Calling All Gatekeepers—Part 2

In my work as an educator, I go to schools in different areas of the city. My job is sit and observe the teaching and learning that is taking place and share what I’ve learned with the teachers. Today I'm going to share what some of what I've learned because it extends beyond the academic; I learn about life. And much of what I see saddens, frightens and angers me. Our children mirror us and the reflection is not always pretty.

Vignette #1
I am talking with a principal about a child’s in appropriate language in class. We are discussing how and why these children are able talk about the things that that do. Before our conversation ends, she shares with me a note that was confiscated from two girls. It read: I got an ass so big like the sun, Hope you got a mile for a dick I wanna run. She asked me how could these children--these little girls-- know these things, I told her they were probably song lyrics, and I volunteered to do some investigating. I googled the lyrics and found that the girls had written down the first verses verbatim from a song by Trina.


Vignette #2
I am working with a group of students in a classroom, when I hear commotion behind me. I turn around to see the teacher stepping between two girls trying to separate them before they fight. She manages to get one of the girls out of the room, and some of the girls in the room are holding onto the other girl as she yells, "Bitch, I will kill you! I will kill you right now!" as she tries to break free of their grip. “Y’all betta let me go,” she screams at them. They do. She heads toward the door, but I tell her she’s not going anywhere. She sits down and fumes at me. When her teacher returns she storms across the room, snatches a chair away from one of the desk and slams herself into the chair.

Vignette #3
It has been a particularly trying day in the classroom, and the teacher is frustrated and overwhelmed with trying to restore any order. She comes to where I am sitting and explains some of the problems that she’s having in the classroom. These two girls are talking. “She’ll sit back there and talk to her, but I bet she won’t say it to my face.”

The girls in all of these scenarios are in elementary school. The first Vignette is taken from a 4th grade classroom and the second and third vignettes are taken from 5th grade classrooms. These girls think they are on par with any adult. They look like women and act like women. I see blond weave, acrylic nails and nightclub outfits in elementary school. One girl came to school for Halloween and refused to come out of the bathroom. When I went to check on her and she came out of the stall, she had on a denim mini skirt, a v-neck low cut shirt, red strappy heels and a phony pony for her hair. When I asked her who she was supposed to be, she told me her mom told her to be a Diva.

Younger and younger they're being exposed to a world that they’re not
equipped to handle. And because they’re not ready, they end up being confused and very angry. They have no respect for self or anyone else.

Overheard
Class is ending. A male student in the class has done something to one of the girls. I don’t know what he did, but I hear her tell him, “You a pussy.” There are three adults present and she has no regard for any of us. I wait for one of the other adults to say something, but they don't. So, I do even though my role in the schools is that of an observer.I get her attention and I tell her that I heard what she said. She apologizes. I ask her did it dawn on her that there were three adults in the room. She said no. I ask why she would use that type of language. She hunches up her shoulders. I tell her she should find a better way. I also tell her that she's too pretty to let something so ugly come out of her mouth.

This girl comes into class and she’s angry. Someone has said something to upset her friend, and her friend is crying. Her loyalty is fierce. Her respect is lacking. “I wish I would heard somebody say I suck a nigga dick. She be right there with me suckin’ it.” The teacher is in the hall and doesn't have a clue about the conversation that is going on inside the classroom. Again I say something. In either of these scenarios will it matter tomorrow? I don’t know, but I said something today because they need to know that somebody cares about them and is going to hold them accountable for their actions. They don't really want to be grown yet; they just think they do.

Incidents like these happen every day, and I share them not for shock value, but for us to take action. Our boys are in trouble, and our girls are, too. Is there a girl that you can help in anyway today?

Calling All Gatekeepers

I know. I know. I know already! Sex sells. But do we really need to put seven year-old girls on the auction block. Call me traditional, old school, old-fashioned, whatever, but I think the little girls dancing to Beyonce’s Put A Ring On It is another example of us blurring the lines between adults and children. We are not one and the same, and we need to stop acting like we are. These are little girls, not little women. Children do not have filters to determine what’s appropriate and what’s not; that’s our job—the adults, and too many of us are lousing it up.

