Most people of color have experienced being followed in a store so much so that I know I’ve actually broke on a white sales woman for doing so,
You may have read about an incident that I had a few months ago with a white girl whose boyfriend lives downstairs in my building (click here for: Part I) (click here for: Part II). This was the last time I “Oprah Winfreyed” a white girl and I didn’t think much else of it, but apparently my powers have disturbingly lasting effects whose application could liberate black women all over this country.
It was almost 2:00 in the morning on a Thursday. I’ve noticed that on Thursday nights Mike or Mark or whoever (honestly I refuse to commit his name to memory) has little parties. I mean he’s down there blasting all types of Daughtry and Black Eyed Peas and shit, probably drinking and definitely running his fat mouth. I don’t know what goes on in his life and I don’t want to know, I just lock my door and move through the hallway as quickly as possible on my way in and out. On that particular night I’d met up with friends and came home to find Mark’s girlfriend sitting in the stairwell in her pajamas.
“Hi Regine,” she said flatly, staring me dead in my face with her crossed-ass eyes. Is this bitch on drugs? Why does she remember my name and why is she speaking to me like we’re friends?
“Are you ok?” I was pretty much shimmying past her up the stairwell already but I figured I’d ask. Anything could be happening – maybe she was locked out. Or what if there was a fire? Hell, she might need a tampon – it’s the least I could do after getting a groove on with her man.
“No, not really,” she said with a huff. This is when I realized that her not-okayness was just some corny girlfriend shit. – anyone with a real problem tells you right away instead of getting all Judy Blume about it. I took a second to examine the scene: this chick didn’t have any shoes on and was clutching her cell phone at her side, apparently having asked whoever was on the phone, probably her BFF, to hold on for a minute while she said hello to the Negro Temptress
“Do you need anything?” I asked. Why do I always have to dig the hole deeper and deeper just to make myself feel like a good person? Frankly, if I could work through that tendency in therapy all of the drinking, random sex, and cussing people out probably would never come about in the first place and I’d be considered cured. In reality, I was hoping she needed a glass of water, a call to 911, or $2.00 to catch a bus home. But get what she says:
“Um…no, not right now, I’ll knock on your door a little later.”
What, heifer? It’s 1:45 AM, ain’t no later. Even if there were, this is not a bed and breakfast or some type of open therapy workshop where you can come in here, lay your head on my brown bosom, and talk abut all of the problems you’re having with your blatantly wackass boyfriend. For what? So that I can reveal that I hooked up with him? Or so that he can come knocking on my door looking for you? Why must I be involved and how does any of this benefit me? It was a weird mix between entitled and just retarded. This is where Oprah Winfreying a bitch goes too far – I meant to pacify her not hypnotize her.
“Please don’t.” And that’s all I said as I opened my door and put on an old episode of Living Single to calm my nerves.
I was awake for about an hour after that and could hear her barefoot ass in the hallway on the phone. Just before I fell asleep I heard a door open and close, most likely homegirl giving up and going inside, realizing that her man knows damn well she’s not going anywhere barefoot so he doesn’t have to come chasing after her. I’m sure he’d already fallen asleep with his hand in his pants รก la Al Bundy and she came in and hopped into bed with a sourpuss face. Young chick rookie stuff on her part.
But back to me and us sisters. Is a young, white, (possibly chemically imbalanced and cross-eyed) female the most easily-manipulated being on Earth? If so, how can we use that to our advantage? Could the key to black female liberation be found in the process of “Oprah Winfreying” these hoes? It’s certainly worth investigating.
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I was just watching ESPN talk radio and where they showed footage from the DIRECTV ESPN US Open Experience, a free tennis exhibition and USTA clinic at New York City’s Bryant Park) of Venus and Serena Williams to what appeared to be break dancing on the tennis court! You have got to love these sisters. Unfortunately I cannot find the same video online but found some of the other "dance off" footage on the same court. People were cuttin' it up out there.
Lonnie Burstein, executive vice president of programming and production for Debmar-Mercury, the company behind The Wendy Williams Show, issued the following statement to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. “Much of the success of The Wendy Williams Show is due to our incredibly diverse and colorful audience and we all agree that fashion is a true form of self expression. But in an attempt to explain and enforce our show’s dress code, I was not as sensitive as I could have been to Ericka, the LGBT community, or drag’s long history of being a target of discrimination. And for that, I sincerely apologize as it was never my intention to offend in any way.”
