Mama. You gotta love her.

Going through our family photos, I found this.  Eerily enough, I made it for my mom EXACTLY  25 years ago today! She keeps it with my report cards, old honor roll certificates, school pics and…um… baby… teeth.   ::: head shake :::

Awwwwww.

By the way, my hands and feet were outsized growing up, and by the time I was eight I wore a woman’s size ten shoe – so the point of very small hands was largely missed here, as you can see.  SIGH. Ah, well, my freakish proportions aside, it was a great gift, and remains one of my mother’s very favorites.

Letter to my 8-year-old self.

Dear Bébé Fiqah:   

I know right now that things seem bad. And I’ll be straight with you – they seem that way because they are. You’re doing a tremendous amount of self-parenting at the moment. It’s temporary, but I know it’s all very confusing. With that in mind, I’m gonna help you out with a few of the stickier bits of this “growing up” thing.   

THINGS FOR YOU TO REMEMBER   

1. Grown-ups don’t know everything. They’re just in control of everything. That is not the same.   

2. Sometimes you can do everything right, and have it all go wrong, like when the first cake you ever made for Girl Scouts fell.  Try again.   

3. You are right to be suspicious when your otherwise well-meaning White second-grade and music teachers insist that they are ”color-blind”, and that you and your classmates are and/or should be.  There’s a reason it feels like a lie. Continue to tune “color-blindness” out, and if they prod you about it, parrot what they wanna hear so they go away.   

4. Don’t call your little brother stupid. He has a learning disability, and the whole world is telling him now and will tell him later that he is stupid because he is a Black male. Knock it off.   

5. You aren’t like anyone else. Everyone knows you’re not like anyone else. One day, you’ll see just how special that truly is. And it’ll be sooner than you think. I promise. In the meantime, don’t try and be anything but you. Don’t pretend you read as slowly as everyone else in class. Don’t be ashamed to know the answer. Don’t hold yourself back – there’s a whole world out there that will try to do that for you. Not too worry. Very soon, NOTHING will be able to hold you back.   

6. Hate to break it to ya, but tying your shoes is something you won’t be able to master until damn near middle school. Sorry, but no amount of poems and songs about rabbits and trees and holes and shit is gonna help you though this one, kiddo. It’s a big, shameful deal now, but its import will lessen as you get older. Besides, someone who started teaching herself to read at the age of three doesn’t owe anybody any explanations for unusual cognitive gaps. To quote King Jaffe-Joffar of Zamunda: “I tied my own shoes once. It is an over-rated experience!”  Just keep balling your laces up and tucking ‘em in your shoes like you been doin’, you’re GOOD.   

Thank the Lord for velcro.

   

7. Keep writing. Your stories are wonderful, and your talent is beautiful. It will lead you to places most folks from your neck of the woods never even dream of.   

8. Speaking of beautiful: brace yourself. You’re a year away from the traumatic start of a seven-year-long pubescent stage. You are gonna look really, REALLY funny during this time. Almost all your crushes during this period will be unrequited. Worst than that, you’ll still be smart, and in spite of their protestations to the contrary, cis boys and men really DON’T like smart cis women and girls. I am very, very sorry to report that for the most part, they don’t ever grow out of it.  It will be a painful and scarring period.  But, about a decade from now, when you (yes, YOU!)  literally – and I mean  lit-rah-LEE – stop traffic in the streets of Amsterdam, Dakar and Paris, it’ll all be worth it.   

9. Your long-held suspicion that the secret of escaping from a life of unfulfilled potential and abject misery in the swamp lies within the pages of a book is correct. Keep reading.   

10. Clean the house. It’ll help take a lotta stress of your mother. And she’ll be quiet. So you can read in peace.   

11. That sound you heard when you climbed all the way to the top of that tree, beneath all the noise of the neighborhood?  There’s a word for it. Buddhists call it Om. And it is the sound of God, being.    

12. Aunt L____ is a bitch. She is. It’s not your imagination, and it’s not just you who thinks it, either. You can tune her out, too.   

