Saying No to the N-Word

Brian Lehrer of WNYC had a segment onhis show this morning discussing The N Word that I found interesting. For the sake of this blog post, I’m going to USE the ACTUAL word’s. The N Word is nigger, the B Word is Bitch, Queer is Queer, etc.

Here’s the back story: A city councilman in Queens submitted a “symbolic moratorium” bill on the banning of the word “nigger”. According to him, he want’s people to stop USING the word, but to continue to TALK about the word. He says that they use the word incorrectly and not he way it was historically meant to be used: “to hate and subjugate people”. He states that when people use the words that were hate driven as a term of endearment or expression it shows they are not understanding or respectful of their history and are unaware of the emotional impact it has on people around them.

When I was first listening to this and was thinking about blogging about it I was kind of upset that SUCH a big deal is made out of this ONE WORD when people commonly throw around words like bitc, or queer… and the list goes on and on but for the sake of this blog post I’ll focus on these three. I agree that originally the word was born of hate and misunderstanding and ignorance and in THAT time, to use it was wrong. But so were the other words I mentioned. You speak of a time when black people could not vote, or own land, and were enslaved to do the work of a master and guess what! There was a time when WOMEN could not vote, or own land, and who’s sole purpose was to serve a master (husband, kids, etc). And NOW, TODAY, AT THIS MOMENT, we will not let two people who love eachother, who want to vow their lives to the other, to do so because they share the same anatomical organs used to reproduce and urinate. Now, the difference between not letting two people get married and lynching and mob killings is big and I acknowledge that. Those things are wrong. The ACT was wrong. Inexcusable, really. But we are living in a different time and place now and we’ve evolved and changed and now african americam people have the same rights and privelages as every other American (unless, of course, you are gay).

And I realize now what made me upset. This guys is spending FAR too much time (and tax payer money) on a word that has a HISTORICALLY negative context. Any of these three words can be used to demean somebody, but they ALL have alternate meanings now also. I’d think the fact that the word has evolved into something more than a derogatory slur would MEAN something. The people that once let the word make them feel fear and shame have turned it into something they can “own”. Women call their friends bitches all the time and what they mean by that is YOU ARE FIERCE, GIRL!! WORK IT!! And queer? Not only has the gay community embraced the term but Queer Eye for the Straight Guy is a massive success! These words can still be used to try to harm somebody but by taking the word and changing the meaning and OWNING IT, they’ve taken some of the power away from those that use it in a negative context. And the more they make the word into something they own, the more the power will continue to dwindle until there is no negative power left in the word.

It’s time to leave the past and evolve. TEACH the past, KNOW the past, LEARN FROM the past, but GET OUT OF the past. Spend time at press conferences problem solving and planning the FUTURE for the very youth you seem so concerned about instead of dwelling on something has already grown past the point of no return. In short, quite your whining and focus on POSITIVE things you can do for your community, instead of trying to hold on to the negative.

*climbs off soap box*

Disclaimer: This is my opinion. You might disagree with it and if so, I encourage you to speak up and let me hear your side because I know that I can always learn more by hearing what you think and feel. But! Please do so calmly and respectfully.

Something exciting!! And the rest, not so much.

I’m at that part of the day where I’m WAY over productivity and looking for things to do to pass the time so you get to hear me ramble. YAY!

Before I begin, BIG NEWS! Guillermo proposed to Sandra. Congrats to you two! I love you both very much and I’m SO happy that the two of you are heading down this path. And not just because I get to do wedding stuff’s with somebody else who has infinitely better taste and style than I do while I plan my own (Although, that IS a big part of it. I need all the guidance I can get, ya know.. ) but because you two are “The Perfect Couple”. Often times I feel like people just don’t understand my feelings for Ben. How deeply the love goes. How I want want’s best for him and our family with every single fibre of my being. And when I see some of the superficial CRAP, and women who get engaged just to get married and I want to strangle them, I think about you two. Because I know that you two have that also. When you look at eachother, when you steal a smile when you think nobody is looking, when Sandra calls Guillermo G-Tard and REALLY MEANS it but STILL has that look in her eye, THAT’S true love. Congrats, again. To both of you AND to Oso (He’s totally wearing a tux right??)!

