The Journal of Dera R. Williams: A Room of My Own

Father’s Day and Birthday Tribute

2011-06-18T22:31:00.000-07:00

As the country celebrates Father’s Day, I have thoughts of my dad who died in 1990. June is also his birthday month; he would have been 87 years-old June 12. When I see the state of so many families, and black families, in particular, I think how blessed I was to grow up with my father, and that he was an involved father.

In 2008 I published a piece through Five Sisters Publications called Our Black Fathers: Brave Bold Beautiful. Hopes for a Dad’s First Born was borne out of a letter Daddy wrote to me when I was nine months-old. I got my penchant for writing naturally as attest to Daddy’s writing skills that served him well as editor of his college newspaper. When he wrote this in early 1952, we were living in Little Rock, Arkansas and the words he wrote was indicative of the conditions we were living. Arkansas was the south and therefore governed by Jim Crow laws. Yet his letter was also full of hope, hope for a future that transcended racism.

=======================================================================

Hopes for a Dad’s First Born

A whiff of tobacco, the curling smoke of a pipe, an olive bathed in a martini, a brand new book with pages still stuck together. Those images and senses bring back memories of my dad.

To "Cocoa"
Hopes for a Dad's First Born

Not quite 9 months old are you, my darling – bordering between a baby's chubbiness and a little girl's nymph-like slimness. The laments "Momie" and Da da" have attained distinctness, but words with more than one syllable are beyond your grasp. I look into your pecan-brown face, with the dark eyes so like your mother's, and I think of all the hopes I have for you. Hopes which, if they are to crystallize, must survive a world on the brink of nihilism.

So begins the letter Daddy wrote to me over fifty years ago when I was a toddler. I recently came across this letter while going through some files of documents; birth certificates, diplomas, and the like. My mother had given the letter to me a few months after my father’s death in 1990. As the first time I read it, again I was touched and amazed at the words my father had written to me, his eldest child and daughter.

Laybon Jones, Sr. loved to express himself through the written word. He fancied himself a wordsmith as well as a philosopher on the order of Socrates. He was on his college newspaper staff and at one time thought of journalism as a career. He delighted in fancy writing pens and kept a well-stocked office at home.

You are happy, my sweet, as only a baby who has had the love and care of devoted parents could be. But what about your chances for happiness when you are 21? Through your formative years will I be able to shelter you from the ravages of a cruel world? I have no illusions that I will. Yet I trust to God that He will imbue me with the strength to impart to you an intrinsic armor of love and beauty that will withstand the adversities of a temporal existence.

Daddy had a proud spirit, one born of growing up in poverty and learning to cope with the abandonment by his own father at a young age; having to scuffle and work hard to prove that he was capable of achieving success. Deep down he had an inferiority complex about growing up poor in the 1920 and 30s, of being disadvantaged because of his black skin, and the feeling of shame of coming to the big city of Little Rock wearing the same ragged coveralls he wore in the small farming community in eastern Arkansas where he was born. The little country boy tried to fit into his new community in the midst of the Jim Crow laws of the South, while determined to avail himself of new friendships among the up-and-coming African American middle-class of that city.

He shielded us, me, my younger brother and sister, from as much pain and hurt as he could. Raised in multi-cultural California, we were not prepared for separate public facilities when we went on our family summer trips to the 1960s South. We expressed amazement more than fear when a raggedy truck roared by with a motley crew of bedraggled young adults began to hoop and holler and heckle us as we road down the Texas highway in our brand new Buick. Daddy calmly told us to look straight ahead and to hold up our heads. He refused to acknowledge ignorance on any level.

I wish I could tell you that you were born into a world of brotherhood and love for all mankind. But to tell you this would only make your awakening more poignant and frustrating. So I must tell you the truth; “the unrelenting bitter truth” The world isn't serene and garden-like, it is turbulent and savage. While there is some vestige of brotherly love scattered about the various facets of the earth, the core of mankind is hard and replete with hatred, avarice and prejudice. Nations are against nations; ideologies are clashing, with their ominous voices echoing throughout the world. Men are dying – some for what they believe – others for that they don't understand.

We moved to Oakland, California from Little Rock, Arkansas when I was two years old along with other Black families who migrated to California for better employment and economic opportunities. Daddy’s first job was at a furniture store where he was a stock boy. There is a picture of Daddy that used to hang in the hallway of our home; a young man in a pristine white sailor suit, proudly worn as an enlistee in the United States Navy. He is poised and well groomed, wearing an air of assurance because that was how he portrayed himself, as a king on a throne. He was six feet, three inches in height with a sinewy lean build that commanded attention. He posed for that picture, one leg propped up, leaning forward, looking directly into the camera, flirting with it, that was my Dad.

But it isn't all dark, my honey. For a ray of hope penetrates the abysmal well of confusion and frustration. That ray of hope springs from the progenitors of this generation. And you of my flesh and blood I fervently hope will fortify yourself to meet the tide.

It is my hope that you will possess strength, dignity without ostentation, and love tempered with understand. To insure this, I must teach you to revere His word,....thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy self.....". Stand up straight and look the world in the eye. Face the vicissitudes of life with resolute calmness. Never tire of a deep thirst for knowledge and understand. Never lose a respect for the desires of others. And, above all, keep the faith in God and confidences in yourself.

Daddy liked the finer things, a cold martini, a good biography and first-class hotels. He appreciated a woman wearing a hat to church on Sundays and a minister that exalted the Word of God in an old-fashioned but dignified manner. He also exposed his family to travel, books and the love of learning with a broader view of the world that was beyond our society’s self-imposed limitations.

Books were important to him and consequently they became so to his children. We had built-in book cases in my childhood home and they were always filled with books, all kinds of books. There was no censorship in the Jones household; anything in that bookcase was fair game. It was there I discovered James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and William Faulkner. There was a variety of nonfiction titles that far exceeded my comprehension at age ten or twelve years old, yet no book was off limits; we could read or attempt to read anything that was in that book case.
Serving in the military was a means to an end for my father. He served four years in the segregated Navy during Word War II, became eligible for the GI education bill and enrolled at Philander Smith College, a small, Black Methodist college in Little Rock at the age of twenty two. He graduated four years later and married my mother and had three children of whom he was very proud. He had a remarkable career track; real estate broker, educator, director in a government agency and a consultant for minority contracts.

When I pass by the newsstand in downtown Oakland, I cannot help but think about Daddy going there every Sunday after church to pick up the New York Times. He would come home, light his pipe and prop his feet up on his desk and immerse himself in what was going on in the world. Daddy was taken away much too soon but he lived to see sweeping changes in the country, including the transformation of the South through the civil rights movement. The same luxury hotel in Dallas which we were not allowed to darken the doors in 1963, welcomed us with open arms in 1968. Daddy not only achieved some of his goals and dreams, he lived to see his children, one of who was that little chubby girl of nineteen months, achieve some of their dreams.

Dera Williams
November 13, 2007

Featuring Author Lutisha Lovely at Marcus Book Store

2011-03-09T12:58:00.000-08:00

Lutisha Lovely Book signing Marcus Bookstore, March 5, 2011l

When I walked into Marcus Bookstore on Saturday night, I was greeted by
Cherysse, the proprietor and the author for the evening, Lutisha Lovely. She was wearing skinny jeans and comfy boots, dreadlocks down her back and a big, welcoming smile. I knew very little about Lutisha Lovely. I had heard about her drama-filled church-based books but had not read them. I had however, read her Zuri Day romance books. But more on that later…

All Up in My Business with emphasis with hands on hips and rolling head is the book she is promoting and the first of a new series. She said she didn’t want to be known just for faith-based church drama so she and her editor came up with the idea of a wealthy family series set in Atlanta to branch out into mainstream fiction and relationships. Lutisha loves the city of Atlanta and although she was born and raised in Kansas, and now lives in southern California, she has spent many good times in Hotlanta. Her first release party was held there for her sixth book in the Church series, Heaven Forbid. She likes the idea of the historical and cultural aspects of African Americans when asked why Atlanta? But actually she stressed the story could take place in any large southern city where black folk love good food. The Taste of Soul restaurants run by the Livingston clan serves up more than tasty soul food.

Lutisha feels like her characters talk to her, come through her. It took her about nine months to write AUIMB, but she is always writing two books at one time, promoting another and editing another. Her publisher, Kensington contracted models for the book instead of using stock photos which speaks volumes about their belief in her value. Publishers Weekly named AUIMB as top one of the 10 picks for their spring book releases and used her cover. She highly recommends the trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1QN-v4lpv8

Lutisha has an acting background, has been a broadcaster for the Kansas City Chiefs and a managing editor for a magazine. She also wrote plays and poetry. She worked in the dot come industry and made a lot of money until it went bust. She sat down and wrote the first 30 pages of Sex in the Sanctuary in one sitting. She is a PK (preacher’s kid) and knows the mega-church community well and though she knows intimate details, her favorite mantra is, “Don’t ask me, don’t try to bribe me, I won’t tell.”

Lutisha self-published SITS in 2004 and inspired by E. Lynn Harris; she sold her books at beauty salons, grocery stores, and gyms. As a new writer she reached out to well-known writers and was rebuffed; by names that we would know-----“Don’t ask me……….” LOL

In 2005, she went to Book Expo in Los Angeles with remaining three books of her first print run of 100. She met the acquisitions editor from Kensington who asked to read SITS. Within a few months she was offered a contract and she had been told that it wasn’t supposed to happen that way. Lutisha feels that her use of a professional editor and graphic artist showcased her professionalism.

Then her editor asked her to write romance which she thought would be a breeze as she grew up reading the genre, but she learned that romance was very formulaic and she needed to master the rules of writing romance. Thus Zuri Day was born; a Caribbean sister, bohemian type sister with attitude. She is a persona/alter ego to the point she gets into character (this is where her acting background comes into play) to the point she has requested two badges when she attends the Romantic Times conference next month. She will release her sixth romance next month. I have read a few of her titles including her first, Lies Lovers Tell. She has written a total of 14 gooks, 13 of those written from 2006 on.

Lutisha read the prologue with attitude and her effervescent personality just flows out to the crowd and we were grinning during the whole signing by her captivating stories of going to Jerusalem as an actor to film Biblical films. She loved interacting with the Israeli’s and Muslims much to the Christian film producers' chagrin. When I asked how her family and parishioners back home feel about her books, she said she received a few letters claiming blasphemy. Her father, who she adores, flipped through one book and told her she appears to write very mature material but her parents don’t read her books but are very supportive of her career and accomplishments. She considers herself a very spiritual person but her views on Christianity have changed from the traditional sense.

Side note: As many of you know Marcus Books is in the community and occasionally we get a “community member” who comes in and disrupts things but Lutisha handled it good and he was soon gone happy. But she had us rolling when she said, “Now if he really wanted to go there, he would get crazy meets crazy.” It was such a treat to be in her presence, she wanted pictures with everyone and just felt at home. A married couple drove two hours from Sacramento to see her. They are avid fans and read her books together. And before I forget, Lutisha gave a shout out to APOOO and especially to Donnica who is a reviewer for our review team and gave it a thumbs up.

I enjoyed reading All Up in My Business and look forward to Mind Your Own Business, the second book she has just finished writing. The third books title is Taking Care of Business. It may be hard times in publishing but this sister proves if you have the right stuff, you can make it happen.

My Most Interesting Ancestor

2011-02-24T01:16:00.000-08:00

Most Interesting Ancestor- Fannie Rowland Thompson Gilliam

I loved to hear my mother, Vivian Rowland Jones, talk about her favorite aunt. Fannie Rowland Thompson Gilliam was born in 1867 to Hester Duckworth, a former slave and the man who brought her from South Carolina as part of his property, Dr. James Rowland (aka Doc Rowland) in LaPile, Arkansas of Union County. Fannie was one of three children of that union. The other two were a girl who died in infancy (name unknown) and my great-great grandfather, John Rowland. That made her my great-great aunt, the sister of my mother’s grandfather.

Fannie appeared to have the most colorful life in the Rowland clan as she is the one who got away from the “sticks” of LaPile in rural southern Arkansas and the harsh farming life of that community during a time when the majority of African Americans in the southern United States were striving to survive less than twenty years coming out of slavery. Doc Rowland, who was her father and the man who was the slaveholder of her mother, acknowledged his children and they took the Rowland surname. Like many white men who fathered children with black women, he had an interest in their life. It is unknown if he had part in Fannie pursuing an education. I do not know how it was Fannie attended college in New Orleans around the 1880s, nor could my mother or aunt tell me, which would be a six hour drive from her hometown by today’s standards. Nevertheless, she attended Straight University, a college for Negroes, which offered courses of study ranging from elementary to college-level courses in music, law and theology. In 1886, Straight discontinued the Law Department and began to focus on the liberal arts, industrial arts, and teacher training. In 1934 Straight College (changed in 1915) merged with New Orleans University to become Dillard University, a historically Black college which still exists.
My mother remembers a picture of Fannie and some of her classmates, all light-skinned women as she was. It is not known if she completed college or what was her course of study. There is a story that one day she and a group of her classmates were walking down the street near the university and her bloomers fell down on the ground. She was of course embarrassed. One of the girls said “Just step over them and keep on walking.” And that is what she did.

Fannie married a J. Thompson in her 20s and they were later divorced. No children came from that union. Reportedly, she was unable to have children. She had another short-lived marriage thereafter. In 1908, at 41 years old she married widower Robert Gilliam from Clark County. Robert was a widower and father of a young daughter, Otelia. Otelia Gilliam later married Samuel Rowland, who was Fannie’s nephew through her brother John, and my mother’s father. That is how my mother’s maternal and paternal side became joined. When I was younger I would get confused when my mother referred to Fannie as both her great aunt and her step-grandmother. They all lived in LaPile, then Huttig in Union County. Fannie became more like a mother than a step-mother to Otelia and they shared a close relationship.

Fannie was a lover of literature as evidenced by her collection of books by Shakespeare and other literary wonders such as the Afro- American Encyclopedia 1891 that my mother still has. According to my mother, she also liked to sew and was quite fashionable. A few years ago when were visiting Huttig, we went through an old trunk at “Old Place” that was filled with antique buttons that Aunt Fannie and Grandmother and Otelia used in their sewing. She was of medium height, a light-skinned woman with long curly, fine hair. She belonged to the Mt. Olive A.M.E. Church in Huttig, a community next to LaPile. Fannie died in 1945 and was buried at Batts Chapel Cemetery.

I Have a Dream

2011-01-17T17:17:00.000-08:00

I am resurrecting my blog and what better day than Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday? In past years, I have been lax about celebrating this important day but for some reason, this year was different. Was it the tragedy in Tucson, the overtone of racial intolerance or the rising murder rate among young blacks right here in my hometown of Oakland? I don’t now and I decided not to give it too much thought. So when I attended Taylor Memorial United Methodist Church in West Oakland last Sunday and heard about their Martin Luther King, Jr. program and instead of sleeping in late, I decided to attend their 10:00am program.

