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Ladies, in your Twenties, Run the World, so you don’t end up in The First Wives Club

mannnnnn, if I aint a writer, water aint wet. So some of you, meaning anyone that knows me, knows I LOVE TELEVISION. Music is great, but have you ever had the rusty anchor episode of the golden girls come on after you arrive home post walk of shame? thats some good living right there. anyhoo….. my fellow teevee freaks may have noticed me drop not one, not two, but three of the dopest women driven shows Ive ever seen in the title up there. Twenties, Run the World, and The First Wives Club ate up so much of my time recently. They all focus on everyone’s favorite – BLACK WOMEN. Black women working, loving, living, laughing, losing, gaining, you know just being human in different phases of their lives. My Twenties girls are, well, in their twenties, doing twentyish shit like getting evicted and getting cheated out of orgasms and trying to figure it out. My Run the World girls are a bit more savvy…im thinking 30s….situated in careers, if not in love, and definitely not missing no nuts. And The First Wives Club, well them bishes old…life is certainly settled in many ways but tell God ya settled and watch him work. The thing that I love most about all these shows and what they all have in common that they feature, not black women, but women that are black. a distinction if not a difference. Im not being beat over the head with their blackness, which is gloriously still, thru their style, their lingo and their worldview very obvious. Let’s dig in….. TWENTIES (Wednesdays, BET) – loosely based on Lena Waithe’s ascension in Hollywood. It’s centered on her, in this case, a lesbian chick named Hattie, her single free spirited pal Nia, and her married serious friend Marie. Hattie ends up working for – thanks to Marie – who I believe is Yvette Lee Bowser, after floundering around and thus starts her career in Hollywood. I swear, if you dont see a sminch of yourself, in one of these chicks, ya lying. There is a joke about Hattie being violated by a dentist after getting evicted that legit made me laugh out loud. Plus, the sporty side of me is here for all of Hatties fashions, think: tees bauds and rees. In fact one of her pairs if pants had me running to my trusted fashionista, C-Line from the 9, to hunt them down. found them, ordered them, they never arrived….to china, from mya and America, eff you. But to Lena, a huge gratitude from me to you for sharing your story…we still need to talk bout some other projects of yours tho….. Run The World (Sundays, STARZ)- now I just said this about no blackness, so I AINT gonna call this a black version of a white quartet that we all lived for in the early aughts, but……the city is the same, but the vibe aint. This one is about 4 chicks, Ella is a blogger/writer like ya fave – MOI, Sondi is a post graduate candidate in a relationship with her professor, Renee is a pistol, who just kicked her wasband to the curb and Whitney is a uber successful bidness woman who feels trapped by her relationship with her uber good dr fiancé. When we first meet them they are all about to hit a state of flux….all of them are entering a season of change, which anyone near my age can relate to. Add Erika the Great Alexander to the mix as Ella’s editor….and get ya bat and yall ball cuz thats a hit. Editors note: my uncle said that lame line to me bout twenty years ago and I cringed for him like you likely just did for me. but eff yall. The First Wives Club (Streaming, BET+) – based on the movie of the same name. Jilly From Philly is megastar on the decline, Hazel E, married to an unscrupulous man who manages her while attempting to manage someone else. He cuts her off financially and she has to move in with Surgeon Bree, who kicks her too nice husband to the curb after he cheats on her after she neglects him. Rounding out the trio is Ari, a former high flying legal eagle who puts her dreams aside to help her husband launch his political career. All of them are buoyed by Hazel having to push the reset button on life and some serious hijinks and low moments ensue, while on a quest to avenge hazel and live their best lives. All three of my shows have some familiar faces in the casts, and all of them feature music that will make you bop ya head and wicked smart punchlines and writing. AND THE FASHIONS, OH SHIT THE FASHIONS *GMONEY VOICE* Sometimes you will laugh, sometimes you may drop a tear or two over a scene that strikes a little to close to home. One thing is for certain, all the creators had both their bats and balls…..too soon?

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Fraud? Not the Quad.

