Massage All Over Me--What I'd Do for a Good Pair of Hands

Confession: I am a massage slut, a whore. I'll do anything to have a pair of strong firm hands rubbing all over my body. Well . . . not anything. I do pay for my massages, and they are done in reputable places. Not those quasi wink-wink massage parlors of Hollywood movies or listed on Craig’s list. 

I  love--and I do mean love--a good massage. My love affair/addiction began the year I was recovering from my first surgery for fibroids. I had surgery in December and in January I treated myself to a massage for my birthday. It was the best birthday present I ever gave myself, and when time and money present themselves, trust and believe I'm on the table continuing the gift of giving to myself.

I was timid that first time because I didn't know what to expect.  I was in a room with a strange man who was going to be putting his hands all over my body. I got over my first time jitters though, and it worked out well. I felt incredibly relaxed when he was done. And I was addicted!

 My first massage therapist was a He, but I don’t discriminate. I have been worked on by Hes and Shes. I guess that makes be bi therapist friendly. Hell, I might be tri as in try what ever because I can have a gorilla working on me as long as those hands know that they’re doing. After a good massage, I want a cigarette and I don’t even smoke!

I have a therapist that I see every month, and he’s wonderful.  Sometimes that's not enough and I confess that I occasionally turn my body over to someone else. I can't help myself. But I always return to my main guy because he knows my body well. I've been with him since he first started. He finds all the knots and the kinks, and when he's done, they're gone. I may be a little sore the next day, but massage does my body good.

I’ve had people question why and how I can spend money on massages. Most of the time It’s women, and I point out to them that they probably spend as much on their hair as I do on massage. My hair is short and natural, so a trip to the barber show a few times a month and I’m good to go. If I mention going for a massage to a man, he always offers, but I laugh and turn him down. I realize some people don't quite understand massage as therapy because they see massage as a prelude to sex.

I know people who either don't get massages or women who only want to be massaged by another woman.

I have a friend who also gets regular massages, and her boyfriend did not understand why she needed another man touching her. She tried explaining, but to no avail. Whenever we would go together and she would leave her phone, he would blow up her phone until she called him back after her massage. Talk about messing up a mood!

 To each its own. Massage may not be for everybody, but is definitely for me. I consider my monthly massages as part of my health and well being, and when I can get there more than once a month, that's a bonus.  I was in a workshop once with Lisa Nichols, and she asked when should we give to others as she poured water into the glass. Some people said at the halfway point, others said when the glass is full. She kept pouring until the water flowed over the top and spilled onto the table. She said we give our best when we give from over overflow because all of our needs have been met.

That’s a mighty tall order for Black women because we are socialized to believe that we should put everyone’s needs above our own forgetting that we can better take care of others when we are well.

Massage allows me to replenish and take care of myself so that I can meet all of my other responsibilities.

When I’m on the table, I can temporarily escape the sometimes harsh realities of life. I'm not worried about my job. I'm not a caretaker. I don't have a To-Do List that's as long as an NBA player is tall. I can take the weight off right along with my clothes and leave everything on the hook. There is no pressure. No pretense. Just the opportunity to be naked in my humanity. What a wonderful place to be!

Don't take my word for it, click on the cat
and see for yourself. 

Speaking Truth to Power: Why Anita Hill’s Voice Still Matters by Stephanie J. Gates

There were three of us in the theater—me and two other White women watching Anita: Speaking Truth to Power, the documentary chronicling the story of Anita Hill’s testimony of sexual harassment against then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. A young woman in my 20s, I remember being transfixed along with the rest of the nation in front of the TV.

My support of Anita Hill never wavered, and I defended her against those who thought she must have had some ulterior motive for waiting for so long to speak her truth. Though I didn’t have a verbal reference point for sexual harassment before the hearings, I knew that it existed because I had both experienced it and witnessed it at the hospital where I worked.  Harassment and abuse of Black women occurred with such regularity that it almost seemed normal.

During my last year of high school, I started working part-time in the billing department. One day I came to work really sick. My throat felt like inflamed golf balls had found their way inside, and I had a mouth full of canker sores. My sister-in-law, who was also my supervisor, sent me to see the Asian doctor. He was quiet and meek, not loud and impatient like some of the others. She thought he was trustworthy. After he looked down my throat and in my mouth, and pressed on my glands, he instructed me to remove my gown. I thought it was odd, but I complied. He was the doctor; I was the patient. While examining my breasts, “Bite?” he asked as he noticed the scar on my breast. “No, a burn,” I replied. He nodded and wrote me a prescription. I got dressed and returned to work, but I never said anything to anyone about the exam. I silenced myself, and I didn’t know why.

 Located in a blighted area on the west side of Chicago, most of the patients received public assistance. So, race, class and gender were the perfect combination for rampant unwanted sexual attention. When I changed departments and worked as an outpatient clerk, I was responsible for filling out requisitions for lab work, x-rays, ultra sounds etc. per the doctor’s request. There was this weird sexual dynamic in place that Black women were play things for the men in the hospital. We didn’t have rights or feelings as employees or patients that mattered most of the time.