We are the so-called gatekeepers in our community and we have flung the gates wide open and allowed the piped pipers of super sexuality, media, technology, and declining morality to come into our homes and seduce us with their hypnotic sign-of-the-times melodies. We think: it’s just the way things are these days. But is it? These little girls are dancing their hearts out to a well-choreographed routine which means that someone taught them, someone came up with the idea for the costumes, and someone thought this was a great way for them to showcase their talent. Hello! Adults. Anybody home?

There’s no argument that these little girls are talented and enthusiastic, but I am disturbed by the video because between the sexy costumes and the provocative dance moves, the only thing missing is a pole and maybe a few dollars thrown on the stage. I saw Little Miss Sunshine, and I thought her routine was hilarious, but was a movie full of satirical content.

I remember days from my childhood when I clomped around in my mother’s shoes playing dress up. I knew her shoes were too big for me, but for a little while I could pretend. We’re not allowing children to experience the magic and the joy of make believe. Today we’re forcing their feet into shoes they’re not ready to wear. So, I’m wondering when the gatekeepers are going come to our senses and close the gate.

Things Are Getting Interesting

Drive through any urban enclave and be seduced by the sexy-chic, beautiful people begging for your attention in the Remy Martin ads. Unless you’re blind or totally oblivious, you can’t miss them because they’re everywhere-- plastered all over bill boards and bus stops.
There are two ads. One with two women, one Black and one White and the Black woman has a chain in her mouth that extends from the White woman’s neck. The other features a Black man with two women of color. What’s interesting about these advertisements is hint at a funky kind of fluid sexuality that’s permeating our sexually-repressed-but-let’s-pretend-like-we’re not society.
It’s been said that one of the most popular male sexual fantasies is to have sex with two women and a woman’s sexual fantasy is to have sex with another woman. So, it seems that Remy Martin is capitalizing on these fantasies by pushing into the consciousness of certain aspects of society through its $3.8 million dollar ad campaign that is focused in five key areas: New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago and Miami with the brand’s core target market being “influential, social and urban males, ages 25 to 35.”
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Supposedly the tagline: “Things Are Getting Interesting” is a “metaphor for an exclusive place, an underground lounge, where multicultural people mix and mingle, according to Roberto Cruz, brand director for Remy Martin Cognac USA said in an online article on promomagazine.com. I guess the definition of mixing and mingling is being taken to a whole new level.
The more my psyche is assaulted with these images, the more bothered I am by them. They reinforce the stereotype of African-American people as hypersexual and animalistic. If the ads truly denote a place where multicultural meet, then where are the other men? Why does the Black woman have the chain between her teeth? I guess I should give them credit for progress because she is the one holding the chain as opposed to the one being chained. Last, but not least, the ads blatantly lie about our evolving sexuality.
In our homophobic, paternalistic culture we are sending the message that sex between two women is ok because men egoistically believe that the only thing missing from the sandwich is the meat. And as long as a man feels that he can insert himself (pun intended) between two women, then all is well in the world.
Well, it may seem like “things are getting interesting” but it's really much of the same ol’ same ol.

Childless—Whose Choice?