The "index of affluence and power is linked to one's size." In other words, bigger is better, even if its unhealthy. 
Warner Bros. has hired Malcolm Spellman to write a feature based on the classic TV show "Soul Train."Darryl Porter and Aaron Geller of Porter/Geller Prods. will produce with Don Cornelius, the host and producer of the famed show, which ran from 1971-2006.
Spellman said that he's writing a film set in the 1980s.
"All of the hip-hop street dances you see today were born during that time period and were first seen on that show, and I remember doing all of them when I was a kid,"
Whitney Houston's voice, emotion lift new 'I Look to You'
Were you aware that Chico DeBarge had new album?
Kennedy's family announced the senator's death early this morning in a statement.
I love my West Indian people and I love our food but you can’t bring it everywhere, especially not every day to the office.
KFC has really taken it to far with replacing the bread in a fried chicken sandwich with FRIED CHICKEN! I don't care how much one loves chicken this is a heart attack waiting to happen. We cannot support this.As part of my ongoing effort to date Black men in spite of my endless queue of fair-skinned suitors, last week I attended an all-Black black tie event. It seemed like the perfect investment of time and money for a busy Wall Street banker, sistah girl like myself: an evening of dinner and dancing with a self-selected group of young urban professionals all in an effort to raise money for the kids. I was game. And wouldn’t you know it yall, I meant a really chill brother in the process. He was funny as hell, entrepreneurial but not pompous and didn't look at his Blackberry every 2min … I was pleasantly surprised. So, long story short, we exchange digits and met up last Saturday. The problem is that you can't always tell what kind of brotha you're really getting when he's in a uniform suit. Regardless, we still made plans to hang out. The goal was to do something other than the typical dinner and/or drinks so we decided to check out Brooklyn Botanical Gardens and grab a late Brunch. Little did I know just how “out of the ordinary” our rendezvous would be.
And so there I was patiently waiting for him amid a sea of hydrangeas, when the following pink object moved into my line of sight:
“Oh lord.” I thought. “You have got to be kidding me.” But it was no joke yall! My ass had trekked it all the way to Brooklyn (I live in Manhattan … no, not Harlem, just Manhattan … don’t judge), and here I was about to spend the day with the damn Easter Bunny? Lord-a-mercy. Now it's not like I was expecting the brotha to show up in black tie but this is not what I call casual Saturday attire.
Yall shouda seen the looks on the faces of the kids! They weren't sure if he was pimped out Easter Bunny or a Power Ranger pimp … maybe a Tell-a-Tubby pimp? It was Hilarious! I mean, talk about putting a sista out there yall. Suffice it to say, we were NOT incognito at the Botanical Gardens among the swarm of Park Slope children, strollers, nannies and biscotti's.
But, the eccentric fashion sense aside, TJ was actually fun! There was not a dull moment. He's good people and a breath of fresh air from the stuffy wall street types. Plus, he's a consummate hustler. If any of yall are looking for a flatscreen TV, this homeboy "has" some phenomenal ones that he's selling at half the price. So just holla black.
However, after learning he was fifteen years older than me with six children (not to mention that suit) sadly he has not qualified for the starting line up of the Negro League. I can't be having this brotha laughing my ass into popping out a another baby for him. But what's a sistah to do the dating pool is ROUGH out there. Maybe I'll just guarantee him a secure seat on the BENCH. I mean it's not every day you walk around Grand Army Plaza with a modern-day urban pimp from the Bronx with a great sense of humor!
World's first Muslim superheroes, the 99, are headed for British television screens
So here we are again. The biggest scandal to hit the White House: How much skin is really in? Hours upon hours have been spent talking about what a first lady should or should not wear. First, it was whether or not she had the right to “bare arms,” and now, pictures of Michelle wearing “short” shorts while on holiday with her family during yesterday’s trip to the Grand Canyon are sparking a similar debate. While most women would agree that shorts (at any length) are often tough to pull off, I think we should line up with hands raised to offer her a high five. And since she is gifted with those long legs, I beg the question — wouldn't all shorts be "short" on her? So to be “short” and to the point (pun intended), what do you think about Michelle dressing relaxed like the rest of us? Is it OK for her to be casual and comfortable with her body? Or do you feel she should be more conservative, offering a polished reserved example at all times?
This South African woman, Caster Semenya who won the gold by a large margin in 800m dash has to undergo gender tests to prove she is a woman...it seems wrong. Okay so she has masculine features and may act like a tomboy but to call her out for pulling a Ms. Doubtfire or Big Momma on the field seems outlandish. It's not like she came out of no where and she has parents! Damn talk about pissing on someone's parade, can't a sista enjoy a win?
