Monday, March 28, 2011

DIY'ing ...........Again

Hey Friends,


I am DIY’ing again! For the last two weeks I have been putting up chair rail and freshen up paint. Let me just say I worked my ass off. I was so exhausted that I literally feel asleep. I feel so empowered when I do things to my house myself. When I look at the projects that I completed I feel more connected with my home. I Things are coming along, but the walls are still bare. Trying to feel a house with décor can be very expensive so I am doing it one piece at a time. Tell me what you think?







Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Big C………Classism





I was over at Danielle Belton’s site (theblacksnob) and I was reading her take on the Jalen Rose/Grant Hill story. Danielle said she could understand both sides of the story because she has faced some issues with classism growing up in St. Louis. She writes…


When we first moved deeper into the county, from my old all-black suburb to a more Tony and white one, all the black kids at my junior high were fascinated by me for the maximum of one week. They all assumed I had to be some tough, hood kid with a thousand yard stare from the horrors I'd seen. But I was so boring to them. I didn't speak slang. I'd never seen a dead body. I'd never seen a police officer beat down anyone. I didn't have any cousins named Pookie strung out on crack.

Coincidentally, I ended up in this weird place where had almost nothing but contempt for my own kind (other suburban black kids). Largely because they made no sense. I was the one raised in the all-black neighborhood who read Alex Haley at 13 and performed in Black History Month plays. But I wasn't black enough because I didn't speak slang or own a Starter coat. Bougie black kids were a world of ghetto suburban contradictions. Just as their weird fascination with bragging about who's parents had the roughest childhoods. Or their obsession with inner city kids who mostly just wanted to be left alone. How they were all obsessed with going to North City to parties and trying to fit in and sometimes getting shot and sometimes getting killed because, again, they had no clue as to what they were doing and learned everything they knew about "the hood" from the movie "Colors."


I grew up in St. Louis too. However, I lived in the City…. the real urban part of the City. My family lived on the Westside off of N. Kingshighway. But imagine living in the heart of the ghetto and having everything you needed, while watching your friends and neighbors struggle. Yes I was an inner city kid straight out the “hood”, but I could speak correct English and Ebonics too! My mom was a single mother but she was college educated and worked for Anheuser Busch. We owned our home and were financially stable. My siblings and I always had what we needed and lots of our wants too. My mother was a cheap skate so we did not have a lot of “overhead” cost. Our house and car was paid for so my mother had a great deal of discretionary income. I remember I had to literally get on my knees and beg her for a pair of Air Jordan’s after about 4 months a new pair came out and I refused to wear the old ones. My mother said “give me those damn shoes, I’ll wear them my muthafucken self, as much money as I spent on those shoes and you talking about they outta style already!” Needless to say she never purchased me another pair of Jordan’s again.


In the summer time our block would burst at the seam with all the people just hanging out. As soon as it got warm music stared pouring out of cars, people started sitting on their porches, drug dealers started selling their products outside instead of inside, and the boosters started going door to door selling their merchandise. From time to time there was fight or someone got shot. In the early 90’s dudes from California started showing up on our block selling crack cocaine for a much cheaper price than what the locals were selling. Plus the dudes from Cali brought their gang affiliations with them. This created a blood bath in my neighborhood. Young boys/men were being killed daily.


My mother refused to move out of the hood because she said her house was paid for and she was not running out to the suburbs to take on a bigger mortgage. Plus she felt that if more people invested in the inner City instead of running to the burbs every time they got a bigger and better job the City would be a better place to live. I remember I dated a guy from the burbs and before he introduced me to his mother he told me to not tell her I was from the City because she really didn’t care for City people. I was so hurt, how did where I live play a role in what type of person I was. Yes I lived in the hood, but I went to excellent schools, was college bound, well read, loved the arts BUT I also was very familiar with city life. Like Jalen I felt that people from the burbs and two parent homes judge me for living in the hood. Yes my mother raised us alone…but she did a great job and she never made any apologies for being single with kids. She made sure that we took pride in our neighborhood by participating in clean up efforts and looking out for our neighbors….even the crack heads. She insisted that we treat the adult crack heads with the same respect we would anyone else. I’ve watch my mother feed and cloth our neighbors for 30 years and everyone in that neighborhood loves her to death. When I went away to college when I came home for the summer my entire block showed nothing but encouragement. The drug dealers and the crack heads alike would ask questions like “when you gone graduate, what you going for and what you gonna do when your done.” Then they would say “stay in school or don’t forget your street smarts while you getting all that knowledge”.

My mother taught me to see people as people and not judge them based on their class or color. I still live in St. Louis and I am very financially stable….but I still choose to live in the City. I own a home in the City and I care about my bad ass neighborhood just as much as the next person. Hell there is probably someone making judgments on me now because I am over 30 and unmarried. In this life everyone will have his/her own unique experience; no two stories are ever the same. People can’t help the situation they were born in…be it good or bad and we can not judge people because of their situation. As the saying go until you walk a mile in someone else shoes, make no comments.

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Speak for Yourself





As my Grandfather once said…. keep stupidity to yourself. No one knows how stupid you really are until you fuck up and say something really stupid. Video Vixen Dollicia Bryan feels that wearing Christian Louboutins, a luxury French made shoe also known as red bottoms will make you a better competitor in life . The shoes range in price from several hundred to several thousand dollars.

Ms Bryan states

Okay, I’m looking at myself..you know I want to be up there. I want to be compared…I want to surpass. When you elevate in your career, you elevated in your fashion. You have a higher competition.

I don’t have to have a guy go out and get them. When I was able to afford it, I went and I started purchasing them. You don’t have to wear them. If I’m capable of purchasing that and still doing my job, I’m going to do that. If you’re not capable but you still want to be competition, I don’t know what to tell you. You just have to step up your game.

Maino got involved; that’s how it all started. He said the same thing. You know, I can’t take you around events I go to with Beyonce if you got Forever 21 shoes. I can’t do that. Don’t think you’re the baddest thing, what can we do?
That’s where it started. There are so many beautiful women out there but what sets you aside from them?


First I like to compliment Ms. Bryan on purchasing her expensive shoes herself and not waiting on a man to upgrade her. I personally believe that if we desire a certain quality of life it is each person responsibility to do everything (within reason) they can to obtain that lifestyle. However, Ms. Bryan e you lost me at buying insanely expensive things is a way to step up your game and set you apart from other people. Spending a huge percentage of your income on shoes is not stepping up your game, it is showing your level of stupidity and immaturity. I know you are a video girl… but do you own your home… have you invested in your retirement or learned another craft. I’m sure your time as a video girl is very limited and you will need that shoe money in a few years.

Yes it is totally with in reason that Beyonce wears Christian Louboutins … she is worth several million dollars and her future is very secure ……even if she doesn’t sing another note. You on the other hand… not so much. And on another note if a REAL man is truly interested in you and he would like to take you around his rich friends, if he feels the desire for you to look the part then he will purchase you the extravagant clothes if you can’t afford them. That is if he really wants to be with you for you!


Also if you are wondering how stand out in a sea of beautiful women…be yourself! Men respect women that know who they are and are not fake. Don’t break yourself trying to fit someone else image of what is acceptable. You can only hold a pose so long before the real you come out anyway. On another note, I think if you want to be a real actress or model you should shut up and stop giving advice.