Swinging the Burning Broom

The Official Election Sign Off

2008-11-04T13:08:00.000-08:00

By Rogue Tantrums

This morning, I woke up at 4:50 a.m. to vote. I didn’t want to be at the whipping tail end of a monstrous line. My boyfriend called at 4:52 to make sure I had gotten up like I said I would, and that I hadn’t accidentally slept through my alarm as I have a tendency to do on certain occasions. This time, I was awake… listening in the dark to the downpour outside my window, wishing in vain that I had voted early to forego this madness.

But I got up, and dressed; kissed my little sugar who wanted to sleep in my bed instead of hers while I was out, and headed off with a book, an umbrella and a flashlight in the darkness of early morning. Oh I was warned. My doctor yesterday asked me if I had voted already or if I would wait until Tuesday. I told her that I hadn’t yet, and she said, “Oh I voted early…I know tomorrow is going to be crazy and I don’t want to be in it.” That was the moment I thought, hmm, how crazy is it actually going to get? My plan was to simply wake up early, vote early and go on with my day, but with all these warnings of atrocious lines, I was beginning to think that 6:30 just wasn’t going to cut it. That’s when I decided on being up before 5. I didn’t have all day… my daughter had school…I had work…

So when I drove the wet streets to my polling place at a quarter to 6 (I had to put on my make-up), you could imagine my surprise when the polling workers weren’t even there yet. HA! Look at that…I knew I would be okay! It wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought here…

“You’re so early!” One of the pollers told me when they finally did start showing up, one by one. “Here, come in and sit in here and have a seat. Let’s get you in out of the rain.” I was allowed to sit in a pew bench in the fellowship hall of a church while the they continued to set up and swear in.

Thirty minutes later a couple walked in. “Darn it! I’m not the first one!” the woman says to her husband. They sat on the pew next to me and slowly the voters began to trickle in. By the time the polls opened (which, at 7 a.m. I had to remind the workers that they should be open by now) there was a winding line of 40 plus people. Okay, maybe they were right… and maybe it was a good idea to get up before 5, because I got to officially sign off that there had been no ballots cast yet. What a prize. I felt so official as I headed home. As the sun came out later in the morning, I briefly thought about how this is a historical time for the country and for me… and I officially signed off on it.

Hold Up Wait A Minute Let Me Put Some Truth In It

2008-10-15T10:13:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week, Rachel Maddow brought on one of George W. Bush’s former speechwriters, David Frum. She asks him about his take on Republicans not taking politics seriously and not addressing the pressing issues of the people, and he in turn attacks her for the same. Hunh? So let’s back up for a second.

Earlier in the show, Maddow revisits, Palin’s attempt at hypnosis by repeatedly stating how happy she is to be cleared of all legal and ethical wrong doing. So Maddow, pulling a quote from a Black cheer squad, says, “Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some TRUTH in it.” And goes on to explain that the Troopergate Report clearly states (along with several headlines in newspapers) that Palin has been found GUILTY of abusing her power – i.e. being unethical. And despite the fact that reporters are pointing this little factoid out in Palin’s face and in front of camera and microphone, Palin smiles her mystic smile and states that she is happy that the report has cleared her of any wrongdoing. Then Maddow calls her a flat out LIAR – even though such a thing is impolite in politics.

Fast forward. What David Frum has accused Maddow of, is not taking politics with a heavy dose of starch, and quotes Mahatma Ghandi by telling her, “We must be the change we say we want to see.” The way Maddow reports the news is full of cynicism and humor, which was apparently not grown up enough for Frum, who sounded like he was waiting to pick a fight with her. But does Maddow back down and apologize for ruffling his feathers like a polite show host? Heck naw! She, instead, asks him if he is doing what she think he’s doing (which he never denies) and then points out the various tastes and methods of absorption for politics for American people.

He insists that she is being hypocritical and continues to accuse her of blaspheming politics…I guess…, and she smiles her pearly Maddow smile and says, “I couldn’t disagree with you more.” Then she graciously thanks him for being on the show sends him on his bitter way.

That’s just one example.

Oprah Winfrey Begs You to Push The PROTECT Our Children Act to Save Children From Sexual Abuse Which She, I and Possibly YOU Suffered as Kids

2008-09-30T16:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sick of all the nasty-ass pluckers in this country and on this planet! Are YOU?

All pedophiles should be castrated and banished to life on Death Row ! Harsh? I think not. They should be chained forever to cement slabs in black holes. Even if they were sexually abused, they should still be imprisoned—for life. I’m sorry, but they simply cannot be allowed to keep hurting our babies. Lock their demented asses the pluck up! The torture, murder and sexual exploitation of children is as a cancerous growth upon humanity. It MUST be utterly wiped out.
It was bad when I was a child, but now with the Internet it has become hideously easy for monsters to gain access to our children. It's time for a CHANGE all right!

Oprah says it best:

I was first touched in a sexual way was when I was three. The individual who first molested my younger sister and me was our aunt. She was a big, fat- funky-moo-moo-wearing misfit. Her house always smelled of reused cooking grease and pork. She got her kicks from sitting on her bathroom floor in front of me while I used the bathroom. She liked to ask me strange questions about my anatomy and poke her greasy sausage of an index finger into my tiny vagina. It hurt, burned kind of.

“What’s that,” she asked tapping just below my chin.

“That’s my neck,” the 3-year old me replied.

“What’s that?” She pinched a tiny baby-nipple.

“Chesss,” I answered.

“What’s that?” The tip of her index finger entered my navel.

“That’s my bell-wee button,” I answered. Her piggishly plump hand moved lower.

“And looky here. What’s that?” She smiled.

“That’s the hole Doctor gave me,” I reported, wincing a bit.

If parents truly want to honor the responsibility to protect their children they must realize that the threat of molestation to their children is ever present. Molestation is potentially body, mind and soul crushing to children. Single mothers need to be exceptionally vigilant about this. Many pedophiles forge relationships with single mothers in order to gain easy access to children.

Sexual abuse as a child potentially affects a person throughout life, diminishing the ability to build positive relationships with friends, family members, spouses and children. When sexual abuse is continual /episodic, the physical, psychological and spiritual damage can be exponentially worse. My sister and I were molested later in our childhoods by one of my mother’s boyfriends. He liked to leave my mother’s bed at night and slither into our room to finger 9 and 11 year old girls who protested through their sleep. Pig!

Girls molested, as children often become victims in their teen-aged years and as young adults. I was a 15-year-old virgin when a 24-year-old man raped me. I begged him to stop, but the dog pressed on saying, “Come on Baby. Don’t you want to learn?”

I did learn a lot from him though...

I learned never to trust anyone to put his or her hands on me and never to feel safe or secure in my own skin. I learned how to grapple with unending, heart pulverizing hurt, anger and fear that often erupted into tumultuous tantrums and self-destruction as a teenager. I learned to use sex and alcohol to anesthetize my pain. I learned what truly vile wickedness lurks in the hearts, hands and minds of many dirty men—and filthy women. I learned to allow myself to endure friendships with people who lied, used, manipulated me and used my need for connection, worth and affection as a weapon against me. I learned how to take it on the chin and in the ass while smiling---I learned how to live a dying-life that drove me to attempt suicide at 17.

My life as an adult has had to be a successions of “un-learning” in order to grow and live a life free from some of the pain. I’ve had to choose healing, empowerment and validation over the pain of my past. Still, I will likely need to manage the effects of sexual trauma for the rest of my life. What pains me most now is that so many children are suffering, being molested, raped and tortured in our country which has GREAT ability to do something to stop this!

Today the government website used to communicate with Congress regarding the financial mess that our country is in was shut down to keep the system from crashing under the weight and volume of messages sent by Americans regarding the Dow Jones. Well, how about sending just as many messages to save little Johnny and/or Jenny Jones, children that need our help to protect and save them from TORTURE in America. Let’s bail our kids out people!

Oprah recently sent out the following message urging us all to do SOMETHING to stop the sexual molestation of children. Please read it and take the few moments needed to save our babies. Oprah sent the following:

The PROTECT Our Children Act will:

· Authorize over $320 million over the next five years in desperately needed funding for law enforcement to investigate child exploitation.
· Mandate that child rescue be a top priority for law enforcement receiving federal funding.
· Allocate funds for high-tech computer software that can track down Internet predators.

Act Now!

U.S. senators will be voting on the bill soon. It is crucial you contact them immediately.Visit www.senate.gov to find contact information for the senators in your state. Please call, write or e-mail your senators ASAP!

Hallelujah Harris!