Yesterday at a service at Lake Merritt UMC, where Rev. Beasley preached, several people seemed eager to tell their stories. One older white gentleman worked in Harold Washington’s office in Chicago during the struggle. A woman said her father, a minister stood against racism in their small Illinois town and remembered she was in college when King was killed and how the black students would not let her and her roommate participate in their circle of protest.

Taylor Church was packed including the balcony. As a result they opened up two more media rooms to stream in the program. I was in one of those rooms but I didn’t feel any less detached from the beautiful singing, dancing and poetry from young people of different races. I the guest speaker was Marianne Williamson of the best seller Return to Love. A quote from that book has been erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandela. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” Williamson, spiritual author, lecturer and conscious woman, recalled the day she learned of Martin Luther King Jr.’s death. She was a young teenager and was at home with her mother getting ready for dinner when they heard the news. They were devastated and when her father came home, the first words out of his mouth were, “Those bastards killed him.” She went on to say that some school history books have reduced the Civil Rights movement to one paragraph and there is increasingly a move to whitewash this country’s history--- it is up to us to see that is not done and to continue to carry on King’s dream.

“Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” said King. Yes, indeed, when I looked at the Oprah Show as she showed clips of previous shows, I have hope. There were the white teenagers who taunted the Little Rock Nine in 1957 and the racist who has recently adopted two black teenage boys. We have a long way to go but there is hope. I too, have a dream.

Dera R. Williams
January 17, 2011

People Get Ready

2010-02-18T16:41:00.000-08:00

People, get ready, there’s a train a comin…

Yes, people, get ready, because surely the world is coming to an end when children are committing the kinds of crimes they have been lately. The Bay Area has been inundated with shootings, assaults and all manner of crimes committed by young people. In Vallejo, a 15 year-old boy shot an ice cream truck vendor, an elderly woman in the chest. Thank goodness, she survived. Why did he shoot her? He was trying to rob her and because she didn’t speak English, he thought she was trying to resist. Some more Vallejo kids beat up a city worker. There have been various other incidents, kids committing crimes, often with a gun. But the end all be all occurred this past Sunday when three teenagers entered a Richmond church and shot and injured two brothers, also teenagers.

A former gang member said, “They have crossed the line.” What gives? Ministers are calling for a summit on what to do about the crime and young people? I don’t mean to be cynical, but they have done this before. It is said that these young people are in pain. They haven’t had proper parenting.; they don’t have role models. Frankly, I am tired of the excuses. Shooting in a church? Where are the boundaries? Like someone said, they have no boundaries. The corner church just as well the corner store. The aunt and uncle of the kid who shot the ice cream vendor appealed to the public to not judge their nephew. He has had a hard life, going from foster home to foster home. The father of the boy who assaulted the city worker said he wanted to make sure his son was treated fairly and he himself was killed by violence a few days later.

So, what is the solution? What can be done? I have no answers. The things that used to work; community involvement, parent concern and more policing are not available. Often these kids are raising themselves because of the lack of parents or neglectful parenting. Women are raising young men alone but that is a whole other blog. The situation in Vallejo with increasing violence is tied directly to that city’s bankrupt system and cutbacks in the police force. In my city of Oakland, I’m told there is more policing but they are still having side shows, doing donuts and crazy antics—a young woman was killed about two weeks ago when a driver lost control of a car. In fact, that young woman herself had been involved in taping a violent assault in a hair salon.

I don’t know what the solution is and I do not expect any quick answers. I just needed to vent and I have access to this space to do just that. While things are bad, there are young people who are doing phenomenal and positive feats. I hope to bring those stories soon.

February 18, 2010

Late, but Right on Time

2010-02-01T00:54:00.000-08:00

Well, it is 2010 and I did not blog in January. I don’t really have a reason for it. I started several blogs but nothing really materialized. When I look back at 2009, I’m pretty satisfied with my blogging, a vast improvement. But looking and going forward for 2010 is what I am about.

While I wasn’t blogging in January, I have been writing. Some exciting things have materialized in the way of gearing up my writing life. Back in November, I was kind of depressed and having a pity party about my lack of writing. I don’t believe I submitted anything, although I had one publication in January 2009 with Go, Tell Michelle. I was in a state of suspension. I was mentoring and encouraging others but I could not get myself together to further my goals. I have written quite a bit on my childhood stories on this blog. I have written shortened versions of some of the stories I have crafted in my collection. It came to me that I can publish this collection, I mean self-publish because hey, this is about heritage, family and I don’t need a publisher to tell me it is okay to publish MY STORY. So with that in mind, a weight was lifted off of me and I am revising and adding stories to my book that will give another view of my beloved Oakland. Stories of family, community and adventures while I was growing up. I will also look into having some of the stories posted in one of the local newspapers.

I was asked to participate in a collection with two writers by an author who I admire, a woman who has published several books. This book will be about mothers and daughters. I will be contributing two fiction stories. I am really excited because though I am multi-published, I have had very little fiction published. I am both excited and scared but ready to take the leap. So, look out for that to come out around Mother’s Day. I will keep you posted.

I received an email in early January from a children’s publisher to be a consultant for a historical book. Yep, just out of the blue. It occurred to me in talking with my writing partner, Teresa and she said it, things are happening when you brush off your fears. I know that God is guiding me and that my attitude had to change in order for him to make a way for opportunities to blossom. There are other opportunities; a chance to place an article about my trip to Cuba on a travel site, write articles for an up-and-coming women’s magazine and write more fiction for a new journal. It’s all here; I just have to grab hold of it.

Last weekend, I had an opportunity to attend a workshop with some phenomenal black women, all great writers, movers and shakers. We shared, wrote, networked and spoke of producing a community, a consortium of black writers, mentoring and publishing together. There were writers who are workshop leaders, community activists, educators, and even a well-known television journalist. I realize the possibilities are endless, that dreams and goals can be attained and we have the capacity to embrace all that is bestowed upon us as women in general, black women in particular, as leaders in our community and how much writing can play a part in making things happen, as it is a vital part of all the women who attended the workshop. I am hopeful, I am determined.

MM- Remembering and Losing Santa

2009-12-21T23:59:00.000-08:00

How can I explain that until the age of eight, I believed there was a true
Santa Claus. I mean the white beard, red suit, big belly and all. I can remember putting out milk and cookies for Santa and in the morning it would be gone. So, how did I get to the point where Santa was no more?

Memory Monday- More Childhood Story Ideas

2009-12-14T22:50:00.000-08:00

Now that I have decided to go full steam ahead with my childhood story collection and publish it, I am gathering even more stories. Maybe because I have been sick the last week, I am remembering illnesses from my childhood. Two in particular.

I was to be a flower girl in my mother’s first cousin, Pauline’s wedding. I was about three years old. My mother had made my dress and I was all excited but a few days before the wedding I caught the measles or maybe it was the mumps. That was back in the day when those diseases were common. Needless to say I could not be in the wedding. I remember crying and crying, I was so disappointed.

Then when I was about eight, I fell and broke my arm roller skating. We were living on 24th Avenue. I was rushed to Children’s Hospital. And when I say break, I mean I broke my arm. I stayed in the hospital three days.

Oh, yes, mentioning about my childhood illness reminds me of the time we went to get immunizations, how my parents tricked us and how my brother and I almost got a spanking for running away. Okay, I need to flush that story out. Back to the cough medicine and bed.

Back to Memory Monday

2009-12-07T23:34:00.000-08:00

In writing my memoirs about a pivotal time in my childhood that culminates in the year 1963, I made a list of memories that would bring this piece together. These stories will be the basis for a book.

They are:

Little Red and Earthquake
Dimond Park
Trick or Treat
Shirley Temple Curls*
Lisa the Creole girl*
The motorcycle girls.- Wendy*
Amos n’ Andy*
Celia, Wendy, Carmela, Jimmy Sue
Debra the bully
Jennifer – best friend- Louisiana Creole- Gumbo
Carmela and Santa Claus
Steven Fong and the Grocery Store- father’s suicide
Roger Chevron and the party
Getting a whipping at my birthday party
Tyrone getting killed on a scooter on 23rd Avenue*
Blackberry Memories*
Manzanita and the Maypole
Playing the radio and the older kids dancing to it
Playing music of the 50s and 60s- This is Dedicated to the One I Love, I Danced to a Quarter of Three, School is Out.
The Ballet- Taking dance lessons with the black bourgeois kids at Barbara Braxton’s studio in West Oakland*
Black dolls/white dolls
The transition from 24th Ave. to Brookdale Ave.
The girl who’s mother ran away with her boyfriend (Kathy?)
Walking to Jennifer’s house
My little red-haired friend at Garfield School*
Walking by Myself to Garfield School- You're a big girl now
Mrs.Feefee taking care of us and the whipping over a hot dog and Birely's orange soda.
Walking to Monkey Wards
Modeling/charm class at Montgomery Wards
Going to Arkansas
Cabiness, Mrs. Jackson and Mr. Jackson-Hamilton Junior High School
Mrs. Eating Tortillas’ at Celia’s house
Going to school after Mom left for work- Flo going to school by herself
The transition from 24th Avenue to Brookdale Avenue

Things That Work My Nerves

2009-12-02T01:17:00.000-08:00

I had one of those days and a lot of things irritated me. This is my list of things that irk me. This is by no means complete but all I can think of right now.

Rude people:

The ones who do not yield at a four-way stop sign. You know the ones who take off behind the car in front of them without regard to if it is their turn.

People who chew and pop gum in public. You can do that all you want in your house or in private. Doing it in public is just tacky and crass.

People who stand so close to you in line at the store, the bank, even at the pharmacy. Back up off me! I don’t know you like that. And there are too many damn germs going around. You ever hear of swine flu?

People who reach across you, step in front of you, stand in front of you and don’t excuse themselves. Total disrespect and hella rude.

Remembering To Be Thankful

2009-11-24T00:22:00.000-08:00

We, or rather speaking for myself, I get so caught up in the business of living everyday, trying to keep head above water, that I forget to stop and count my blessings. This Thanksgiving week is as good as time as ever to say how thankful I am.

I am thankful for waking up everyday

I am thankful for my health and know I should do better

I am thankful for my 83 year-old mother

I am thankful for my beautiful daughter

I am thankful for my siblings and extended family

I am thankful to have a job

I am thankful to be in my right mind.

I am blessed in so many ways, I am thankful for so many things

What are you thankful for?

Happy Thanksgiving

Memory Monday- Remembering Savannah

2009-11-09T22:58:00.000-08:00

Town square in Savannah

Sound
The smell of magnolia permeating the air in the square of downtown Savannah

Jazz musicians warming up their instruments, the lazy drawl of the saxophone

The seduction of the trombone, deep, unhurried, .

The piano rumbling a series of notes that eventually became a tune,

distinguishable to a Duke Ellington tune.

Smell
Sweet syrupy honey intermingled with scent of fresh baked bread

causing stomachs to rumble.

Sizzling platters of Lady’s and Son’s fried chicken

wafting up to our noses,

the finest in Savannah cooking.

Sight
The Spanish moss sprouting wildly

Colorful books on display

A Confederate flag in the window

My look of horror and disbelief

Reminding me of where I am

Childhood Memories- Ballet Among the Black Bourgeois

2009-11-03T00:03:00.000-08:00

Ballet Among the Black Bourgeois

Childhood Memories

Originally Written in 2001

I happened to be reading a novel called Breathing Room and coincidentally I had cleaned out my closet and came upon some pink ballet slippers. In an attempt to get exercise and perhaps recapture my childhood, I had taken some ballet lessons at Grand Dance, a local ballet studio a few years prior. It brought back memories of my taking ballet lessons at a black-owned ballet studio in the ‘60s. The book is told from three points of views and one of characters is Zadi, a fifteen-year old middle-class black girl living in Washington D.C. Her story is told in writings in her journal given as a Kwanzaa gift by one of the other characters. In this journal, Zadi is writing to “Sisterfriend” and she talks about many things, boys, clothes, her father’s new wife and a major part of her life, ballet. She is an advanced ballet student who stresses over her fouette¢s, pirouettes and the wrath of Ms. Snow, the dance teacher. She is also anticipating a role as Odille-Odette in Giselle and dancing for Alvin Ailey or Dance Theatre of Harlem. Zadi takes lessons from a black-owned studio where the students are also black.

This so reminded me so of my experience over thirty years ago when I took ballet and tap dance lessons at Barbara Braxton’s dance studio in West Oakland at 24^th and Market. In a ramshackle building on the corner, I trudged up the gray stairs and past graffiti-strewn walls for my ballet and tap lessons either Saturday morning or Wednesday afternoons. I took lessons off and on from about 1959 when I was about eight years old until about my sophomore year in high school about 1966, as I recall.

There in Barbara’s studio, I learned to loved dance, especially the ballet. Barbara said I had the perfect feet for ballet; I had a natural pointed toe and beautifully shaped calves. Over the years I still hear remarks about my nicely formed calves from my years of dancing. Though I didn’t pursue dance as a career (I had a dance major in my first year of college) the truth was I held back. I was shy, somewhat withdrawn, not wanting to shine and be in the limelight. Barbara would get exasperated with me because when we had individual projects, I would make something up short and sweet. She would always say I had the potential but my dance projects were too short.

The students at Barbara’s studio were the popular girls, the daughters of the black bourgeois. Children of doctors, dentists, lawyers and successful businessmen. Some belonged to Jack and Jill and their mothers were member of the Links. I knew many of them through my father’s club, East Oakland Business and Professional Men’s Group. There was Janet and her older sister, Cynthia (who later married Gene Washington, 49ers football player), daughters of Dr. Watson who had a large medical practice and cute brothers. Mickey’s (the only boy I can remember that took ballet) parents was the first black family to buy a home in Orinda in the ‘50s. His father was a physician also His father was also a medical physician. Judge Broussard’s daughters also took lessons there. Cheryl Taylor was older, but she was the daughter of a renowned officer in the military. She also ended up marrying my high school crush, John Ivey( which is a whole other story). I also remember Joslin, who lived not that far from me who was a very good dancer. I don’t remember what her parents did. Barbara’s studio is where the middle-class and upper class black girls went for their dance lessons. It was like a special club. When I would see these girls at different events or outings it was like a special fraternity.

Some of these girls could really dance, some of them were very awkward and I could dance circles around them but still I didn’t showcase my talent or skills like I could have and as a result I never advanced to toe shoes. Anyway, I remember those days of putting on my ballet slippers, I had a pair or black ones and pink ones and when I put them on, I let my young cares drift away. Barbara was a woman in her 30s and she had two children during my tenure with her. She was a formidable, attractive brown-skinned woman with her hair either hanging to her shoulders or pulled back in that ballet style bun. She also taught tap dance. I remember once my sister having on her tap shoes and my brother picking at her and she kicked him with her tap shoes. Barbara ended up moving to San Jose and closing her studio here in Oakland. That left a gap in ballet for black girls, although there was Ruth Beckford Smith who taught modern dance in the ‘60s with the Oakland Park and Recreation but there was none of African descent who taught ballet for many years probably not until the late ‘70s.

