Top 5 things I loved and hated about this past weekend

 I’m a fairly positive person and so I like to freely talk about the things I love. I love a lot of things, including but not limited to all baby animals. Sloth, owls, kittens, ewes, whatever, they are all cute. I also love Crime TV, elderly couples holding hands, the sound of Ira Glass’ voice, the sound of Rachel Maddow’s voice, the smell of freshly cut lawn, and more. I could go on for longer because I really do love a lot of things and I’m not super into hate, but sometimes I need to vent. There were some things I really loved about the previous weekend and some things I wanted to punch. Here we go.

5 Things I loved

5. Matty the baby sloth

This video is unimaginably precious. Last week Matty the baby sloth gave a hibiscus flower petal to a lady. I watched this 31 second clip ten times in a row, the first time I watch it. The little sloths tiny smile and the sweet way he gives her the petal then grabs her hand made a few tears trickle down the sides of my nose. If you haven’t seen this adorable viral video yet, then take a few seconds to lose yourself in his kind slothly little eyes, it might just make your day, your week or your year.

2. Learning

I suppose learning should be higher, but there a few things I loved more than learning this weekend. This weekend was one of the weekends where I was a group leader for the nutrition class I graduated from in 2011. I love going to this class because I learn even more about nutrition every time I’m there. This weekend we reviewed the Immune & Allergy and Endocrine system functions.

For anyone who knows me (s)he will know that I love nutrition and enjoy talking about the way food heals us.

            Food = Life

            Food = Health

            Food = Happiness

People often ascribe to the old adage, “you are what you eat.” I truly believe this, meaning if you’re eating processed foods, your body does in fact become an interminable waste land of preservatives and fake nutrients. These make cells less supple, create a stressed body, a stressed/depressed mind, and more.

Your body is your house. How do you feel about walking into houses that are dirty and uncared for? How does that make you feel? Do you want to live in a well cared for house the rest of your life?

I want to state that being overweight is not synonymous with unhealthiness. Eating and acting in ways that mess up and tear down your house are, not weight.

3. Central Co-op (Madison Market)

I can’t say enough good things about this co-op. This is a member-owned natural foods cooperative that I affectionately call the Mad-mart. That means that people buy into ownership there to help the store and community thrive while sometimes getting discounts on food. There are lots of locally grown-organic foods with a variety of price points. I will always shop here before Whole Foods any day because I know I’m supporting my community.

            The real reason I’m putting Central Co-op here is that this weekend on my two lunch breaks from class I went here for at least part of my lunch. I bought a sesame, ginger, garlic kale and chard salad on both days and some Synergy Raspberry Chia Kombucha. I did have more for lunch as well, but these are the things I’m most grateful for from the weekend. I literally lust after the Kombucha and when I ate the salad, my eyes teared up. If you notice, my crying reflex is a sign to me that something is really awesome.

I love this store and shop here and at Trader Joe’s almost exclusively for everything. I’m in the lower income range, so I basically get my bulk items like spices, grains, legumes from here and the rest from TJ’s. You should go here if you’re in the area, check it out, love it and become a member!

2. Dinner with friends

Six to seven months is far too long to go without a friend sighting. On Saturday night I met up with a group of wonderful ladies that I hadn’t seen in about that long. These ladies are part of my old Starbucks crew from when I worked down in Leschi. We headed to Saffron Grill in Northgate area for a bit of Indian food.

I felt a pregnant tummy for the first time in my entire life at almost 33. Who really knows what I’d been waiting for? I have this secret fear of holding babies kind of like Robin in How I Met Your Mother and I suppose that fear extends to getting too close to the makers of those babies.

It’s been decided we won’t wait another six months. Friends are important for health too.

1. Scandal

            No, I’m not talking about any outrageous events that have recently happened. I’m talking about the show by one of my favorite drama creators, Shonda Rhimes. I didn’t actually happen upon this show until early last week. I kept hearing rave reviews about it, but wasn’t sure if it was going to be for me. I’m never sure if a show is going to be for me until I’m in bed feeling exhausted; not quite exhausted enough to sleep, but too much so to do anything productive. I queud up my Netflix and started the first episode. I was hooked after the first minute. Quinn… got a job for no reason! Ooh… I’ve gotta find out why. And so it goes.