Sitting at the table making small talk with the manicurist as she meticulously paints my nails a soft, slightly iridescent shade of pink I am caught off guard by The Question: “So, how many children do you have?” asks the forty year-old mother of three and grandmother of two. “None,” I reply as I watch her apply the three strokes to my nail: first down the center, and then one stroke of polish on each side. She stops and looks up at me.” It’s not something I wanted to do by myself,” I stammer. “When the husband didn’t come, I decided against it and now I’m too old,” is how I justify not being One of Them.
“It’s not too late,” she says pausing the brush in the air before going on to tell me about her clients who have opted to have babies alone. One woman had a baby through invitro, and her mother helps her care for the baby. “My mother is eighty-one,” I say. Still convinced that I need to have a baby, she shares the story of the “worthless” husband she left behind and still raised three children alone. I listen and nod at the appropriate times because I’ve learned that opposition to these you-need-to-have-a-baby conversations are futile.
“You seem like a good person, and you can do it,” she says trying to make her wad of words stick to my psyche. Even though I’ve been here before, I’m still amazed at how intrusive people can be in a matter that as personal and private as pregnancy. I recall a conversation that I’d had with this guy I barely knew who asked me if I had any children, and when I said no, he said, “I bet I can get you pregnant.” I didn’t take him up on his offer.
As an able bodied woman with the right credentials (degreed professional with middle class values and no history of mental illness), I should have children. Because of my medical history I don’t even know if I can have children. Battling fibroids since I was 28, I have had two major surgeries and one procedure to shrink them. But I still thought I might have children. I’ve been around kids all my life as an aunt, great aunt, “play” aunt, godmother and educator. As a child I loved dolls, and thought that I’d grow up and replace them with real babies of my own, but something happened—or didn’t-- along the way. And I don’t know if it was of my own doing or God’s design because I have never been pregnant nor have I ever tried.
Some of my friends are parents, others are grandparents, and I don’t envy them because I don’t have the patience that I used to have. I have been an auntie since I was two years old, and from as long as I can remember I have dragged my nieces and nephews and other folks kids from place to place. I now have two great nephews and twin goddaughters and I love and enjoy the four of them, but I also like returning them to their parents. I’ve accepted that I’m not going to have the starring role of Mama in this movie called Life, but I’m a pretty good supporting actress.

Rules of Engagement?

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in the carriage. And somewhere between love and marriage there is/was engagement. Two stories that were in the news recently as well as an ode to potential babymamas in a couple of popular songs makes me think the rules of engagement have drastically changed and will soon go the way of dinosaurs.

The tragic death of Cincinnati Bengals player Chris Henry was attributed to a domestic dispute he was having with his fiancée. Even though the couple was scheduled to marry in March of this year, they already had three children: 10 months, 2 years and 3 years of age. I wonder why three babies in they decided to marry? Why not after the first? The second?

Then there was the headline grabber of America’s Top Model contestant, Nik Pace who is asking New Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards for $70,000.00 a month in child support after she gave birth to a baby boy. Pace and Edwards, who were not believed to be in a serious relationship, are deadlocked over child support payments because Edwards filed in New York, but Pace objected and filed in New York. Pace’s attorney accused Braylon of trying to get the case litigated in Georgia because of Georgia’s less generous stance with child support payments. But Edwards’ lawyers claim that he filed in New York because that’s where Pace lived until recently when she moved to New York after he was traded to the Jets.

And if popular music is any indication of what’s going on in the world today, two new songs definitely promote the idea of babies without the benefit of marriage. R&B singer R. Kelly’s new song Pregnant tells the story of a man meeting a girl at a club. He sings, Girl you make me wanna get you pregnant . . . lay your body down . . . knock you up, pregnant . . .”

Then there is 50 cents song, Baby By Me in which the entire chorus repeats Have a baby by me, be a millionaire. He says he needs to plant his seed. Popular culture seems to dictate no love, no marriage, just a baby in a carriage with a hefty price tag.

And it’s not among the rich and famous that this type of logic prevails. I remember a conversation I had with a guy I worked with at the time. He had four children by a woman whom he said he wasn’t going to marry because she had him one way (by the children he fathered), but she wasn’t going to get him another way (marriage). He even went so far as to tell a married co-worker who had children that he was trapped because he was a father and husband.

This type of skewed logic is fodder for the many judge shows crowding the airways. There’s always some drama about a babydaddy or babymama. At least if you marry someone, and find out that you don’t like them, you can file papers and get rid of the person, (hopefully before you have a child together). But if you decide to just jump into co-parenting with someone without weighing the consequences of being tied to this person for the rest of your life, you might be in for a rude awakening.

This is not to say that marriage lasts for ever or that married couples make the best parents, but parenting is the toughest job in the world because you’re shaping and molding another human being. Who wants the added burden of doing this with someone you barely know or whose mere presence makes you ill? Engagement or long courtships give people the opportunity to get to know each other before they bring in another life.

