The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

House apologizes for slavery and Jim Crow. The House on Tuesday issued an unprecedented apology to black Americans for the wrongs committed against them and their ancestors who suffered under slavery and Jim Crow segregation her laws. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25921453/from/ET/ I have more thoughts on this issue. The apology is a fine first step. I'm waiting for the action. The United States has apologized for its wrongdoing to other ethnic groups. The native Hawaiians received reparations of sorts. The First Nation People (I am a descendant) receive reparations of sort with protected land and gaming rights. The Japanese were compensated for their internment during WWII. What about the African-Americans? Is there a price to make up for over 400 years of enslavement? What price for the people raped (even my family's heritage as Creole people from New Orleans included le plasage - another form of imprisonment). What price for the educated women like my beautiful grandm...

My husband took the kids swimming last evening as a reward for acting up all day Wednesday! I think perhaps it was the rain and they were all stuck inside. Perhaps it was because I made them go to bed early Tuesday night so they were up early Wednesday morning. Perhaps it was a full moon. I don't know what it was but my fourteen-year-old son and six-year-old daughter were at each other all afternoon. Maybe I should've known it was going to be a bad week when my husband was still at home on Monday after taking off last Thursday and Friday to "clean the garage and do some things around the house." My garage is still full. Anyway, the kids go back to school in three weeks so I told them this was a transition week. Tuesday was a work day. I spent the entire day cleaning up, doing laundry, cleaning toilets, moving storage tubs, rearranging the family room. I banished them upstairs so I could just get finished without them underfoot. We had dinner early because my husband h...

I don't consider myself a radical activist by any stretch of the imagination. I do consider myself free, at 44, to be able to share my observations about the world. I am also less concerned about what people think, after all, a few decades ago, I would be considered middle-aged. It is with this disclaimer in mind that I share some thoughts that occurred to me this afternoon as I watched a particular scene from Steven Spielberg's production of Alice Walker's The Color Purple. It was a rare Wednesday that I had a few moments to actually watch TV One. I was doing my daughter's hair and the channel was running an all-things Whoopi Goldberg afternoon. The movie was keeping her quiet while I untangled her curly hair. The scene with Miss Millie and Sophia in the town square really bothered me. I've seen it possibly a dozen times through all the years. I even traveled to Chicago to see the live production of this acclaimed production. Today, I saw this scene through...

So 143 years after slavery, the House is proposing a "non-binding" amendment to finally apologize for slavery. Let's see, it took 143 years to realize that stealing people from their family, their homeland, their lives and transporting them over dangerous oceans to a foreign land, raping their women, beating and maiming the men, destroying families, stealing children, selling husbands from wives, selling sucking children from mother's breasts, using men as studs, diluting the race by continuous rapes, enslaving one's own children as a result of rape, causing division between the different colors of the races, not allowing the people to keep their genuine birth names, destroying their customs, languages, killing them if they read, cutting off limbs if they try to write, imposing a system of institutionalized fear, passing laws to keep them enslaved, using their free labor to build the country, taking out insurance policies in the event of their death, purposely e...

I don't want your guilt...I want your Black Berry! It seems as if white guilt is a "free pass" card for many liberal whites. It allows some to hand out a hot dog at their church's "outreach" in the poor neighborhood but then leaving if none of the "underprivileged" join their youth group. White guilt doesn't serve any purpose except to make some white people feel good about themselves for not being racist. It doesn't level the playing field. Yes, white people in America, whether their family was here at the very beginning or they are a recent European immigrant, have benefited from white privilege. The very essence of whiteness means access. It means opportunity. It means possibility in a country that is still so addicted to racism. I don't want white people to feel guilty of the ease of their lives. I don't want them to hand a poor black person a $10 as they drive by in their Lexus, Mercedes, and BMWs. I want them to hand that poor...

My four-year-old daughter and fourteen-year-old son were overcome with tears this Thursday afternoon. It was heart wrenching ...and funny. The four-year-old is the youngest of a trio of girls - her six-year-old sister and ten-year-old cousin. The two older girls made a game of "club" and "secret language" that decidedly excluded the younger girl. She kept trying to infiltrate this older girlie exchange and finally gave up in a burst of frustration, "they hate me!" She did this while billowing to the floor like a deflated balloon. I was trying to mail a package to my son in Japan so this was a public display of emotion. She wouldn't be comforted. The older girls were sitting down in chairs with the look of Cheshire cats and eyes of mischief. We left the Post Office with hopes that the rest of the errands would be tear free. The younger girl sat in the middle of the two older girls in my old, 1998 Chevy Venture. How they managed to talk over he...

My girlfriend send me some very interesting information. I am a firm believer in turning over black and brown dollars a few times before it hits the mainstream. It is not because I am separatist or racist or elitist, it is because I am a realist. I am also a graduate of the University of Iowa with my Masters of Business Administration in marketing. I know the business of branding, strategy, targeting is to bring in the consumer. There are many big consumer products companies that do a pittance with Black and Brown advertising and there are some who deliberately choose to ignore this very powerful consumer block. This post, courtesy of my girlfriend, conveniently outlines those companies who have labeled their marketing materials with a NUD. This labeling means their Brand Manager are not to pursue multicultural media in favor of reaching black consumers. I saw this trend happening when the 2000 census gave our Brown (Latino, Hispanic) brethren a slight nudge in the population numbers. ...