Rihanna and Chris Brown exempt from this level of humanness? How long should she hold onto the hurt, bitterness, and embarrassment of February 8, 2009? I’m not saying that they have to purchase BFF Pandora bracelets, but whatever they choose to do, it’s not for the world to scrutinize. I truly believe that forgiveness is not for the other person, and since that is the reality that I ascribe to, let Rih-Rih (and Chris Brown really) heal. Healing means different things to different people, so respect that process. Meanwhile, in the words of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, who also lives eight miles from Rih-Rih, “mind ya business, that’s all, just mind ya business!”

The Good Die Mostly Over Braids

Today, I lost my virginity. It was my first tailgating experience…ever! I have to say, it was all that I ever dreamed it would be. I tweeted and facebooked all throughout the game, ate, drank, wobbled, laughed, screamed, until I stumbled upon something so horrible, so deplorable, that I had to dedicate a tweet to it. And it read “Cornrows with heart beads on the end…on a grown man. I’m outdone.” Minutes later, I find out that it was actually Khujo from GOODIE MOB, but you know what, it doesn’t matter.

I am of the firm belief that besides dreadlocks, grown men, should not have braids. You are stretching it to get a pass from me after you turn 22. For me, it screams that you have yet to get your grown man on. When I think of grown man, I’m thinking of a man that is about his business that really values his appearance and any impression he is making on others. He is ready to let go of the juvenile experience of sitting between some woman’s legs to get his hair braided and his scalp greased. And then to have beads on the end, I just can't. Do you need some aluminum foil too?

I recognize that braids are simply a hair fashion, but at the end of the day, I just don’t like it! Leave the braids to the teenagers. Go get you a low cut dark caesar!

Black Ain't Beautiful

I went to New Orleans over the summer for the Essence Music Festival, and my eyes taught me a lesson. I really didn’t have to travel far to learn this lesson, as it is very apparent in my own backyard. But maybe my eyesight had been heightened for this weekend. Maybe my attention sharpened, maybe my alertness more keen, but this lesson knocked me over my head as if I had been ignoring or avoiding it for the last 5 years of my adult life….black ain’t that beautiful.

At Essence, you had two categories of women: women with weaves and women with natural hair. I swear to you, there were even very few women with even their own “naturally relaxed” hair, meaning hair that did not have hair extensions, it was just relaxed. Everywhere I went, women had weave; long weave, bangs made of weave, Mohawks made of weave, curly weave, straight weave, wavy weave, even “I’ve been using this weave for far too long” weave.

And if you know me, or even if you don’t, by now, you know that I am not a fan of the weave. If your weave serves a purpose, OK. If you work out a lot, and you use weave to help you balance the hair sweating, OK. If you’re going out of town, and you want an easy style, OK. If it’s a special occasion, and you want a different look, OK. If you’re using it to help you transition into being natural, OK. But just as an everyday thing, where you have even forgotten what your own hair looks like, I can’t get with it. And I’ll tell you why.

It seems to me that we as a black community have really come to accept the Westernized definition of beauty. We have learned that we are not good enough. Our hair is too kinky, and straight hair or Hawaiian silky hair is what makes a woman beautiful. Our hair doesn’t grow long enough, and long hair is what makes a woman beautiful. Our noses are too big. Our skin is too dark. Everything that we encompass is too much of something, yet not enough for us.

And I’m sure there are many women out there that are saying, “whatever, I just like to wear weave. I think it looks nice.” That’s fine. I’ll take that if you’re giving it. But ask yourself a question, how do you feel about yourself without it? Does it add to you? Does it make you feel more desirable? More attractive? More confident? If it does, ask yourself why. Why is it that adding something to your physical appearance, something that is not naturally you, that quite frankly transforms you into someone else, make you feel more beautiful? What standard of beauty are we appealing to? I would contest that it isn’t a standard of beauty that we ourselves have come to define and distinguish. It’s one in which we have adopted from somewhere else, some place else, that had decided that black ain’t beautiful, and that all of these other qualities, that blacks “clearly” don’t encompass, are.

I don’t want to seem like I’m attacking weave wearers, because I think there’s a bigger issue. Loving you, loving me, loving us…..feeling like we, in our own skin, are enough.

I would venture to say, that we, blacks are beautiful. This isn’t something that I’ve always completely swallowed myself. I’ve struggled with the size of my nose, my hair, my shape, the feelings of being invisible when you’re standing next to someone that has all the “white,” I mean “right” qualities. It isn’t easy, but the black community has got to embrace who we are, and come to define our own standard of beauty.