Reading Zadi’s letters to Sisterfriend in her journal, I am also reminded of a book by Rita Williams Garcia called Blue Tights. In that book an inner-city girl is rejected at a white ballet studio and told her body is not made for the ballet and finally finds acceptance at a black studio learning African dance. Zadi talks about the joy she feels at Ms. Snow’s studio and I am reminded of her same security and protection dancing with someone who will nurture and encourage her.

Present day 2009:

A few weeks ago, I attended a choreographer performance for the Oakland Ballet. Several Bay Area ballet dances performed prominent choreographers’ ballet and while there was no black ballerina but a black male dancer, one of the choreographers honored was Alonzo King, whose body of work is without question, one of the finest. Even today there are stereotypes about black bodies and dance techniques. But I am so thankful that an avenue was provided for black girls like me in my early years that may have been discouraged from dance and judged by European standards. I am also thankful I have a mother who appreciated art and culture and exposed us, my sister and me to dance. It has been well over forty-five years since I took my first ballet lesson but my memories linger of the fondness I had for the art and the opportunity to be introduced to dance in a positive manner, an art form I still love.

November 2, 2009

Halloween Back in the Day

2009-10-26T21:44:00.000-07:00

Halloween back in the day in Oakland was sooo cool. Trick-or-treating in the 50s and 60s in the neighborhoods in which I grew up, 24th Avenue and later, Brookdale Avenue was safe, fun and a community event. I can remember going trick-or-treating with my mom when my sister and brother were younger but the real fun was when a group of us kids from age nine and up would go off all over the city (not really but it seemed like it) and getting loads of candy. We would be gone for hours and we did not worry about someone putting something in the candy or razor blades or any of that stuff. We just had fun.

The Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock was regular fare so we were really geared up on the scary movies. The Adams Family and the Munsters television series got us ready for the haunted houses. I remember this old lady’s house over on East 26th Street that was spooky and we called it a haunted house and being scared to walk past but we marched bravely up to it on Halloween night, still scared, but not to miss out on any goodies. The lady just gave us regular candy.

I remember being a fairy, a ghost, Snow White (ha ha). We got huge amounts of candy. My mother would go through it and throw out loose unwrapped candy and then we would put our horde in big glass jars and we were supposed to be meted out a few pieces but my brother and I always ended up eating as much as we could. I remember getting a tummy ache one year. But that was then and this is now. Parents now have to worry about every little thing and have to think on every angle. Most people go to people’s houses they know, some do not trick-or-treat at all. I see lots of churches have parties; some call them Harvest day. They have games, costume contests and plenty of goodies. But I still remember Halloween back in the day when we were carefree and innocent.

Memory Monday-- Oops I Did It Again

2009-10-20T21:34:00.000-07:00

Well, this is the second time I forgot Memory Monday blog. There has to be a way to remind myself, a tickler or something. I mean, I thought about it that morning but then poof, I completely forgot.

Memory, forgetting, it's all in rememberances.

Well, I'll be back later in the week with a new blog.

Peace out!

Memory Monday- I Remember Fall Days

2009-10-12T22:20:00.000-07:00

I remember fall days

a light wind blowing a leaf down the street

Walking to school with a cool breeze

whipping against my legs

Buttoning my car coat up to my neck and

pulling the hood over my head

Autumn leaves dancing in synchronization

of burnt amber and new gold

I remember fresh boxes of crayons

The smell of new pencils

and learning times tables and spelling words

Drawing diagrams of verbs and nouns on blackboards

Games of kick ball and tetherball wrapping around a pole

I remember ashy legs that became shiny with Vaseline

Pigtails with ribbons and barrettes that hit me in the face

when the wind kissed my weathered cheeks

I remember the first rain that signified

summer was over

Halloween masks and trick or treat

Big bags of candy and delights

Darkness descending earlier and earlier making

the days shorter

Taking a bath and running to the portable heater

Sneaking to watch Amos n’ Andy before bedtime

I remember fall…..

My favorite season, the best time of the year.

Memory Monday- The Little Rock Nine

2009-10-05T23:32:00.000-07:00

I was too young to remember the Little Rock Nine, the nine black students who integrated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957. I was born there and at two years-old moved with my parents to Oakland, California. We were frequent visitors to Arkansas, but it was not until I was much older did I read about and realize the sacrifices those young people and their families made.

I read several of the Little Rock Nine memoirs, and I am currently reading Carlotta Walls Lanier’s account, A Mighty Long Way: My Journey to Justice at Little Rock Central High School. The youngest of the nine at 14, Walls Lanier would not speak of the ordeal; so traumatized was she, for thirty years. She left Little Rock in 1960, as did her immediate family after the bombing of her home. Lanier Walls was a bright, ambitious, intelligent young lady, who just wanted to best education possible to secure the future she felt she deserved, yet there were thousands of people who tried to take that basic right away from her. And Why? Because they were threatened by the color of her skin and threatened that their way of life would be changed. Arkansas’ Governor Faubus was determined to keep the six girls and three boys from entering Central High by calling out the National Guard. Angry white parents taunted, threw things, berated these youngsters, their faces full of hate. But Daisy Bates, a journalist and activist who was born in my mother’s hometown of Huttig, was unafraid of standing up to the white establishment that dared violate these young people’s rights to an educated as mandated by the 1954 Brown vs. the Board of Education ruling.

This past summer I visited Little Rock, along with my mother, sister and niece as part of our family reunion in the southern part of Arkansas. It is a much different city then it was in 1957. You would never have known this was formerly a Jim Crow city. We spent a lot of the time visiting and reliving the history of that city. We visited my parents’ alma mater, Philander Smith College, the Mosaic Templar Museum on 9^th Street, other museums. We also visited Central High and the majestic school’s architecture is amazing. Lanier Walls gives the history of how this school came to be built and why she so wanted to attend. Earlier this year, monuments were erected to the Little Rock nine on the Capitol grounds and we of course, visited that. We took lots of pictures at both places.

Last year in 2008, Soledad O’Brien of CNN featured Central High in her Black in America series. Little Rock schools are totally integrated, I dare say, more integrated than the schools in Oakland. So it pained me that now that black students can freely attend Central High--- which is still considered prestigious, that the students self-segregate themselves and that black students are routinely herded into low-achieving classes. I know this is not endemic to Little Rock particularly but a symptom of the inequality of the educational and economic structures of this country. However, I am proud of the great many prominent African Americans that graduated from Central High and those faces I saw in the glass cases honoring high-achieving students. All in all, I have to say I am pretty much proud of my birth home.

Enjoy the pictures.

Memory Monday- Remembering Janie

2009-09-28T22:52:00.000-07:00

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is my all-time favorite book because it made me believe in the possibilities. I read TEWWG at a time when I was finding my way as a writer. TEWWG showed me the complexity of both language and art. The dialect titillated my sensibilities and brought me back to a place where Blacks governed their own lives, albeit hard times. Janie, the lead character is a character that came into her own and was finding herself. I, too, was at a place in my life of finding myself. Janie’s journey of discovery was my discovery of language and how it speaks to one’s life. TEWWG gave me license to believe that I could write. I saw in myself the pioneer. This book brought out the womanist, yet feminine as Janie was a pioneer in black womanist movement.

I read the book for the first time almost 20 years ago for an English class after I had returned to college for a liberal arts degree. This was also around the time I began to take my writing seriously. My daughter was about ten years old and while she still required my attention, she was growing up and becoming more independent. Up until that time my writings consisted of journaling and an occasional short story. But now I felt I was ready to write longer fiction and made my first attempt at novel writing. Writing in the first person, my work-in-progress was called simply “My Mother’s Homeland” set in either Haiti or Martinique, I changed back and forth, oh boy. But I knocked out some pages that had people asking me, “Is this a true story?”

It was then I began to believe in the power of my writing and the possibilities. My desire and need for writing grew immeasurably and I was knocking out pages and overwhelmed with possible topics. Like Janie, I was coming into my own, becoming my own woman as a writer. This also was around the time my father was dying of cancer. His impeding death and the turmoil in the last few years of his life, his moving back to Little Rock, and my awakening was overwhelming at times. But through it all I knew my dad had faith in my writing abilities. He believed I could. Janie had to conquer her fears of navigating the 130s south as a poor, black woman without a man. Her burgeoning independence made me realize that I had the fortitude to step out and begin to pursue my dreams. Janie became my shero.

Memory Monday- Montgomery Wards Charm School

2009-09-21T22:18:00.000-07:00

Among my memories of 1960s Oakland is the old Montgomery Wards store. My first job was in the toy store at Christmastime 1967, my senior year of high school. The Chatty Cathy doll was all the rage, along with electric trains and bikes.

One memory stands out and that is when my friends and I attended the Wendy Ward Charm School at Wards. We must have been in the 10^th grade and boy, did we think we were cute. We attended classes after school one day a week. We learned how to walk, balance a book on our heads, fashion, charm and Miss Manners. This was back in the day when those things were important. Learning to be a lady was considered IN, as in style, an OK thing to do.

Later on I would continue my “charm school” lessons by enrolling in one of the premier Black-owned charm schools taught by Louise Skinner, who was an icon in Negro society in the Bay Area. Her fashion shows and hosting of debutante parties was legend. She is still a classy lady today. I remember being in a fashion show with the first Miss Black Oakland, Stephanie Jo Swanigan.

Montgomery Wards was more than a store to buy things; it was a part of the community, a place to see your neighbors, get that special sweater and learn to be a lady.

Memory Monday...Late-Why Write about Childhood

2009-09-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

Jose, a co-worker at the District Office used to send tidbits and anecdotes about growing up in Oakland. Going to Montgomery Wards, going to the movies for a quarter, the old haunts, things like that. I got to thinking about how I grew up and started jotting down memories. Before I knew it I had the meat for some real stories and a list of topics of which to write. Something keeps coming up and the list keeps growing. Growing up in Oakland is a mine for all kinds of memories and thus, stories. As a genealogist, I know that writing one’s stories is a gift to future generations, so I will add my contribution by sharing such topics as:

Going to DeLauer’s Newsstand
My times at Garfield and Manzanita schools
Dancing around the Maypole
Being bullied
Playing tetherball
Walking to Dimond Park and swimming lessons
My favorite television programs- see last week’s blog from 9/7/09.

These and other topics I am writing or will write about.

Memory Monday- Amos n' Andy- My Reality TV

2009-09-07T22:32:00.000-07:00

As twilight set in on a cool autumn night, with the dinner dishes cleared and baths on the horizon, I plotted with my brother to watch one of our favorite television programs, Amos N’ Andy. This had to be about 1958, 59. The program held a certain fascination that Leave It to Beaver, Sky King, and Lassie just did not. While the inhabitants of these shows were pasty, pale-skinned and mostly fair-haired people, the people on Amos N’ Andy looked like me. It was fascinating sitting in front of our black and white TV set that had a broken antennae courtesy of my little brother and sister (whole other story). But the picture was very clear of Negro people living in New York City living, laughing, and loving on a nightly basis through my TV screen. There was con man Kingfish, Big guy Andy, loud- mouth Sapphire, attorney Houlihan and peace-maker family man Amos. It seemed Kingfish was always talking Andy into some kind of scheme that inevitably got him into trouble with his wife Sapphire, and his mother-in-law. Amos would come to the rescue with his wise sayings and advice. They were hilarious and for me a joy to watch. But what did I know? I was a little girl who loved watching television.

Why was I sneaking and plotting to watch one of my favorite shows? Because I wasn’t supposed to be watching this program, the reason being that my parents considered this program to be ignorant and an insult to Negroes. In their escalating middle-class existence having grown up in the south, both from humble beginnings, obtained college educations and negotiating Negro geography, the stereotypes were just too blaring. Kingfish would rather con somebody than work, was shiftless and lazy. Sapphire was loud and emasculating as well as her mama. Andy spoke poor English and was easily led. Houlihan was a joke as an attorney. Buffoons they were, laughing, joking, always happy-go-lucky. This is what they portrayed. But of course, this went over my head. It was just fun entertainment but I also saw more.

Even at that young age, I saw the good points about Amos N’ Andy. I can remember this was a show where there were black business owners, doctors, attorneys, cab drivers and families that I could relate to. I remember one of my favorite shows was a Christmas segment where Amos’s daughter was sick and all she wanted was this most beautiful doll in the store window of a department store. There was a black Santa Claus, I vividly remember. And yes, the doll was black. She had a white dress on, I think. In the late fifties, how often did we see these images? Almost never.

Unfortunately the negative aspects of the show outweighed the good and the NAACP succeeded in having the show taken off of the hair by 1960. I understand my parent’s stance. As a parent now, I fully understand the impact of the images that our children are exposed to. As an adult I cringe at some of the antics that Kingfish and Amos participated in and understand why my folks had their reservations about the program. But many of these same people, my mother included, now admit they appreciate Amos N’ Andy. It is amazing to find out that the actor who played Ebonics-talking Andy was in fact a well-educated man who spoke six or seven languages. But as a black man trying to work as an actor, this is what was offered to him. The original Amos n’ Andy was a radio show played by white men in black face. What was worse, white men imitating what they thought black people were like or actual black people playing themselves as white folks saw them?

The Amos n’ Andy series have become a legacy of black memorabilia. We have most of the tapes and I feel some pride when I see Andy talking to his little boy and girl dispensing his wisdom while walking strong and tall as a man with dignity.

White After Labor Day? Oh My!

2009-09-05T18:52:00.000-07:00

I was at church last Sunday in the social hall wearing my white linen dress, and one of the ladies said to me. “I see you have on your white, trying to get it out of your system before Labor Day. I laughed because, she like me, has heard this practically our entire lives. Particularly, do not wear white shoes before Easter and after Labor Day. In fact when I got up and looked in my closet to see what I was wearing that morning, my eyes landed on the white dress. I said to myself, I better hurry up and wear this because there is only one more Sunday to wear white. In fact, I started mentally calculating the other summer white clothing items I have; three pairs of white pants, dressy and casual, a white summer jacket, a white skirt and of course, white shoes and sandals. I planned my wardrobe for the next few days based on the “Do not wear white after Labor Day” mandate. I know what people are saying. Who follows those antiquated dictates anymore? Where did that come from? I live in California, we don’t follow those archaic rules.

Where did I get it from? My mother. It was not so much said but practiced. Every Easter my sister and I got white Mary Jane shoes and we wore them throughout the summer and they were retired at the end of the season. In researching the topic, it seems that this mandate originated on the east coast where there are definite seasons. White clothing reflects light and makes you feel cooler so therefore you would not wear in the winter. It was also intimated that class issues came into play and the middle class in late 19th century set themselves apart by observing this practice.

