B(l)ack by Popular Demand

Happy BHM, y'all!!!

Yes, today is the first of what will be 28 days of celebrating the young, gifted, and the black! Last night I was all in a tizzy because of today's agent meeting. I then realized that there was no better day for a blacktress to meet with potential representation than the first day of Black History Month.

Perhaps fate created last week’s storm just so that my meeting could take place on a day when no member of Caucasia could say no to a negress. Either way, I’m rocking a form-fitting bright top and slimming denim, and just used my anti-puff eye roller to help handle my baggy-eyed scandal (I got more bags than a Whole Foods right now, y’all. I look wearier than a woman of Brewster Place).

As I got dressed this morning, the snow and icy rain (aka “wintry mix”) had me stressed. We all know rain is the black woman’s kryptonite, and today is no time for a hairdon't. As I wrapped my hair up and hid it under my hat, I thought about how silly the whole process is. Coming off of last week’s viewing of “Good Hair,” where I saw the disintegrating effects of a chemical relaxer on an aluminum can I realized just how enslaved (and possibly brain-cancer-ridden) I still am--by norms of beauty, my own laziness, and my own tenderheaded-ness.

But of course, I’m not alone in this. Black women have been struggling with handling a hair scandal since the dawn of time (when neander-negros were heating up smooth rocks and using them as a flat iron--you didn’t see that NatGeo special?).
So today I just want to kick-off BHM with brilliant black mind who worked to make looking fine just a bit easier--without chemicals.

Name: Marjorie Joyner

Quick Facts: Marjorie, the granddaughter of a slave and a slave-owner (yes, y’all!), was born in 1896, and in 1912 she moved to Chicago to attend cosmetology school. Upon graduation she worked under Madame C. J. “Thanks for the Relaxer” Walker.

A page from her biography reads:

A dilemma existed for Black women in the 1920's.
[You mean Jim Crow laws? The inability to vote until damn-near the end of the decade? The need to provide for their families with little options besides serving members of Caucasia?]

In order to straighten tightly-curled hair, they could so so only by using a stove-heated curling iron. This was very time-consuming and frustrating as only one iron could be used at a time.
[Ah, yes, the real dilemma.]

Joyner… imagined that if a number of curling irons could be arranged above a women's head, they could work at the same time to straighten her hair all at once. “It all came to me in the kitchen when I was making a pot roast one day, looking at these long, thin rods that held the pot roast together and heated it up from the inside. I figured you could use them like hair rollers, then heat them up to cook a permanent curl into the hair.”

WHAT?! Y’all, for reals! Although black hair care doesn’t seem like a major innovation, let’s look at the genius: Marjorie was just in the kitchen making a roast for her man, and was like, “wait a second…” That’s some straight-up MacGuyver-type ingenuity. When I’m cooking in the kitchen, all I’m thinking about is whether I really have to pre-heat the oven. In 1926, Marjorie turned dinnertime into into breadwinner-time!

Joyner developed her concept by connecting 16 rods to a single electric cord inside of a standard drying hood. A woman would wear the hood for the prescribed period of time and her hair would be straightened or curled. After two years Joyner completed her invention and patented it in 1928, calling it the "Permanent Waving Machine."

Look at Marjorie with that man! She was 98 when this pic was taken, and it looks like she's telling him about himself. She is my (s)hero.

So, as you make tonight's pot roast or soy chicken nuggets, look inside that oven. Think of Marjorie--and think of the possibilities.

A Rant.

Okay, so you already know how much I love repressed Caucasia, as embodied in the television show Mad Men, right? Well, I tucked in for another riveting episode last night, as part of "Dysfunctional TV Sundays" (True Blood, followed by Mad Men, then topped up with back-to-back episodes of To Catch a Predator). I was immediately displeased with the episode, as the characters' constant drinking coupled with my hangover triggered my gag reflex like none other. Normally I support Don Draper's addictions, and I'm placing bets on whether Betty's baby will come out with flippers the way she drinks, but last night was just too much.

I thought it couldn't get any worse until Roger Sterling decided to entertain his garden party guests with a song performed in black face. I kid you not.

Now, okay, I know the show tells the story of a time gone by, when men were men, women were women, and the races didn't mingle. But it's the early 60s in New York City. Was blackface the thing to do? Was it really how the Caucasian elite entertained themselves on a Saturday afternoon? And, to top it off, it seemed none of my fellow Mad Men-viewing friends seemed to notice or care, judging by their status messages related to the show. Was it really only awkward for me? God, I feel so black right now.

I am so over viewing ignorance, regardless of whether or not it's a period piece. This could be because, ever since I got my hair braided, it seems that a little bit of Australia has returned with me to NYC. Caucasians seem to think it's acceptable to touch my head, and the neverending questions have me on the verge of screaming "WIKI BLACK HAIR CARE, PLEASE!" Or, when my friend said to me, "see, the thing is, I like you cause you're not one of those uppity black folks."

Um, is it okay for me to cut a bitch, or would that be setting back the movement?

Okay, I'm done with my rant. How was your weekend?

