The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

The world seemed to stand still in the rush of morning activity. Bookbags were hurriedly stuffed in the car, breakfast barely consumed, jackets hastily donned against the unexpected cold.  The promise of the day was unfolding as the engine made its roar to life and the blast of the car exhaust let out a poof of steam against the wind of this new day. Turning the corner, hoping to catch the light, coffee sipping and backseat chatting about the hope of seeing friends and discovering new things under the watchful eye of the teacher in the front.  The music softly played, NPR an afterthought, hands turning over wheel, lights on against the dawning mist, a new day of activity forming ahead. Pulled to the brick edifice of learning, little legs jumping out the door pushed open, grabbing the backback slung over one shoulder, "bye mom," in jubilant excitement, dashing off to 4th grade, waiting and meeting friends to go stand on line until the time to go inside, feeling confident...

There is a lot of chain yanking going on. I thought about this over the course of some events in the last month and how in almost all human interaction, one is trying desperately to control the thoughts and actions of another. It is true, if one stops and thinks about it. Children are trying to bend the will (and wallet) of parents to give in to that thing they want.  They are relentless in their manipulative tactics (although, with the more stern parent, these tactics fail and the subjects try another method, kids are quick) to try to get what they want. Spouses are just as guilty.  One wants his laundry done even though the other can not figure out what he wants since he never puts the clothes away.  The other wants her to cook even though she hates it and they never like what she makes anyway.  It can go on and on from working, who sits up with the baby, who drives, what side of the bed, where to vacation, the city lived in, etc. Employers are especially...

Everyone has their gut feeling, that tugging and nagging that lets them know either something is the right thing to do or something is wrong in the stew. I had that feeling a month ago when my consultancy unexpectedly ended and I was given a vague comment about "fit."  My gut told me that something was wrong in the stew. Mind you, I passed all the background checks, was noted for my contributions in the brief twelve weeks with the organization, and was the silent ear for the executive's complaints about the staff across the state.  I was new, and a black woman, and older, so my position was to focus on the positive and concentrate on what I brought to the table, also to make sure that I was doing what was expected of me and beyond.  All the assurances, right up to the day the position ended, were that I was spot on. In any organization, there is always that period of time when team members are getting to know each other, when a new organization, which is what this c...

Being authentic, open, and genuine has a price. I've paid that price more times than I can count. When I was younger, I witnessed my father try to work with and make sense of the black intelligentsia of our new town after a number of racial incidents that threatened our family.  I was eight or nine when the cross was burned in our yard at 311 Gordon Street.  My father and grandfather kept watch with their Arkansas shotguns and protected the family when the police, local black university "muckety mucks" and otherwise power brokers in town were cowering in silence on the "black middle class" side of town.  My father was not silent.  He spoke up and out and promised them that he would protect his family even if they would not stand with him and help.  He, alone, stood up to the racist power brokers in our capital city, he stood against the white doctor's son who was behind the tire slashing and epithets written on the shed in the back of our property - hi...

Much to the surprise of my inner circles, I did not write every day this week about the government shutdown and the potential default of the United States. He, my husband, already thinks I am a little too transparent or a little to raw in my opinions of the political nature. Right, perhaps, but there came a time in my life when I decided that holding back wasn't worth it. That I had a calling, as Oprah, my late father, and the black female seminarian told me, to use the power of the pen to sound an alarm. I have to write and be a clarion. I gave some thought to the events taking place and even my husband's silent commentary that he has only so much he can affect as a University administrator to be concerned about what those knuckleheads are doing in Washington. Then I remembered two key facts - I am the daughter of David Lee and Mary Aloyse Foster Brent and that means that I have to speak up and out.  I am the daughter of a woman who fought for her place in higher educa...

Sometimes, one just runs out of cheeks to turn. The nation is held hostage because a handful of extreme tea partiers, racists, don't like the color of the President's skin.  Their hatred is that this man, this black man, dared to take advantage of all the opportunities afforded to us in the last fifty years and do the impossible - rise to the highest office of the land - and they despise him, me, and everyone else who looks like him. State-after-state has reported incidents of things from the minor to the major from people being unfairly terminated from their jobs for speaking up for their rights to police brutality the likes of Bull Connor with his dogs to voting rights violations and assaults on a woman's body.  Over and over it has been a repeal of the social structure of the last fifty years because the fabric of racism can not phantom the reality that our country is browning, that being white is not exceptional. Sometimes, one gets tired of turning the other chee...

I was sitting at my desk, staring at the blank page, thinking about the many words I have etched on paper or typed on screen. My thoughts drifted to when I started this blog and even further back when I was creating content on Helium.com.  I thought about what I started this journey to accomplish. All writers want to be read.  We, in the creative class, hone our craft in the public spaces.  We are the visionaries and oracles of the world, reflecting back to many the truth left hidden, lighting darkened paths, and brightening up shadowed memories.  We write to be read, to be read, to be read. And read indeed! Someone close to me wanted me to stop writing about my childhood, my late father, my siblings. For a while, they succeeded in ways that my step-sister reading my journal when I was only twelve did not, I stopped writing for a while.  I could not wrap my mind around the request and the authority they felt in asking me to stop being who I was. I to...

I write because I am compelled to do so. The public sphere is the blank page, this global medium of choice, because that is where we meet. I am authentic in my voice, my experience, and my muse. My writing is reclaiming the voice of that little, scared, skinny girl who was unprotected for years.  I write to right that wrong that was done to her and the thousands of "hers" out there whose voice is threatened or controlled. Pen to paper, the oracle's tools, are mine because I am directed to do so by powers far greater than me, it is my stage, my ministry - as an esteemed female seminarian reminded me - my place.  It is why I am driven to do so even in the face of opposition. I write for the ones who have been bullied, the ones who have been sexually abused, the ones who have been in tough marriages, jobs, or friendships.  I write for the ones who raised their children alone and fought to make something of themselves.  It is for the ones who do not have a voic...

We are the United States of America. A country founded on land that was black and brown first (read They Came Before Columbus and Before The Mayflower ). This was supposed to be a vast open space of opportunity for all, justice for all, liberty for all. All means all, simply all, not just the white, not just the wealthy, not just the English speaking. That is what the promise of the United States of America was supposed to be.  A place where one can be their fullest self, unhindered by religious dogma, unconstrained by birth class, unchained from royal lines. We have lived through many audacities that are against our creed - slavery being the one that still reverberates with the lingering racism that permeates our society. There is hypocrisy running rampant in our Congress.  They, specifically the Tea Party faction, those that rose to power through white fear of a black president, they shut down the government, like spoiled children, because of Obamacare. Our nat...