            The first season was only 7 episodes and so I had to move onto season two, which is currently airing on ABC.com. I figured out a way to start on Season two and currently I’m in the middle of Olivia helping… oh wait, I don’t want to ruin it for you. I suggest if you haven’t seen this yet that you check it this weekend. It might just make your list of top fives. It’s deliciously well written and oh so Scandalous!

5 Things I hated

5. Matty the baby sloth

I realize I just said I love these. The only reason this is on here is because I realized after I had watched it for the kazillionth time that I actually wasted a lot of time loving this little dude. I also watched some other compilation of cute animal videos too. There are many other things I could do in place of watching all these wonderfully tear jerking vid’s, like finishing up a podcast or… perhaps I would have just used it watching more Scandal.

4. The Oscars on my facebook, twitter, instagram feeds

The cold hard truth here is that I don’t give a shit about The Oscars. Part of it is because I watched only two of the movies on this years list of contingents: Les Miserables and Django Unchained. I generally don’t have time or money to watch a majority of movies.

The other reason is that I just don’t ever have the urge to sit through what I would characterize as one of the most boring four hour shows ever to grace the television screen. I have seen it in the past and almost gagged on most of the inane jokes told by normally very funny hosts. I can only assume that the comedic guidelines keep them from being funny or maybe it’s just the venue.

From what I hear, missing last nights Oscars was one of the best choices I’ve ever made because of Seth MacFarlane’s miss and diss jokes. I’m sure a few people laughed, but apparently the Family Guy and American Dad creator told a lot of unseemly jokes about race, gender, and class that hit all the wrong places and elicited quite a few groans from the audience.  

I woke up today and realized that the Oscars aren’t going to go away for a few days due to the objectionable humour of MacFarlane as well as some unsavory tweets by the satirical humour website The Onion about Quvenzhane Wallis, a 9-year old black actress up for Best Actress for her starring role in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

One of The O’s staffers tweeted, “Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c—, right?” I’ve got plenty I could say about this, but at this point most of it has been said, why the hell would anyone in their right mind say anything about a 9 year old being a cunt? I don’t really give a shite if you’re in the game of satire, there are limitations and this is one of them.

Thank you Onion for apologizing, but in the wise words of TV show Last Man Standing,  “words are like toothpaste, once they’re out of the tube, you can’t put them back in.”

Well, I suppose now that The Oscars are over we’ll go on to caring about the Kardashian’s and The Bachelor. I would also be okay with not seeing those in my news feed either, but I suppose I should just get used to it because people are always gonna love crappy television. It’s what people watch to realize that their lives are actually on the up and up. I’m one of them.

3. Realizing my period is about to start

That’s all.

2. Getting up for class

As I said earlier, I love learning. What I didn’t love about it was waking up at 6am on both of my days off this weekend just to be in class for 10 hours. I already hate waking up at 5am for work during the week. I just have to remind myself that learning is a privilege.

1. White Male Privilege

I am not going to state any names because of right now I will still have to see this particular offender. What I can say is that I was astounded by this particular white male’s lack of listening skills as a clearly smart, savvy, and sophisticated woman brought to his attention that often women are not listened to and need to make sure they have even more resources and knowledge than men in order to garner their respect.

What did this guy do? He dismissed her concerns by telling her that she has a “negative view” and that this can of course only hinder her progress. He then turned away from her so that she could not even have a chance to dispute him.

I could say so many things right now to refute his stance on this position, but clearly he was not even up for a debate. What do I say to men that refuse to acknowledge that there are particular social problems that women have to deal with while they can go about their merry way?

Well to you I say sir, “go take a women’s studies class or intro to sociology!” (I need to note that I deleted at least 10 other not so savory things I would rather tell him). It gets rather old having to deal with this kind of patriarchal thinking, but today I’m not going to fight it out. I’m going to continue to love people and just remember that all we can keep doing is educating ourselves and hope that others decide to open themselves up to learn and listen with us.