13. Your mother is not doing the best that she can. No parent, no matter how loving, EVER does “the best that they can.” This would render them too exhausted to breathe. But. She is doing the best that she knows how. And that is the absolute most that it is realistic to expect of a parent. Give her a break.   

14. You’re gonna get the big sister you always wanted in six years. And she’ll be your real big sister, too. Hang in there.   

15. Your family DOES treat your brother better. That’s not your imagination, either. That’s called “patriarchy within communities of color.” It’s a very common problem. Once again, NOT your fault. You’ll understand it in about ten years. Until then, continue to not engage with them.   

16. You are right. There IS something profoundly wrong with people who don’t like cats.   

17. And speaking of cats: next year, you’ll come home from school and discover that your cat Snowball is missing. Your mom’s gonna say she ran away. Snowball didn’t run away. Your mother’s gonna take her to a no-kill shelter to be adopted. Yes. YOUR cat. If you want to cut your eyes at her behind her back for the rest of your life for it, you are free to.   

18. That girl who used to pinch you and pull your hair in class until Mizz Moore changed her seat?  It’s because her mother hates her beautiful cocoa skin and thick, short curls…so she does, too. You see, while both of you are pretty li’l girls, only you are told on a regular basis by grown-ups that you are. And that is not fair. This is neither of your faults, and it’s so much bigger than either of you. BUT, understand this: neither of you is worse or better than the other. Period. That’s a grown-up lie, like Santa Claus. Don’t you believe it.   

19. You are gonna change your mind about so many things. You won’t always want to get married and have future taxpayers  babies, but you’ll always love buttercream wedding cake! want to be a writer. Remember that it is your destiny to bear witness to your own life. That’s hard, often lonely, and definitely not for everybody. But you know well by now that being in a group of fools where no one understands you is much more lonely than being by yourself with a good book. One day you’ll be surrounded by people as impressive as you are. Until then, continue to cultivate your inner wealth in solitude.   

20. You’re amazing. I promise to be the best grown up version of you that I can. And I promise that you have an abundantly blessed life to look forward to. But you are never gonna get that pony, kid.   

Love,   

Grown-Up Fiqah   

P.S. — Shoelaces don’t add up to diddly squat in the grand scheme of things. They really, really don’t.

Possum Stew Side-Eye Award: The “Diaper Dude” Bag

No one has the heart to tell a new dad that his bag makes him look like an asshole. Except...well, me.

SIGH. New parents have it hard. They rilly, rilly do.  One of the biggest complaints I hear from my buddies who are parents is that you don’t get to sleep again until your kid is three (and by then, that single, two-minute, rushed and unsatisfying sexscapade that you had while your baby was napping has produced – TADA! -  another little miracle…and the beat goes on…) or so.   With all that in mind, I can see how this silly, ugly-assed bag would seem like a good thing to have. I mean, sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations and schizophrenic episodes. It wouldn’t be far-fetched to suggest that, at the very least, it can also lead to some piss-poor purchasing decisions, too.

You know what the best part about this bag is? Naw, it’s not the fact that it’s tricked out with gadgets, doodads and buckly whatchamacallits.  It’s that it comes in camouflage. Muh. Fuggin. CAMOUFLAGE.  For, you know, hiding deep in the jungles of your Threatened Masculinity. Nothing says “I’m afraid that publicly caring for my offspring is making my penis shrink” like a camouflage-print diaper bag.  Smacking my GOT-dayum head.

I’m giving this bad boy the Baby Zahara Side-Eye* Royale.

"My daddy wouldn't wear that shit."

*”Side-eye” is not a registered trademark of Crunk and Disorderly…but it should be. And once again, click on that link AT YOUR OWN RISK. I tend to keep it PC on the Stew, but this is not everyone’s policy.

Truths I’m Not Proud Of.

