Goddess Inspiration: Slum Village

More Props, Less Drama

I spent the past two weeks in Germany and around Europe with my brother, who is in the US Air Force. One day we drove about three hours to Spandgalem where one of his friend's lives. We spent the day with this friend shopping, eating, and engaging in interesting conversation.

My brother's friend, who is a black male, spent nearly the entire day pointing, looking and smiling at just about every European woman that walked by. He made comments to my brother like, "yeah, I would talk to her" or "she's banging."

As you can imagine, I was amused. And my amusement led to a conversation about interracial dating. (I've explored this topic before in an earlier post.) I made a comment that took the discussion from 0 to 60 in an instant. I said something like, "See, it's black men like you that leave black women in a bind." Why? Because he's black, educated, holds down a good job, comes from a good family, doesn't have any kids or any other apparent drama, yet he's chasing pink toes.

He tried to turn the tables and say that it's black women's fault for not venturing out of their race.

And he's right. We really don't. According to census data, black women are one of the least likely groups to marry interracially. Why? Because we are more inclined to harbor feelings of betrayal to our race for doing so. (I didn't make this up...I read it somewhere.)

Then I thought, maybe it's me. Maybe I need to be more progressive in my thinking. And maybe I do, but I realized that the thing that bothered me most about my brother's friend was that he seemed to ignore the women of color that passed us, zeroing in on the European ones. In the end, the conversation left me a bit defensive, but here are a few things that I learned from listening to my brother's friend.

1. More Props- European women aggressively seek out black men and somewhat prize them. I don't know if this aggression is based on sexual curiosity or simply enjoying a new experience. Either way, you can imagine how this makes black men feel--wanted.

2. Less Drama- We asked my brother's friend, if a white woman and black woman were standing side by side with exactly the same assets and credentials, which one would you pick? His answer, "the one with less drama."

So the bit of useful information that came from the otherwise crazy conversation is that it might not be a bad idea for goddesses to crank up the props. Let men know they're wanted and appreciated. And turn down the drama. Be easy. (unless he's asking for it :-)

Song 209: Thank You

I just got back from a two-week vacation in Germany (and around Europe--It was great! I'll write about details in a separate post.)

I got home this morning at about 1:45 am, and I forced my jet-lagged body to go to sleep at about 3:00 am.

I must have forgotten to turn off my alarm clock while I was away, which plays music from my iPod, because I awoke to an acapella tune at 4:30.

The way my alarm clock works is that it plays songs in my iPod by artists in alphabetical order. I usually reset the alarm each morning, but since I'd been gone for two weeks, the iPod had just been picking up where it left off from the previous morning.

So this morning, song 209 came on. It was Ashanti's "Thank You" from her album Ashanti.

Now I'll admit, I've had a bootleg of this cd for what seems like forever, and I've never played this song. I found it to be a beautifully sincere expression of gratitude. I don't know if she's thanking a boo, a family member or friend. It doesn't matter. All I know is that when I heard it at 4-something this morning, I shed a few tears and lifted up a prayer of thanks for the people in my life and the people coming into my life.

After the song went off, I replayed it a few times and then asked myself if it was pure coincidence that this was the song that woke me up this morning. I quickly reasoned that it wasn't and decided that it more resembled a good omen of things to come.

Here's the song.

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