Question, Have you ever settled in after a long day, your Pope wine glass/popcorn bowl in front of you, alpaca/llama/german shepard throw askew your body, glued to the tv to watch your favorite show – the one where the scrappy heroine walks to the train station, boards the train, hits up the starbucks, enters her workplace speaks to Bob and Mary Ann, has a great day, meets her boo for a hot dog stand lunch, and works on some Excel spreadsheets before hitting that same train headed back home, where she tears off her bra, and settles in to watch her favorite show where the scenario that I just described unfolds for her favorite scrappy heroine before her eyes? No?  Me neither.  The scrappy heroine wouldn’t come home after her mundane day and watch another muthafucka have a mundane day either.  You know why?  Cuz that shit would be boring.  Who the hell wants to watch a television show about real life?  Especially a scripted one.  Even on reality shows, the producers ramp up the drama…now seems like an appropriate place for some edifyin and educatin; drama: any situation or series of events having vivid, emotional, conflicting, or striking interest or results.  (from dictionary.com) Anything vivid, emotional, conflicting or striking, or even interesting about our scrappy heroine’s day? This is why these nonsense around BET’s new D-R-A-M-A The Quad perplexes me.  I’ve watched it since its premiere and its a soap opera set in a HBCU. Hazing, murders, affairs, departmental infighting, class warfare, drugs, and drinking  all figure prominently.  I attended an HBCU, two of them actually and with the exception of murder I can say definitively, all of these things happened during my matriculation at Hampton and or Clark.  Im pretty sure other attendees of HBCUs would agree with me, but one administrator at a very prominent HBCU is here for none of it.  Dr. William R. Harvey, president of my beloved “home by the sea” – Hampton University is bigly upset with Debra Lee and BET for what he feels is an unfair depiction of life at an HBCU, especially his special assed Hampton.  He is so upset in fact that he wrote a 3 page letter to detail his complaints.  I read his letter, which HILARIOUSLY opens with him thanking Jasmine Guy “for the one academic scene in The Quad series about the mythical and fictitious Georgia A&M University in which students are seated in a classroom.”  An actor getting credit for a scene that was written for her to appear in…fine.  I checked – Jas aint got shit to do with the creative end of this show, sooooooooooooooooooo, yeah.  He goes on to say that in his nearly 50 year esteemed career in higher education administration, he has NEVER witnessed the actions portrayed in The Quad.  Come with me on a cherry picking expedition of Dr. Harvey’s letter if you will…. He’s never seen: students driven by sex, alcohol or marijuana.  Does this even deserve a rebuttal? Bands that condone hazing.  Someone should tell him to google FAMU and read about the hazing death of a drum major.   Trustees/School Presidents being beholden to band directors/football coaches.  Now, I don’t know this to be the absolute gospel, as I’ve never been an administrator, but I’d bet your baby mama’s link that Eddie Robinson, who famously coached Grambling State University football for over 50 years had more power and pull on that Louisiana campus than ANY of the 7 presidents that presided over him. He goes on to say that the show should have touched on the myriad accomplishments of Xavier, North Carolina A&T, Tougaloo and SHOCK, Hampton. He posits that if any of the things he’s never seen happen, happened on any of those campuses, none of those schools could have accomplished anything they accomplished. He closes the letter by saying that we “cannot afford this kind of story telling.  It amounts to the type of fake news that is prevalent today.” Sir….I know Porangetus has blurred the lines between “story” and “news” but you can’t compare the two.  One is a STORY and one is the NEWS.  What a false equivalency.  Stunning in its irresponsibility. I’m unclear about exactly what it is about our cousins that only want the not only positive, but righteous side of us shown in movies and television dramas.  I mean I get it….but this aint blaxpoitation here.  There are no pimps hanging on campus ready to set out the fresh faced freshman.  No one is eating chicken and watermelon while bagging up their weed.  People are living, loving, succeeding and failing just like they do on college campuses and life in general…these people just happen to be black. This is such made up bullshit, its a shame.  I feel quite comfortable in saying that not one kid watching The Quad is gonna clutch their pearls and decide to attend a PWI over an HBCU because a girl got drunk at a college party and ended up kissing a girl.  If anything, in this day and age, I imagine it would have the opposite effect. Black people and their experiences are not a monolith.  Say it with me. BLACK PEOPLE AND THEIR EXPERIENCES ARE NOT A MONOLITH.  Just like an HBCU can graduate most of the black MBAs in the country and still have a hazing death occur, a black doctor can marry a black lawyer, create 5 upstanding kids and afford a brownstone in Brooklyn….but hey, back then we said that was fiction too.                              

