The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

President Barack Obama, today, on my son's 22nd birthday, just signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Restoration Act! This is the first bill he has signed into law. Fitting for the future, change has come to America. This means that black and brown women will no longer earn 67-cents for every dollar a white man earns. It means that a white woman will no longer earn 78-cents for every dollar a white man earns for doing the same job. This means a level playing field for President Obama's daughters, my daughters, and even for me. It is a cool thing. My daughter who wants to be a photographer will be paid the same as a man doing the exact same job. My daughter who wants to be a writer will be paid the same as a man doing the exact same job. It is the law. Wow, it is a sunny day for steps toward gender equality in the workplace. Thank you Lilly Ledbetter for continuing the fight for ten years and for President Obama for signing this into law! http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134...

I have to say that this ticks me off! I'm so sick of all the fallen-from-grace public officials with their sexual addictions, drug addictions, porn addictions, alcohol addictions, gambling addictions, and food addictions! Oprah's hollow Mea Culpa The "Science" of Porn Editor’s Note: Tonight on AC360°, don’t miss Joe Johns report on the government scientists who are accused of surfing for porn on your tax dollars Texas Governor's Gay Sex Scandal Covered in Austin paper, the First Non-Internet Media Outlet to Report On It. The Making of a Gay American Thirty-four days after I was elected governor of New Jersey, I began a secret affair with an aide named Golan Cipel. It destroyed my career, ruined my marriage, and helped me discover who I really am. GOP Senator Larry Craig arrested in 'bathroom incident' William Bennett: the secret high-stakes gambling life of a former drug “czar” The ones who preach and claim evangelical Christianity as...

Octuplets Born In California (And Baby #8 Was A Surprise!) Posted using ShareThis

Big thanks to Jack and Jill Politics for keeping it real about President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. He CHOOSES to identify as black, as do most black people who are "mixed." It has been that way since the first black person set foot on the soil of this country. It includes my Creole heritage family with the Quadroon Balls from the antebellum days in New Orleans. My Dominican Republic born foremother who was brought here to New Orleans. Her cafe' au lait granddaugther, my mother, me, my daughter, we are all black. It includes my recently buried priest cousin who on first sight looks whiter than white despite being born of two black parents. On this topic, I agree with the post on Jack and Jill , the thing is that some white people are having a hard time with a real, brown-skinned, beautiful, accomplished, educated, wife and mother at the First Lady of this country. I said it before and I say it again, they are busting stereotypes left and right. Black pe...

Today is Chinese New Year and in honor of this, my husband went to Trader Joe's to pick up our favorite cook-at-home-Chinese. The children were happy. Our plans for the hats, red tablecloth and streamers were halted by the snow. This evening brought the first real snow storm of the winter season. It came suddenly, even though the news casters warned of it, the school cancelled afternoon tutoring in anticipation. I kept the curtains open in our living room, the big picture window in this Cape Cod waiting to welcome the fluffy white stuff. My clock ticked to 7:30pm and still no snow. I sent the girls up to take their showers, this would be a late dinner since their dad was still at the grocery store. Their eager chatter filled the house as my son finished studying for his Geometry exam when the doorbell rang. There was my husband, his arms laden with bags, his head and coat covered in snow! Much anticipated and the moment came suddenly. I had just stepped away from my white-w...

I've mused about our new president and the impact his image will have on all our sons and daughters. In the middle of my thoughts, I read B-Serious' post over on Jack and Jill Politics.com. He said exactly what I was thinking. This changes the dialogue in America about black men, black women, potential, future, and what we tell our children. We have truly entered a new phase in this country. That is not the say the struggles are not over, we are in the middle of an economic depression and that sometimes brings out the ugliness, but for this moment in time, it brings hope. The unexpected has happened and we will ponder the possibilities. Thanks B-Serious for reading my mind.

Yesterday, I sat in a cozy living room among my Mocha Moms, Inc. sisters from the St. Louis area. We were surrounded with our children and a couple of the "Mocha Dads" who joined us for the momentous occasion that brought us there on that sunny, cold, Tuesday morning. Brunch was spread out on the counter, the children could feel the excitement in the air, and the coffee was brewing in the French Press. And thankful, hopeful, joyful, purposeful hearts. We listened intently and watched closely the events that happened on the mall. Thank goodness for her big screen TV. There was happy chatter as we were witnessing history and as eloquent speech tried to articulate the thoughts and feelings. Joy at seeing history, memories of elders past, mortars blood, 40 years, 1865, 1965, years tumbled past as the oath of office was administered to Barack Hussein Obama. He will forever be known as President Obama, 44 th leader of this great country. And then the thought of the work ahea...