Focus on the Effort the Results Will Come

2008-09-22T12:29:00.000-07:00

People will tell you all day long that you have to always pursue your dreams. Not the haters. Not the ones who have dastardly crushed their own dreams to unrecognizable debris. You can’t count on them to support you with in a dinner party, least known the very event that may define, or partially define, who you are. As a matter of fact, just steer clear of them altogether. They are poisonous, dream killers.

The people I’m talking about are the ones who toss around clichés like they are confetti. You know, “Keep your head up.” And, “Shoot for the moon, if you miss you’ll at least be among the stars.” Oh, and then there’s my daughters favorite, “Dance like no one’s watching.”

Of course these little proverbs are clever and at times inspiring (at least in the moment), but have you ever thought about those people who pursue their dreams doggedly, but who never seem to get a break? I’m sure you know at least one. We all know one. Like your 37 year old cousin who is still trying to be a rapper. So many people have told him to knock it off, go get a real job so he can support his three kids… well actually…I’m not talking about him either, but I think you get my point.

I wanted to find out about those people. Have you ever seen one actually get what they seemed to have been denied of for years, and after working so very hard to get it, do they still have the stamina to enjoy it and maintain it? I can’t possibly see how a person who gets the sudden break they’ve been after, can’t keep it together enough to enjoy the “fruit of their labor” (ha ha – another cliché for you), since every step they’ve taken before the break was supposed to prepare them for the opportunity.

I’ve pondered this recently for fear of my own ambition being swallowed by the energy I’ve put out and all of the doors that slam into my face. It hurts, I recover, and I keep knocking on others. Thinking this over, I can see how dreams might get strangled to death and how the effects could lull a dream to eternal rest.

Perhaps it was the YouTube video I saw of Phyllis Hyman speaking candidly about the music business that brought me to this train of thought. I heard her speak with a sadness I hadn’t expected for an interview. I also saw her ball her big eyes out at a performance in Japan while singing a song a friend of hers, who had then recently passed away, wrote for her.

I brought up Phyllis only as an idea of the origin of this rabbit hole I’ve just scampered down, not as a way to justify abandoned pursuits or explain the end results of hard sought after results.

Someone once told me a few years ago, that in my pursuit of happiness, I needed to, “focus on the effort and not the results…because eventually, the results will come.” I guess then I can bend over, put my hands on my knees and catch my breath.

By Rogue Tantrums

All Black African American Citizens Are to Be Banned From Voting in 2008 Presidential Election; Those Attempting to Vote Will Be Jailed and/or Shot

2008-09-09T14:39:00.001-07:00

(READ the entire message before reacting...THANX)

ATTENTION:

Effective IMMEDIATELY: In the United States of America, individuals guilty of having African American heritage are to be completely stripped of their civil and voting rights, regardless of any previous mandates, acts or constitutional amendments. No, African American citizen may protest this new and orderly law. Loss of civil rights takes away not only the right to vote, but also the right to hold public office, serve on a jury, and qualify for certain types of state licenses necessary for many jobs, such as those in the construction and medical fields. Any African American citizen found attempting to vote will be arrested, jailed, fined and taken out back ...

Yes, this means YOU!

###

Calm down. That "bulletin" was just to get your attention BEFORE you allow your voting rights to be "purged"! (Follow me GOOSE!) If the above "bulletin" was in fact true, millions upon millions of Blacks would be all up in arms, marching and chanting through the streets. There would be riots, boycotts and protests en masse (I guess). It often seems that people only care about their rights when someone denies them their rights.

What is sad today is that no one has to deny Black people their right to vote. 32% of African Americans are willingly denying themselves the right to vote. They feel powerless, but the only reason that they are powerless is because they believe that they are. In this historic time when we have an African American man running for President of the United States and a white woman running for Vice President, every American woman and man of every race in this country must vote. It's time to wake up!

In 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act. Black people saw it as a major win in the fight to be recognized as full citizens of this country. The next challenge was to get folks registered and voting. Back in the day Blacks were righteously defensive and proud to have gained the right to vote. They knew that many of us had sacrificed our lives for that right and we would be literally damned if we were not going to exercise that right. Countless Black men, women and even people of other races fought and died for us to win the right to vote. Black churches in the south and across America spearheaded major voter registration drives on a regular basis. They recognized the power of the vote. Can we say that this is true today?

"In 2004, African Americans made up

approximately 11 percent of the overall vote nationwide. If the percentage of African Americans was a mere two-and-a-half percent higher at 13-and-a-half percent, Democrats would currently be running for re-election at this time," he said. "For example in the state of Ohio in 2004, we lost by two percent or 100,000 votes. There were 270,000 unregistered African Americans. I use that as an illustration to show how the African American vote can make the difference in a state and across this country. So the African American vote can absolutely make the difference in this election.''

All right, so anyone conscious enough to be reading this blog hopefully has enough sense to where (s)he does not need to be convinced of the imperative significance of exercising her or his right and RESPONSIBILITY to vote. That's right! Voting is your responsibility---as much as many of us grimace and whine at the mere sound of that word.

Again, brave people died so that you and I could participate in our own political system. The very least we can all do is get up off of our entitled (yeah!) asses and vote. Surely the past 7 years of ill-fated-unwinnable WAR have taught our generation that we can afford no apathy in regards to the United States presidency. Almost 4,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqi's--including children have died--SCRATCH!--have been KILLED since 'he' was selected--not elected as President of the United States of America.

Amazingly 8 million Blacks are still not registered to vote! What's even more shocking and not well known among the masses is that quite a few people who 'think' they are registered to vote, are not. Do you think that you are registered? You may be surprised to find out that you are not. It would be better for you to check and make sure that you are registered now than to wait until election day and be turned away.

You see, the elections of 2000, 2002, and 2004 were STOLEN through dozens of dirty tricks - before, during, and after Election Day - to make sure that our votes did not count. MyDem.org was created to give voters the tools we need to make sure our votes count - so 'they' never steal another election! In 2000, Florida illegally purged 57,000 voters - mostly Democrats and Blacks. Please visit the site to find out if you are REALLY registered to vote and have not been canceled, purged or otherwise robbed of your right to vote in the next election.

It is also a good idea to make a copy of your completed, filed registration--just in case you need it a the polls. Over cautious? Maybe, but if you speak to individuals who were denied their right to vote in the Bush - Gore fiasco you will view our "democratic" process a bit more closely and guard your right to vote with a bit more diligence. Dirty tricks and strategies were used before and with the stakes as high as they are this time, you can be sure the snakes are slithering under foot and under every poll.

We must vote if there is to be any hope for the future. I am not telling anyone who or what to vote for. I'm just urging you to take the time to familiarize yourself with the process and your place in it. I am asking you to weigh the issues and realize that neither candidate is all right or all wrong. It is a complex, multi-faceted decision you are being called to make, but that's why only grown ups get to vote. Everyone must participate including Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, Italian Americans, Irish Americans, and Jewish Americans--ALL AMERICANS.

Did you know that one of the first things they strip from an American citizen when (s)he is imprisoned for a felony is his/her right to vote? In order to restore those rights, a person with a past felony conviction must apply for Restoration of Civil Rights (RCR). If your rights have been stripped, take them back NOW! (Unless you live in Florida where nearly one in three African-American men cannot vote because of a racist ban that Floridians placed within their state constitution to restrict the voting rights of newly freed slaves.). Can you believe that? Talk about the disempowerment and disenfranchisement of our people! Maybe we should be out protesting after all, huh?

Your right to vote is precious. It is POWERFUL! In fact, "they" did not want to give it to women and Blacks in the first place and they cannot wait for an excuse to take it back. They know what we could do if we fully exercised that power. And 'they' love the fact that so many minorities and women fail to vote during so many elections. When everyone gets up, gets out and starts voting as eagerly as they get out to see the next box office draw, new video game or gadget, that is when things in this country will begin to change. Am I just spittin in the damned wind here?

If you refuse to register to vote and VOTE on election day--shut up when the new president takes office, steals your hard earned money to fund bogus wars while shoveling your children into the war machine like oily meat for blood-burger. Shut up about abortion and life. Shut up about gay marriage. Shut up about the ERA and women being paid equal pay for equal work. Shut up about stem cell research. Shut up about Affirmative Action. Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

And you know who you are, sitting there reading this blog with that smug look on your sorry unregistered face as if this is not directed at you. I am talking to YOU! Now go and get registered--then VOTE!

Are you still here reading while unregistered?!

What are you afraid of? It is easier than you imagine registering to vote and the feeling that you get from within yourself when you register and ultimately vote is so flippin hott--sexy even. Here are some other resources that might help if you have any questions about how you can register to vote:

Registering to Vote and Voting: USA.gov

Rock the Vote
Declare Yourself!

