The Tale of the Slap Heard Around the World

Hair

For those of us who watch Red Table Talk, it comes as no surprise that alopecia affects a good proportion of black American women. We might speculate on the cause of this but it would be nothing but conjecture at this point. 

We can however, see the results.

Black American women and men are very sensitive about their hair. So much so that alopecia is considered to be a disability. There is so much politics that goes into it that it is almost impossible for anyone without the lived experience to understand. I certainly do not. 

I do remember Wendy Williams talking about how a black woman should NEVER wear her natural hair on the red carpet, months before Lupita Nyong'o did it and somehow changed the game. (nobody talks about that little snippet).

I do remember Fashion Police making fun of Zendaya when she dared to walk the red carpet in faux locs. There was a lot of apologizing afterwards, allegations of racism, the Osborn girl leaving the show, etc.

So black hair is a sensitive topic. Chris Rock himself did a documentary named 'Good Hair' about it all. That's number one.

Infidelity

Now I need you to stop paying attention to the tabloids and start listening to people when they speak. Yes, both Will and Jada allowed other people into their marriage  during a period of time when they were unhappy. Both of them.

But somehow, Jada gets blamed for everything. The misogynoir is real. Will is the victim, Jada is the witch. 

Now I want you to imagine if you really care for this woman and you see her, day in day out, from her Instagram comments to show hosts on TV and on the red carpet, ragging on Jada only. Everyone looks at them and sees Jada as the villain. 

As women always are.

How long can you live with that, day in day out, before you crack?

Oscars and Comedians

The last Oscars I really enjoyed was the one hosted by Ellen. People say that she's mean but she was kind to everyone that night. Sure she made jokes, but they were not laughing at people, but laughing with them.

Too often, people's idea of a joke is to punch down on somebody for something they can't help. Oh look at the fat lard! ha ha ha. Look at the baldy, Hey GI Jane!

It's tired. It's played out. It's not funny. 

Dave Chapelle making fun of trans people in his netflix special wasn't funny.

Chris Rock making fun of Jada's lack of hair wasn't funny.

Did it deserve a bitch slap? Maybe. In this context, it's made us all take a pause and ask ourselves what we're willing to tolerate when it comes to being the 'butt' of people's jokes. A joke does not have to be mean spirited to be funny. That's what nobody seems to understand.

Twitter

Well, Will did something to Chris and twitter reacted. The nature of the reactions were very telling. We had the virtue signaling white men on there immediately revert to their native form. Judd Apatow called Will Smith a potential murderer. Doug Ellin and Richard Marx called him narcissistic. Michael Rosenbaum 'used to love him' until that moment. The mandingo energy was strong in those white streets.

Very telling.

Very very telling.

Then you have the D-list comedians who were like, 'you can't attack us, it's bad form'. Honey, if your jokes are insulting people, maybe you need to rethink instead of hiding behind 'bad form' whatever that is.

Black twitter was also divided. You have the "You can't misbehave in front of white people crowd," - DB Woodside and Ida B. Wells I'm looking at you. and then there were the, 'bUt ITs assAUlt' crowd like we don't see you on social media every day grabbing each other's faces and beating each other with closed fists, the domestic violence that is tolerated quietly until someone dies, the school shootings, racists of all stripes beating up people for being a certain color. The hypocrisy of the 'pretends to be shocked' crowd is the worst.

Then there were the defenders, mostly women I think, who completely understood what Will was doing. 

His job. 

Being the protector, the lion that will sit back until called to defend what's theirs. Too many times, women have been thrown to the wolves and their men sit back and allow them to be devoured. 

Will mentioned his mother in his acceptance speech. When he was a child, his father beat his mother and he froze. He blamed himself all this time for not helping her. When he saw a neighbor go into a child predator's house, he did nothing. He didn't call for help. He hid. These things have stayed with him. They've traumatized him. So you think he was going to freeze again? To let yet another woman in his care be attacked while he says nothing? 

Does nothing? 

Nah.

He did what he had to do, for his soul.

And so, for him, it was the right thing to do, at the right time, regardless of our discomfort or our opinions. 

Of Pen Names and Erotica

 I'm trying to get in the erotica space and giving myself a new name to see if I sell more books if my name sounds less black.

It's an experiment. 

So I have two books out, under the pen name, Monica Lerato. So far they're not doing better than books under my name. It's only been two months though and advertising books in the erotica space is different. You can't just tell your friends and they probably won't tell you if they read them.

Also the publishing industry is ran by puritans and they don't even want to display your book in their sites if it's erotica. I'm still learning my way about. I'll see how it goes. 

Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I won't tell you to read the books but I'll just leave the widgets here and turn my face away.

Enjoy.

The Person in the Mirror

 Yes, I know 'man' in the original song stood for 'mankind' rather than the male of the species but since this is all about inclusivity, let's just say 'person'.

So I was scrolling along on Twitter minding my business when I saw this post. An obviously white woman was quite UPSET at Whoopi for going on Stephen Colbert and explaining what happened when she said Jews and Nazis were perpetrating white-on-white violence during the holocaust.

DISCLAIMER:  Being melanated myself, I also do not understand the difference between Jews and Gentiles of Caucasian origin and I am not here to argue the veracity of this statement.

What I was taken aback by was her aggression towards Whoopi which seemed out of proportion to what Whoopi said. She accused Whoopi of joking about the whole thing, yadda yadda. So I asked her, where is the joke? She was simply telling Steve what happened and where the trouble came in. 

So the woman said that Whitney didn't apologize, which is not true, she did.

And it reminded me of that time Jennifer Gunter, who is a vagina doctor, went after Oprah for having a vagina douche named after her and opening the gift on Instagram. She tried to claim it was some sort of Joe Rogan level misleading the public type thing. That vagina and vulva are different things and that the douche goes in the vulva.

Talk about overkill. 

Anyway, I found myself in the position of defending these two powerful black women just because I don't like the out of proportion blame they get for what is essentially nothing to do with them. Do you feel safer attacking the black woman and don't experience guilt because she's rich and famous? It's still racism, White Woman.

So as I was pointing out that Whoopi apologized for her words and maybe she harbors no guilt about Jewish oppression because from her perspective at the bottom of the hierarchy, the Nazi-Jewish conflict is two elephants fighting while black people, the Romanis and the disabled who ALSO were exterminated in Nazi Germany but no one mentions them, are the grass.

So expecting her to sound remorseful for something she had nothing to do with is the energy she should save for other Nazis. Well, miss White Woman backtracked a bit and tried to say that Jews have always supported black people in America. Maybe they have, I don't know. But they are, to this day, also perpetuating apartheid against Palestinians and treating Ethiopian Jews in Israel as second-class citizens. 

She called me an antisemite.

I became an antisemite when I pointed out her wrongs just as I become a 'reverse racist' when the word 'black' comes up in any conversation where there is a debate on how a person has been treated by others and that person happens to be black. see Meghan Markle, Kamala Harris, Serena Williams, etc.

People would rather turn around and call you names than face their own prejudice. Maybe Nazis didn't regard Jews as the same race as them. Nazis were supposed to be "Aryans" yes? Blue eyes, blonde hair. Other brown-haired but white-skinned people were what? 

In school, I learned about three races; Caucasian, Mongoloid, and Negroid. Of course, it's white people who came up with these races so they get to be 'ian' while everyone else is 'oid'. But these are their own divisions and so, what are Jews now? Aren't they Caucasians? 

Genuine question.

White woman said 'antisemitism is rampant' in society but her calling me an antisemite made me wonder if maybe they need to look at the definition and why people have concerns. 

We all like to point outward - me included - with our victimization. But how about we interrogate our own prejudices instead? I think that's what the song was about - starting with the man in the mirror; - dealing with our own internal biases first, before being 'furious' at others for theirs. 

Imagine if everyone did that.

What if everyone examined their own -isms? Tribalism, Racism, Homophobia, Transphobia, Colorism, Internalized Racism, all of it. Everyone just said, "Wait. Lemme deal with my own shit first."

Society after we've all dealt with our shit

Of course, it's just a dream but just imagine.

Rihanna Is Pregnant!

 Did you feel a seismic shift?

That's why.

Are you excited? Of course, you are. I am. We all are. 

I'm seeing people posting about this being the end of us getting R9 as pregnancy is some debilitating disease that stops people from being able to sing or as if this is Regency England where once you're married and popping out babies, that's the end of you doing anything else. It always boggles me how prehistoric y'all's thinking is even in the year of our lord 2022. Frankly, I'm embarrazzed for you.

This woman has proved time and again that she will not be confined by your arbitrary boundaries. If she wants to release R9 she will. If she wants to wait ten years, fifteen years, one year, that's what she'll do. But just because a woman has a baby, that doesn't mean that's all the woman is.

Other people are talking about "why with A$AP though?' and I am thinking that you guys just don't pay attention. Rihanna gave y'all the blueprint a long time ago. She said her grandmother told her to find a man who loves her more than she loves him. 

check.