I woke up this morning so full I couldn't speak. I had the television tuned in to TVOne and there was Rev. Otis Moss III from Trinity United Church of Christ delivering a message rebroadcast from Sunday, November 9, 2008. I listened intently as he made the connection between Moses and Joshua, Dr. King and President-elect Obama. He talked about this not being a post-racial society as the pundits declared, but a post-wilderness and pre-promised land time, we have not all arrived yet. He asked the question I have been pondering since history was made on the memories of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Shirley Chisholm, and Carol Mosley Braun who trod this path before him, "Where Do We Go From Here?" My heart beat loudly as he rang out in classic black preacher oratory the names of our Great Cloud of Witnesses. He said Fanny Lou Hammer, A. Philip Randolph, Zora Neale Hurston, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Booker T. Washington, Malcom X, Harriett Tubman, Frederick Douglass and on and o...

As if it couldn't get any worse, Circuit City just announced its liquidation and 30,000 jobs lost! There goes my favorite place to purchase electronics, including that Hewlett Packard I wrote about a few weeks ago, the one that made its demise because of my daughter's Christmas break fruit-punch soda making contact with my keyboard. Where will my husband get his ever-growing collection of CD cleaners, blanks, headphones, batteries, and MP3s? It was convenient to walk into this superstore and get help from the FireDog crew, incidentally , who told me it wasn't worth sending my laptop to HP and just buy an external keyboard. Circuit City is another casualty to the ever growing body count of the economic recession. Is there any way to compete against over $11MM people who are currently unemployed? And what about the other retailers like Dillard's, Ann Taylor, and Linen's & Things that have also put up the liquidation signs? Will the shape of American retail...

What do we do now? It has gotten to the point when I avoid the news, I do a cursory run down of all the Internet reports courtesy of Slate , OpEdNews , Huffington Post , New York Times, and Washington Post stories. I don't read the entire story, I just don't have the stomach for it anymore in this new year. I read the headlines, I visit Jack and Jill Politics or The Root to get the real story from a non-corporate perspective. I turned off MSNBC (still love Rachel Maddow ) and CNN (even though there are a few there I like). Perhaps it is burnout from the endless news or the fact that only a few stories get reported. Thinking Rod Blagojevich , Burris, Madoff,etc. Take Nancy Grace . I could skip her show. I don't watch it. Every evening last December when I would finally have a moment to myself and decide to catch up on a little mindless television, I would flip through the channels and there she would be with her false outrage over little Caylee Anthony. Now don...

It is cold outside this Saturday morning, just the time to snuggle up with my latte, my blanket, and my laptop. Oh, wait, there isn't a laptop! My husband asked me this morning if I heard the message from Circuit City. "No, what message?" I asked him with dread in my heart, knowing the answer. "They had to send it off." "Ugh." I poured myself another Mexican coffee and pondered what I would do. I have been taking my turn on the new family computer, selfishly suggesting the kids go play Connect 4 so I can get some writing time. I'm not sure what I am going to do especially since my laptop was only three months old. One thing I have done since the Christmas break laptop disaster is to warn every writer who has the habit of writing with their laptop on their lap. I just told my friend Gretchen's sister Jennifer to not do it when I saw her at the New Year's Eve dinner. She is the mom of a four-year-old and let's face it, th...

Great article I received from my cousin. Date: Thursday, December 11, 2008, 10:30 AM Dr. Manis When Are WE Going to Get Over It? For much of the last forty years, ever since America "fixed" its race problem in the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, we white people have been impatient with African Americans who continued to blame race for their difficulties. Often we have heard whites ask, "When are African Americans finally going to get over it? Now I want to ask: "When are we White Americans going to get over our ridiculous obsession with skin color? Recent reports that "Election Spurs Hundreds' of Race Threats, Crimes" should frighten and infuriate every one of us. Having grown up in "Bombingham," Alabama in the 1960s, I remember overhearing an avalanche of comments about what many white classmates and their parents wanted to do to John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. Eventually, as you may recall, in all three cases, someo...

The new year is stretched out before me like the blank pages of my journal, waiting to be filled with hopes and dreams, thoughts and promises, loves and purpose. I am always energized and excited when the clock makes the tick from one year to the next. This year promises to be very different. I can't wait for the changes that will come with the inauguration of the nation's first black president. I am already energized by the community activism that has taken off since we, the people, elected Barack Hussein Obama as our 44th President! I love to see the crayola box of Americans come together to help and support each other. My hope is that even though we will be faced with challenges, in part because of the bumbling of the last administration, that we will come together to climb that mountain. No one needs a mega-mansion and there won't be a moving van following the hearse when we take our last breath, so I hope to see moves away from the ultra-materialism that defined t...