Unfortunately, far too many African Americans do not seem to realize the power of voting rights in a democracy. As a result, millions of African Americans still do not participate in the political process. And we wonder why we are met with such apathy and maltreatment after something such as Hurricane Katrina. The powers that be ignore us because so many of us ignore and neglect to use one of the greatest powers granted to members of a democracy.

Voting is an essential right of humanity that our fathers and mothers laid down their lives to win for us. You see, they realized that voting is about having a voice in the society in which one lives. It's about having the power to effect change. It's about respecting yourself and gaining the respect of those who are or aspire to be public servants. It says, "Serve me...Serve me and I'll vote for you. Desert me and I'll cut you loose."

Voting is the first very vital step in gaining equal opportunity to have life, liberty and to pursue happiness in these Unites States. It empowers us to have the best schools for our children. It brings jobs and justice to our communities. It brings swift aid to our communities in a disaster. It delivers unto us law enforcement and judges who will treat us with respect, dignity and fairness. Voting makes a man or woman stand tall. If you want to really get in touch with your sense of personal and global importance, register and vote in the next election. That’s power--more POWER to the people!

--Hallelujah Harris!

On Election Night, join a

BlueRevolution.us candlelight vigil

at your County Election Office to make sure they Count Every Vote - and wear blue!

PollworkersForDemocracy

puts you to work on Election Day as an official volunteer or paid worker

at a polling place near you.

VideoTheVote.org

needs video volunteers to visit polling places on Election Day

to film voter disenfranchisement - and upload it to the Internet immediately

so citizens can demand action.

Widespread Rape and Death vs. 2008 Olympics

2008-08-18T13:05:00.000-07:00

By Rogue Tantrums

I received an email last week reminding me that in Darfur, when men leave the refugee camps to collect firewood, they are either killed or captured, so it is up to the women to go out instead who often become victims of a targeted campaign of rape – a weapon of genocide, encouraged by the Sudanese government.

When someone asks me if I’ve been watching the Olympics, I usually just say no. Or state that it bores me. Which it really has from the tiny bit that I have seen. But the reality is, it is very VERY hard for me to become consumed as a meaningless spectator to competitions that are taking place on the very soil that sponsors a brutal government I’m an activist against.

This is what I have come to learn, China, is a very self absorbed country. Not it’s people, but it’s government. When it comes to ethics, the only thing that China is looking out for is it’s production and invariably it’s wallet. The country does not even look out for the well being of it’s own people, least known, the people of Sudan… the men who are killed, the children who lose their parents, the women who are raped and tortured by means of China’s support and financing.

Will China ever care about the people of Darfur? Never. So all of this begging I see from different organizations for the Chinese government to see the error of their ways will be for naught! The only way to effect China is to grab China by the balls – it’s money.

I’m only one person…. I can’t do much, but I’m boycotting all things made in China – which it seems is almost everything. And I’m also boycotting all Olympic sponsors, which includes, Coca-Cola; Johnson & Johnson; Kodak; Mc Donald’s, Visa; Samsung; Omega; Adidas; UPS; Snickers; and Staples.

Feel free to join me. Somebody’s gotta do something!

People Just LOVE to Judge!

2008-07-30T23:43:00.000-07:00

It's TRUE! People just LOVE to judge and the main ones are the ones who really have no business parting their crusty lips from glass houses to toss words and sticks and stones at any-dang-body. Those are theee worst, aren't they?

Recently I came across a very engaging discourse on a topic, which invariably has and always will cause people to contribute a myriad of thoughts, opinions, insights and perspectives; a.k.a. JUDGEMENTS. The topic is Unwed Motherhood. People really like to chime in on that one, don’t they? Few are easier to pick on than she is. If we add Black African America unwed motherhood, that’s even HOTTER. And Lord please do NOT let her be a Black African American unwed TEENAGED mother. Oh the stake really gets piled high then. Don’t it y’all?

Well, before the saints strike their matches and get to marchin in, I would like to offer that I have been a Black African American unwed teen-aged mother of one, a married mother of three and ultimately have been the divorced single parent of three for the past 15 years. Yes, my arse is hot! But not like some think. I have most assuredly been burned in the bed I made and I’ve paid and paid, but never quite got to play.

There are definitely hard Life Lessons to learn for a female faced with the experience of having a child out of wedlock and/or marrying a man, but ultimately ending up as a single parent. It is a hard Lesson, but it must be learned if women are to grow from the experience and teach our daughters and other young women following behind us so that they will not have to repeat our mistakes. Some learn. Some do not. I hope my words will help some sista somewhere learn something that will help her have just a lil less mess to bear.

What have I learned?

Life is not fair and if you want to make the odds at all better for yourself and any children you bring into this world think with your mind and not with your heart or your hot & bothered "woman-part".

Males will pledge to love you one day--and maybe they do, but like the wind, that "love" can change, rearrange and even dissipate altogether. It happens all the time. What then do you do if you do not already love yourself? You suffer. Your children suffer…everyone around you suffers until you finally GET IT!

Sadly, some poor sistas die never having ever quite learned the Lesson of this experience. They wait and wait, thinking that somehow the tables will turn. They fail to realize that life is NOT fair. People could walk all over you and misuse you all of your life…then you could just die. That would be that. Lessons:

* Do not count on people.

* Love yourself!

* All else falls into place behind SELF-LOVE.

* Look to God to “save” you—not human beings.

Never depend on a man or any other human being to be your savior as you shall be surely LOST if you do. Do you really think that every other woman on the planet did not feel that her love and her man was "different" and would last for-proverbial-ever? The Bible tells us that a man (human being) will fail us EVERY TIME! I do believe that is true.

* People will never fail to fail you.

There’s no need to be bitter or angry about the fact that people will fail you. Just except it and move on. The most important thing is that you are true to yourself and that you never let yourself down. To thine own self be true...and then the failure of others will not undo YOU.

I met my ex in high school. He was, I thought, my best friend. He was dirt poor, skinny, not at all sexy, argumentative and quite homely. But I did love him and he professed to love me. He promised that he would love me forever and love my daughter like she was his own. After many proposals, promises and professions I finally married him.

* Never marry an immature, unattractive, insecure person with inner demons and issues.

You know the history, right? If not go back and read, “Aw, Baby--Every Man Gotta Get Him a lil Somethin-Somethin!”

Revelation: People lie. Or they think they can be better and do better than they actually have the capacity to do. Perhaps they try, but they just cannot be the ideal that in their heart they want to be or at least know that they should be. I sincerely believe that my ex wanted to be a good husband and a good father, but he just did not have the character, the strength, the maturity or the decency and morals to pull it off. I, like many young women believed what I wanted to believe though. I paid for that--what's worse is that my daughter and my sons paid for that too. Still, up from the dust I rise. We rise. YOU rise!

* People will never fail to fail you.

So what’s a girl to do? You must sit with yourself and God. See yourself as the unique, precious reflection of God’s Divinity expressed on earth. Know that you are more than the sum of all your parts. Seek support, good counsel and a friendly shoulder when needed. Know that no man or woman can detract from your essential GREATNESS. This is the only way you can fulfill God, the Creator’s Purpose for your life. This is the only way to truly be a BLESSING to others.

* YOU and GOD are ALL You Ever Really Need

Still, if people are not letting you down one way or kicking you down another, they are judging you. People LOVE to judge and it starts from the moment we are conceived.
Children are innocent. They are not “legitimate” or “illegitimate”. They are our Legacy and we must sow seeds of GREATNESS into each and every one of them regardless of how they came to be. We let them down before they are ever born if we label them and cast aspersions upon their worth before they are ever born. We fail them. We miss the mark. That's a sin and a shame but...I guess it's well we learn early-

* People will never fail to fail you!

---Hallelujah Harris

The Iceberg of High Tech Attention

2008-07-21T19:18:00.000-07:00

We all know Internet dating is old news. I’ve done plenty of it myself and as a matter of fact, my daughter’s father married his second wife who he met through one of those matchmaker sites. I can’t remember if it was eharmony or match.com. The details don’t really matter, the point is, that sometimes there are happy endings to the Internet meet-market. Then sometimes there is a sad and devastating one that leads to arguments, tears, counseling and even divorce. However, I’m only going to touch the tip of this iceberg for now.

A friend of mine (who will go nameless of course) told me about a woman who met a guy online who she liked and chatted with all the time while she had a husband. For those of you who didn’t know that is called an affair. Obviously it’s not a physical one (yet) but it is an emotional affair which can be just as and sometimes even more dangerous than a physical one. Just so you know, in this age, folks are having emotional affairs all over the place, and some don’t even know that they’re doing it. They know SOMETHING is going on, but they can’t really explain what it is because high tech affairs are relatively new.