Now, evidently, the color, Winter White does not apply to this dictum. Winter White or off white is worn all year round, including the winter. I have a Winter White skirt, dress pants and coat jacket. I wear those all through the fall and winter. It is stark white that the rule applies. Of course white tennis shoes do not count. And of course, white blouses and shirts are worn all year, every day. Evidently, the only people “allowed” to wear all-white consistently are nurses or medical professionals, and of course, church sisters on First Sunday. LOL

Of course, with times being the way they are, people make their own rules and poo poo the idea of anyone suggesting what they can or cannot wear. Here in California, folks make their own attire-wearing rules. Shorts and sandals and sleeveless summer dresses if the sun comes out in January. Some people get downright insulted if someone teasingly chides them for wearing white shoes after Labor Day, and dare suggest they are not fashionably in tune. Relax people, it’s just a saying. Why do I follow this mandate? Mainly, because I always have and as a creature of habit, I’m not going to change this late in the game. I am getting it out my system. Friday, I wore white pants to work, today I am wearing white capris, for church tomorrow I am wearing what I call my Scarlett O’Hara skirt, white of course with white shoes, and Labor Day, my white shorts…….. and then these items will be washed or dry cleaned and then retired until next spring.

Happy Labor Day!

Memory Monday- Chasing Memory

2009-08-31T22:15:00.000-07:00

Memory Monday- Chasing Memory

There is so much in regards to memory I want to write----memoir, family history, childhood stories, that I cannot seem to grasp it all. It gets all jumbled up and sometimes overwhelming. I sometimes question writing about my memories growing up in Oakland. I wonder if people will say I lived a black Leave it to Beaver existence. I wonder about what I did not see, or at least do not remember, of the bad things growing up black. Like being called names and being discriminated against or a teacher or counselor discouraging me and trying to put me in a box. The light-skin, dark-skinned intra-racial discrimination in the black community. The wanting of long, straight hair, the self-hatred, I missed all of that. Was that really going on all around me? I remember my sister, Flo, and I playing with our black dolls. We pressed their hair, burned it out and everything. Did I live a real black childhood or was I living a fantasy?

But memory is present and I know that my life was what it was. It was my memories of growing up whole, not jaded or scarred. I did live a black life, but it was my life. The things of my memory are my story. This is my life.

Here’s to memories.

Memory Monday- Race and Identity

2009-08-24T23:46:00.000-07:00

I always said I grew up without much racism. My childhood was relatively free of the name calling and put downs other African American kids seemed to have gone through. I don’t know if it was the hand of God, time and chance , or by design, but although I knew I was Colored or Negro (we’re talking the 1950s and 60s), I never had reason to feel inferior or less than or that my blackness was bad. That was until I was about nine years old and an incident happened in my neighborhood.

One of my playmates was Lisa Millet. She lived down the street and I knew her through our parents. Lisa’s father had died but her stepfather and my dad were in real estate together and had an office on 23rd Avenue in Oakland in the late 50s. Lisa lived with her mother, stepfather, brother and grandmother and I spent many days over her house eating her grandmother’s gumbo. Their roots were in New Orleans, where her parents and grandparents were born. As I have written before, our neighborhood was quite diverse. There were Negroes, White, Mexican-Americans and Asian Americans. What I knew about Lisa’s family was they were Negroes but her grandmother talked funny talk--- and they were very fair-skinned. Lisa had long, light brown hair that hung to her waist and her ponytail swayed when she walked. Didn’t mean much to me. My mother is very fair and some of her family members looked like Lisa’s family.

A new family moved in the neighborhood and they had a daughter around our age—I think I was about nine and Lisa was eleven. Somehow, soon after she moved in, we were in this new family’s front yard. At some point, the suggestion was made about going into her house. The girl, which I have forgotten her name, then turned to me and said,
“Lisa can come in but you can’t because colored people steal.”
I stood there with my mouth open. I had never heard such a thing in my life. I gathered myself together and said confidently.
“Lisa is Negro too.” I looked over at Lisa, knowing I had an ally. We would show this stupid girl.
But was I in for a surprise. “I’m not Negro, I’m Creole.”
What???? Creole? “What is that? All of these questions were in my head but all I could do is stare, turn around and run home. I was in tears by the time I got in the house. I immediately told my mother what happened and then I asked, “Momma, isn’t Lisa Negro?” I remember my mother speaking in her soft voice, full of wisdom.”
“Yes, she is, but you have to let people be what they want to be.” She then went on to explain what Creole was. That funny talk Lisa’s grandmother spoke was Creole, a derivative of French and the food they ate was indicative of that culture. I do not know if I understood but though I was hurt and felt betrayed, those word my mother spoke has always stayed with me.

Race, identity, culture of the African Diaspora has always fascinated me. The many ways of being black is the basis of much of my reading, research and some of my writings. As a genealogist, I respect that most of us are an amalgam of many ethnicities and nationalities but my identity is and always will be black, first, foremost and forever.
Lisa and I made up. Her grandmother called and said that Lisa was upset that she had upset me and my mother told her to send her over. She came over bearing gifts. We never spoke of the incident or of that girl. She ceased to exist as she was not in our play circle. I thought about Lisa, the Creole girl recently when a blogger wrote an essay for a book I wrote a review for two years ago. One Drop by Bliss Broyard is the author’s memoir of discovering her ancestry and the rich Creole background that was denied by her father, writer Anatole Broyard’s passing for white and fear of being labeled a black writer.
This book did a great job on discussing the issue of identity and culture and is destined to be a classic.

My review of: One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life—A Story of Race and Family Secrets

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316008060/ref=cm_rdp_product

Memory Monday- Oakland Then, Oakland Now

2009-08-17T23:33:00.000-07:00

Sunday was a beautiful day, a perfect day for an outing such as the Art and Soul Festival in downtown Oakland. This has been the one event that has remained consistently organized, safe and fun for all. There is always great entertainment, an array of diverse vendors, and fantastic food. The big draw entertainment was Will Downing on the main stage, and I love me some Will. I had just purchased his latest CD, Classique this weekend. I got my garlic fries, strawberry lemonade, bought another Chinese umbrella—perfect for sunny days and I was happy. I sat down and clapped to the Blues and walked around seeing folks I knew from years ago; it’s like an Oakland reunion.

Much has changed in downtown Oakland since I was a kid. The festival brings a diverse crowd from all over to the downtown area which, while it remains an employment mainstay—there are a number of national and local businesses, the shopping life is little to none. There is no longer a major department store and the dress shops of the 1960s and 70s in my heyday are nonexistent. Only one, J. Malnick, remains with an assortment of small retail shops.

There was a time downtown was bustling. There were Sears, Capwells, and Rhodes department stores. Joseph Magnin and I. Magnin and Goldman’s were the high end dress shops with their furs and chic dress and shoe styles. That’s where you went to dress for a special event. I got my senior ball dress at Goldman’s, bought my shoes at Capwell’s and had them died yellow to match the trimming and sash at Leed’s Shoes. And of course, there was the Paramount, the Roxie, and The Fox theaters, where we went to the movies. With urban renewal or the more current term, um uhn, GENTRIFICATION, things changed.

Now, as then, Oakland is diverse but more ethnic with African Americans, Latinos, and Asians predominate. Whites moved out in droves all through the 60s and 70s. Now their children and grandchildren and transplants from the East Coast have come back to downtown Oakland and West Oakland. With them are gourmet restaurants and new-fangled boutiques, generated to jump start Oakland’s regeneration. The Paramount is now an upscale concert hall, home of the Oakland Symphony and Oakland Ballet and I am a patron of both. Change is good but there is an underlying battle between the haves and the have-nots. But all and all, I’m lovin’ Oakland despite the blight, the crime and the bad rep we have nationally. After all, it is home.

It Is Still the South

2009-08-12T01:29:00.000-07:00

I have a love/hate relationship with the South, that is the southern states of this nation. Everyone knows that I have a special relationship with the South. I was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, and I still visit there and rural Union County for family, reunions. I love the literature, the food, history and the culture. I go back and forth in my mind with the decision of if I want to retire to Arkansas or another southern city.

While I was at my cousin Angie’s house in a suburb in Little Rock, we had a conversation about the mindset of southerners. The topic came up about what we had discussed on the first night of the reunion down in Strong at my cousin Cynthia’s house. The towns of Huttig and Strong have combined their school districts because of decreasing enrollment. They got a new superintendant of schools, a white woman from Mississippi; they said a racist. Why did they call her that? Because she “reportedly” said in reply to why she did not move into the house the school board provides the superintendant, “It still has a nigger smell in it.” You see, the former superintendant was black and had lived in the house. When they finished telling us this, I kept waiting for the punch line. You know, the rest of the story. I finally said, “Okay, and she’s still there?”
“Yeah, she’s there.” “Uhmm, well if that was California, she would have been gone, quick and in a hurry.” My sister gave me a look that said, cool it. It would be no use in discussing it further or asking too many questions. They would have said, “Well, our kids have to go to that school and answer to that woman” or “ We can’t afford to send our kids to private school like you did.”

Okayeee, that’s when I said to myself, It’s still the South. Despite integration, and in some cases they are more integrated in their school system than in Oakland, California, my residence, and other northern urban cities. Despite integration and great strides made by African Americans, it is still the south and therefore a southern mentality. Let me explain. There is a certain mindset in mostly rural towns in the south that still plays out as if it were still the old south, pre integration, before the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

There is open, blatant segregation in terms of economic and social issues. A government official was traveling through rural Florida a few years ago and stopped to have a bite to eat and beer at a local tavern. He sat down and ordered the beer and was told by the bartender that he might be happier on the other side. The other side was the bar for blacks. This official was outraged. Separate facilities in the new millennium? Gasp! But the people in that ass backward town, both black and white did not see what the problem was. Blacks were equally complicit in upholding the separate but equal. “They like Country & Western and we like the Blues and R& B”. “That’s just the way it is” is what I heard from a friend who grew up in one of those ass backward towns in Florida. That’s what I mean when I say, it is still the south.

Oh, and there is the case of separate proms in those little ass backward southern towns. Every spring you read about it. There was an article in the New York Times recently chronicling this in a little town in Georgia. No, you aren’t going to find this in Atlanta or any city of significant size in the south; it is those ass backward, still living in the 1950s, narrow-minded, provincial towns where black and white agree to do this. “It’s tradition” or “It’s always been this way.” But what do you expect, it is still the south?

Oh, yes, things have changed. The schools are integrated and blacks like my uncle are supervisors on their factory or mill jobs. There are even interracial romantic liaisons; the townspeople in that little Georgia town admitted the kids date interracially, which makes the whole idea of separate proms even more ludicrous, but they are all complicit, again citing tradition. I was told that they just stopped having black and white homecoming queens down in Huttig-Strong. These little ass backward towns usually have a high school population of less than 100 students, some far less and they want to keep Jim Crow alive?. And remember the madness in 2008 in Jenna, Louisiana with the nooses and all? I’m told by folks who attended the march that the town is so blatantly delineated by economics. My church member said the whites have nice homes all through town and then you cross the railroad tracks and the black people live in dilapidated homes that should have long been condemned. But that is the south.

In 2006, I visited Savannah, Georgia on a literary retreat. One morning a group of us took a walk downtown to a tea shop for breakfast. I was walking along taking pictures of the moss wood trees and beautiful scenery of this magnificent, historical city, soaking it all in, window shopping on a beautiful spring morning. Suddenly, we came upon a big window front and I stopped dead in my tracks. I could not believe it, it was a real live Confederate store. I mean, there was everything, flags, clothing, memorabilia, war materials, everything Confederate. I was standing there speechless. The other three women stopped and looked at me taking it all in. One was from Georgia, the other from Florida and the other from Texas. Clearly, this was nothing new to them but this was an eye-opener for me and a reminder that no matter how nice the people appeared, or how beautiful the city of Savannah is, it’s still the south. And lest those in Union County, Arkansas where I just came from thought they lived in a “we are the world” existence, there was a Confederate flag hanging high and proud on the road down in Felsenthal where we had our fish fry that Friday, reminding me of where we were. Well, I’ll be damn, it is still the south.

Memory Monday- Uncle Jerry

2009-08-10T22:32:00.000-07:00

Memory Monday- Uncle Jerry

You all know I went to Arkansas last month. In going through some photo albums of my aunt’s, there was a picture of my mother’s oldest brother, Jerry. He was one of the four children grandfather Samuel Rowland had before he married my mother’s mother, Otelia Gilliam. The last time I saw him was in 2005 when we went to El Dorado, the county seat of Union County, to visit him in a convalescent home. He was suffering from several ailments, among them dementia. He didn’t really know us, my mother, sister and Aunt Bera Faye but there may have been a recognition or two.

My memories of Uncle Jerry were of him visiting us in Oakland when I was younger and visiting him in Chicago, where he went in the 1940s and made his home. When he came to Oakland we would meet him at the train station. That was back in the day before Amtrak when everyone rode the Southern Pacific. In Chicago, he was the consummate host in a home that was quite appointed. He enjoined entertaining and the night life of Chicago. In the picture here, he is shown with three unknown women, evidently at some night club or social event.

Jerry Rowland died in 2006. He left to mourn his longtime partner and several siblings.

Memory Monday- Arkansas

2009-08-03T22:06:00.000-07:00

Memory Monday- Arkansas

You’ve heard the song by Ray Charles. “Tell yo mama, tell you pa, I’m gonna send you back to Arkansas.” Arkansas. All kind of perceptions come up but it is the place I was born. It is the place my parents met at Philander Smith College in Little Rock. It is a place of great memories.

Eating barbeque, spaghetti, and watermelon that my Uncle Raymond, a cook at a hotel, on the 4th of July in Little Rock in 1963 when I was 12. Running around with his children, my cousins. Coming back in 1968 when I was 17 and really thought I was grown.

Going down to the country where my mother was born in Huttig. In 1960, we used a slop jar for going to the bathroom; for real, there was no bathroom. Now that was real country living. Sweet tea, biscuits, smothered chicken and gravy, fresh born and greens from the garden.

Well, I was down in Arkansas for a week and I will be posting blogs and pictures about going back to my hometown in Little Rock and the family reunion in Union County.

Stay tuned.

Death of Writer E. Lynn Harris

2009-07-30T23:00:00.000-07:00

Death of E. Lynn Harris

Author E. Lynn Harris died on July 24, 2009. http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/07/24/harris.obit/ It is hard to believe this renowned writer has left us. Not since James Baldwin, has an author attacked the topic of homosexuality, but Harris took it to another level, exploring the down-low culture of black men who lives two lives.

Invisible Life, his first novel, will go down as a classic. Poignant, well-written, and personal, a young college football player embraces his homosexuality and enters the world of black gay men in the closet. Readers embraced the honesty of Harris’ work and have been entertained by his subsequent novels. He published a memoir, What Becomes of the Brokenhearted in 2003 that revealed his painful childhood where he was abused by his stepfather and discovered his homosexuality.