 One evening I was working alone when I felt a hand on my hip and hot breath on my neck. My heart raced. I turned quickly and looked into the face of the orthopedic surgeon who saw patients in between surgeries and rounds on Fridays. Until that day, our interactions had been professional yet friendly. When I asked him what was he doing, and why were his hands on me, he turned red, and said, “I can’t afford to touch you!” I couldn’t believe my ears. This man had just insinuated that I was a whore. I was livid!

I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I was going to do something. I was going to report him, but I didn’t know how to go about it. So, I confided in a couple of my co-workers--Black women who I trusted women--who advised me not to report the incident. They said I was a clerk and he was a doctor and that I was just making trouble for myself. I refused to be silent. I was going to speak my truth even if it meant I was the only person who heard my voice.

 I witnessed the mistreatment that the patients received from the doctors. I know how the female employees were often times treated, and I couldn’t let it go. I had to take a stand, and I accepted that whatever happened as a result of me reporting him, I was going to be okay. So, I wrote a letter to the medical director--a woman—that evening before I left, and then I followed up with a phone call Monday morning. She assured me that she would take care of it, and she did. He was hostile after that and he would tell the patients that I liked to write letters. I didn't care what he said so long as he knew that I had a right to voice my concerns about his unethical behavior.

There were patients who described troubling sexual scenarios with the one of the obstetric-gynecologists.  One woman laughed as she told me that the doctor stuck his hands in his pants and moved his finger around like a penis and said, “You see what you do to me.”  There was another woman who came into the office crying after seeing the same doctor. She had come in with a discharge from her breast and when she shared her concern with the physician, he told her to tell her boyfriend to stop sucking so hard on it. I never heard any of the women complain to the hospital administration. They just accepted it. It’s hard to speak truth to power when your truth has been horribly skewed by myths and stereotypes.

If I didn’t have value myself, no one else was going to either. We had a patient who liked to talk about what he wanted to suck and lick. He did this every time he came into the office. My department was all women of color and we all complained, but the patient was never reprimanded. We were told he was a patient; just ignore him. Sometimes he would sit in the waiting area making such obscene gestures that I would just close the door. But one day, a new administrator, a White woman, was walking down the hall and when she passed the patient he said, “I ain’t prejudiced; I eat White p@##$, too!” He was banned from the premises after that.

All of these incidents came rushing back to me as I sat in the theater in disbelief at the ridiculous questions the Senate Committee was throwing at Anita Hill as if to trip her up and catch her in a lie--that or they got some perverse pleasure out of having her give details of the nasty things that were said.

Reliving the testimony from an adult perspective, I was even more convinced that Clarence Thomas had lied. The saddest thing about the entire episode is that Anita Hill’s testimony was a mere bump in the road of Clarence Thomas journey to the Supreme Court. A woman in the movie said, “It wasn’t about truth; it was about winning.” And it was clear that her testimony was never about truth. They didn’t want to know if it was true because then they would be forced to deal with the fall out of unchecked sexual harassment. It was easier to just throw Anita Hill under the bus.

From my understanding of race and gender in this country, I knew that the all-White senate had no point of reference for Anita Hill's predicament especially when most of them probably had little if any regard for the safety of Black women. There was no consideration given to Anita Hill's plight as a Black woman. It played right into the sexual stereotype of the Black woman's wonton sexual appetite. If we can't be raped, surely we cannot be harassed.

When Clarence Tomas hit them with the race card, it was over. He called the hearing a “circus and a national disgrace” a “high tech lynching for uppity Negroes” who would be hung by the   U. S. Senate rather than from a tree for daring to speak up for themselves. It was brilliant!  Even though there were other women that could have backed up Hill’s testimony with lurid stories of their own, they were never called. The Senate Committee didn’t want to look like a bunch of racists after Thomas’ remarks because we know racism only happens to Black men, and sexual assault only happens to White women. There was no place in the conversation to discuss the bruised and battered bodies of Black women.
Today, I hear the term sexual harassment being flippantly tossed around almost as if it were a joke. I don’t even know where we are in a struggle against abuse and harassment because we seem to have lost our way. But I know the fight must continue. I left the theater thankful for Anita Hill’s bravery on that October day back in 1991. She reminded me that even in the most adverse circumstances how important it is to continue to speak our truth to power. Sexual harassment and abuse of Black women and girls is fact, not fiction.

Maya & Oprah, Carmen & Me

I was on my way to work listening to the Tom Joyner Morning Show when I heard them announce that Maya Angelou had passed away. When I got to work I immediately logged onto my computer to confirm that one of our icons had indeed fallen.

 

Though I knew that she was 86 and had truly lived an exceptional life, it just didn’t feel like she should be gone. I found myself in a place that I thought I had left—a surreal existence of trying to deal with something that I didn’t want to be real. I looked up at my bulletin board in the hall entitled Phenomenal Woman and I was reminded of the work my students had done creating poems on great women in history, and the fact that we’d used Dr. Angelou’s poem to kick off our lesson.