She said, she wants to have a baby, not necessarily with a man but it would be nice if she could find one who can behave.

check.

Honestly, the man has clearly been checking for her for a minute. But he showed some maturity by waiting until he was ready to be serious before he shot his shot. This shows wisdom and discernment. Different from any other relationship she's publicly had, she and Rocky hold hands in public, he carries her about, the PDA is full-on. So the question is, did she not want PDA before, or was she unsure of the others enough not to claim them in public like that?

Clearly, this relationship is different.

I'm just very excited to see what levels of beauty and grace this combination of DNA produces. I'm also very happy for my queen because she's wanted this and now she has it, with a man who has said she's The One. Well...they all said it, but he also ACTS like it.

I'm sure there are going to be a lot of tears shed tonight though. Bahahaha!

In Search of Paradise: Missing Scenes

As part of my New Year's resolution to pay more attention to my books, and utilize the tools at my disposal to grow my brand, here is a video of me narrating the missing scene posted on HubPages.

Enjoy.

Missing Scenes as Marketing?

 Hi guys,

Having woken up and found my mojo again in this year of our lord 2022 I not only intend to finish writing Marcus Devereux - which is intimidatingly good FYI but also, give my already published books some love. 

Starting with In Search of Paradise, which is really, well, I won't say my best work because they're all good, but it does go its own direction right. Gay Africans, rugby, set in Nairobi but then also the apocalypse...it's real but also fantastical. 

Anyway, I'm trying a thing where I post missing scenes on my hub page.

I've just put up the first one. Go take a look and tell me how you like it.

It's Been A Creativity Crushing Time

 Hi.

I know it's not just me who is finding this time challenging to the creative juices. It's not just the pandemic I think but everything that goes with it. The change in lifestyle (not mine but now my son is always home and it's just a different dynamic), the fearmongering, the fear of illness and death, not just yours but everybody's. 

Ugh.

It's a lot.

I just got my second jab today and so I'm feeling a modicum of relief especially since it comes at the tail end of the Delta variant surge; at least the tail end in Kenya - don't know about you, other guys.

Still, I am shocked at the number of people around me who are at the very least reluctant to take the vaccine. My boda boda guy who took me to the hospital to get my shot today told me he hasn't received the shot because he's afraid of needles.

I told him I was afraid of needles too but it doesn't hurt. 

It doesn't.

Frankly, if I wasn't there, I wouldn't have believed it myself. The complete painlessness is messing with my cognitive dissonance because on Saturday I was working in a clinic pharmacy and there were about five babies throwing fits about being injected with needles. Now I don't know if babies are just naturally hysterical or the vaccine nurse is just really excellent at jabbing people.

The bloody thing took less than a minute start to finish. I was wishing I'd have lured my boda boda driver with my boobs to come with me and give it a try. I mean since y'all seem to like my boobs so much might as well put them to good use, saving the world.

Unfortunately, I thought of that only after he left.

However, if anyone wants to see my boobs, I will show them to you in exchange for you getting vaxxed. Fair trade?

I was trying to tell him how as a motorcycle rider, he meets all sorts and he never knows who's sick and he rebutted that with "God protects us."

Sometimes I wish y'all had never heard of God because y'all use him to cover a MULTITUDE of sins including being irresponsible with yourselves. But when you're hospitalized and the bill is climbing by 1.4million a day, all of a sudden, it's not God providing, it's you, with your hand out, asking me to help you with your bill. 

Why can't we all just use common sense?

Did you used to believe the saying that 'Common Sense is Not So Common'? I - to my shame - did not. But now, I realize that it's so true and it's part of what is messing with my chi. Like...???

I spend so much time being this gif:

that it's cutting into my work time.

Mara the white people are proving how dirty they are by announcing proudly that they don't shower.

People are openly outraged at people taking offense at oppression.

PEOPLE ARE REFUSING TO BE VACCINATED

Let's not even talk about Nicki Minaj's cousin's friend's balls.

It's just... a lot.

On top of that, I've been swamped with work, having reached peak inability to say no to new clients. Thankfully, I've moved a lot of stuff off my plate and now I can manage what I have without going broke and also being able to do other things during the day like walk, update fanfic, exercise, cook, watch Netflix...just normal things that had all gotten thrown by the wayside.

Maybe it'll help me to stop snarking at strangers on twitter...okay maybe not stop, but do it less often. Sometimes the dumb gets too much.

So, anyway, I just wanted to get on here, get my feet wet and tell you that I'm trying to make a comeback. Here's a video of seven reasons why you should read my books.