I didn’t mention this earlier because I wanted to get some good “look” photos taken with it, but my Barbie Loves MAC came in last Friday. But.. I hadn’t showered in two days and people were vacating houses in a four block radius from the smell and I was scared to let its perfect cuteness touch me in that state. heh Then Saturday I was too busy soaking up Ben cuteness to bother taking pictures. Three days in a house with a sick child will do amazing damage to a person’s mental wellbeing. Especially when the person has little wellbeing to begin with. Then Sunday I went into a sudden house cleaning panic. You know, cups needed to be lined up according to capacity, height and color. And there were canned vegetables mixed in with the canned fruit *shudder*. And it had been far too long since I’d scrubbed every outlet and light switch in the house with a Magic Eraser. And since it seemed silly to stop there, I cleaned them all up after that with Clorox wipes. Then the floor in the dining room looked dirty so I Wet Swiffered every floor downstairs. The day continued that way till I realized at 11:00PM that MAYBE I SHOULD JUST STOP!

So I did.

My makeup Sunday looked REALLY REALLY cute, though. I used four colors from the Barbie collection and every time I passed by a mirror, I couldn’t help but be happy that the little plastic bitch exists. (Yes, I called Barbie a bitch. Because if a person walked by and was anatomically perorational to her, had her flawless skin, amazing wardrobe, a shoe collection that ANYBODY would be jealous of, a garage full of cars, AND her very own MAC collection, well I’d call her that. And any female that says otherwise is a LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!) So, I was going to take a picture of said cuteness but didn’t remember till it was 11:00PM and I was in the shower scrubbing all the toxic cleaning supplies off of me and it was too late. But I promise it was really really cute!

To make up for it, I took a shot of what the MAC obsession currently looks like and a close up of the Barbie goodness. And I’m ready to admit I have a problem. It’s moved past the sense of pride I get when people comment on the pictures with “OMG! So jealous!”, to the knowledge that YES IT MIGHT BE A PROBLEM. And if you have info for a support group feel free to send it my way. TeeHee.

WOW!

We are alive. More importantly, for the first time in almost four days, Cassidy didn’t spend the entire day laying on the couch coughing. The fever is FINALLY gone. Finally. Yesterday was the first day that it never got over 100. Whew. Today we went and got pedi and manicures. We were both going pretty stir crazy and really needed to just be OUT OF THE HOUSE.

And… Ben bought me WOW. So, I’ve been avoiding this game for like, 10 YEARS. Any internet geek will know why. But after having played City of Heroes and loving it, but never so much that I lost my job, I figured it would probably be safe to try. I really like it. It’s much more compex than COH, and it’s taken a bit to get used to the lingo (Quest, not mission. Priest, not healer.) and the genre change, but it’s fun. I think that I like the futureistic feel to COH more, and TRAVEL POWERS, but in time I think it will all click and feel like home.

Anyway, my main (and only, heh) character is a level 10 Night Elf Priestess on Rexxar named Sylaa. So look me up sometime and say Hi, or let me know where you are and maybe I’ll look YOU up.

And that’s really all I have to say about the last four days. Because that’s all that’s happened. Cassidy and I caught up on ALL the DVR’d TV shows, any soap opera that currently plays on TV, and we’ve eaten FIVE BOXES of Girl Scout cookies. Okay, that’s really it.

Pneumonia

Cassidy has pneumonia. Bed/couch rest for the next four days + antibiotic + cough medicine with codeine = NOT A HAPPY 8 YEAR OLD!

WIRtW: 0003

I will start doing these again. I kinda forgot that one fortune teller told me I’d be Queen of the World one day. It might be soon so I better get back to it!!

When I rule the World, Vacation Days shall work as follows:

1) All holiday’s will be days off. Rule of thumb, if it’s on a calendar, it’s a holiday. The month of February for example..

Days off:
February 2nd (Groundhogs Day)
February 12th (Abraham Lincoln’s Birthday)
February 14th (Valentine’s Day)
February 19th (President’s Day)
February 21st (Ash Wednesday)
February 22nd (George Washington’s Birthday)

2) You will receive one (1) vacation day on the day of any immediate family’s birthday. Immediate family includes a person’s mother, father, sister, brother, grandparent, grandchild, son, daughter, fiance, dog, cat, bird, hamster, mouse, ferret, turtle, bunny, gerbil, hermit crab or any other living creature in the care of said person who is referred to as “a member of the family”. You will also have the day off of your spouse or domestic partner’s immediate family.