Are we moving away from engagement and moving toward babies as commodities to be brokered between parents? Do we need love or marriage when a baby in the carriage might be the ticket to financial freedom without the emotional price tag?

Trigger

The rhythmic thump-thump of a beating heart in Rihanna’s Russian Roulette reverberates through me as the hypnotic lyrics pulsate in my brain. If you play, you play for keeps. . .Suicide—The unspeakable remains unspoken.

What pushes people so far to the edge that they’re ready to end it? What makes someone put a gun to his head and splatter his brains on the floor or the walls? What makes a person slit her wrists until she bleeds to death? Or swallows pills and mixes potent substances to silence the screaming pain? What flashes through their mind as they pass from this world to the next—triumphant, sorrow, regret or relief?
Many people are bothered by the idea of suicide. We wonder why some people want to kill themselves because nothing is that bad. We think people who commit suicide are cowards; that they’re selfish for putting other people through that. We think suicidal people are weak. We believe those that attempt suicide and those that complete the act are different from the rest of us.

I used to think those things too, but not anymore. Experience has taught me that we can never know the depth of another person’s pain. And the history and legacy of African-American people doesn’t really lend itself to healing the hurt because we’ve become so accustomed to the pain that we think it’s normal. We are socially conditioned to push ahead no matter what. And while many of us would never admit to even considering taking our lives, we engage in destructive behaviors that may ultimately lead to our death, but won’t be ruled a suicide.

How many of us subconsciously contemplate suicide everyday through our actions? We read. We watch the news. We listen to the radio. We surf the net. We know that there are things that can shorten our life span, and we figure out what the hell. We’re going to do it anyway. We eat and drink too much of the wrong things. We kill our spirit because we live to work instead of working to live. We walk around not wanting to die—not wanting to live. All of our troubles are someone else’s fault so we don’t even see our finger on the trigger.

I know I don’t. Every day I am thankful for my life, that I’ve lived to see another day. That I’m of sound mind and body with a few aches and pains and senior moments. But I play Russian roulette with my life even when I know better. I blow off workouts and trashy my system with food that tastes good too me but is not good for me. I know the risks, but I play anyway because I convince myself . . . that I must pass this test.

What’s in the chamber of the gun you have pointed at your head? What’s your trigger? A drink or two to unwind? Toxic people? A relationship beyond the staying point? What will you do, put the gun down or just pull the trigger?

The Face of Kindness

It has not been a holiday season of joy, but one of challenge and strife. On Christmas Day I woke up with no heat in the house; a problem that plagued me from that day to this. I also had to deal with some devastating news about the health of a family member, and my own elderly mother not being able to join us for Christmas dinner because of her own health issues. A few family squabbles didn't do anything to make Christmas neither merry nor bright.

Early Monday morning, I got up to go to Home Depot to get a thermostat to see if that would solve my heating problem, and some vanilla chai tea, but Dunkin Doughnuts was out of my-go-to-drink when I need warming inside. Dejected, I headed back to my car, a black Honda Accord and pressed the button to pop the lock--or at least that's what I thought I did. I opened the door to black leather seats--definitely not my car! I closed the door quickly thinking, Oh my God! Somebody might think I'm trying to steal their car. I walked away a little startled still trying to figure out where I'd parked my car. I lose my car in parking lots all the time, and it still frustrates me because I don't why I can't keep up with my own car.

A man's voice reached out to me and asked, "Ms, are you ok? You look like some thing's wrong," he said as his words caressed me from the coldness of the season. I can only imagine what my face must have looked like because I know I having a telling face, and I joke with friends that I'd probably make a lousy Poker Player.

When I looked to see where the voice was coming from, I saw a man watching me as he sat in his car with a young boy. "No, I'm ok, I replied. I'm just looking for my car."

"Do you know where it is?"

"Yes, I see it. There it is. Thank you."

On a cold December morning during this subdued holiday season, I found kindness in the voice of a stranger, and his small gesture made my dimmed holiday light shine brighter.