You know that if you can’t wait to get to the computer to check for messages from one particular person who excites you and makes you smile on the inside – and they are not your partner – you are having an emotional affair. Log off and back away from the computer because you need to get your head right. Something is terribly wrong with you!

“Aw Baby,” CONCLUSION & Jesse Jackson’s Desire to Cut Off Barack Obama’s “nuts” (Like Some ol’ Racist Jacker!)

2008-07-14T21:46:00.000-07:00

Off--Basically Because the Shoe Fit—Right Up His Lecherous, Black-Out of Wedlock-Baby-Making Black Arse

Wait. I’m going to wrap up my series on a man getin him a lil somethin-somethin, but I fittingly wish to touch on this shyte with Jesses Jackson coming all out of his face about Barack Obama saying that Black men need to step up, stop being MIA and raised their darned children.

Did Obama lie Negro?

You see, Jesse was angry because Barack broke a long-standing tradition within the Black community. That tradition holds that one is to never ever address Black-shyte in mixed company. Dirty laundry should be worn, torn off in the heat of passion, washed or even burned, but it should never, ever be aired in public—especially where white people (who as quiet as it is damned kept have just as much funk-n-junk in their drawers.)

Does Jesse think that white folks and Black people are unaware of the problems replete in African American communities across America in relation to Black men who feel entitled to go around marrying women, making babies or not marrying women and making babies and leaving the Black women to raise those children alone? African American men are failing as fathers at an ever-increasing rate. It is NOT cute or cool. It’s a pluckin epidemic!

He said that Barak was talking down to “Black folks.”

What?

No, Barack was not talking down to Black folks. He was calling y’all baby-making, whore mongers out. Baby-making whore monger are NOT all Black people. It is not all Black men. Baby-making whore mongers are those like my ex who go around with your wild, loose licks sticking them in everything you can grind, making babies and leaving those babies behind to be raised in oft time difficult situations with women or even girls shouldering the entire responsibility for the fruit of your crusty Black loins.

NEWSFLASH Mass-holes:
It’s a problem!

Listen, I’m not talking to white folks here, but they might be privy to the words. I don’t care. They already think Blacks are largely irresponsible degenerates for the most part. I’m talking to my people.

Black males do need to step up more than they have been doing and be men. They need to raise their children from day to day and give these children a working example of a responsible, responsive man whether they remain in a relationship with the mother(s) or damned not!

Why is this so very difficult to understand Jesse Jackson…and the rest of y’all saw-dust males who think it’s cool to make babies and bounce? What's the pluckin basis twitches?

Children need and deserve ACTIVE-PRESENT fathers.

To hear a Black man spit such vile filth from his lusty lips about castrating another Black man was just too much to stomach. Have you don totally lost ya ever-lovin mind Jesse Jackson? The jackers must have loved hearing that shyte! Why don't you just get up on stage and do an ol shufflin-soft shoe for massah--you....

The only good thing this stupid, unconscionable comment may have done is to separate Barack Obama from the likes of folks like Jesse Jackson and other so-called religious leaders in the Black community who no matter what the pluck they think, have no idea of when to just shut-up and let a brotha do his thing.

Of course Jesse Jackson has some very special issues around another brotha trying to win the presidency because he funked it up ROYALLY when he attempted to run! (SEE : http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/01/18/jackson.child.02/ )

Anyway…

Where the heck was I?

“Aw, Baby…every man’s gotta get him a lil somethin-somethin….” CONCLUSION

It is truly a scary time for all people in the world today and Black women are increasingly in a more vulnerable and dangerous position. People wonder why African American women are contracting HIV/AIDS at such a higher and faster rate than everyone else. In very many cases African American women are becoming infected with HIV/AIDS due to having unprotected sex with their husbands, other women’s husbands and long-term significant others. I did not realize it at the time but the longer I stayed with my ex spouse, the more I was risking infection with HIV/AIDS and all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases.

Why are so many Black women and men not taking the HIV/AIDS crisis more seriously?

The Centers for Disease Control report that In the United States, the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a health crisis for African Americans. At all stages of HIV/AIDS—from infection with HIV to death with AIDS—blacks (including African Americans) are disproportionately affected compared with members of other races and ethnicities. Can y’all not see the writing on the wall?

Here’s a secret that is kept really quiet: Marriage is good for the Black man’s health and the health of Black children, but it is not good in general for the health of Black women. In “The Consequences of Marriage for African Americans,” a comprehensive review of the most recent literature (since about 1990) on the subject the following findings were revealed:
“Marriage promotes the economic, social, familial and psychological well-being of black men and women — as it does for men and women generally. Marriage is wonderful for children, who turn out to be less trouble-prone than their peers from single-parent-households. The economic benefits of marriage are more pronounced for black couples than for whites, more often keeping their families from slipping below the poverty line.

But when it comes to physical health, marriage is worse than neutral for black women. Listen to the report, newly published by the Institute for American Values:
Our research finds that marriage brings small health benefits to black men — and none to black women. In fact, married black women are significantly less likely to report having excellent health than are unmarried black women.”

So now what? Though the health benefits of marriage are not there for African America women as they are for the African American men and children, there are still many benefits for the African American wife and mother for whom, if the truth be told, holds the well-being of her family in the highest regard. Marriage is overall very good for the African American family and our communities. The research reveals many key benefits that African Americans and their children receive from in tact families of strong and lasting marriages. A few of those benefits are:

* African American boys with married parents are markedly less likely to become delinquent and they also tend to do better in school.
* Married African American men gain from $4,000 increases in wages compared to unmarried African American men.
* Married African American men are happier in life than unmarried men.
* African American females also appear to derive very important benefits from marriage, though not as many as the men do.
* Marriage profoundly increases the economic well-being of Black families. * Marriage appears to inhibit crime.

Parental marriage shapes child well-being on many levels. (From: AmericanValues.org )
I have been single for more years than I had been married. I have raised my daughter and my two sons alone while their useless father moved in with his whore and her son. He stayed with for years while asking me behind her back and on a consistent basis for my forgiveness and to allow him to ‘come home’ for most of those years. (Of course her dripping ignorant hole did not know that he was doing this. The whore was allowed to think she had stole ‘somethin’ which was nothing & ultimately why I would not have it--the NOTHING back.) He likely just kept his lies and his seminal fluid flowin right up her dumb-whorish arse. Why do whores act like they do not know that married men are lying to them?

I did not take him back because he was never really good to our children or me and I also believed that if he cheated on me once and in such a blatant, brazen and callous way, he most assuredly would do it again. I just could not see myself living with that kind of stress in my life ever again. Still, if he had of at least been a good father to our children, I would perhaps (still not sure) have taken him back for the sake of our family.

But he was a lousy, uncaring father who actually I am ashamed to admit was never really good to my babies. So, I think the protective, mother lion part of myself was happy and relieved to see his evil ass go. He often argued with me about my loving the babies more than I loved him. He was a real B…really. He was truly the husband of every wife's NIGHTMARES--Just what you pray to God you don't end up with...a mean-spirited, lying, abusive adulterer.

I felt like dying daily while I was maried to this ditch.

His pus-ridden whore actually did me a favor, which is why I suppose I let her live.

In hindsight I suspect, but am not certain that if I had taken him back with the condition that we receive intense marital counseling, family counseling and that he agree to spend quality time with our children and never under any circumstances hit them—maybe it would have been all right. I don’t know. Hindsight is supposed to be 20/20, but it’s all still so foggy for me because one never knows what real good or true evil lurks in the heart of any man or woman. I erred on the side of caution and I can only hope that my children are better off than they would have been if I had allowed him to return to our family.

In the years that I have been single, I have been proposed to by more than a couple men. They were all decent fellows. A couple of them were well to do men who wanted to give my children and me a better life. I chose, however, to go it alone. I very seldom allowed anyone I was seeing to even meet my children. My rule was that unless I was seriously contemplating marriage with any particular gentleman than I would not introduce him to my children. My mother had been a divorced parent and I did not want my children to see the parade of characters go in and out of their lives that I had witnessed as a child.

Now my children are grown. I have yet to re-marry and do not know if I ever will. This is not because I have given up on men—quite the contrary. I have set my standards much higher than they were when I was a girl. I am a woman. I know what caliber of man I will need in order to contemplate a real relationship. I offer what I require and I will in no ways settle for less…and that as they say is that.