I was in Arkansas last week and had just left Little Rock to attend my family reunion in Union County when I heard of Harris’ death. He was raised in Little Rock and in the last few years he had returned home as a visiting professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, his alma mater. I am so thankful I attended his last Bay Area book signing in February at Marcus Bookstore in Oakland, California. He was a favorite of Marcus and the book club. His graciousness and humility was endearing to us all.

I wrote a blog this past March honoring Mr. Harris and his work.

http://derarwilliams.blogspot.com/2009/03/hes-backe-lynn-harris-back-in-familiar.html

May he rest in peace.

July 30, 2009

Memory Monday-- The Way We Were

2009-07-27T00:01:00.000-07:00

Being at my family reunion this past week has been a mind-blowing experience, both thrilling and chilling. The most poignant is listening to my 83 year-old mother talk about the past. The way things were---50, 60 and 70 years ago. Going down the country road where my grandparents' dilapidated house sits seemed to sadden her most. The road leads to nowhere, where once it lead to other places, like the road to LaPile where she was born or to the old place. Hearing her talk as if things stay the same. We have explained to her, things change, people move, people die, things change.

Mom talks of people of long ago, most dead and places of yesteryear-- that don't exist anymore. Of old friends. "Let's go by Lola's house, or Lucille lived there by Batts Chapel. Riding on the back of hay trucks, picking fruit and cotton to buy school clothes, getting second-hand books from white schools. That was the way it was. The way we were.

For the next few weeks I will be posting tidbits about the family reunion, family history and stories. Stay tuned.

Memory Monday- Going South

2009-07-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

Early in the morning I am leaving for hot, hot Arkansas, Union County to be exact. That is where my mother was born and raised and the place of the Rowland Family Reunion. Arkansas and the south has a place in my heart; I was born in Little Rock, yet California raised since the age of two. There are times I feel this twoness, ala W.E.B. Dubois; living in two worlds. I love all things southern, well most things. The food, the history, the cadence and of course the culture. But there are times I have a love/hate relationship. When I hear people talking about how great Atlanta is and how they are thinking of moving back there, or how much land they can buy in Texas, the first thing I am inclined to say is, it's still the south. That is my snide way of saying I am still unforgiving of the south's racial history.

My family has traveled south frequently in my childhood and at a young age I learned the meaning of Jim Crow and that people actually did not like people who look like me. That was hurtful and a painfubeofe I board the plane.l lesson to learn.

For now because of time constraints, I will refer you to my former blog- Memory Monday--Coming of Age in 1963.

http://derarwilliams.blogspot.com/2009/05/memory-mondays-coming-of-age-in-1963.html

I will continue my discourse at a later time, hopefully next week. But right now I have to catch a few zzzzzs. In the words of Ray Charles, "Tell yo mama, tell yo pa, I'm gonna send you back to Arkansas."

Memory Monday- Blackberry Memories

2009-07-13T23:01:00.000-07:00

The other evening I had blackberry cobbler and it reminded me of all the blackberries I picked and ate as a child growing up on 24th Avenue. The blackberries were plentiful, juicy and delicious.

Blackberries have significance for me. It was a blackberry summer that a neighborhood kid was killed when he rode his scooter into traffic and was hit by a bus. Tyrone had ridden his boxcar scooter along that fateful path, the same path as the blackberries in the fields and backyards of the houses he rode past, down East 23rd Street into the path of the bus on 23rd Avenue. I wrote of this memorable event; the piece was called “Blackberry Summer” and it was published by the Peralta Press journal in 2004.

I also wrote a poem called Blackberry Winter. It was the year my father died in 1990. I went to Little Rock to see him when he was dying of cancer and it was an icy spring day, the kind they call Blackberry winter. The way it was explained to me is that time at the end of winter and beginning spring, the seasons are fighting for control, and there is an icy, crisp air. That scene was evident in Little Rock as we rode to the hospital to see my father for the last time.

Blackberries, juicy, sweet, stains on my little sister’s shirt
Blackberries, juicy on a winter/spring day, bittersweet

Peace

Memory Monday- Remember the Time

2009-07-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

I am a student of genealogy and history, particularly Black history. In the process of attempting to trace and study the life of my ancestors, I also am writing my own personal history. As Howard Edwards, president of the African American Genealogy Society of Northern California, of which I am a member and board member, says that in the process of writing our family history, we should write our own stories. I have been writing my stories for years. These stories, I hope, will be handed down to my descendants and other family members.

Writing about your own life is an interesting, tricky, delicate job. Memory can be fleeting and capricious. Trying to regain one’s earliest memory is easier for some than others. My earliest memories go back to the time I must have been three or four and my paternal grandmother had died. I remember seeing my father kneeling on my parents bed crying. I was strange for me to see my big, strong daddy crying and I reacted by laughing. My mother pulled me aside and said Grandmother Florence had gone to heaven. Another strong memory was being in kindergarten and there was an earthquake, and all the children were told to go under the desks. I remember the desks shaking and not being afraid but thinking, this was an adventure.

As I said, memory can be tricky, especially particular incidents from your childhood. You can remember something happening and a sibling’s remembrance of the same incident can be interpreted differently. For instance my sister remembers an incident with her and our brother from Jr. high school, that he remembers completely different. All in all though, writing our own personal stories is something that should be a common practice. Leaving a record is a gift to your children and extended family that cannot be matched.

Memory Monday- A Death and a Birthday

2009-06-29T22:45:00.000-07:00

Memory Monday- A Death and a Birthday

It was not my intention to write about Michael Jackson but I find myself led to say a few words. His sudden tragic death on June 25, 2009 has brought a lot of memories and no doubt dominates many blogs, columns, and essays this month.

I, like many others feel as if I grew up with Michael Jackson and his brothers. The Jackson 5 burst on the scene in 1969, the year I was 18 and in college. I remember a house party in East Oakland where several of us were partying hearty and the hit song, “The Love You Save May be Your Own.” We stomped all night singing and dancing to that tune. It occurred to me that Michael Jackson was generational. My daughter Rebecca who turned 30 on June 27 also remembers Michael Jackson. She was three years old when Thriller came out. One of the songs on that album was “Beat It.” One day she was at her babysitter, a close family friend and church member, Mary’s house. She was going around the house singing, “Beat it, beat it, nobody wants to be defeated.” Mary told Rebecca, thinking she was redirecting a three-year old’s waywardness, “Why don’t you sing a church song?" Rebecca’s quipped, “We aren’t in church.” We still laugh about that years later and I reminded Rebecca of that the other night. She remembers singing and dancing to the Thriller album.

Sunday at Rebecca’s birthday Spa Brunch, the talk seemed to always veer back to Michael Jackson, his life, the gossip, and of course, the music. Yes, Michael was tragic, there were many accusations and reportedly the abuse of prescription drugs but I won’t get into that side of it. I choose to remember the old Michael, the one who sang with his brothers and took Motown by storm; the one who could dance like a gazelle, who made such genius videos such as Smooth Criminal and Remember the Time, who could unite the world with Black or White and We are the World.

Gone but not forgotten

The Love You Save

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW_-4rLaHM8

Memory Monday- Remembering Dad

2009-06-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Father’s Day and for the first time on this particular day since he died in 1990, I really thought about how much I missed my Dad. Usually this holiday doesn’t affect me, but Sunday, I found myself a little melancholy.

Two African American women were at a college conference where several references were made to the lack of black fathers being a factor in a student’s education. These women countered by letting those expressing these opinions that this was not their reality, nor that for many blacks. Out of that momentous occasion came an anthology, Our Black Fathers: Brave, Bold and Beautiful. I was blessed to contribute my story, “A Dad’s First Born.”

My reality was my father was present and accountable, and truth be told, most of my peers, friends, and cousins had the same reality. True, this was back in the day but I do not want to forget nor take that for granted but by all means I do not think this far from the norm, even these days. There are many black fathers in their children’s lives; it is simply one-sided and provincial to assume that the majority of black fathers were MIA.

My story is particularly important to me because I had written the draft several years ago and had submitted different version to different venues requesting father stories but could not seem to get it accepted anywhere. I was pleased that editor, Anita Royston and Joslyn Gaines Vanderpool saw the value of the piece and got what I was trying to portray; showing a man that while he was bigger than life to me, was just a man; who had insecurities and flaws, because of the lack of a father in his own life. How he rose above his circumstances and became a wonderful provider and mentor.

If you want to read about positive father of African descent, you can read it in Our Black Fathers: Brave, Bold and Beautiful.

https://www.5sisterspublishing.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=1&zenid=trphvhmd7rmpfb2aksj2tlhk66

http://www.amazon.com/Our-Black-Fathers-Brave-Beautiful/dp/0981778402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245695034&sr=1-1

Can Dads Have Their Day?

2009-06-22T00:01:00.000-07:00

Can the Dads Have Their Day?

Yesterday was Father’s Day and I am getting the idea that the day is being hijacked. Maybe it had something to do with the numerous messages on Face Book and even, in passing from strangers, when in reference to Father’s Day, almost in the same breath, invariably someone would comment “Happy Father’s Day to the women who are both mother and father.” I have heard that comment countless time over the years and it always rubs me the wrong way. My initial thought is always, Mother’s Day is in May; mothers had their day, can the dads have their day without being infringed upon?

Last week, I attended a graduation awards show for a community organization that mentor young people in track & field. My nephew, who just graduated from high school, was one of the ones being feted. The moderator of the event was thanking different people; she thanked the team mother and others who helped and she gave a special thanks to the Dads of the kids. A group of women sitting in the center murmured something like, “What about us who are both mother and father?” The moderator was very diplomatic and said yes, to you too, and I thought, dang, can fathers even be recognized without women’s bitterness, anger and insecurity getting in the way? I know where this is coming from; so many women and their children are in pain because the helpmate and fathers are missing from their lives. But if they could step away and realize, it’s not about you and your feelings, but about celebrating those men who stepped up to the plate and were fathers.

My reality was my father was present and truth be told, most of my peers, friends, and cousins had the same reality. True, this was back in the day but I do not want to forget nor take that for granted but by all means I do not think this far from the norm, even these days. There are many black fathers in their children’s lives; it is simply one-sided and provincial to assume that the majority of black fathers were MIA.

I wrote comments to that affect on Face Book today and got some positive comments. One friend wrote that even though her mother was a supermom, she could not replace that void of not having a father in her life. Another one said, even though her biological father wasn’t there, she had both grandparents and later, a stepfather who stepped in. Another agreed that Father’s Day is for the MEN in your life and that everything needs to be in context.

There are numerous essays and blogs from black writer to and about their fathers and fatherhood. Some are lovingly dedicated; others are bitter and sad. Some folks have not been able to move on. I found several on The Root website- http://www.theroot.com/

Type in Father’s Day in the search section.

Memory Monday- Hot Fun in the Summertime

2009-06-15T13:17:00.000-07:00

I recently read Sag Harbor by MacArthur genius grant award-winning author, Colson Whitehead. Whitehead is known for his novels, The Intuitionist and John Hentry Days. Sag Harbor is an autobiographical novel in that it is fiction based on real life events. The book centers on the summer of 1985 when the protagonist, Benji, and his brother, Reggie, are at their beachfront, Sag Harbor home in New York. The boys are 15 and 14 years-old and their antics of that summer, mostly without supervision, is fodder for a coming-of-age story for young boys from affluent black families. Sag Harbor was one of the vacation enclaves where middle and upper-middle class African Americans from the East Coast owned summer homes. Some of these families had been there since the 1930s and 40s pre-integration.

There were aspects of Colson's story that hit home despite my being female and my coming-of-age being in ther 1960s, going into the 70s. My father and his best friend, Dr. Edward Wright, purchased a cabin in Morgan Hill, a rural community outside of San Jose, California. That is where we spent a lot of summer time during my teen years, along with other families from the surrounding Bay Area. My father's club, The Men of Tomorrow, a professional black businessmen's social and civic organization, held their annual 4th of July event at the Morgan Hill cabin, which was one of the biggest social events on their calendar. The members of the group were doctors, dentists, attorneys, ministers, teachers, businessmen, and government employees. They included Creoles from Louisiana, some of West Indian heritage, some from the East Coast but the majority were transplanted southerners, mostly first-generation college-educated. I made friendships among the kids, formed cliques with some of the girls, and had crushes on several of the "cute boys" ooh Mickey, and have my own coming-of-age antics from those "West Coast" summers. Bar-b-que, lemon pound cakes, watermelon, and Sly Stone's "Hot Fun in the Summertime" was the theme of the time.

What were the memorable highlights of your teen-age summers?

See my review of Sag Harbor-
http://www.amazon.com/Sag-Harbor-Novel-Colson-Whitehead/product-reviews/0385527659/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=l&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

Memory Monday- The Neighborhood

2009-06-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

These days we hear the word “multicultural” scattered throughout in just about every situation. Growing up in Oakland in the 50s and 60s, I was a part of a multicultural experience long before I knew what that way or the word was coined. I spent a great part of my childhood on 24th Avenue between East 26th and East 25th Streets. Our street and the surrounding streets, East 27th, Grande Vista Avenue, 23rd Avenue, 25th and 26th Avenues had an interesting cast of characters.

My playmates in the neighborhood and schoolmates at Manzanita Elementary School were of all ethnicities and hues. My best friend, Jennifer Jones, as I, are black, or as we were called then, Negroes. I liked going over to Jennifer’s house because her parents were from New Orleans and there was always something good cooking like gumbo and seafood. I ate freshly made tortillas at Celia Flores’ house and greens, black-eyed peas and cornbread at our babysitter’s Mrs. Fefe’s house, who was from Arkansas as was my family. She cooked hot meal midday because her house, who was from Louisiana, went to work in the afternoon on the swing shift. I counted as my playmates, Steven Fong, whose father owned a grocery story down on 23rd Avenue and the Nelson Family which included four blonde girls. Their parents rode motorcycles and had a German Shepherd name Duke; they were so cool. The Millet family, friends of my parents, were also New Orleans transplants. I remember Lisa’s grandmother scolding us in her Creole accent when were trampled in and out of the house during the summer.

Basically, our neighborhood was comprised of young families who were hard working and raising their families. Our neighbors worked at the Naval and Army supply bases, the post office, factories and taught school as my mother did. Fathers and some mothers went to work everyday. On weekends, cars were washed in driveways, lawns cut and leaves raked by parents and kids (it was one of our weekly chores). We played Hide-and-Seek, Mother May I? skated, and rode bikes up and down the street on summer nights until the street lights came on. In telling someone about my childhood neighborhood, it was suggested that I am painting a Leave it to Beaver picture existence and that everyone living in Oakland at that time did not have the same experience. I had to think on that. As an adult and speaking with others who grew up in Oakland, I realize that some families struggled, had intense hardship, experienced discrimination and racism and the children were exposed to these experiences. In that respect, I am truly blessed that I had what I did. There are all kinds of stories. This is my story.

Peace

Memory Monday- 1968

2009-06-01T09:05:00.000-07:00

I was talking to a friend Saturday and the year 1968 came up in regards to the Black Panther Party as a pivotal year. Then later on that evening, a friend of my sister and I reminisced about our high school days at Fremont High in Oakland. She graduated in 1977 and I graduated in 1968, having spent my senior year at Skyline High.