Being an artist at an HBCU is its own chameleon experience. It was at Howard U that I realized this special brand of Black experience cocktail I am. Part Jack & Jill, part hippie, part underground hip hop head, part Diddy-like entrepreneur, part introverted creative genius, part Blacker-than-thou pan-Africanist, part cooler-than -thou culture snob. Needless to say, I had to pocket my varied groups of friends.
Join the Masses, Take a Dental Vacation!
We will be out this week on vacation but invite you to catch up on your HOTUC reading by scrolling through some of the older posts to your left.Regine Hunter
Editors Note: In Part I I’d just heard a knock on my door. Now what?
I figured it was some Jehovah’s Witness and ignored it, but the noise woke me up enough that I figured I might as well get out of bed and start my morning. It just so happened that on that particular day my gay best friend AND a platonic male friend were sleeping over (yes men on all sides and still no booty for me - I said dry as the Sahara.), so while I was standing around waiting to get into the bathroom I hear a timid, yet strident, knock on the door.
A shaken, limp-haired white girl with tears streaming from her crossed-eyes was standing there and asked if she could talk to me for a minute. Now, everyone knows I’m kind of a bitch and once again I DO NOT care about white love, but when people start crying and shit I just feel badly. Not only that, I knew who she was and I knew I was damn guilty.
“So um…I know you were hanging out with Mike a while ago (YES! That’s it! Mike) and I found your shirt, and he says nothing happened, but I really need to hear it from you…”
See, this is that decision moment. Its kind of like in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas when Cindy Loo Who asks the Grinch why he’s taking all of the presents and the Christmas tree up the chimney, and he’s forced to lie to the big-eyed little cherub and say he’s fixing a broken light on one side. ‘Cept this broad was no cherub, just a pitiful white girl with a shitty boyfriend who got busted cheating and his dumb ass inexplicably gave me license to do his dirty work. I could either watch her heart break in front of me or get to lyin’. Guess which one I did?Just like the Grinch, I thought up a lie, and I thought it up quick.
“Oh no honey, please don’t cry, nothing happened at all. I had on a tank top underneath and forgot all about that shirt.”
Knowing exactly what she wanted to hear, which is all she came to my door for anyway, I had no choice but to lie, especially since she could turn into the psycho white lady from a Lifetime special at any moment. This interaction required some sophisticated performance art and my motivation was a quartet of falsehoods about the black woman’s experience that will pretty much get you through this type of situation every time.
a) I have concern for white love. I am not Jennifer Hudson in the Sex and The City movie, OK? The white race and white love will somehow persevere without my help,
b)I have concern for the feelings of little white girls. The news media may go crazy when little white girls go missing or fall down wells but I do not,
c) I would never hook up with anyone’s man. This chick imagines me going to ‘da club’ and maybe smoking weed, not getting wasted and hooking up just like a white girl would do, and
d) your white boyfriend would never hook up with my overweight, dark, nappy-headed ass. This is the falsehood that seals the deal, because no little white girl who thinks she’s fat and depends on Pantene Full & Thick Shampoo to keep her head from looking like a cue ball considers what I’ve got going on remotely attractive, and therefore neither should her man. White girls if you’re reading this, watch your back – its very possible (in fact probable) that your man is intrigued by what I’ve got going on just by virtue of him being a man and I being a woman.
To top it all off I used a deep, soothing voice and rubbed her hand as I delivered my bundle of lies. I maintained eye contact and threw in a colloquialism here and there, just to add to the imaginary divide between my wise, all-knowing blackness and her lost, inauthentic whiteness. In sum, I Oprah Winfried this bitch. And she ate it right up. I was so pleased with myself until I realized, hold up - whatever happened to my shirt?
“Oh,” she sniffed. “Me and Mike had an argument and I threw it out.”
What!? No this bitch didn’t! Still the guilty party, I told her it was fine, suggested she pull herself together, and closed my door. Inside my gay best friend had already heard every detail thanks to the classic “listening through a glass to the door, “ move and Mr. Platonic was just getting up with a “wha- happened” look on his face.