Breaking the (Blogger's) Block

Hey Guys,

Sorry for falling off the face of the blogosphere (is that what the cool web-savvy kids are calling it nowadays?). I’ve been at a loss for the funny—or, at least, anything funny enough to post. Although the return of Dexter to my on-demand menu has boosted my spirits slightly, I can’t shake off the cloud hanging overhead. Sojourner’s feeling a little off her game. I need another white valedictorian of a historically black college to get the world riled up or something.
As a woman of color and writer, I’ve learned that the only way to get over a writer’s block is to…write. So, in the spirit of breaking the cycle (of violence, oppression, and non-bloggery), let’s get warmed up. Here are some things I thought about blogging about, but couldn’t quite get off the ground:

Another female middle-school teacher was arrested for having an affair with a student.
Kelsey Peterson, a math teacher at Lexington Middle School, in Lexington, Nebraska, plead guilty to traveling across state lines with the intent of elicit sex with a minor on July 1. She started having sex with the student when he was 12 years old, and when rumors of their affair became public, she put him in a car and headed to Mexico.

I kid you not.

While there are many ways to look at this, I think you know what Sojourner would say:
If this doesn’t show you how hard it is to find a decent man, I don’t know what does. Year after year, gainfully employed, intelligent (and cray-cray) young women, faced with the bleak truth of single life in a small town, have no choice but to get them while they’re young and impressionable and try to make love work. So blinded by the need for affection, they ignore all laws and common sense, risking jail time and registry as a sex offender just so they can find a moment of true love—it really is enough to make the baby Jesus cry.

I’m suffering from Black Mama Drama to the Maxxxxx.
For those of you who don’t have black mothers, let me explain. While yes, all parents/guardians like to stress out their children and have trouble seeing them as adults when the time comes, the single black mother is a different, fiercer breed of parent. With the strength of Audre Lorde and other blacktivists she has raised her children, living a life of sacrifice from the moment she chose to carry them to term. Currently living in the house that mamadukes built, I have discovered I am damned if I do AND if I don’t. When I “stay out till 3am, keeping whore hours” (yes, this was said) I do not want to spend time with the family; when I stay in on a Sunday afternoon, I am treated to a torrent of anger over my “pigsty of a room”—I have to ask myself if slavery days were ever really over.

The Hunt for Bindi Continues…
With the aforementioned black mama drama, the decision to move down under is becoming clearer and clearer. My E.T.A. is October 21, 2008—just when springtime is coming. (I’m going to laugh in the face of god and nature by experiencing two summer seasons in one year) I’ve overcome the biggest hurdle yet: finding a place to get my hair did. Serengeti Hair and Beauty, in the heart of Sydney, will handle my nappy scandals for the low-low price of $90-$150!!! AAAAAHHHHH!
Um, the blacktress is going to have to start a haircare fundraiser, stat.

I think I’ll begin my search for the Emmy-nominated child-activist with the Taronga Zoo, in Sydney. Perhaps Bindi will be cuddling a koala, and will have her guard down so that I can swoop in and befriend her.


Pizza, Pizza, Pizza!
The rejection by the Biblical Teacher (that’s what I’m calling him now) is still hurting Sojourner, which shouldn’t be the case. While the first weekend of crying and watching Dexter was to be expected, I try my best to live by two mottos: Ass, gas, or grass—nobody rides for free; and Erase, replace, embrace new face. But for some reason, I just really feel like I f-d up a good thing, and I’m going to die alone, found only by authorities after the melted pint of ice cream I was consuming combines with the scent of my rotting carcass to create a smell so foul the neighbors had no choice but to call and complain.

What—too morbid?

I found myself thinking of another time I was jilted by a fella I really thought I had “locked down.” At the time I was ranting on the phone to a friend as I perused the Pizza Hut menu. I figured I had nothing to lose—certainly not pounds—since I’d already relapsed into old habits.
After she and I hung up, I turned my phone back on to order my trans-fat pizza pie for one, and I was suddenly struck by the almost maudlin words on the back of Pizza Hut’s flyer.

“At Pizza Hut we strive for excellence. If we do not give you your receipt or fall short of your expectations in any way, we would like to hear from you.”

Do you know my first thought?
“I wish men were like Pizza Hut.”
Unlike most self-absorbed guys, who say they are “working through some stuff” and/or “going through a lot right now” (striving for excellence in their own way), Pizza Hut is willing to be called out on it! If, Pizza Hut lets me down during their process of achieving excellence, they not only expect, but ask for phone call. As far as I’m concerned, that makes Pizza Hut more attractive than any man I’ve ever known.

Okay. Now I know that blurb was written by a team of clever advertising executives, most of whom minored in psychology, solely to inspire me to say, “fuck you, Dominos! You don’t care about me!” And yet, I felt like Pizza Hut was proving to be more comforting in two sentences than any heterosexual relationship I had ever been in. And that, I thought immediately afterwards, is a damn shame.


So, in summation:
When your black mama drama gets to be too much to bear, and the repeated viewings of your favorite tv show don’t get you going, apply for a work visa in a foreign country and be glad that you can buy pizza anywhere.