The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

Last evening I had the pleasure of attending a Black History MOnth Keynote Address featuring Author and Activist, Pearl Cleage. She is widely known for her groundbreaking novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, that brought the issue of black female HIV/AIDS to the forefront. She was at the cutting edge of talking about the silent shame when her book was published back in 1997. All these years later, the same still exists. The reason the black women are dying of HIV/AIDS at higher rates has a lot to do with the topic of her talk last night. She wrote her most elegant performance prose and talked about the crime of domestic violence. The backdrop of her oral essay was the Rihanna and Chris Brown incident in four parts. She talked about the scene or what may have happened. The then gave some knowledge about other public figures who were involved in domestic violence including Miles Davis and Cecily Tyson, Tammy Terrill and David Ruffin, and Alan Iverson and his wife Tawan...

So the screams of my seven-year-old daughter accompanied with her exuberant claps and jumping up and down when Mr. President, Barack Hussein Obama, spoke for the first time before the joint sessions of congress. I felt goosebumps when the Sergent at Arms was standing there and then the announcement, "Madame Secretary, the President of the United States." Loud claps threatened to shatter the walls of my upstairs bedroom. It was amazing to see this intelligent, poised, strategic, and charismatic black man walk into that chamber with all the elected officials of the country standing to recognize. My two daughters, aged five and seven, probably did not understand everything he said, but they could understand the thunderous applause that broke out on my television screen and in my bedroom. Even at times my daughter screamed out, "clap mama, clap!" I listened intently and while the writer in me wanted to run downstairs to my laptop and tweet, facebook, or blog about ...

Last week was an amazing week in all things racial. There was Chris Brown and Rihanna tearing off the painful scab of domestic violence in the black community. There was the New York Post and their inflammatory and extremely racist cartoon followed by a citizen-led, very effective demonstration on this past Friday. There were the pundits from MSNBC, CNN, and of course that dog, Fox News, all talking about was it racist or not? Ask the many dead black men at the hands of white cops and answer that question. Then there was Attorney General Eric Holder in his speech. I loved that the nation's chief law enforcement official, and the first black man to hold this post, had the courage to say what other's wouldn't or couldn't. He came out and put all of America on blast, as the kids say. All the coffees, meetings, and get togethers mean nothing if white America and black America and brown America is not honest and say that we truly have been cowards when it comes to this t...

Something has been on my mind alot lately. C-O-N-T-R-O-L. Those seven letters in the American alphabet can wage so much hurt, damage, and pain. Why has this been on my mind? After Valentine's Day, the news about the stimulus package, the cable news pundits, the New York Post, Bobby Jindahl, and now Alan Keyes, I thought this one word is at play. Husbands try to control wives with money, power, or sex. Wives try to control husbands with the same things at times. Parents try to control children with time outs, grounding, or gifts. The job market or lack thereof, the falling Dow, the skyrocketing foreclosures, the bank bailouts, the corporate CEOs, all of it has elements of controlling one part of the population or another. Control is about bending the will of one entity to the other. The rich want to control the poor so the rich can stay richer. The media wants to control the body politic so they can remain wealthy and keepers of the airwaves. Image, status, position are all b...

A reporter from ABC-News in New York spoke to me today about the Chris Brown and Rihanna situation. She asked me my thoughts and feelings about everything. In a nutshell, there is never, repeat, N -E - V - E - R anything a woman can do that would warrant the assault that Rihanna suffered at the hands of Chris Brown. Yes, he is a clean cut young man, yes, he is the youth hearthrob with his 19 year-old innocent face, and yes, he committed a crime of domestic violence. He did the right thing by turning himself in. I told the reporter that I hope the media moves beyond sensationalizing the situation because there are other Chris Brown's and Rihanna's out there dealing with the silent horror that accompanies abuse - physical, sexual, psychological, verbal, and spiritual - that is prevalent regardless of age, race, income, or spirituality. I told the reporter that it may get worse before it gets better because the media glamorizes gangsta rap music and over sexualities anything dea...