Today many Black women are talking about and seriously involved in or contemplating involvement in “man-sharing” situations. I can’t go for that. Myy ex actually informed me a few years ago when I foolishly gave him an opportunity to redeem himself that relationships--adult relationships are 'different' now. He said cockily that he enjoyed relationships with multiple sex partners who he knew also had multiple sex partners. He smugly suggested that I should contemplate this with him. I said...

"Your greazy-wormy lil-slender-short-half-limp-thang was not worth me when I was 20 years old and now that I am almost 40 you want to pretend that you can disrespect me; a Queen and wrap that lil drippy shyte around a bunch of wenches--AND me? Go to hell Negro!"

And that was that...until he and his "multiple-sex-partners" contract and finally die of AIDS...which they likely all will.

I am a one man woman and I demand a one woman man. Nothing else will do it for me. Ya know? I know there are Black men out there with morals, standards and decency. I’ve met them. By God, there must be one for me.

I’ve yet to encounter just my ONE though.

So I remain alone. I am open only to my true Black king. Yes…and I did say Black.

I have dated white men. They were very good to me. (But that's another series...LOL!)

I am awaiting my Black King…for now.

Hallelujah Harris!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T - A Little Respect!

2008-07-07T22:41:00.000-07:00

By Rogue Tantrums

Last week, my daughter asked me, “Mom, do you think you’ll ever get married?”

I said, “Maybe one day.”

Then she said, “I doubt you will. Men are idiots.”

I turned and looked at her as she sat on the floor in front of me. “Honey, don’t say that.” I said, “All men are not idiots.”

Without looking at me, she said, “Yes they are.”

“No. They are not. I dated Patrick and he’s not an idiot!” I said.

She asked me, “Then why did you guys break up?”

I told her, “Well…he just wasn’t a strong enough person for me. But that doesn’t make him an idiot.”

She then said, “Well if you’re a man and you can’t be strong, then you’re an idiot.”

I countered, “That’s not true. I also dated Cedric and he’s not an idiot.”

She asked me, “Well then why did you break up with him?”

I told her, “He just had anger management problems.”

Then she said, “If a man can’t control his anger, then he’s an idiot.”

I disagreed. I said, “No, that doesn’t make him an idiot. I dated Eric and he’s not an idiot.”

She, of course, asked, “Why did you break up with him?”

I told her, “He just wasn’t as understanding of my situation as I needed him to be.”

She said, “If a man can’t be understanding, then he’s an idiot.”

I stopped there. I was having a hard time arguing with her because the truth of the matter was that, I felt she made some valid points, but her mind was already made up, she wasn’t open to hearing that a person’s flaw doesn’t necessarily make them idiots.

I was also feeling a little sad, because I wasn’t able to sustain a happy relationship long enough for her to see things differently. Mostly, my pre-teen daughter has known her mother to be out of a relationship more often than she was in one. And here she was, jaded by men through second hand experiences with them.

I’m not a male basher, nor do I condone my daughter being one, but when I look at the history of men and women, it’s the funniest thing…it appears that there is no level of love that prevents people from either trashing or stepping out on their relationships. In my Black Family class I took in college, my professor had a theory that it’s not love that binds a marriage, but respect. The idea is that people fall in and out of love with each other all the time, and that being in constant love is not very realistic, but that if two people have a mutual and genuine respect for each other, their relationship can endure the inevitable strains of marriage.

How many of us actually respect the people we are with? I’m not talking about that three-month good behavior at the beginning of every relationship. I’m talking about pure respect for another human being who has entrusted you with their heart? Some of us who demand to be respected have to take a hard and painful look at ourselves and decide if we have even earned it. Do we respect ourselves? Do we respect other people?

When a person only takes, inventory runs low.

“Aw, Baby…Every Man’s Gotta Get Him a Lil Somethin-Somethin….” PT 3

2008-06-30T21:08:00.000-07:00

by Hallelujah Harris

There are African American women who are so damned DESPERATE to stay with a Black male that they will knowingly allow their husbands and men to engage in homosexual activity with not just other women, but also with other men. Oh, yes!

Many Black women just shake their heads and click their teeth saying, “Gurrrrllllll….you know that’s just how they are. They’re just doggs…that’s all…dogs!”

I reject that!

And I’mma tell you why…

Racist stereotypes about Black African American sexuality have permeated AmeriKKKan culture since the first Caucasian “explorer” got a glance at an African woman’s backside. The propaganda was invented to hide the white man’s lust and guilt rather than to depict anything valid about stolen African people. Casting the Black woman as a whore; a Jezebel is a means of dehumanizing her, making her less than and thus making her easier to victimize, terrorize and sodomize.

The same method has been utilized to dehumanize the African American man. From popular myths about the size of the Black male’s penis to the propaganda that casts our African kings as intellectually inferior, lazy, violent and over-sexed. AmeriKKKa has never failed to provide more than too many stereotypes about the Black man.

We are not whores, dogs and animals. We are KINGS and QUEENS!

Our men, our women and our future generations deserve much more than blanket statements that condemn us all. I still have faith in us as a people. I know that out there somewhere there are real Black men. I have even met quite a few of them. These men strive for greatness in all they do. They are honest, trustworthy and they are men of faith and character. These men are kings. They are real.

Good Black men are in the schools teaching our children. They labor in our struggling factories. They strive to climb the corporate ladders of America. They fight overseas. They read to their children and hold their wives in big strong arms every night. Yes, the media loves to put clowns on stage and in the news, but the real story of the African American man is overlooked. The negative image is put out so often that Black men themselves believe the hype. It then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. To continue to focus on Black clowns, to overlook our kings and totally give up on the Black African American man would be akin to giving up on the entire race. This will not do.

Sure, there will be those sistas and brothas who get all up in arms by the fact that I am airing this secret which is no secret at all. They will call me a Black-male-basher or anything else they can think of, but my main detractors are the main ones who know what I am talking about here. Some may choose to describe it differently or within different forums…but all y’all know what I’m talking about here! I cannot even count the number of times I have heard Black men’s basic response to Kwame’s ‘thang’ with Beatty:

“Listen, Kwame is a man and a man’s gonna do what a man’s gonna do…”

“Leave Kwame alone. He ain’t doin nothing that no other man ain’t done…”

“So he’s getting himself a lil piece of a—on the side. So what?”

“They all do it. Remember Bill Clinton? If a white man could do what do you expect from a Black man?”

“It’s a man thang---y’all wouldn’t understand…”

It goes on and disgustingly on.

This mode of thinking has resulted in an obvious self-fulfilling prophecy for African American’s and their marriages. Young Black men hear, see and feel the prevalence of this perspective on the Black male to such a degree that they accept it as truth on some level within their own consciousnesses. They begin to accept that it is just in their nature to be lechers. Some go as far as to believe that it is their God-given birthright to use women as some kind of ‘ass sampling platter’. Make no mistake, however, it’s not their right. It’s wrong and all African Americans are suffering due to this dysfunctional attitude about sex, manhood and fidelity.

Malone-Colon, an African American psychologist who is director of the Washington-based National Healthy Marriage Resource Center, a clearinghouse for resources for strengthening marriages states, "In a number of surveys, African-Americans report that they are less satisfied. They also report higher levels of conflict — even violence. Then there's the matter of domestic justice — sharing household responsibilities. And infidelity rates are higher among African-American men.” ( From:UunmarriedAmerica,org )

Luckily for me, my ex-husband’s foolishness all occurred in the early 90’s before e-mailing and text messaging became so prevalent. I feel very sorry for people married to immoral people today in high-tech, porn infested, texting cyber-land because it’s increasingly easy and tempting for the lechery and dishonesty to slither under the marital radar screen. This is not only affecting African American marriages and families, but also all American families. It’s awful.

I shudder to think what I would have gone through if my ex had easy access to a computer, a Blackberry and God please forbid a web-cam, back when we were married. Yes, in the 90’s those things existed but were not yet as commonplace as they are today. Adultery, of course, is as old as King David and my ex was bound and determined to do whatever he wanted to do with or without technological communication aids. A person is either going to be honest and faithful or not. If they lack decency and commitment there really is nothing that can be done. You have to just get out of their wayward way and let them go for whatever the hell they know. And that is exactly what I did.

Kilpatrick apparently fully utilized today’s technology to communicate with Beatty and if the transcripts of their text messages are valid, it reveals their total lack of regard for decency, marriage and children. For Detroit Kilpatrick and Beatty are complete and total embarrassments. Neither represent or symbolize what true Black kings and Black queens are essentially about at their core for while everyone makes mistakes, much more is required of those who have been given and entrusted with so much.