After a few hours of reflection and chats with my boys I got pissed! How dare that chick have the gall to knock on my door first thing in the morning lookin’ for answers like a KGB agent? What on God’s green Earth possessed me to hook up with someone who lives in my building anyway? And more than anything else, how dare that fool-ass dude pass the buck and even put my name in it, so I can do his job for him when it comes to preserving his wack little relationship? Oh HELL no. I was kind of wishing I’d told the truth instead, but now what?
The first solution was no more red wine for me, and second was to take pity for the girlfriend – she’s obviously got low self-esteem, a boyfriend who cheats on her, and - I wasn’t just being mean earlier – significantly crossed eyes. Naturally, the final flourish was petty spiteful revenge against the man. The next time I saw mail for Mike or Mark or whatever generic shit his name is, it happened to be from the state probation board. O RLY? I opened it and it turned out to be a letter requesting his attendance at a probation hearing. Words like “mandatory,” “legal action,” and “correctional facility,” popped up as I scanned the letter, and I hoped that this would be the hearing that got his ass off of probation that he’d never even know about. The day that could change his life for the better and undo whatever jam he’d gotten himself into previously. This is why mail tampering is illegal - what a crucial document.
I promptly tore the letter into a million pieces and put it in a dumpster down the street. I certainly don’t care about keeping white men out of jail. Months have passed and I still haven’t seen the dude around, and I hope I never do.
Oh the hell well. Shoulda given me back my shirt.
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Regine Hunter
Editor’s Note: This story appears in two parts because there’s simply no way to shorten it. You’ll thank me later for including every detail.
Let me get one thing out of the way: I drink, and sometimes heavily. I’m 100% sure that had I not been five glasses of red wine into my evening by the time I ran into my downstairs neighbor at two in the morning, none of this would have happened. But I was wasted, and by the looks of his zigzag gait up the street so was Mike (or is it Mark?).
There are only four apartments in my building and this typical Guido type of dude lives directly downstairs. If I leave my window open I sometimes hear his big mouth running or notice his freshly delivered men’s muscle magazines sitting in the building’s communal mail pile. Other than that we’ve had almost no interaction, which we both seemed cool with until liquid courage took over.
“Hey! Why don’t I ever see you in the building?” he asked as he opened our shared front door for me.
“I dunno,” I slurred, knowing full well that I don’t really see anyone in the building except for my overly friendly gay next-door neighbor who has a cavalcade of black dudes in and out of his apartment day and night. But that’s a whole ‘nother story. I even considered filling the empty silence with stories about Harvey the Homo and his suitors when the Guido spoke again.
“Wanna come to my place for a drink?” Oh that’s a great idea, I thought. I’ve always wanted to be asked in for a ‘nightcap.’ It’s so 1974, so “Three’s Company.” A quick drink sounded like a real gas. Plus, I’m still in my own building, what’s the worst that can happen?
The next few hours flew by, and I have red wine to thank for that, as well. Of course Mark (or is it Mike?) did what a lot of white men do when they can’t come up with a single inch of common ground: talk about race. He started going on about how the word “Guido” is as harmful to him as the n-word, how if he were black he’d be OK with the stereotype that black people are better athletes, and a bunch of other misguided bullshit that I’m sure he’d been waiting to bounce off of a black person since the 2008 election. I just told him he was wrong on all counts, and that he should shut up and pour me another glass of wine. Now, instead of our smart mouths sparking off the Race Wars, it created serious sexual tension. Maybe it was some weird “I’ll show you!” type of thing, but with all of his Napolean-esque, willfully ignorant but brolic hubris, the guy’s spunky attitude reminded me enough of that barnyard chicken hawk from Looney Tunes to turn me on.
Yeah, that thing.
So we hooked up a bit. No big deal, mostly safe for work. But part of the way through I remembered running into some chicklet who introduced herself as his girlfriend one morning on my way to work. We chatted for half a block down the street before I bid her stringy-haired ass adieu, doubting our paths would ever cross again. Now I’m up here in a drunken tryst with her man. That’s a violation of “sisterhood,” somehow, right?
“Wait, don’t you have a girlfriend?” I had to ask, a glutton for punishment, am I.
“Yeah sort of but, you know, don’t worry about it.”
Don’t worry about it? Don’t worry about white love? Really? Well you know what buddy, I won’t. That shit is NOT endangered and when it comes down to it I don’t care about no white girl’s feelings. Yeah, I said it, and in the black vernacular, too. Hmph. Carrying on.