 

WARNING:  The following is a short list of stuff about myself that I am working on changing and/or growing beyond  because, quite frankly, it’s making me a less-evolved spirit.  Some of it is shallow, petty, and just plain old mean. If you consider yourself to be a compassionate and at least semi-intelligent human being, please skip this post.  There’s nothing profound here anyway.  There’s never anything profound here!  This is just the free rant-space of a crazy cat lady.  It’s not too late to stop reading!  So stop!  STOP!

 

 

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Alright.  You were warned.

 

1.) I have no patience for poorly-behaved children.  I know that parenting is a difficult and often thankless endeavor.  I know that parents have it hard across the board.  I know that the more kids you have, the harder you probably have it.  I know that kids have a tendency to be their own little people and do what they do, and you can’t control them all of the time.   Finally, I know that corporal punishment is often an unfortunate outcome of social oppression, and that in recent years parents within communities of color have adopted gentler and more progressive methods of discplining as part of healthy child-rearing.  Having said all of that…

A picture worth a thousand condoms.

 

Screaming children suck ass.  They just do.  If you can’t keep your bad-assed kids quiet in public, please consider harsher discipline or better birth control.   Yeah, I said it.   My mother could quell the beginnings of a public tantrum from us with a look.  A look.  And I know without a doubt in my prejudiced mind that a whole lot of my Black readers are thinking the exact same thing as I am when I look at that picture.  A child, who looks as if he’s old enough to communicate with simple language,  screaming at the tops of his little lungs in public.  Outside of the camera shot there is no doubt a distressed White parent, pleading with Junior to PLEASE calm down and trying to get the little bastard to shut the hell up.  Also outside of the shot: a Black person, shaking their head in disgust at this ridiculous display that would so easily be remedied by the firm application of a belt to a backside.  (I know that Black kids cut up in public, too; however, generally speaking, by the time Black children are old enough to speak, we know that that shit is no longer acceptable.  Why?  Because we become cognizant at a tragically early age that whatever bad thing we do somehow reflects negatively on Black people everywhere.  As a result, children of color tend to not cut up in public…until our pre-teens, when we can go out without our parents and when we realize that grown White people are terrified of groups of us.)

2.)Hyper-competitive people annoy me.  The guiding force behind hyper-competitiveness is always insecurity and envy.   So much historical human strife and pain can be directly linked to envy – which arises from the notion that someone is enjoying something that we are not – that when it shows up in any form it makes me nervous. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking ambition.  I’m one of the most openly-ambitious people I know.  Even when I am reaching towards a goal with a zero-sum determining outcome (i.e., I win because others do not), the only person in my way – the only one who ever matters to me - is me.    This is what some would mistakenly call a healthy approach to sportsmanship.  It’s actually the Founding Tenet of Eldest Child Arrogance and Self-Centeredness, which states this:  “What came before me was nothing, and what follows me is irrelevant.”  I’ve been this way since I was a child, but I have learned as I’ve grown that just because you aren’t competing with others does not mean that others do not see themselves as competing with you.  I just can’t help but question the need of anyone to “beat” someone else in order to feel good: about their lives, about what they have, or about themselves.  Friends and acquaintances who reveal competitive streaks to me receive on-the-spot amateur psychoanalysis – which they hate.  

3.)I do not engage in critical analysis dialogue with everyone.    This makes me a Snob.  I used to feel bad about that.  No more.  I have learned that trying to talk to folks who have a vested interest in thinking a certain way is an excercise in futility.  Part of my duty as an activist is to educate the willing.  As for anyone else…fuck ‘em.  I have had to learn this the hard way through the years.  Below is an excerpt from a delightfully-satirical piece on coffeeandink  called “How to Suppress Discussions of Racism”:

“Pointing out racism just makes it harder for us to achieve a colorblind society. You shouldn’t judge people based on their race.”

“Focusing so much on race just shows that you’re racist yourself.”

“Minorities can be racist too, you know!”

“Even if it’s not the best representation of minority characters, it’s better than having no minority characters at all, isn’t it?”

