Yeah...and so, anyway...

I had a conversation a few days ago with my niece, Jasmine Shortt, about the importance of young African Americans knowing and understanding the history of what people have sacrificed over the past 400+ years, so that long standing institutions based on racial hatred, assumed superiority and economic benefits for the ruling class no longer have the type of stranglehold and taint on this country that they did at one time. Many young people don't know, or if they do, they don't understand what it means to them because people have a tendency to preach instead of teach . In my opinion, history has be broken down, put into context, and made personal to THEM . Otherwise, it's all about the Hamlet effect: "Words, words, words." What I told Jasmine is that many people died so that her grandparents, my parents, could own their home at 8420 Fawcett Avenue in Tacoma, Washington and at 2124 Kirk Way in Sacramento, California. The house in Tacoma was in a mostly White ...

My ex husband and I never had what anyone could call a "good relationship". I have to own up to my part in this: by the time I met him, I was very unsure of myself and suffering from the effects of a very out of control eating disorder, low self esteem, guilt about being a disappointment to my parents (this was a projection of my own disturbing thoughts; they never did show me any indication that they were disappointed in me), and, at age 22, I had dropped out the last semester of my senior year in college. I told myself that I needed a job more than I needed the degree because I wanted to move out of my parents' house. But that wasn't it. Here's the truth. I had an obsessive need to look like the many stunningly beautiful Black women I saw each day. I thought if I looked as good as they did, I could snag a boyfriend just as easily as I imagined they had done. The mixture of imagination, jealousy, resentment, and insecurity is an extremely bad combination for anyo...