In the midst of all of this I shudder to think of what levels of depravity my ex-husband would have sunk to in our marriage if we had then what we now have in terms of tech-tools and communication devices. Luckily for me, cell phones had not yet become as popular and widely used as they are today. If he’d text messaged or emailed from his work computer I may have never read the disgusting details of my husband’s sexual encounters with a female that we had both attended and graduated from high school with. I might have spent years sharing a bed with a man and by osmosis any number of whorish, immoral, desperate females…or males on the so-called ‘down-low’. Who knows? With my low down ex-husband anything would be quite possible because his basic motto is, “If it feels good—do it! (Or screw it as the case may be.)

It is truly a scary time for all people in the world today and Black women are increasingly in a more vulnerable and dangerous position. People wonder why African American women are contracting HIV/AIDS at such a higher and faster rate than everyone else. In very many cases African American women are becoming infected with HIV/AIDS due to having unprotected sex with their husbands, other women’s husbands and long-term significant others. I did not realize it at the time but the longer I stayed with my ex spouse, the more I was risking infection with HIV/AIDS and all kinds of sexually transmitted diseases.

Why are so many Black women and men not taking the HIV/AIDS crisis more seriously?

END OF PART 3

Hallelujah Harris

The Memory Seduction of Music

2008-06-24T10:05:00.000-07:00

By Rogue Tantrums

OMG! This post is a day late…you’ll have to forgive my tardiness as I am a real life flesh and blood human with a life outside of the internet trying to create memories for my old age so that my mind doesn’t turn into mush.

Speaking of memories, I am currently listening to Bebe Moore Campbell’s Singing in the Come Back Choir book on tape to drown out the music of a CD I just bought by Donny Hathaway. I’ll get to Donnie in sec. Listening to the beginning of the series of tapes was quite irritating I must say, because the tape gave very condescending instructions as if it were children’s literature I was about to engage in; but once the story actually got started it, of course, it pulled me in, to the point that I actually looked forward to my drive to work so that I could get another slice of the story.

Back to Donny. I’ve been meaning to pick up his self titled CD forever – about the same amount of time that it’s been on my Amazon.com wish list. I was so happy when it came too. I tore open the plastic wrapper and popped in the CD and immediately my heart sank and I wanted to drown in my tears with the first word that escaped from his legendary mouth. Not only is the spirit of the entire CD incredibly heavy, but more importantly in my case, it reminded me of shiny love was melted and destroyed by a man who shattered my heart.

Remember Andrew? He was a HUGE Donny Hathaway fan and a friend of Layla’s. And perhaps it was all the advertisement I’ve seen of Layla Hathaway’s (Donny’s oldest daughter) latest CD that made me finally break down and pick up the music of her father, but I hadn’t anticipated lamenting through song in my heart and in my head, over an old wound that Andrew was responsible for. Donny’s songs, Giving Up and A Song For You were two that Andrew had once dedicated to me and as I wrapped myself in the lyrics and experienced the pain and passion in Donny’s voice, I began to spiral in a self-induced depression. The spiral led me to connect also with Hathaway’s struggle with depression and his suicide and the burning and lasting thought that his end could easily be mine as I’ve struggled with depression for years.

I think I gave myself too much credit. I thought I was a lot stronger than I am in regards to resisting the magical and magnetic pull of music and the strings that connect music to our memories. The truth of the matter is, I don’t want Andrew. He’s a married-lying-cheater and I deserve so much better; but in the swirling warmth of the music that once connected us, a music that expressed his love for me (he said) better than he could, I longged for those loving days when he was the sunshine of my comforting peace. The music whispered pretty little lies in my ears about what seemed to be while the CD was spinning. I had to SNAP OUT OF IT! That’s what my visit to the library and Singing in the Come Back Choir was for.

After I’m done listening to this book on tape, I’ll have to consciously associate Hathaway with something else to create new memories with his music so that my association with Andrew is completely erased. Healing is not a passive process. It’s an active one.

“Aw, Baby…Every Man’s Gotta Get Him a Lil Somethin-Somethin….” PT 2

2008-06-16T15:41:00.000-07:00

by Hallelujah Harris

It’s time for a confrontation of Truth!

It's time for a relationship revolution led by strong Black woman who will not lay down passively beneath the pounding ball-sacks of adulterous and/or lecherous men with multiple sex partners (oft times of both sexes)!

The Black woman is under attack. If she fails to fight back by arming herself with self-respect, self-Love and Knowledge...she will surely die.

Again, it is time for a revolution within African American relationships! Her man and her own naivety are MURDERING the African American woman! And it is well passed the time for the Black woman to wake up and stop letting any male who would marry her or promise to be in a monogamous relationship with her to continue in her presence once she learns that the man is an adulterer, or a lecher or even a brother on the so-called ‘down-low’.

We are in a state of EMERGENCY!

The Black woman MUST protect herself at all times and teach her daughters and her sons to do the same. Unprotected raw-sex must become a thing of the past in this new era if we are to survive! Due to the fact that so many spouses lie and cheat, I feel that we must make regular HIV testing and condom use common in all sexual relationships--even marriages. That's right! Do you know how many married women--especially black women have been exposed to HIV due to 'thinking' they were in a monogamous relationship with a low-down-down-low-dog? You see, it's just too late to try to protect ypurself AFTER you finally find out (if you ever do) that your spouse is lying, cheating and sticking his raw member into whores and/or other men's asses. If your man refuses to wear a condom, refuse him sex or at least get yourself the female condom.

As for women who unknowingly have sex with married males, I am not referring to those unfortunate souls in my blast focusing on this shameful issue within Black relationships. Unwitting adulterous women and the benighted wives of lecherous, adulterous men are at a constantly increasing risk of contracting all manner of STD’s and HIV/AIDS. Such women who sincerely do not know that the male with whom they are having a sexual relationship is married are victims of deception just as the wives of these males are. Such women are going into a state of shock on a regular basis in this country as their doctors hit them with the news that they are HIV positive.

Wives...women: Wake up!

In relation to "the other woman" here, I am referring to cheating spouses and the whores that know a male is married (and even has children) but these immoral juice-dripping Jezebels knowingly and enthusiastically spread their desperate thighs for another woman’s husband. So, let’s not get it twisted. I’m pointing here to two-legged male doggs and the complicit B’s (#14) that they hump.

And by the way, before some pinhead points it out, I know that women cheat on their husbands too and at an increasingly higher rate. I'll deal with that later. Adulterous wives are just as wrong as adulterous men! There are some deeply complex issues and motivations behind the actions of wives who cheat and husbands who cheat.

Again, wives who cheat are just as wrong as the men who cheat. Their motivations, desires and goals, however, are often quite different from those of men, who basically just want to escape the boredom of a committed relationship and desire to feel a woman other than his wife's vaginal walls wrapped around his lust-throbbing member. That excites them. That gets them off.

It's different for most cheating wives though. Again, we'll go more into that at another time.

Anyway…

As I’ve watched Kilpatrick shuck, jive and duck through this, that and the other ridiculous situation, I’ve been struck by the similarity of this man’s apparent disregard for morals, his wife and his children, to my father’s, the other average Black males of America and my own ex-husband’s attitude. They appear to believe that slapping their wet sloppy penises around the town is their God-given right. They fully subscribe to my ex’s maggot-motto: “Every man’s gotta get him a lil somethin-somethin!”

The African American community across this country is in great jeopardy today and the lack of serious commitment to values, marriage, parenthood and decency is in large part a contributor to our state of affairs (pun intended) today. African American women are contracting HIV/AIDS at an alarmingly faster rate than any other group in the United States. Most Black women don't find out that they have AIDS until they have had the disease for quite some time already.

FROM the CDC:

The impact of HIV/AIDS in the African American community has been devastating. HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American men and women between the ages of 25 and 44. Despite the recent advances in HIV treatment, young people of color and African Americans are still dying from AIDS at higher rates than any other race. African Americans represent an alarmingly large proportion of all AIDS diagnoses in the United States, and an even greater proportion of all HIV diagnoses. The disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on African Americans and all people of color warrants enhanced interventions that address the perceptions of disease prevention in all African Americans and the unique realities and context of the lives of Black women.

EDUCATE YOURSELF: http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/women/resources/factsheets/women.htm

Do morals mean absolutely anything anymore? Of what value to men is family? Do Black men and Black women clearly see what jeopardy our homes, our children and are futures are in? Do the majority of Black males in America have the interest and/or ability to see the destruction of the African American family core values and what impact that is having on all of our lives?

Is being a Black man about more than how much or how many vaginas a brotha can sample? Is the fact that every woman’s vagina looks and feels different (just as every woman’s face does) a valid reason for planting one’s member into every vagina one can find? What’s the basis Brothas?