“You’d rather have boringly flawless and politically correct minority characters?”

“Everyone knows it’s bad to be racist now, so why make people feel defensive and ashamed by pointing incidents out?”

“Maybe it’s racist, but what about reverse racism?”   (<— AAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH!)

 You can replace “racism” with any -ism and -obia and see how the above statements are a recipe for crazy-making. 

 3.) Gingers gross me out.  Now, I should mention that my issue here is most emphatically not red hair per se.  I LOOOOOOOOVE red hair.  I think it’s quite lovely. One of my cousins has been rocking naturally auburn ‘locks for several years now.  I adore them, and think that they compliment his golden skin.  I also know that gingers encounter harassment to such an extent from childhood on that it is gingerism is now held on par with racism by some.    I know that beauty comes in so many shapes, sizes, colors, ages and all the rest of it.    I know that growing up in South Florida and seeing peeling, nasty sunburned skin on very pale-skinned classmates is a HUGE contributing factor to my knee-jerk revulsion of gingers – most of whom didn’t even have properly red hair.  Finally, I know that when I find myself agreeing with South Park‘s own little Hitler Eric Cartman, I need to take a step back and give myself some immediate and harsh corrective introspection.  Having said all that…

 

Yick.

   

 

  

Bobby Flay, phenotypical sandy ginger: pale, squinty, chinless.

 

 

 

 

 It’s not the red hair, as most gingers are actually sandy-haired.   Phenotypic ginger-ness is the super-pale, no-chin, weird neck, squinty-eyed-for-no-reason general unattractiveness that so many ginger people are cursed with.  Keep in mind that I’m not saying that all gingers are ugly…but I will say that ginger-ugly is downright nauseating.  Now, while I don’t react to ginger children (they are just babies) I can’t help but be visibly repelled by adult gingers. Ladies and jellyspoons, if there’s a hell, I am almost certainly going.  

 

4.)I get immediately pissed when I see unattractive White people with attractive people of color.  For the most part, my attitude towards interracial dating/relationships is live-and-let-live. I  try not to pathologize anybody’s love choices, because desire is complicated, and it would be unfair for me to apply my dating ethics and desirability standards to anybody else – there shouldn’t be too many rules between consenting adults.  All of us loves how we love, and all of us want what we want. For example, while I like and interact socially with lots of  folks of every color, I choose to date men of color and anti-racist White men exclusively.  I also know that looks are not the only factor that anyone should consider when choosing who to love (for me, the winning combo is intelligence/wit and a DEEEEP voice).   I have also said before that women and men of color are not entitled to one another romantically (that’s heterosexism), that Black women are under no social obligation to date ONLY Black men, and that there many, MANY ways to love.  Having said all that…when you see a reasonably good-looking person of color clinging pathetically to a smug White person with no discernible wealth, charm or personality-  and a face like a butt – you know that racism is  at least partially to blame.  I would include a picture with this section, but frankly, we all see this enough to know what it looks like. 

My resolutions list is writing itself. 

 

…And this is me.

And my baby brother.  I was three.  You can’t tell me I wasn’t rockin’ the afro puff furr surrious.

Jealous.

A kid crying in the hall a moment ago expressed – to everyone within a forty-mile radius- that he wanted his Mommy.  Watching my life fall spectacularly apart for what has to be the umpteenth time this year, and having to pretend that everything is just fecking peachy, I remember when the reassurance of my mother’s presence was all it took to make everything instantly, magically better. 

Lucky little crumb-snatchers.

I hate being the new kid.

But I confess that I love the new gig.  It’s so weird: I’m working at a school that is (obviously) closed for the summer…but everything still smells like Eau de Bebe!  Really!  You know how kids kinda smell like dirt and sunshine and pre-pubescent sweat and uncrushed hope and cookies?  Yeah. my whole office smells like that.  Doubly weird, because while my place of business is a school AND a church, I definitely don’t smell religion here.  No problem with that, I’m allergic to religion anyway…