Calling all the Kansas City people and national people, use those dollars and demand respect! It is enough that Dillards follows around all black people when in their stores or that overall retail disrespect happens to people of color on a daily basis. But what Journey's in Oak Park Mall out in Overland Park Kansas did is just beyond the pale, and in these economic times, oh, no they didn't! See for yourself and then use those dollars, boycott this national chain! And they didn't even have the decency to apologize or act with shame or remorse. I will not shop at a store that is disrespectful and have left an entire purchase in a cart because of poor treatment. My dollars are too hard to come by and I refuse to give some racist, disrespectful, retail employee their commission by my purchase. Not worth it.

It was just before 7pm on a bright, Thursday, February night when my evening napping was interrupted simultaneously with a "breaking news report," helicopters swirling above, and phone calls from family and friends. The unthinkable had come to this quiet suburb that was slowly becoming my transplanted home. My husband and I watched the news coverage in disbelief, part of me wanted to throw on my clothes and race the few blocks to City Hall, the other part of me was glued to the television all night. Inside, I wanted to go back to my home in Lee's Summit on the other side of the state, I didn't sign up for living in a community where the unthinkable could happen. Yet it did happen, it tore open a wound that many in this town of 28,000 have worked hard to heal. There was the shock and disbelief. A crowd that rivaled the National Mall on Inauguration Day filled the square on Kirkwood Road for a candlelight vigil the next day. Everyone was crying and hugging, trying...

I am remembering my dad telling me in the Reagan years how mean spirited the Republicans were. It went in one ear and kinda out the other, after all, I was a young teen when he was first elected. All these years later, I understand what he meant. You mean to tell me, they want to derail this economy, middle class people, and add to the every-growing unemployment rate over a few dollars, a very small percentage of an overall stimulus bill because they want more money for the top cats that put us in this trouble in the first place? To quote the gentle lady senator from my state, Senator Claire McCaskill, "I'm mad!" This is just craziness and partisanship, like the kids on the playground who want to take their ball and go home but want to tear down the basketball hoop so the rest of the kids can't play either. I am taking names and will definitely vote them out, look out Senator Kit Bond in 2010, even if you were once an ok-governor back-in-the-day. Not supporting t...

President Barack Obama sat down with Katie Couric (not my favorite journalist, by the way) and put to rest the entire Daschle thing. This is why he is my President.

My really talkative five-year-old is my constant companion. We had some errands to run today, a load of catching up to do since it is my day with the car. We drove from bookstore to lunch to Post Office and she just chatted away about everything, anything, and nothing in particular. It was one of those moments when she had the majority of my attention and I could really get into her corny jokes or unending stories. I will miss this when she starts school in the fall. On one of the trips out, she commented about my "need" for a pink monkey. I think it was her cherub-eyed request for a stop into Build-A-Bear Workshop. I diverted her attention with the always-too-busy-to-stop-playplace beckoning her name with its cushy renderings of little buildings and pieces of vegetables. She gleefully changed course and was out of her coat in a flash. Again, I had to smile at her innocence and playfulness. Friend-making was coming easy for this youngest of my children as she invoked ...

Happy Black History Month! I have always had mixed feelings about this month. On the one hand I am happy that it has been designated to give the rest of America a chance to learn what black people have always known. It is a time to remind little black boys and little black girls that our history extends beyond the days of slavery, Jim Crow, and Civil Rights. This year is even more special with the First Black President and his family squarely in the White House. I was washing my hair, letting the Carol's Daughter Tui Shampoo infuse my mid-back dred locs, and thinking about the ritual of my hair. In my early days, my step-mother spared me the Saturday morning ritual of the hot comb. She kept saying I had "good hair" that just needed to be washed on Friday night, plaited into about six thick braids, and allowed to dry all night and into Saturday until it was ready for a few curls for Sunday morning. I never use that term for my own daughters, I think any hair on the h...