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Powerful Niggatry

We all saw him.  His gloriously handsome face, spewing forth sentiments not usually seen on primetime television, and certainly not on a station that has been so destructive to the same people  to whom he was  so powerfully speaking. I dont mean to overstate the case, but watching him up there briefly made me feel echoes of what I felt when I watched another gloriously handsome black man command the stage on an unseasonably warm November night in Chicago, with his equally beautiful black family, primed to occupy a supreme position of power.  Pride.  Pure unadulterated pride.  But y’all saw Jesse.  All the think pieces done been thought; all the videos of the acceptance speech been shared and reposted – WE SAW YOU FACEBOOK AND YOUR FUCKT ASS CENSORSHIP ATTEMPTS and “woke bae” was typed ad nauseum.   The intersphere will inevitably move on to the next fauxtroversey or black man in a wig skit, but NOT before doing the one thing y’all and y’alls cousins are so apt, so eager, so ready to do.  Tear him down.  Cuz thats what niggas do. Three things pissed me the hell off yesterday.  They revolved around the following trite played out ass themes. He talkin bout white folks killing us, but not us killing us. Y’all only give a fuck cuz he light skinned/handsome. No one watches BET. Powerful niggatry at its best.  Sigh. He talkin bout white folks killing us, but not us killing us. An old negroidian woman, who fancies herself a journalist and beloved fixture here in Chicago (and I suppose to people who still have 8 track players, she is indeed a beloved person) was the latest perpertrator of this fuckshit ass line of thinking, which she felt the need to share on Facebook.  This man was talking about the oppressors of black folks, who have traditionally been the US government and its enforcement units, killing us and getting away with it.  And here she come in all her “im old, but Im hip, hey sistagirl, what it do brothaman” glory, attempting to be radical, but revealing herself to be nothing but an Auntie Ruckus. She had so many lil cousin Ruckuses on the thread “amen-ing” her bullshit too, yall.  I wish I could say I was shocked, but I wasn’t.  Anytime anyone has ANYTHING to say about one of us getting shot down in the streets like a rabid dog, or suspiciously killing ourselves in a jail cell, some nigger will stand up and talk bout how we kill ourselves so how can we expect others not to kill us.   Really?  Is that really what you want to say?  Does your dumb ass really not understand the difference in murder by cop and crime?  BLM and Stop the Violence – these are two separate issues.  How are you walking around without a helmet when you are unable to process the difference in these movements?  They can and should co-exist, but they should NOT be compared.  And lets be really really really real.  Even if peace was achieved in every war torn city across this country and world, the oppressors would still be killing us, cuz they were killing us on the got damn Amistad, when we aint even know what a fucking gun was, so stop with the respectability bullshit.  This person then went on to tell us, what regular folks aint doing in the hood while we applauding Jesse and his sentiments.  Well ma’am. Just like a broke clock, you are wrong a 1,438 times a day.  Alpha’s walking thru the hood.  MASK.  10K Fearless.  Organizations comprised of regular everyday working folks who wanna do better and effect change.  The action this woman offered as proof of her concern, activism and righteousness? She doesnt kill people, which allows them to make it home to their families everynight.  Well guess what dumb ass?  Most of us are doing the same thing you are doing, including Jesse, so maybe y’all got more in common than your dumb ass thinks.  Yeah, I said it! DISCLAIMER:  That is her wack ass catchphrase and not mine…Im way too cool for that.  Also this person has a pic of another Jesse as her FB cover photo; Mr. Jackson if ya old, uncool, ruckusy and think Stella Foster is a real journalist as opposed to simply being the assistant to a real journalist who died, upon which she assumed his position cuz she happened to be standing there and probs knows where some bodies are buried.  Also, she is no longer in that position.  Apparently she retired to give herself more time to write the shit she used to write in her column, on Facebook, FOR FREE.     Y’all only give a fuck cuz he light skinned/handsome. Jesus H. Christ.  Jesse Williams is a beautiful man.  I dont know him, but it SEEMS his inside matches his outside.  Many people just found out bout “woke bae” Sunday night, but bae been woke waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before that.  If you were woke and your third eye wasnt focused on Scandal and the evolution of the sidepiece, you would know that.  But I’m struggling with why his level of attractiveness is being used as a point of detraction.  If he stood up on that stage looking like whoshotjohn, and said the shit he said, I’m willing to bet the reaction would have been the same.  Kendrick Lamar isn’t an obvious sex symbol – he dont look shit like Woke Bae but didn’t your heart beat proudly at the sight of this?   and then this? Thought so, so miss me with that handsome bullshit.  And while I’m angry, as if I exist in any other state, what the fuck is you people’s problem with light skinned black folks? Seriously.  WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. YOUR. PROBLEM. WITH. LIGHT. SKINNED. BLACK. FOLKS.   We aint legit?  Only value we have is how light we are?  Nothing we say or feel is important because our ancestors were

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