Nigga Please

Not long ago my white friend jokingly said that I shouldn’t get to celebrate all of Black History Month because I’m not 100% black. I’m actually 36% West African according to my DNA results in case you’re interested. She said that I should get the back end of the month obviously referencing the back of the bus. I was so astounded by her comment that I fell silent. What does one say to a friend that pretty much just said your black side still deserves to take a backseat to your white side?

At the time I laughed it off; she is one of the more sarcastic people I know and may have been saying it in response to my repeated use of the word “nigga” and felt that she could join in on the frivolity I was having. I do have to admit I was going gangbusters with the word “nigga” that night because 1. I had never really used it before and there was something about saying it that was in fact liberating my black side. 2. I was also saying it in response to having heard it a bazillion times in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained as well as on my recent trip to St. Louis to visit the “black” side of my family.

Nigga is not a form of vernacular that I have ever chosen to partake in. My first experience with the “N” word was when I was 7 years-old and walked across the street to visit my friend Pepsi, also known as Juan by his parents. I went to his door looking for him in the dilapidated cherry colored apartments across the street and found his brother standing at an open screen door.

“What are you doing here nigger?” I froze. I had never been called a nigger and didn’t know how to respond, but I knew that it was bad. My mom had told me that it was bad, so instead of asking for Pepsi and telling him why a nigger was there, I ran as fast as I could back to my house where my mom looked at me and said, “girl, where is that boy? I’m gonna go give him a piece of my mind.”

I didn’t let her give him any piece of mind, mostly because I wanted to be able to go back across the street and visit Stephanie and Pepsi. I figured that it must come with the territory; though I wasn’t sure why Mexican’s would call black people niggers when they were minorities too.

As I grew older I heard about the people who called each other nigga’s, but I wasn’t sure who that was because it wasn’t me and it surely wasn’t my mom. She told me, “If I EVER hear you say that word…” there’d be a long pause and nothing but an “mmhmm.”

That long pause meant you don’t even want to see what happens if you do that thing I just told you not to do. So I mostly never did any of those things my mom told me not to do because there’s something about a powerful black mother saying, “Nicole that’s one…” that scared me so straight I made sure to do whatever the exact opposite of what she said not to do was just so I would stay on her good side.

That brings me back to slightly more present day, my first real run in with Nigga. It’s mid October 2011 and the sky is drained of color as are the people on the streets of Manhattan, when my girlfriend and I decide it’s time to head back to Brooklyn via the F to the G train to get us up to Lorimer stop. We’re exhausted from a long day of touristing about the city. We hit Ground Zero, the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty and then we hit up some local pizza joints.

When we make it to the station, my pedometer says we’ve gone ten miles, but there are no seats in sight and so we rest against poles that look like carriers for meningitis because we can no longer hold our own body weights. The exhaustion keeps us from speaking or perhaps it’s all the fighting we’ve done, but it never seems long before the train station fills up laughter, the rustle of bags, and friendly conversation.

We watch the stairs because one day of people watching at a subway station seems so much more interesting than a full year of doing the same at any Seattle bus stop except for 3^rd and Pine. Three young black men, limping from the weight of holding their pants up, make their way down the stairs. They anchor themselves to the bottom few stairs and a conversation begins.

“Nigga whatchoo thinking bout doin’ nigga?”

“I don’t know nigga, why you wanna know?”

“Nigga I don’t, I don’t fo sho, I just wanna do something sick.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know nigga, like you know… coo nigga.”

“Yeah? Let’s go to the shop nigga.”

Their speech is fast and it’s hard to move my ear gracefully in between their sentences, but I’m keenly aware of all the nigga's being tossed around. Nicole seems even more floored.

“How can they even say that so many times?” She asks.

I really don’t know; I’m shaking my head. How the hell could this be real, I thought this was just on TV shows? What I understand is that I really have been distant from a large part of the black experience. Mine has always been from the perspective of a semi-privileged biracial girl that’s sequestered herself in the whitest parts of the country for most of her life. It’s not that this was intentional, just that it happened and hasn’t seemed to change much since my inception.