1968 was a monumental year for a lot of reasons other than my graduation year. It was outstanding for the fact that the world was changing in the Bay Area and in the world. 1968 was also the year we lost Martin Luther King, the esteemed civil rights leader. That was in April and then in June, Robert Kennedy, hoping to be the Democratic nominee for President was assassinated moments after winning the California primary. I was seventeen and going through a rebellious stage. When we went to Arkansas that summer of 1968, we were welcomed with open arms in one of the finest hotels in Dallas, unlike our 1963 trip when Jim Crow was still in effect. On the trip when we spent the night in Salt Lake City, Utah, I refused to visit the Mormon Temple because of their then stance on the salvation of black people.

When I think about those years, I get melancholy and nostalgic but I can look at the many changes and landmarks that have been made. And I can be thankful, I am still here to look back and reflect.

Memory Monday-- Books, the Gift of Life

2009-05-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

As you all know, I am a voracious reader. Always have been; it’s in the blood. As far back as I can remember, books and reading have been a vital part of my life. There was always a book case in my house and I was allowed to read anything that I was able to. Two memories stand out. Walking to the library with my mother and siblings every Saturday and the day I learned to read in one day.

In my kindergarten class at Garfield Elementary school, we were each given a book and told to take it home and have our parents help us learn to read. I think back then, they did not actually teach reading until the first grade. So, I happily presented my schoolteacher mother with the book and we sat down and I learned to read. The next day, the teacher, I have forgotten her name, called each student to sit down beside her desk and read what they had learned. I vaguely remember kids reading slowly or one or two words they recognized. They were encouraged and praised. It was finally my turn and I confidently walked up to the teacher’s desk and sat down. I opened the book and proceeded to read the entire book. I remember the teacher looking at me with her mouth open. She left the room and came back with another teacher, or maybe it was the principal, and they set up a tape recorder and asked me to read some more. That is all I can remember.

When I have told this story, I have always presented it as my learning to read in one day. But, in retrospect, I have long realized that this was not an overnight achievement and I was not some wonder child--- not really.  The foundation of learning to read had been laid for quite some time. I realize that I was slowly learning sounds and recognizing familiar words from all the books I had been “reading” and had read to me by both my mother and father. Every Saturday we walked to the library from our 24th Avenue home. I cannot remember the name of the branch; it is no longer there but it was not far from Garfield School, a couple blocks over from 23rd Avenue. I obtained a library card at three or four years old, when I was able to write my name. I checked out the maximum five books back then and “read” them or had them read to me. The gift of books and reading to your child is the best gift you can give them. It is economically feasible. A library is still free as far as I know, and reading is something that cannot be trampled on, destroyed or lost. It is a gift for life.

I was able to find a picture of a picture from the 50s of the Lakeside branch in Oakland. It is pretty standard from what I remember of the libraries back then.

Why a Black Graduation?

2009-05-24T23:47:00.001-07:00

Saturday I attended the first Black Graduation for students of African descent in the Peralta Community College District which consists of four campuses, College of Alameda, Berkeley City College, Laney College and Merritt Colleges (my employer) in Oakland. Immediately when it was announced that there would be such an event, there were naysayers throughout the District. You heard things like “Why a Black graduation?” “Why are we segregating ourselves?” And this was coming from black folk.

Now, I have to admit, my reaction was one of hmmm, isn’t Merritt College and our graduations already predominately black? I mean, we were able to obtain a federal grant to improve black male retention based on our more than 50% black population. We have long heard complaints that our guest speakers at past graduations are almost always black—this year we are having the honorable Congresswomen Barbara Lee-- as well as the entertainment. And we have consistently had a black president for the past twelve years. But, I decided to brush the chatter aside and support those who initiated the idea and especially our students. Dr. Van Hook, an African American studies instructor at Merritt and Laney and his wife, Patricia Van Hook, took this on and my hats are off to them. They pulled it off and did a fabulous job. The well-planned and organized graduation was held at the North Oakland Missionary Baptist Church where Dr. Van Hook holds services.

Why a Black Graduation? It was clear to me the moment I walked through the church vestibule. First, the fact that it was being held at a church was telling in itself. As a public college district, Peralta adheres to the separation of church and state mandate. But the house of worship is a vital part of the African American community, no matter what religion is practiced. Celebrating our successes and accomplishments goes hand in hand with giving honor and praise to a higher power. To God be the glory. There was a prayer by Rev. Rutledge, the church pastor after opening greetings. The tune, There’s a Sweet Spirit in this Place today kept going through my head. This is why.

Why a Black graduation? A former, highly esteemed Black studies instructor, Dr. Cecelia Arrington, was honored as well as the first Black chancellor of the Peralta College District, Dr. Donald Godbold, and the first Black Trustee, Dr. Booker Jackson Jr. Jason Hodge, a former Oakland school board member, and his son called on the ancestors with their drums and libation ceremony. This is why. The graduating students ranging from ages early 20s to 60s who so desired, felt free in expressing their gratitude for their blessings. And they did so as they introduced themselves, draped in their beautiful Kente cloth. They announced their degrees received and thanked those who encouraged them on their journey. That is why.

Why? Because we had a keynote speaker, Davey D, radio commentator, journalist and community activist who felt free to speak truth to power where the audience could relate and receive. Because as a people, we have an oral tradition; we felt free in agreeing with the various speakers in a call and response format that dates back to Africa. Because every ethnicity has their traditions and celebrations and this is our way or as the kids say, this is how we roll. Because the sense of pride and joy on the faces of the family of the graduates were evident at hearing Dr. Siri Brown juxtapose the scholars of ancient Africa and the scholars of African descent today. That is why there is a Black Graduation.

Peace

Memory Mondays-- Coming of Age in 1963

2009-05-18T23:18:00.000-07:00

I saw a couple of blogs that are titled Memory Mondays or Monday Memories as a theme and I like the idea of going down memory lane. I had been blogging fine the last few months almost four times a month and then I got backed up this month. So by my joining the Memory Mondays blogging bandwagon, it will guarantee a blog at least once a week. This serves as a two-edged deal as I am compiling a book of childhood stories that I hope to publish. Southern Roots/Cali Girl: My Coming of Age Story centers on my growing up in Oakland and the influence of my Southern born roots. I want to present excerpts and thoughts on these stories to give readers a taste of what is to come. As the family genealogist, this is a way of documenting my own history as well.

We have been experiencing a hot spell in the Bay Area in the last few days. This time of year brings back memories of summer vacations going back south to Arkansas. It was 1963, the last day of school and all over Oakland, Gary U.S. Bond’s song; School is Out—“School is out at last and I’m so glad I passed….” was blasting from cars. I was excited to be going down to see Grandmother, Uncle John, Aunt Esther and Gladys Marie, Barbara Ann and all the rest of my cousins down in the country. I knew that later on we would go to the big city of Little Rock and hang up with Uncle Raymond’s kids, eat bar-b-que and watermelon and watch the 4th of July fireworks.

Little did I know as we left in the wee hours of the morning in our new Buick in mid-June that this trip and this year would change me and that way I saw the world going forward. I express this momentous experience with a story that was published by the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD) anthology, I’ve Know Rivers.

Coming of Age in 1963
http://www.iveknownrivers.org/read-2.0.php?id=188

Tuesday's Just as Bad

2009-05-05T12:24:00.000-07:00

It is the May 5, Cinco de Mayo and it has been raining since Friday, the first. It is dark and gloomy outside and I want to be home. I feel kind of blah. I feel like I am coming down with something, a cold, I hope nothing worse. No, I am not panicking that it could be Swine Flu or the official name, H1N1. Part of what has me feeling the blues is the news and the hourly reports on the H1N1. Schools closing, vacations canceled, people avoiding crowds. I understand the side of caution, but it seems things are being blown out of portion.

I need to be at home with a good book. I have been reading Mixed Blood by Roger Smith, a suspense set in Cape Town, South Africa. I’m learning a lot about the culture there, the interactions among the races in the new South African post Nelson Mandela.
The characters include Jack Burn, an American, running away from a crime he committed in Virginia, a corrupt racist Afrikaner cop, Barnard, a “half-breed” ex-con trying to go straight, Benny Mongrel, and a police investigator, Disaster, that’s right, Disaster Zondi, and a proud Zulu who is out to see that justice is met.

This was part of the Amazon Vine book program- https://www.amazon.com/gp/vine/
which is nice because you get a first chance at books that might be of interest but may not be aware of? So far, so good. It’s kind of exciting but I wish I were home in my cozy bed reading it. They may call stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad.

Mixed Blood: A Thriller

http://www.amazon.com/Mixed-Blood-Thriller-Roger-Smith/dp/080508875X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241551488&sr=1-1

.

Black On The Block

2009-04-29T01:55:00.000-07:00

My local book club’s selection for April is Black on the Block: The Politics of Race and Class in the City by Mary Pattillo. On April 22, at our meeting, Dr. Pattillo, a professor at Northwestern University, called in to the Marcus Book Store and we discussed the book via telephone. In her book, Dr. Pattillo, a sociologist, looks at gentrification in the North Kenwood-Oakland neighborhood in Chicago, Illinois from a different angle. Most of us know gentrification to be when more affluent people, usually white, move into a lower-income neighborhood, usually occupied by blacks or Latinos. This community is being redeveloped under the guise of beautification and improving living conditions. In this case, the new folks moving into NKO were the same color as the old residents—black. The enemies were not some whitey trying to change their way of life but middle and upper-class African Americans who were critical of their way of being.

As an ethnographer, as the kind of sociologist she is, Dr. Pattillo was aware of the changing neighborhood when she moved there. According to her, sociologists, if they are able, move into the neighborhoods of the people they are studying; they are participant observers and they write books on the topics. Dr. Pattillo had two neighbors on either side of her; two women. One was a banker, new to the neighborhood, the other, a part-time bus driver and long-time residents, with three generations living in her home. The two neighbors could not stand each other. The bus driver felt the banker snubbed and avoided her neighbors while the banker resented the frequent activity she observed going on in her neighbor’s front yard. Dr. Pattillo maintains that issues of class differences are not addressed in America. There are laws against racial and gender discriminations; there are none against class discrimination. Additionally class is the elephant in the middle of the room among African Americans, yet it is there stark and plain, and truth be told it always has been.

I brought up the point that before integrations, because of segregation, in some urban cities, black people of all walks of life lived together; there would be the doctor on the corner and across the street there was the factory worker. Did they not all get along? Dr. Pattillo had some thoughts on that assertion. Black professionals made their living from black people; doctors, businesses, ministers and teachers had a symbiotic relationship with people they served and they sometimes attended the same churches. But Dr. Pattillo cited the book, Black Metropolis: A Study of Negro Life in a Northern City written in 1945and other accounts that revealed there was indeed some dissent. Better educated and more affluent blacks spoke disparaging about their poorer sisters and brothers. They felt they were embarrassing by the clothes they wore (head rags in public) or talking loud on the train. Northern Negros especially looked down at the newly arrived southern migrants, having disdain for their illiteracy and country acting mannerisms.

So, why would affluent blacks move into a lower-income neighborhood that has high crime rates and try to impose their wills on folks who do not want to be bothered with their uppity ways? Many blacks cite that they want to be a part of a black community, and they have a genuine desire to improve the neighborhood and improve the quality of life. So why no kumbuya? No gatherings around the bar-b-que grill? To further dig the knife in, these newer affluent residents began charter schools and privatization of other services. And guess what, Bay Bay’s kids could not get into their schools. The applications were akin to getting into an Ivy League school.

After living in the community for two years, Dr. Pattillo joined a board, one that tried to bridge the gaps. It has been a slow process but hopefully progress is being made. Our group enjoyed discussing this book, looking at gentrification in a new light, at how the dynamics surrounding this sensitive topic is not as simple as black and white.

Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Block-Politics-Race-Class/dp/0226649326/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241421117&sr=1-1

The Help.....Mississippi Goddam

2009-04-16T12:37:00.000-07:00

The astounding singer, Nina Simone wrote the song, “Mississippi Goddam” in 1964 in response to the merciless 1963 killing of civil rights leader, Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi. The state of Mississippi, along with Alabama, were among the most egregious, hard-core, racist, states of the Union back in the day. It was as if the people of those two states never got the memo that slavery had ended; I have long been aware of this fact. It was with this awareness, that I read a new release, The Help by Kathryn Stockett, herself a native Mississippian. In this work of fiction set in 1963 and 1964, Stockett explores the complex relationship of black help, maids, or domestic servants and their white employers in Jackson. Skeeter, a young woman, just out of college and a budding journalist, comes home and discovers her beloved maid, Constantine, is gone and nobody can explain to her satisfaction what happened to her. In her search for Constantine, Skeeter looks hard at the inbalance in the lives of southern whites and the black people who serve them, some who live in extreme poverty. In a challenge from a New York editor to find something to write about that excites her, Skeeter decides to write a book, interviewing the black maids of her peers.

In The Help, the black maid/Miss Ann relationship is a convoluted union. It is also a symbiotic relationship; each needs the other. The white employers need someone to fix their meals, clean their house, wash their clothes and raise their children and the black domestic workers need employment to pay rent, buy food and other necessities of life. But I, who was born in the south and California raised, ask why would anyone need maid service eight to twelve hours a day, six days a week? If a woman is not working outside the home, why would she need full-time domestic help almost everyday of the week. Why do you need someone to fix you a sandwich in the middle of the day? Why can’t you teach your own children manners and change a diaper every once in awhile? To follow behind someone, cleaning up after them, fix all their meals, and oversee entertainment, including holidays, when these women would rather be with their own families? I asked my southern born and raised mother these questions and more; trying to grasp the understanding, to get into the heads of these spoiled, over-indulged white women, who I know not only existed in fiction, but in reality in 1960s Mississippi.

Mom explained that this was tradition, historical, no doubt a holdover from slavery, where as slaves, blacks waited on whites hand and foot, no matter their status. Mom went on to explain that white woman who were little better off than some of the blacks around them, hired black women to wash their clothes. That was the case in rural 1930s Arkansas where my mother was raised. Yes, there was racism and mistreatment of blacks in her rural Arkansas town, but the difference she saw in the women in her family, was that her family owned their land. They had as much or near as much and in many cases more than the many whites around them. They, and other black families such as them, were not subject to the harshness and cruelty that those who were sharecroppers and depended on whites for their every need.

The need for power, to order someone around old enough to be your mother or grandmother—or your daughter, to feel superior was something ingrained in the white women in The Help. Some of them were so hateful and mean-spirited, who would have their help jailed for the smallest infraction; the help was at the mercy of these white employers who would not hesitate to lie, if crossed. Oh, Mississippi Goddam.