And what about the Black women willing to knowingly have sex with another Black woman’s husband? What's missing within you? Why are you so destructively desperate and dirty? What’s the basis Sistas?

Am I Black-male-bashing just by asking the questions? And if the answers to the questions point to a valid, real and authentic problem, is it bashing anybody? Or must all Black African American women grin and bear whatever is dished out to them if the server is a Black male?

The Black male is killing the Black female just as the evil and wicked powers that be wanted all along. You see, once the Black woman is destroyed--African America is also destroyed. But we do not have to go quietly screwing into that dark night. We can do better.

Of course not all African American men lie, cheat betray their wives and abandon their children, but enough of them do to the point that it has helped to create a disproportionate level of poverty, illegitimacy, violence, HIV/AIDS infection and despair in largely African American communities. Simply put, African American communities love and need our males—to be men!

For the record, I love Black men. The African American man is a king among men at his best. My sons are Black men. My father and my brothers are Black men. I love them all dearly. The truth, as my mama would say, is the truth anyhow. Black men and Black women will need to work together if we as a people are ever to see positive transformation occur in our families, our communities and in all of our lives.

The African American woman, who heads the greater percentage of African American households cannot be expected to turn everything around single-handedly or single-parentally for that matter. For so long she's toiled...for so long the man that is supposed to love her the most has done her the most harm. She's a survivor though. The Black woman is the Original Original Woman and she is the strongest Force on earth. This world needs her to wake up! She can turn this thing around...but time is of the essence.

Philandering Black males have long been infamous in Black communities around the country. There ain’t never been much shame in they game neither. They seem to feel absolutely no stigma around cheating, committing adultery, abandoning their children, fathering children out of wedlock, etc.

Despite whatever trouble, pain or destruction is left in the wake of their two-legged dogg-like behavior, not all, but far too many brothas seem to be almost proud of the sexual escapades that damage Black women, devastate Black children and destroy most any hope of a strong future and any lasting legacy for African Americans nationwide. Fact, the African American family is an endangered entity.

So as I watch Kilpatrick address questions around his and Beatty’s affair and I watch most Black men respond to the affair, very few see anything really wrong or unusual about Kilpatrick’s adulterous actions. If most of them find fault with him, I imagine that many would also have to find fault with themselves. And they sho don’t want to do that!

If Black women see Kilpatrick and Beatty’s adulterous scandal as wrong (and most do) they surely do not see it as unusual. So many Black women seem to have given up on the idea of decency in relation to Black males. Too many wives look the other way just to keep their cheating husbands. Too many women opt to believe in ‘fairy-tales’ trusting Black male members to never betray them or to go up inside of them laced with lethal doses of disease carried back to her from between another woman's legs or another man's anus. It's true!

There are African American women who are so damned DESPERATE to stay with a Black male that they will even knowingly allow their husbands and men to engage in homosexual activity with other men. Oh, yes!

Many Black women just shake their heads and click their teeth saying, “Gurrrrllllll….you know that’s just how they are. They’re just doggs…that’s all…dogs!”

I reject that!

And I’mma tell you why…

Cheating: It's no fun being the other woman either

2008-06-09T11:30:00.000-07:00

Fortunately, I’ve never had to experience what Hallelujah Harris has with a cheating husband and three children because I have opted not to marry so far. Contrary to Hallelujah’s journey, I have (unknowingly) been the other woman.

I don’t want to generalize here about military men, but I will add the fact that the guy I’m talking about, we’ll call him Andrew, was also an active military man in the Navy. I met him online, as an initial pursuit of love, but once I met him in person and spoke to him on the phone for a few months, I felt like something just wasn’t right. I couldn’t pinpoint it and I really tried, because after he met my mother, who loved the heck out of him, I really wanted to be able to say what it was that was bothering me. I kept coming up blanks, and it was annoying me because my gut was screaming loudly!

Andrew was incredibly sweet and soft spoken. He was intelligent and adventurous and when he finally met my daughter, he was sweet to her and patient with both of us. But I wouldn’t budge. And for years we were only friends. We remained friends for three years and as his friend I told him about my history, all the craziness I had experienced with different people I dated and my current mission in life as a whole person in the pursuit of happiness. He was supportive, and understanding and always ready to help me if I ever needed it.

One ordinary August day, I was on the phone with him and I expressed a blossoming interest in moving to Puerto Rico. A few days later he told me about a film festival in Puerto Rico and said he’d be willing to take care of the travel and accommodations if I were willing to go with him. I needed a day to mull this over, because I didn’t want him to think that just because he was paying my way, it meant he was “getting some.” When I spoke to him again, he assured me that we can go strictly as friends and that he didn’t want anything from me. He urged me to look at it as one friend helping out another. For my own peace of mind, I reminded him again there would be NO SEX, before I agreed to go.

When we went to Puerto Rico, we had a super time. When I say he took care of everything, I mean, he took care of everything… the car rental; the plane tickets; the hotel; the food…everything. We laughed, and joked and explored and drove around and had a really wonderful time there. Then I started thinking, why was I so paranoid about him? He was great! He seemed to be everything I had ever wanted in a man.

A few weeks after we came home, I agreed to giving a romantic relationship with him a serious try. He was going to be stationed in Virginia and I thought, this long distance relationship would be worth trying to work through. Well, I was only able to think like this for a month, because after a month of being officially “together” I checked my voicemail and sat frozen listening to a message to me from his wife.

Oh, I cried and cried and cried for weeks over him. I cried at home. I cried at work. I couldn’t wait for my daughter to go to bed at night so I could cry alone. I was a total and complete mess because the truth of the matter was, I had grown to love him very much. In fact, I loved him so much so that I felt like a Billy Holliday song… willing to stay in it, despite his repulsive behaviour until he left her. Both friends and family were very worried about me because no one had EVER seen me in a state such as this. Then I snapped out of it. Left him alone for good.

What was his explanation for all of this, well, according to Andrew, when he was me his other life didn’t exist. I existed to him in a bubble and nothing else mattered when he was with me in the bubble. That is psychotic!

I thought I was doing all the right things. I thought being friends first would have warded off all that nonsense, but it did absolutely nothing! However, I did learn many important things from this, but the most important thing is to trust myself. That loud inner voice that sounds like paranoia, is something more like a spiritual guide, and if I keep ignoring it, I’m just going to keep crashing and burning.

Rogue Tantrums

“Aw, Baby…Every Man’s Gotta Get Him a Lil Somethin-Somethin….”

2008-06-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

by Hallelujah Harris
PART ONE

Those were the words that spewed forth from my then military husband's greasy lips on the day of our 7th anniversary when I confronted him with the lust-letter and panty shield I found in his brief case.

“Aw, Baby…every man’s gotta get him a lil somethin-somethin….”

The louse had carried these incriminating items back to our home with him from a trip he took to Detroit, Michigan where he claimed he was going to see about his ailing mother. He had written the nasty note on the very day of our anniversary while on his way back to his wife and children. It was for him some kind of sick trophy or perverted memento of his dirty deed. I guess he needed it for the times when he knew he would fall short as a father, a husband and/or as a man. He probably wanted to yank it out and sniff his piggish nostrils full of oozing vaginal funk so he could reminisce about the junk he and his cheap piece of somethin-somethin just sunk to.

Reading the letter was a surreal experience for me. I’ll never for get it.

“I have long since washed my hands,” my husband penned on our anniversary, “ but the smell of your sweet, hot desire juices still lingers in my mind.”

Blood gushed from the pit of my gut to my temples as I read my husband’s words to his stank-drippin piece of ‘somethin-somethin’ on a day that was supposed to commemorate our union. For the first time in my life I realized that when people said that they ‘saw RED’ it was not just a figure of speech. I saw it. I tasted blood and I saw a vision of myself in my mind jellying him into our mattress with our handy kitchen knife.

Reading this letter with another woman’s soiled sanitary panty shield in hand was so compelling that I actually had to run from the house crying…or kill him. I remember jumping into my car and just driving into the darkest night of my life for hours and hours on into early morning. God kept me alive that night. God kept him alive that night. I was blind with every awful emotion known to woman!

The repugnant pig had actually carried home a frothy feminine napkin ripe with what he called ‘sweet, hot desire juices’ but was really some funky vaginal discharge from heaven knows what kind of sexually transmitted disease the maggot-mongering slop-mop was festering between her desperate pair of husband-stealing-sweaty thighs. What an article for a wife to have in hand.