What I don’t understand is why anyone needs to say nigga in every single sentence, sometimes 2 or 3 times? Aren’t there any other words to say what you mean? I realize though that I’m an educated nigga. I roll the word around in my mind, wondering what it means to be a nigga.

I just don’t really want to say nigga, because I don’t feel comfortable using a word that is basically just a variation on the word nigger and connotes a deeper branding of the African-American body and history.

For me nigga is like saying motherfucker, it just doesn’t feel right.  I feel unusually uncomfortable thinking about anyone fucking their mother, but saying things like shit, damn and your run of the mill fuck are totally game.

I Wikapedia’d nigga when I got home because I had some questions about its origin. First I read this article, this will make sense momentarily. Nigga began as an eye dialect (use of nonstandard spelling for speech to draw attention to pronunciation) of the word nigger. It’s a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun negro, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning the color “black.” It was first brought to stage by comedians such as Paul Mooney, Richard Pryor, and Nipsy Russel in the 70’s to joke about blacks. The term was quickly appropriate by other comedians, hip-hop artists, and the African-American community. Tupac Shakur “who has been credited with legitimizing the term, said his song N.I.G.G.A. stood for ‘Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.”

With my slightly better understanding of nigga I am still unsure if it’s a word I would want to use, but I can see why some would want to use it, however I doubt most people using the term no why they are using it in the first place.

On this particular Wiki page there is a box where you can listen to an audio recording of the article; I pressed play. In the first thirty seconds I wrapped myself in a prickly and uncomfortable blanket of reaction to hearing it. I can’t believe a white man is reading this! I said to myself. The words sound disingenuous with the tight pronunciation and lack of soul. I was quick to judge the narrator until I stepped back for a minute.

I gave myself a moment to ponder a few questions. What does a black voice sound like? Why would I assume that the narrator isn’t African-American and why does it matter to me at all when it’s the verbatim reading of an article?

Well the fact is that I had to check myself. It is true that in certain parts of the country you can hear certain characteristics in a voice that are telling of where someone is from and what their cultural background is, but it is likely only because certain inflections are ingrained in the culture just as in some cultures where certain words must be spoken with specific tones in order to be understood. It is likely that when a large majority of a culture speaks one way then many will continue carrying on this tradition and the likelihood that others will believe this is how everyone speaks, will be perpetuated.

I “assumed” I knew the speaker without hesitation because it is still part of my belief system that African-American voices sound a certain way. However, without reservation I can tell you that I can’t count on fingers and toes how many times I’ve been told I “sound” white. I was angry that I would do the same to another.

Also, so what if a white man was reading this article aloud? Would I be angry if a white scholar had read something in another context? Why should one be more acceptable than another? It wasn’t just some man riding roughshod with nigga. There is a lot of controversy over who is allowed to say nigga, but in this instance my general call is that anyone could have read this and I should have been okay with it.

At the party as I said, “what’s up with you nigga?” that bazillion times, I realized as I said it that the word for me feels disconnected with my personal black experience. The word though ultimately stemming from nigger doesn’t feel like or connote the same meaning for me. Tupac said, “a nigger is black man with a slavery chain around his neck,” while “a nigga is a black man with a gold chain on his neck” Though I don’t completely agree, I hear and feel the difference between these two words. Nigger sends chills up my back and shards of glass through my heart; nigga just makes me think please.

As for the friend that told my black half to get to the end of the month. She most likely said it in jest, but the fact is that I don’t actually get to hide the black in my skin for half of the month. My DNA card might say I’m 36% black, but it doesn’t mean I’m only black 36% of the time. As we all know, what people can see is what they judge you by. I went ahead and took the whole month. Only a few short days left to celebrate.

And with that, have a good day nigga.

***  Side Notes

Spell check hated this blog

There’s a lot of other shit that can be said about nigga. I’m only one girl and I’ve only got so much time and am certainly not writing a book on the subject.

Let me know what your experience with nigga has been!