a look back

Although I hate the hackneyed phrase "this year has gone by so fast", I realize that cliches become so for a reason -they're true. And 2007 ran by, in an attempt to shed its clothes and to change into 2008. All the sooner to have me graduate, so shouts to the New Year's baby for that.

Its almost unbelievable that last year, this time I was getting ready for my semester abroad at SOAS in London. I got new luggage and cold feet. But during that plane ride, something funny happened- God threw my trepidation out the window and although I was homesick for a good grey month, I still got my London on and had another great cliche happen to me : a life changing experience.

I started blogging because of my time in London, I decided to grow out my perm and go natural in London (my crinkly unpressed fro bear the fruit of my labor of self-love), I traisped around continental Europe with some homies and learned to live independently. When I got back home I felt that folks at immigration should've declared, "now you are a woman". Being away in Europe was like a 5-month long bat mitzvah.

It might be the headquarters of imperialism, but London, England is and will always be my joint. I had to go out to come back to see what was really in me. And so far, 7 loyal readers I'm impressed.

*2008 travel plans - hit up the Caribbean and Africa and collect even more stamps in mi passaporte E aprenda o português (and learn Portuguese)*

Merry Christmas!!!

Whether you've celebrate Christmas, Eid, Hanuukkah, Kwanzaa, Dwali or some combination of all the above we here at Brooklyn Sis wish you and yours a happy and blessed holiday season.

Enjoy the smooth sounds of one of the most unappreciated but wonderfully talented singers, Faith Evans do her thing on one of the best if underappreciated blogs.

God bless, and save some black cake for me next to the Christmas tree.

the American Dream (?)

Still marinating in post-thesis chapter completion splendor (for those of you who don't know, my thesis is about the effect of ghettoization on community activism in Bed-Stuy of the 1960s and 70s. Light a candle that the Black Studies department approves my joint so that I can continue), like Chris Rock I've been waiting for something special to come across to touch upon.
Well here it is

The NY Times did an article about a survey that points to major points of contention between various groups of color.
And yes, you can shudder at the title that calls us "Chief Minorities". Dang, I guess Native Americans just didn't measure up.

Although mad problematic, ,(the question about black folks and crime? really? talk about playing into gross media misrepresentations.) this survey points out important issues for the future of transracial activism. Many of us fall into the trap of believing in the very stereotypes that pit us against each other and keep the racial hierarchy on and popping and in tact.
Look black people, Latinos aren't taking our swagger or our "political leverage". We're all people of color and the faster we realize that, the better prepared we will be to work together a la the Young Lords.
And not to excuse anybody, but the reason why some Asian Americans don't treat their black and brown customers with respect is because we represent criminal faces that are plastered all over the news. That and because of the triangularization of Asian Americans, the model minority myth, and many other things I'll leave up to you to conjecture upon.

Even after all this hate, we apparently still believe in the American Dream and that things will get better in the next ten years. Even if black folk are a little more circumspect and weary about things.
For all of this nations problems, and lets be real, there are many (why do you think most great thinkers/academics/artists of color in this country have expatriated themselves for some amount of time), we at least have the knowledge of freedom to express how we have deviated from those ideals. The Black Panther Party's "Ten Point Program" does owe a lot to the Declaration of Independence. Maybe Barack Obama can help steer this country and lead us to practice the kind of liberty we set out to promote.

Para El Gran Caribe y Para Africa

At Amherst's 10th Annual "Voices for the Voiceless", a night of amazing poetry, one of the artists told the audience that to truly understand our past and present one need only to look at the thousand or so islands that are scattered throughout the Caribbean Sea. The Middle Passage, exportation of bondsmen and women into North and South America, slave rebellions, revolution, colonialization, imperialism, liberation, syncretic cultures blending Africa, Europe, Asia and indigenous elements to create something new. This all happened on the islands of the Caribbean. We mixed with East Indian and Chinese laborers, we were maroons in Jamaica and sang to Yemaya and Ochun in Cuba. We kept Africa but we made a new thing. Salsa isn't just what Hector LaVoe was singing, its our cultural mix.

So to all of my Latino/a homies don't try to deny the Africa that is so evident in your face and in your songs and in our food, culture and history. And to the black Americans who had any doubt, yes, Negros can be Latinos as well.

...I was yearning for the eternal sunrises and sunsets of the Caribbean in the bitter New England cold. Yet, Celia's voice always warms me back up.

expatriate me?

Pardon the lack of regular postings peoples ( aka the 7 loyal readers), but senior year has delivered a series of major beat downs to me: thesis, GREing, graduate school applications, fretting over finding a job, obsessing over what I'm going to do after Amherst, stressing about grades. Why did Rory Gilmore make college seem so easy? I've been fooled by so many TV shows either about college or with protagonists in college, I swear the folk on "A Different World" spent more time in the Pitt with Mr.Gaines than in class or at work.

Anyway, in the midst of my struggle to try to end my Amherst career with something to show for it, I've experienced a great deal of ennui and dissatisfaction with the future of black people in this country. As I think about post-grad plans and my future in the work place or in academia I've realized that I have about 40 years of having a privileged white man's foot on my neck (figuratively of course). There is the glass ceiling, along with the defeatism that is so rampant among my generation. We are not only post-Civil Rights but also post-crack, so we've experienced dreams deferred first hand, and because of this so many of us are too busy dancing along to Gucci Mane records than to actually pick up a damn paper and learn about the people running for President. Couldn't we at least learn to do both at the same time? We cannot afford to just chill and buy fresh kicks while our parents houses are being foreclosed because of the sub-prime mortages fiasco. And while NBC Nightly News tells us about how they perceive the state of black women, we are in no position to argue points of contention because we believe the hype. Even though Public Enemy told us not to.

So I'm trying to find a way up out of this sinking ship, I will not be anyone's second class citizen for the rest of my days. It will take a social revolution of epic proportions that is global in scope to remedy the myriad problems that I can tick off faced by blacks as a whole, black women in particular and the underclass in general. And until that day comes, you can catch me up in sweet sweet T&T (that's Trinidad and Tobago to you). Richard Wright and W.E.B did it, and I want to be young enough to enjoy life outside of this nation of broken promises.

But on the real, I'm not going to move away permanently, I just need to get my mind right, live in another country for about 6 months out of the year to be rejuvenated. How else will I be able to become the female Tavis Smiley?