It is my love of southern literature that I was able to read this book that is getting many rave reviews by critics. I, a child of the south, writer, family historian, and keeper of southern stories, appreciates a well-written, good story and Stockett is a good storyteller. When one of my sister reviewers became immediately offended by the book content and the dialect of the mostly uneducated black women, I was eager to read and see for myself. There were many uncomfortable moments, as I expected there would be, but all in all, the cumulative value of the book is an admirable contribution to the tomes of the “new southern literature.” If anything, this book opens up the dialogue, which has already began-- if the discussions online and on blogs are any indication, between black women; southern born and northern born, and with white women, especially those southern raised, and presents an opportunity to talk about this elephant in the middle of the room in this Obama era. Maybe black women and white women, and all women can come together in sisterhood now that the stigma of segregation no longer exists--- oh black women will still be working in white homes, and there is still an unequal balance of privilege and poverty; but maybe those who are privileged will look to those who are not, as human beings with the same desires and sensitivities as they. Mississippi goddam no more.

At Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Help-Kathryn-Stockett/dp/0399155341/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241420803&sr=1-1

Dera Williams
April 17, 2009

Finally...My Favorite Books in 2008

2009-04-14T12:50:00.000-07:00

Well, here it is April. Spring is here and flowers are blooming and I am just getting around to presenting my list of favorite reads of 2008. I don’t know why it took me so long but it’s done. My favorite was Song Yet Sung by James McBride. Brilliant writer, beautifully told story of slavery on the Eastern Shore.

Here is the link to my list on Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/My-Favorite-Reads-of-2008/lm/R1MV809Z8XG2JS/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_full

For a view of my other listmania lists:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/byauthor/A1NEYE93FWXT36/ref=cm_lm_pthnk_athr?page=0

Enjoy

Second Quarter 2009 Reading Challenge

2009-04-03T12:39:00.000-07:00

Well, I read 23 books for the APOOO First Quarter Reading Challenge that ended March 31. Out of those 23, 11 books were challenge books. Now, what defines a challenge book? It depends on each individual reader. It can be your regular reading list of books you plan to read. It can be a number of books you are trying to get off of your to-be-read pile, that some of us are shamed to admit how many books we have in our possession. QQ. Or challenge books can be books that are truly a challenge. It could be that book that you have picked up and read five pages and put down at least ten times. You know the one, that Toni Morrison book, or that book that while it gives good historical or sociological information , reads too much like a college text book with graph, states and pages of bibliography. Can we just say it is kind of intimidating?

I am going to take the easy route and list my books for the month of April with a few books that have been lag over for several months. You know, the books you never get to and never seem to make a carryover. Also, the book that I have put off for several reasons, too thick (BABs), too academic, slow moving. Let’s just say they are all challenge books. So here we go.

April Reading List

Tall, Dark, Westmoreland- Brenda Jackson
The Help – Kathryn Stockett (Vine review) (APOOO buddy read)
Rampart Street- David Fulmer
The Other Side of Paradise (Vine review)
Mixed Blood (Vine review)
Make You Mine- Nobia Bryant (AdC review)
Up at the College- Michelle Bowen (APOOO review)
Black on the Block- Mary Patillo (Marcus BOM)
Murder, Mayhem, and a Fine Man- Claudia Birney- (WOW BOM)
The Women- Hilton Als
The Ties that Bind- Bertice Berry
God Only Knows- Xavier Knight
Flannery: Life of Flannery O’Connor
Dying for Revenge- EDJ
Schae’s Story- Angelia Menchan

So, that is 15 books right there.

Now for the continuous lag/carryovers

Dare- Abriola Adams
Dreaming in Cuban- Cristina Garcia
The Ladies Detective Agency- Alexander McCall
Outside Child- Alice Friedman Up
All Aunt Hagar’s Children
Cion- Zake Mda
Wicked Ways- Donna Hill
Ugly Ways- Tina McElroy Ansa
Taking After Mudear- Tina McElroy Ansa
Brass Blue Ankles
Lady Sings the Cruels- Eric Pete
Just To Good to Be True- E. Lynn Harris
Dying for Revenge- EDJ

True Challenge Books (I want to read but I dread getting into because they might be slow, BAB, or academic-like)

Hemingses of Monticello- Anne Gordon-Reed (this is a must read- a National Book Award winner
Like a Mighty Stream- Patrik Henry Bass- (Black History Read that go carried over)
The Island of Eternal Love- Diana Chiavano
Miracle at St. Anna- James McBride – have had this for six years
Strangers in the Village- Farrah Griffin
All Aunt Hagar’s Children – Edward P. Jones
The Audacity of Hope- Barack Obama- I really do want to read about my President
Palace Council- Stephen L. Carter
On the Laps of God- Robert Whitaker - This is about the Elaine Riot in 1919 that happened in Phillips County, Arkansas, my father's hometown.

And then there is my big pile of to-be-read; much too numerous to even count, let alone mention the titles. Let’s see how many I get through by June 30.

See what others are reading the Second Quarter 2009 African American Reading Challenge.

http://www.apooobooks.com/quarter-2009-african-american-reading-challenge/

Happy Reading!

Going to Tea....on a Sunday Afternoon

2009-03-31T01:48:00.000-07:00

In honor of my birthday, March 31, my daughter, Rebecca, took me to a new tea shoppe for High Tea on Sunday. It is located in downtown Hayward about 12 miles from Oakland. The Golden Tea Garden is black-owned and is quite elegant, decorated with a large garden mural on one side of the room and beautifully displayed tea pots of all shapes, styles and antique cups and saucers, and crystal chandeliers. Right up my alley. I collect teapots and tea sets, not to mention a collection of books on having tea, brewing teas and the history of tea, so this felt like home. The tea shoppe has over 750 tea selections.

I admire anyone who initiates a business in this tenuous economy. For the owner, Beneba Thomas, this is her third career. She is a former attorney and real estate agent who is taking a chance. Frankly, I am delighted that she had the guts to follow a dream. Some people might think this is a frivolous endeavor. I have already heard comments such as “Who wants to pay $20.00 to have tea? I can make my own” or “That kind of stuff is bougie.” My people, my people.

Raised by a properly raised southern mother, who was raised to be a proper lady, having tea parties and going to tea was as natural as drinking sweet tea at a country picnic. Mom told of her mother, Grandmother Otelia, in rural Arkansas, having weekly quilting parties with neighboring women. At some point during their tedious sewing, they stopped for a snack of something sweet and tea, iced or sweet tea in the summer and hot tea in the winter. Having tea is more than drinking a hot beverage; it is an act of calming the soul and soothing the tenseness that gathers in the crook of your shoulders and neck. In the right company of women companions, taking tea can be a time of bonding and building intimate relationships. I cannot count the times I have gone to tea with either friends or family and came away feeling closer, a knitting of minds and souls. I have been to bridal shower teas held in private homes, book club teas with hats and 1950s styles setting in a recreation room, High Tea at the Fairmount Hotel in San Francisco with the finest of china and a breakfast tea in Savannah. I have been to tea tasting rooms to sample numerous teas with light snacks and Bed and Breakfast inns with three course tea meals. It is not just the setting, or the scones spread with cream, or the full-bodied flavor of teas from China, Africa and India, it is the sharing of secrets, desires, and hopes of women who over tea become sisters of the soul.

In times such as these with job uncertainty, high cost of living, and fear of terrorism; taking the time to pause, rejoice, and reconnect with not only other people, but the spirit, to me, is of high priority. People need these kinds of moments to slow down and take a deep breath and if the attendance at The Golden Tea Garden was any indication, others feel the same. There were whole families as well as groups of women. One little girl had on a beautiful blue, floral dress and white gloves, looking like Easter morning. The two women sitting next to us said they were walking and found the shop, which has only been open a month. Contrary to what one of my daughter’s friend who had suggested to her mother a few months ago to open a tea room, that “people around here wouldn’t appreciate it”, it is apparent that a ethnically diverse and varied income folk welcome a slice of contentment in this hectic world. Why not take some time to go out and have tea with a friend or brew your own? Add a few savories and have your own tea party. Stop, breathe and enjoy the moment.

The Golden Tea Garden

http://www.buylocalcampaign.com/teaGarden/

A Time to Weep, a Time to Heal

2009-03-29T22:24:00.000-07:00

It is a sad time in Oakland, California, the city of my residence, the place where I came of age. It has been a week and a day since four police officers were killed by a young black parolee. Sgts. Mark Dunakin, Ervin Romans and Daniel Sakai and Officer John Hege were gunned down like animals. It is reported the gunman, Lovell Mixon, after ambushing Dunakin and Hege on their motorcycles during a traffic stop, walked over to their bodies and shot them numerous times in the head. He then ran down the street to his sister’s apartment and when a SWAT team came in, he fired an assault weapon, gunning down Romans and Sakai. Seven children have been left without fathers, wives now widowed and a million questions gone unanswered.

I am saddened by this occurrence. I am afraid for my city, which lacks effective leadership and viable solutions. Like other urban cities, black residents and the police force have a long history of distrust and ill feelings. It is unfortunately, however, the unhealthy stance some blacks have taken, vilifying the dead officers, who were white and one Latino, victimizing and glorifying the gunman, and making this about race instead of human beings. There is so much tension, so much pain, so much blame and so much nonsense being spewed out of some misdirected, misguided youth and adults who should know better. My sister, a psychologist at a local high school talks of her students who are glorifying the gunman and disparaging the police. They will not listen to reason, refusing to acknowledge any wrongdoing. A young man was picked up last night a few blocks from the killings after police searched his home and found an assault weapon. My daughter believes this is just the beginning. There will be more violence, copycats and more Oscar Grants, the young brother who was shot and killed by BART police in Oakland on New Years Day. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/01/07/MNOV154P0R.DTL

During community vigils for the police officers, protesters verbally attacked black attendees, calling them traitors and Uncle Toms, putting up Mixon’s picture and calling him a victim of the OPD; this despite the information that his DNA verified him as the rapist of a 12-year old girl and information that he allegedly killed another black man in 2007. Unbelievable. Bear in mind, this in no way represents black people in Oakland; only a segment, who are bitter and misguided. We are not a monolith and the majority of blacks are outraged. Outraged and sick and tired. If this madness continues, it is going to tear this city apart. It is going to be a long, hot summer. All eyes are on Oakland. It is time to get on our knees and pray for healing. It is time to heal.

He’s Back….E. Lynn Harris Back in Familiar Territory

2009-03-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

I went to see E. Lynn Harris last month at Marcus Books in Oakland. It had been pouring raining and I was thinking about not going but there was a let up in the deluge so I went on and I am so glad I did. I had forgotten what a good speaker Harris is and despite the issues I have had with his books of late, he is a dynamic person and speaker and so appreciative of his fans and audience. He was late coming from San Francisco—he always stays in the City and the Bay Bridge was tied up. He kept saying he appreciated us coming out in the rain on a Friday night and he never wants to take his fans for granted.

Harris was on tour and just came from Los Angeles. He doesn’t fly; therefore his tour was by car; with a driver. His current book, Basketball Jones, is his 10th New York Times bestseller. He wrote Basketball Jones in a very short time span compared to his previous book. After writing a straight book, he wanted to see if he still had it in him to write a gay theme. A couple of years ago he got a call from a NBA player’s rep or agent, who wanted Harris’ help in coming out of the closet. Evidently this person was being blackmailed by someone in his family; however he never heard anything more and assumed the ball player went ahead and paid the blackmail. He never knew who it was. This scenario also plays out in BB Jones.

Harris’ previous book, Just Too Good to Be True, (original title was The Great Pretenders) took four years to write. There were editors and creativity issues. This was his first straight book and he constantly battled with his editor on issues of the main character’s celibacy; he was told the characters were too perfect. Another factor was the editor did not know football or black men. She also told him to add more sex. He prefers working with editors like Blanche Richardson, the owner of Marcus Books, who does not inject themselves into the editing process. Blanche has edited some of his books.

Another reason JTGTBT took so long can be attributed Harris’ writing block caused by his 1) teaching schedule (he is still teaching writing at the University of Arkansas; 2) his depression which he is very frank about 3) and the fact that he is a father (he adopted a son). He said that The Best African American Fiction: 2009—he is co-editor and The Best African American Essays: 2009 will be a continuing series with Gerald Early as the main editor for both books and with a guest author editor every year. He said he chose all the stories which are mostly literary and he was pleased with his selections. He has a three-book series with St. Martin’s Press. Bentley, a gay man, is the main character. Blame it on the Sun will be released later in 2009, the Bentley series in early 2010. Blame it on the Sun brings back the character of Yancey eight years later from Anyway the Wind Blows. Women have always been important and have always served a valid part of Harris’ life and literature

Invisible Life has been his best selling book; over one million copies have been sold. Not a Day Goes By is also a big seller. All his books have been sold for movie rights; however he is not involved in the stage play of Invisible Life. His demographics have changed, crossed over the years to white women and lesbians and others. There was a white guy and Asian guy in the audience who enthusiastically asked questions.

Writers have to be good readers but must find your own voice and trust that voice. He appreciates Toni Morrison’s and Colson Whitehead’s styles but would not copy them.
He is involved in choosing his covers and the models that grace them. Characters just come to him; he takes notes on small legal pads. His writing stride usually hits him around 7:00PM. He had an inspiration at around 4:00PM that day which would have been 7:00PM in Atlanta. Another quirk; he cannot write lead characters on same day.

He is going to teach a young people’s writers workshop at Dillard University in New Orleans this summer. Harris’ son, Brandon, is senior at U of A. He sent him to the NAACP Image Awards (Harris was nominated for BB Jones) the previous week and Brandon sat next to Blair Underwood and was enthused over meeting so many celebrities.

We had an unexpected visitor, one of our street people wandered in and was a bit of a distraction for a minute but after Harris agreed to buy him a book, he left. Just another day in Oaktown. I finished Basketball Jones last week and it was a quick, entertaining read that will let his fans know he has not lost his touch.

Literature for Women's History Month

2009-03-08T20:45:00.000-07:00

APOOO All-time Favorites for Women's History Month
March is Women’s History Month and a dialogue came up among APOOO members about what books we would choose among our all-times favorites list. --http://www.apooobooks.com/library/apooo-all-time-favorites/. Some of us needed clarification of what books qualifies to be on the list. Does is just have to be a book written by a woman? Or about a woman? Does it have to be historical? Just what? The conclusion was that everyone would define the criteria for themselves.
There were so many books on our All-times Favorites list and I reviewed each one that I had read and deemed why it made my Women’s History Month literature list. Below is my list and a brief explanation why each book qualifies to be on this list.