3) Women who are actively menstruating are to have vacation till they are free of cycle for 24 hours.

4) All days that children have off school, parent’s shall also have off. This includes Christmas, Easter, Etc. During the summer parents may switch weeks off, every other week.

That is all for now. Will amend as I see fit and days are subject to change at my will.

How NOT to start your Monday morning:

Last night I set my alarm for 4:30 like every workday morning. I really needed to get up on time because the night before I put, like, EVERY PAIR of pants I own in the dryer and when I have that many jeans in there it always takes two dry cycles. So what I normally do is get up, restart the dryer and go on with my morning routine. Then the last thing I do before I leave is put on my dry, hot jeans before I head out into the cold morning. I love that feeling. The hot pants protect me from the evil cold at least long enough to get into my car and get the heater started…

So last night I set my alarm clock for 4:30… PM! My body woke me up at what I thought was 3:09 on the cable box clock. This happens pretty much every morning, I wake up around 3:00AM, snuggle back into Ben’s warm body and fall back asleep. But this morning I kept starring at the clock because I fell asleep with my contacts in and the damn thing WOULD NOT FOCUS. So I roll over to look at the clock on the nightstand. It says 5:09. Wait. What? The damn cat must have waked across the alarm clock again and pushed the hour button so it’s ahead.. Stupid cat.

I figured better be safe than sorry though, forced a yawn to make my eyes water so my contacts would clear, look at the cable box again… 5:09. DAMMIT!

Okay. So I have two options. Option 1: Start dryer and hope to God the jeans dry the rest of the way in 25 minutes. Option 2: Wear a skirt. And option 2 wasn’t really an option because I’d have called in sick before I wore a skirt. Skirt… blech! *shudder*

So option 1 it is. I run downstairs and start the dryer then run back upstairs thinking I can just blow dry my hair tame enough to be presentable. I do this sometimes when it’s cold and I don’t want to wash my hair in the morning. I just blow it with hot air till it’s mostly tame then flat iron the honery parts. As I look at myself in the mirror for the first time though I want to spit in my own face. I have Pippy Longstocking style braids from yesterday. DAMMIT again!! No amount of blow drying is going to get it straight. And there’s NO WAY that I have enough time to flat iron… So I frechbraid it. And for ONCE I actually like to way my hair looks frenchbraided. The light and dark hair look pretty cool that way all weaved together. SCORE!

Okay, dress from the waist up, brush teeth, deodorant, perfume, makeup. My makeup actually looks pretty dang good considering the amount of time I had. I take a second to cherish my makeup and daydream about my Barbie collection on the way… then snap back into reality when I look down and it’s 5:37. DAMMIT! I need to be in the car and moving by 5:35 to be at work on time.

Run downstairs, throw open dryer, close eyes, reach in… they are hot! And dry! YAY!!! Throw on most favorite jeans, grab keys, open garage, run out door. My car is not in the garage!! DOUBLE DAMMIT AGAIN!! My car in on the street, all the windows are frosted up and it looks cold. Then it hits me… My pants ARE NOT DRY! They were just hot and FAKING!! My pants are, in fact, quite moist and instantly cold. Like, freezer cold. I consider for a split second calling in sick, climbing back into bed with Ben and forgetting Monday ever happened. Then I remember I’m a PTO Nazi and that’s out of the question.

I run to my car while making a giant middle finger gesture to the sky. It might have looked like I was flipping off God but really I was flipping of MONDAY. FUCK YOU, MONDAY!

As I got on the freeway I had wide open road and every single cell in my body wanted to run the M3 wide open. To cherish the feeling of acceleration, the roar of the motor through my intake, feeling every curve and bump in the road though my stiff suspension… letting the crappy morning fade away by the rush of speed. But something held me back and after taking the onramp with speed, I throttled down and let the car drift down to 67 and cruised.

About a minute and a half later the motorcycle that was a tiny spec when I got on the freeway in the car pool lane caught up and passed me. It was a CHP.

I take it back Monday, I love you. *hugs*