Can you just imagine?! It never fails to amaze me the depths of depravity some men and women will sink to just for the thrill of being nasty. It’s as if EVERY aspect in life loses it’s significance and sacredness when they hold it up next to their over-heated genitals. You see, this man was happily and hungrily destroying his own children’s childhoods and he did not care one iota. This Black female was willingly participating in devastating another Black woman and three Black children. She did not care one iota…actually she seemed to be creaming in her draws about the whole nasty affair. Amazing!

He even had the nerve, knowing what he had just done and coming from that crusty female’s desperate slimy bed to try to kiss me and say, “Happy Anniversary, Baby…I love you…”

Great. I had married him against my better judgment, deceived by his intense professions of love and pledges of undying devotion. It was perhaps just what I foolishly wanted to hear after breaking up with my daughter’s lecherous father who had at the age of 22 at least four children by three different females scattered about good ol Detroit City.

(Are you seeing a pattern here on my part? I certainly do now, but my head was way too far up my can to see it back then. When I was 20 years old, I knew that I knew EVERYTHING as only a 20-year old can. We’ll tackle the whole ‘stupidity of-sistas’-habitually-getting-into-and remaining-in- so-called-relationships-with unworthy-males’…later, but that is a HUGE part of the problem too.)

My husband had been my best friend since high school and no one other than him could have ever persuaded me to get married. After witnessing my own parents’ disaster of a marriage, I had decided never to get married before the age of 35. Absolutely nothing about the institution appealed to me.

In fact, when my daughter’s father suggested that we marry after we discovered that I was pregnant, I said and I quote, “What? Get married? No way! I’ve already made one mistake. I’m sure not in no hurry to go on and make two!” (For someone so smart…I was so stupid! I had dodged one bullet just to stick my head down a lit cannon. Maybe it was all just my fate.)

I tried, however, even at the tender age of 20 to keep my wits and senses about me. At the time when my ex was trying to persuade me to marry him, I was readily responding with the poor statistics on marriage. I even went so far as to warn him that I would likely be coming with a lot of unresolved baggage due to the awful relationship I had just ended with ‘my baby’s daddy’. He did not care. He insisted that he loved me so very much and that he would love my child as if she were his own. (What I did not think to find out was just how much was he actually going to love his own biological child or children. He loved his sons so much that he abandoned them both before the youngest one ever even started kindergarten! found out way too late that he loved no one or nothing as much as he loved the sensation of that throbbing lil worm in his drawers!)

“Listen,” I pressed, “I know you have heard that half of all marriages fail. I think we should wait…”

“I don’t want to wait, Baby. I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you and I will love your daughter just like she is my own—“

“But—“

“Marry me, Baby…”

“But---“

“I love you!” I was hushed with a kiss—many kisses, but the statistics still lingered on my lips and in the back of my mind. I was intelligent enough to know that the truth about the success rate for marriage warranted further consideration. I was not yet wise enough, however, to put my foot down while an impassioned young man was doing his damndest to bring down my resistance, my resolve and likely my drawz.

Still, the outlook for success in marriages was bad then. The statistics on marriage are even more disheartening now and the success rate for marriages is disproportionately worse for African American couples. According to government data, the divorce rate among African American couples is higher than other American couples. The divorce rate for Black couples stands at 12%, while White couples divorce at a rate of 10%, and Hispanics at 7%, each year. (SEE: Marriage & the Black Family by Ruthie MacDonald.)

Still, at 20 after telling him ‘no,’ at least a half a dozen times, I finally agreed to jump the broom. Why? Why? Why? Don’t even bother trying to figure that one out as I am still asking myself that very question to this day. Foolishness and youth are the only lame excuses I can find. I married him and quickly set about the business of bringing two more innocent children into our ill-fated little Black family.

Seven years after exchanging ‘I do’s,’ as I held some woman’s used panty shield in my hand, I felt my heart actually whither within my bosom. It was an unnamable, deep, cutting pain. My husband and I had 3 young African American children who desperately needed the foundation of an in tact family and he pulls that deplorable mess on me—on us. It was like some pitiful scene out of a Terri McMillan novel only I was not waiting to exhale. I was waiting to pluckin wake up!

Yes, it was years ago and I really don’t even think about that horrible time in my life anymore, except for when one of my sons is struggling with an issue that I know is rooted in his basic fatherless ness during childhood…or during PMS sometimes. Every now and then though, it all comes back to me when I witness the egregious and continued destruction of and in African American women, our children and our families. For instance, my ex’s vile words echo in my head every time I turn on the news and hear more of the shameful tale of Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty of Detroit.

“Aw, Baby…every man’s gotta get him a lil somethin-somethin….”

It’s time for a confrontation!
It’s time for a revolution within African American relationships and families.

END OF PART ONE

Homegirl You Talk Too Much - You Know You Never SHUT UP!!

2008-05-19T23:14:00.001-07:00

Disclaimer: I probably should not be writing about this subject matter, because I have already alienated myself from friends and family. One family member, I hear, is highly offended by one of my articles I’ve written recently and has said so to other members of our family. So what am I supposed to do? Not write? Yeah. Right.

On Saturday morning, while recovering from the heat of the day and the exhaustion from my morning fencing class, one of my aunts called me on three-way with my mother, asking me if I knew if one of my cousins was pregnant. The question kind-of blindsided me because I had just IM-ed my cousin a few days earlier, trying to set up a time when our daughters could play together. Was the pregnancy a secret? According to my aunt it wasn’t. We discussed the fact that she moved to the same city as me and didn’t bother telling me that either. Had I unknowingly wronged her?

I’m living in my own personal episode of the Twilight Zone, because I don’t know how a woman who introduces me to her circle of friends as her sister-like cousin can just move into my city after all we've been through, and she totally ignores me. Wait. Yes I can. After giving this mornings conversation time to simmer in my mind’s juices, I suppose what my dear cousin is doing, is not all that different from what we, as people - as narcissistic human beings – do all the time.

Tell me if this sounds familiar. Your phone rings, you look at your caller ID and it’s your grandmother, who likes to talk your ear off, and repeat herself after every third sentence, and though you love the heck out of her, you are a bit busy and quite honestly, simply don’t want to be bothered with her boring conversation. So what do you do? Nothing. You don’t pick up the phone – let it roll into voice mail, and vow to yourself to call her back at another time when you have a bit more free time to burn.

Or here’s another one. We fly out to meet up with friends in the same city our uncle resides, but we only have two days in town and so neglect to even call our uncle to let him know we’re around for fear he’ll want to catch up and soak up what little time we have there.

It’s sort of like how my grandmother got upset with me when she found out I flew out to New York but didn’t come to visit her in Savannah, GEORGIA. Now how close is Savannah to Manhattan? I’ll tell you! It’s about 815 miles! I thought my grandmother was being ridiculous, but in her mind, she was only 13 hours away – and I hadn’t even tried.

At first I thought that we as human beings sometimes lack the discipline to do what’s right. But I had to rethink that. Because was it really wrong for my cousin to not tell me that she moved 10 minutes away from me when previously she was an hour away? Was it wrong for her to not let me know that she was expecting, leaving me to find out from my loud talking mother and aunt? Perhaps it was insensitive, but not necessarily wrong. It’s sort of like when a guy says , “Yes” when his girlfriend asks him if her pants make her butt look big.

We all know there are reasons for all of our decisions we make, even when we’re not aware of them. Like there was a reason my father cheated on my mother - and there isn’t a doubt in my mind that the reason is much deeper than an explanation he has provided for me and my brother. And it is no secret that my cousin who will soon have her third baby has chosen to leave me and many of my other family members out of the loop.

I’m not writing all of this to show you how dysfunctional my family is. Really I’m not. I love them to pieces and wouldn’t be who I am without ‘em. All I’m trying to illustrate here, is that no matter how upset one of their actions has made me (assuming they have not caused any physical harm to anyone), I have to stop for a second and realize there is a reason behind every word, every action, every non-action. And since they are my blood, I can’t look at them without looking at myself. My prickly approach to honesty. My quiet mystique. The vibes that I give off to attract certain people. My giving (to a fault) nature. My workaholism. It all comes from some place for some reason. And when I think of this, my shoulders fall away from my ears, and my breath deepens because any anger or anxiety falls away like sunburned skin.

There is a reason that so many married people can be found on Myspace, and some of their intentions are as innocent as peanut butter and crackers, but they are not all there to locate high school chums. Even if people never meet, emotional affairs can be just as devastating to a relationship as physical ones. Yet there is a reason that people seek them out. Even if a person ends the e-connection, the need or thirst, or whatever is still there and will plague folks until they do their own soul-searching.

By the way, I’m not justifying anything folks do, just because there’s a reason attached to it, but I do have a recommendation: the next time your grandmother calls, pick up the freaking phone!

Rogue Tantrums