The hookup itself was as uneventful as it was low-risk, and the next thing I know I’m waking up with this doughy mufucka cuddled up on me like a stuffed animal. Nope, boo, bye. The thing was, I could not find my shirt, so I just threw on the rest of my clothes, zipped up my jacket, wrote a note with something like “Hey Mark, had fun, left something here though, when you find it please leave it upstairs by my door. Peace Out - Regine” and scurried upstairs to my own apartment. I fell asleep wondering whether I’d get my little Ross Dress For Less frock back soon, but otherwise without a care in the world.
As days, then weeks, then months passed, I started to really worry. Mark (who really STILL could be named Mike) hadn’t returned my shirt, and knowing that it must be mixed in with the rest of his random white boy clothes on the floor meant that his girlfriend could find it any minute – its easy to spot a hot pink and fuchsia tunic in the midst of khakis, camouflage print shorts, and Hollister tees. She’d see that its not hers, smell my perfume on it, and get all tough white girl with me on some Shannon Doherty shit and come a’ cuttin’. I even ran into them in the hallway once while I was with a gentleman caller of my own (don’t get the wrong impression, friends - my love life is actually as dry as the Sahara) but we both played all innocent. I certainly couldn’t ask for my shirt in front of her, now could I? As much as cute party shirts in a size 2X aren’t easy to come by, it only cost $12 so I chalked it up to the cost of drunkenness and let the whole incident go. In fact, aside from hoping I didn’t run into this dude ever again, I forgot all about it.
That is, until 9:30 on a Saturday morning a good three months later, when I heard a buzz at my door.
It’s happened twice now … twice in a month. Inevitably, you are out to dinner with a couple friends. Everyone answers the “Wassup witchu?” question and breaks down the progress and frustration with the job, the latest in the love life, ideas and ambition on the entrepreneurial front … and inevitably, the question of giving back comes up. Generally, the conversation is rooted in the overall lack of fulfillment we get working in Corporate America. Everyone nods and agrees: “This is not the end-all, be-all. It’s about gettin’ that money right to start your own thang.” And sure, part of that is giving back. Again, everyone nods. One person will bring up an organization they support. Another will mention a tutoring program. And then, like clockwork that one friend will weigh-in … “Well, ya know? The best thing we can do as young, successful urban professions is move to a Black neighborhood. ”
And that’s when I check out. “Here we go again.” Move back to the 'hood? For real? Seriously?
You see the thing is, I have no problem with the folks who get that degree, get that coveted J-O-B, and move to THE latest, greatest, regentrified ‘hood in city and then go around from cocktail hour to happy hour touting their zip code like it’s a damn membership card to the “I’m Black and Conscious” Club. Go ‘head and self promote based on your zip code. But I do have a problem with how those folks try to make me feel that by not livin’ in the ‘hood somehow I am turning my back on my community. Annnd don't even get me started on the rebranded neighborhoods by real estate agents trying appeal to the latest stock of up and coming urban professionals … for NYC folks the clearest examples are DUMBO or “Down Under the Brooklyn Bridge” and SoBro “the South Bronx”—Wait a minute are you really tryin' to Jeti mind trick me with the KRS-One " South Bronx, south, south Bronx" as SoBro as oppose to Soho???????????
Save it. The bottom line is that, anyone who really grew up in the ‘hood AIN’T tryin’ to go back to the 'hood!
Which brings me to my point: I will bet you that 9 out of 10 of those over-educated, young urban professionals living in the newly-remodeled condos of our gentrified ‘hoods DID NOT GROW UP IN THE HOOD TO BEGIN WITH!
I did my fare share of time in the 'hood even though, technically, for part of my childhood I grew up in a mixed middle-class area just so I could be zoned to a better public school but best believe I lived in 1-bedroom apartment with my mom, my aunt, my cousin and my grandmother. So don’t even try to come for me.
PLUS, after college, I lived and worked in the townships of South Africa, favelas of Brazil and shantytowns of Jamaica where you don't have the luxury of not eating everything on your plate and taking a shower ever day let alone with hot water. I have swerved around tear gas and dead cars in the middle of a coup d’etat in Haiti. So, don’t even try to tell me that I’m somehow turnin’ my back on my community because I don’t live in a Back neighborhood! Believe me, you can’t see the ‘hoods I’ve been to from the windows on that newly-remodeled duplex your renting around the way down the street from your Bodega.
Lastly, did you ever stop to think about what my presence in a non-Black neighborhood might do to change misconceptions about us? Last week, my neighbors Edith and Marvin Einstein-- an elderly Jewish couple--and I watched the PGA tournament together.