Born in to poverty and segregation, Maya Angelou born Marguerite Johnson, epitomized the American dream. She faced many struggles in her life, but she never let anything stop her. She was the true definition of a Renaissance Woman. She acted. She directed. She sang. She danced. And she wrote. Not only was she an artist, she was also an activist. Maya Angelou was an African-American woman in a country that did not treat those who of her race or gender well. And even though she spoke out against injustices, she was not bitter. She looked for the lesson in every experience.

Maya Angelou was many things to many people, and as I read the various reflections on the life she led, the words of Oprah Winfrey resonated with me the most. Not only did her words eloquently capture the essence of their relationship, it flooded me with memories of my friend who recently passed away. Like Maya, Carmen faced many struggles that she didn’t let stop her. When life handed her lemons, she didn’t complain. She made lemonade. Ten years my senior, our friendship spanned more than two decades.  Just like Maya was to Oprah, Carmen “was there for me always guiding me through some of the most important years of my life.” 

Carmen was not a celebrity in the sense of the word as we know it, but she was well known in the circles that she traveled in and she affected everyone around her. Oprah said what stood out to her the most was not what Maya Angelou had done or written or spoken, but how she lived her life. How she lived her life. Those words jumped out at me because like Maya Angelou, Carmen lived life on her own terms. She never compromised who she was, and she was one of the most selfless people I’d ever met. It was one of many things that I admired about her.

I never had the opportunity to meet Maya Angelou in person, but I read her work; I watched her in interviews and I learned from her as she was an exceptional teacher. Carmen and I were colleagues, friends, and confidantes to each other. I learned from her as well even when I was a reluctant student. She died in March and I miss her every day. She may not have had the far reaching influence of a Maya Angelou, but she touched a lot of lives. Today the world is a darker place because their lights no longer shine. Like Maya is to Oprah, Carmen will always be to me—“the rainbow in my clouds.”

Under the Bus—Black Women and Girls in America

As Black women and girls, it seems like we can’t heal fast enough before we find ourselves under the wheels of the bus of a society seemingly determined to crush our collective spirit. And what’s especially hurtful is when the driver of the bus is someone who should be pulling us out of harm’s way instead of trying to run us over!

The thing about media and Black folk is that we are not held to the same standard as other folk. There is microscopic scrutiny of our action. Beyoncé singing sexy music to her husband is responsible for an increase in teen pregnancy among African-American girls who look at her as a role model according to Bill O’Riley. Donald Sterling, on the other hand is looked upon as an anomaly of sorts. Black people are always being judged and held accountable collectively rather we like it or not.

Black men share Black women’s struggle for justice and fair representation; Black men know our story, so the last place we want to see them is behind the wheel of a bus barreling toward us. The tire tracks on our backs were still fresh from the Mimi Faust fall-out, when I saw this bus coming at us full speed just as we were about to step off the curb at we-can-move-past-this latest-episode Avenue.

The driver, Columbus Short, from the highly popular ABC drama Scandal  was fired from the series when he was caught in his own real life scandal of domestic violence. There had been a number of altercations between the two dating back to February according to reports, but after an incident on April 7, Tanee McCall, Short’s wife filed a restraining order against her husband.

So, what does Short do? He shows up at the house he shared with his wife accompanied by another woman to help him collect his belongings. McCall is said to have attacked the woman after McCall asked the woman to leave and she refused. Short released a video of McCall attacking the other woman. Why didn’t Short try to stop the fight or call the police? Because he was too busy trying to run his wife down.

And if that wasn’t bad enough, Comedian DL Hughley jumped on the bus with Short and took it for a spin. When news of the alleged abuse charges broke, Hughley went on a wild rant on his radio show about it.  He called McCall-Short a “thirsty bitch” and went on to say, “I think that broad shouldn’t be telling all his business if she gone take him to court.” Hughley pumped his breaks, promptly removed the audio and issued an apology when the public responded negatively to his comments. 

But this wasn't the first time Hughley has been behind the wheel. When Don Imus comments  "nappy-headed hoes" comments caused a ruckus,” Hughley co-signed on that foolishness remarking that Imus hadn’t lied because they were “nappy-headed hoes.” Hughley apologized for his dismissal of the abuse allegations, but he doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with continuously calling us out of our name. Too bad we can’t revoke his license.

Before long, I could hear the rumbling of another bus coming. This time it was Floyd Mayweather behind the wheel driving full speed ahead. After pictures of his ex, Shantel Jackson and Rapper Nelly all cuddled up surfaced, a revenge seeking Mayweather posted a sonogram picture on his Instagram account of the twins that Jackson allegedly aborted. The backlash was furious and swift, and Mayweather removed the picture, but it was too late. Jackson’s body had already been tossed into oncoming traffic.

While these are individual stories, they do help drive public opinion and push the rest of us off the curb. Once something personal becomes public, and the public feeds off pre-conceived notions of a marginalized group, the personal becomes political for us all. Beep, beep! Get out of the way!