72 Hour Hold by Bebe Moore Campbell- ground breaking; brought mental illness to the African American community forefront

And on the Eighth Day She Rested by JD Mason- survivor, coming into her own

Angel of Harlem by Kuwana Hausley- historical fiction about a New York’s first black woman doctor

Cane River by Lalita Tademy- historical; women surviving slavery, racism, and slavery

Coldest Winter Ever by Sistah Souljah - ground breaking- girl child lost

Color Purple by Alice Walker - classic; women survivors, strong women of early century

Conception by Kalisha Buckhanon- young woman coming-of-age against odds

Crawfish Dreams by Nancy Rawles- matriarch of large Creole family keeps family together

Dancing on the Edge of the Roof by Shelia Williams - I will survive; I am woman

Darkest Child by Delores Phillips- What poverty and racism and lack of education does to black women; survivor

Daughter by asha bandele- explores mothers and daughters relationship in the deepest way

Disappearing Acts by Terry McMillan - woman learning to survive despite heartbreak- women’s fiction

Douglass Women by Jewel Parker Rhodes- powerful; another I will survive

Freshwater Road by Denise Nicholas- historical; young woman coming into her own during civil rights

Fruit of the Lemon by Andrea Levy- young woman learns the meaning of her roots; awakening

Gal by Ruthie Bolton - Survivor story if there ever was one

Getting Mother’s Body by Suzan-Lori Parks- ground breaking; hecka funny

The Hand I Fan With by Tina McElroy Ansa- women and sexuality

Hottentot Venus by Barbara Chase Riboud- historical; a testament to racism and survival

Hunger by Erica Turnipseed- learning to get beyond the pain and becoming a real woman

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou- survivor, coming of age

Jump at the Sun by Kim McLarin- finding oneself when the world is swallowing you up

Justus Girls by Slim Lambright- girlfriends, the 60s, and survival

A Love Noire by Erica Turnipseed- loving oneself and finding self

Mama Day by Gloria Naylor- she the wo-man

The New Moon’s Arm by Nalo Hopkinson- women and midlife, menopause

No Place Safe by Kim Reid- autobiographical; living through history of mass murder of black children

October Suite by Maxine Clair- 50s era woman and how society, class, and racism shaped educated black women

Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice - another mother/daughter dynamics; getting through pain

Passport Diaries by Tamara Gregory- throwing cares to the wind and doing your thing

Piece of Cake by Cupcake Brown- autobiographical; survival

Playing My Mother’s Blues by Valerie Wilson Wesley another mother daughter, secrets and lies and how the past shapes women's circumstances

The Prisoner’s Wife by asha bandele- ground breaking memoir- why an educated, intelligent woman would marry a prisoner

The Professor’s Daughter by Emily Raboteau- finding oneself in a color conscious world

Push by Sapphire- survivor classic

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry- how women hold families together

Rhythms by Donna Hill - historical coming-of-age

Shifting Through Neutral by Bridgett Davis- daughter/father story- how having a father shapes you

Song Yet Sung by James McBride- I am woman slave survivor

The Street by Ann Petry- a mother's love defies poverty and racism

Unburnable by Marie-Elena Jones- finding self; discovering roots

Upstate by Kalisha Buchanon- coming of age of young woman at crossroads of life

When Did You Stop Loving Me by Veronica Chambers- daughter searching for elusive father

When She Was White by Judith Stone- the politics of race on a young woman who didn't have a choice in Apartheid South Africa

Who Does She Think She Is by Benilde Little - I'm going to do it my way; loving self

A Woman’s Worth by Tracy Price-Thompson- the title says it all

March 8, 2009

Free....Free....Free....

2009-02-25T12:23:00.000-08:00

What is it about free that perks up our ears, makes us smile and think we have gotten over on something or somebody? Well, it doesn’t cost anything and you get something, hopefully something you want and can use. It feels good to get something absolutely free, no strings attached, nothing expected. I’m not talking about like at the grocery store when you purchase an item and get another one like it for free, a 2 for 1. I mean that’s cool; you feel like you are getting more for your money but there is still that initial output.

Yesterday, I received an email to print out a coupon from Jack in the Box to get two free tacos (normally 2 for a $1.00). They did this a few months ago and I guess it warranted a redo. I figured if I was in the neighborhood, why not? Of course, I know what their angle is; it is to get you in there to spend money on other items. About a month ago, Denny’s Restaurant announced they were giving away a Grand Slam breakfast which included pancakes, eggs and bacon or sausage, normally about a $5.00 value.

Why are these places giving away free food? Well, my theory is these places are losing business and this is a way to get back in the public’ radar. I mean, you have so many choices, so many alternatives. So, they put these freebies out as if they are sensitive to the economic crisis and they are good guys, so they are giving us a break. Now that is a good thing. Now, the Jack in the Box things seemed to be pretty tame, there didn’t to seem to be any long lines or stampedes. But my daughter and niece went to Denny’s and let’s just say, there is really a recession going on. The offer ran from 8:00 am – 2:00pm on a Tuesday, I believe. They got there about 10:00am and the line was wrapped around the corner. They were told by those waiting, it would be at least two hour wait!!! They said forget it; it ain’t that serious and went to another restaurant and paid for a breakfast. LOL
Rebecca, my daughter, said what was amazing to her was that this was a weekday and the people that were willing to stand in line for a free breakfast was mind-boggling. She said, don’t these folks have a job to go to? That brought home just how many people are out of work and how much that free food meant to them?

Now, I really got excited about a real “free” deal. My ever resourceful daughter signed us up for a cosmetic class-action suit. Christian Dior, Estee Lauder, Chanel, among other cosmetics companies were dispensing $175 million worth of free cosmetics to consumers due to some price confusion. And it turns out that even those who weren’t involved in the suit were eligible after our Channel 7 consumer reporter blabbed it on the news. But then what woman has not spent money at a department store cosmetics or fragrance counter. Macy’s, Nordstrom’s, Bloomingdales, Nieman Marcus, and some other mostly high-end stores were distributing the cosmetics on January 20. Now why did that date sound familiar?

I was unsure of this, especially since it was broadcast and EVERYONE could get it; they even had some men’s products. So, it is Inaugural morning and we are sitting around eating grits, eggs, biscuits and bacon and drinking mimosas watching the swearing-in when Rebecca suggested that we had some time between the swearing in and the parade and lets go to Stoneridge Mall and see what was up with the free cosmetics. My sister, Flo, Jennifer, Cynthia,, her daughter, Tiffany, Rebecca and I headed out and what greeted us was this long line in Nordstrom’s; we could see it when we hit the shoe department. Oh my. I said loudly, “Why aren’t people at work or home watching the Inauguration?” LOL. So, what could we but get in line. But they were prepared for this and it was very orderly, quick; about 10 minutes, and organized. The cosmetics included perfume, body lotion, body wash, Lancôme mascara (I was told by one young woman, it was the good stuff), face and skin cream. You marked down what you wanted. No exchanges, no changing your mind. I chose the Boucheron perfume. We then headed over to Macy’s and I got the Givenchy perfume. On the way home, I stopped by the Macy’s near my house; another long line, again orderly. I got Vera Wang body wash. These were some great products. I heard that some women were going all over the county to all the stores that were involved and even got back in the same line two or three times. Wow. I was happy with my free stuff and have been enjoying the items.

They say the best things in life are free. I don’t know about that. A friend of my daughter who is always looking for a bargain told us about Slick Deals. www.slickdeals.net
There are all kinds of great bargains and free stuff!

Enjoy!

Black History Month… But I’d Rather We Got Casinos

2009-02-12T11:32:00.000-08:00

Black History Month… But I’d Rather We Got Casinos

February is getting away from me but I could not let it go by without mentioning Black History Month. I am not being cavalier but I don't get really excited about February as being the month we celebrate being black. Oh sure, it’s nice to view the different PBS program offerings and other television specials. Last weekend, TNT introduced “Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story” about the magnificent neurosurgeon which I thoroughly enjoyed. But the truth of the matter is I live, breath, practice Black History all the time. You see I love my people, I love black folk. I love our history, culture, our ways, well… most of them; how we do, well… most of the time. LOL

I regularly attend black cultural events, all year round. I attend programs and events at the African American Museums in both Oakland and San Francisco as well as book events at black-owned Marcus Book Store, supporting our writers and purchasing their books. I am a board member and active in the African American Genealogical Society of Northern California whose mission is to research and promote black genealogy, history, and culture. I can go on but I think you get the picture. I looove me some Black!

Last Sunday morning I was listening to Brian Copeland’s talk show on KGO Radio while getting ready for church. His guest was Larry Wilmore, an actor/comedian/producer and writer. He is currently on the satire news show, “The Daily Show.” He has written for The Bernie Mac Show, In Living Color, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, among other shows. Wilmore was also the co-creator of the PJs with Eddie Murphy.

Wilmore has just released a book, I'd Rather We Got Casinos: And Other Black Thoughts. I was immediately intrigued by the title and listened as he waxed philosophically about the irony of Black History Month. Comic and satirist that he is, I got where he was coming from. Black folks get the short shrift by getting the shortest month of the year but what happened to our forty acres and a mule? The Native Americans got their reparations to an extent with land and casinos. Wilmore’s book is a commentary on race relations, the aftermath of slavery, and how we should all just get along. I just might pick it up.

I appreciate the Black History profiles that one of my colleagues from one of our sister colleges has been sending out via our email system. I have especially been enjoying one of my APOOO sister’s blog as a great source of Black History profiles. Up and coming writer and blogger, J.C. Martin, is showcasing her stuff on a daily basis over at Words Mosaic http://wordsmosaic.com/
Go to the lower left to Featured Category #1. There you will find out about black folks, some you know, and some you don’t.

Power to the People!

Second Month of 2009 First Quarter Reading Challenge

2009-02-05T11:35:00.000-08:00

Well, I didn’t read as many books as I had planned to read in January; however, I am more than sure I will make the 13 book quota for the First Quarter Reading Challenge by March 31.

Books Read in January
Title Author Rating

1. Red Light, Green Light Margaret Hodge Johnson 4.5

2. A Little Piece of Sky Nicole Bailey-Williams 4

3. Seduced by Moonlight Janice Sims 3.5 (APOOO review)

4. Where the Line Bleeds Jesmym West 4/4.5

(APOOO BOM, Vine review)

5. Tempest Tales Walter Mosley 4 (Marcus BOM)

6. The Red Tent Anita Diamant 4.5/5

Red Light, Green Light will make my favorites list for 2009, undoubtedly in the top 10. The author puts you there in New York City in the aftermath of 9/11. She has you in the mind and body of a crack-addicted man trying to stay clean. Hodge-Johnson wrote this book.

Where the Line Bleeds will also be on my favorites lAs a matter of fact I wrote a blog about it-

http://derarwilliams.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-read-lot-of-books-about-100-year.html

The Tempest Tales was a great book club discussion. Debating the merits of heaven and hell, good vs. evil, judgment, temptation, and the moral compass made for lively debate.

A pleasant surprise was A Little Piece of Sky. My introduction to Nicole Bailey-Williams last fall for The Love Child Revenge was not a pleasant reading experience. In fact it was a disappointing read and a waste of my time and intelligence. ALPOS was a small volume packed with lyrical, beautiful language and a story that captivated me. Had a kind of Sandra Cisneros’ House on Mango Street feel to it.

I cannot believe I had not read The Red Tent. I found the book buried at the bottom of my book pile with the Amazon.com receipt still in it from March 2002! It was a gift from one of my APOOO sisters. TRT had me looking at the Bible in a new light and wanting to delve deeper into the Old Testament. I had some of the same sentiments as Sister APOOOer Yasmin Coleman. http://www.apooobooks.com/sunday-salon-january-rewind-fast/

And of course, my girl, Janice Sims, a great romance writer and friend, set me up right with Seduced by Moonlight. Nothing like a Calgon moment.

The plan is to read the following books for February. We shall see.

7. Protect and Serve - Gwyneth Bolton

8. Straight Outta East Oakland - Harry Louis Williams II

9. Something Like Beautiful - asha bandele (APOOO BOM)

10. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Marcus BOM) - Junot Diaz

11. Black and White - Lewis Shiner

12. Secret Daughter - June Cross (APOOO review)

13. Like a Might Stream: The March on Washington, August 28, 1963- Patrik Henry Bass (Black History Read)

14. And selected stories from Best African American Fiction: 2009 & Best African American Essays:2009, both edited by Gerald Early.

Stop by and let me know what is in your queue and how your 2009 reading is going or a link to your list.

Until next month.

Cuban Concert Redux

2009-01-29T15:31:00.000-08:00

Cuba is never far from my mind. The trip last spring remains still a life affirming, life altering adventure after almost a year. And the music is always in my head; I find myself humming a Latin tune and doing the salsa around the house. Attending a rooftop concert at Pablo Mene'ndez’ house in Havana was one of the highlights of the trip. Born in Oakland, Mene'ndez went to Cuba with his mother, blues and jazz singer, Barbara Dane, and never came back. The concert on the rooftop of his home at twilight was amazing. Cuban jazz and blues beats, we just couldn’t get enough.

Earlier this week, one of my Cuban trip colleagues sent an email saying that Mene'ndez would be at Yoshi’s, a popular supper club in Downtown Oakland. Wednesday night was free and the ticket price was right. It was on and poppin’ and Mene'ndez and the members of Mezcla did not disappoint. They put on a show peppered with Mene'ndez’ stories of his love for Cuba (pronounced koo-ba) and the contrast of that country with the Bay Area. How the mixture of races in Cuba is the same here; the rich diversity and love for art and music. Evidently, Mene'ndez has quite a following in the Oakland/San Francisco Bay Area as the place was packed. It was standing room only (we had good seats) but nobody was complaining; just jammin’.

He was joined by Barbara Dane, his mother, who, as an activist in the 60s, sang folk and freedom songs at rallies and sit-ins. Mama still has it in her 80s, scatting and harmonizing with the best of them. It was a great night. It wasn’t a rooftop in Cuba but it was the next best thing. Pass the mojitos.

He's the President-- Get Over It

2009-01-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

He’s the President, Get Over It

We have a new President and the whole world knows it. Folks from all over the world are singing his praises from school children to the elderly. The world has been waiting for this moment almost as long as we have, since Barack Obama came into the national arena in 2004. Yes, we have a new President and whether you like or not, he is here to stay. Matter of fact, if you don’t like it, I don’t want hear about it. He's the President--get over it.

A friend of mine sent me an email of this woman’s column, a black woman at that. This person went on to say that the world is rejoicing but she is not and cannot be happy for Barack Obama. My friend asked me what I knew about this person and what could I found out other than she is a Republican. (See my earlier column- Black Republicans- Who Needs Them? http://derarwilliams.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-republicans-who-needs-them.html) I was at first curious, but the more I read, the more ridiculous she sounded. This woman has all the credentials Condoleezza Rice has; masters and PhD degrees and some of the most elite colleges in the nation, a lecturer and professor at universities, but she sounded stupid. I stopped reading and shot off an email to my friend that: 1) the nation, make that, the entire world was elated for President Barack Obama’s inauguration, that; 2) I was not going to let some azz hole dampen my elation and enthusiasm, and furthermore 3) I was deleting the email and erasing the person’s name form my memory; I could care less what nonsense she was spewing and wasn’t nobody studyin’ her anyway. Get over it, lady. Barack Obama is the President.

As a matter of fact; now that I am on the subject, for all you haters out there, don’t say anything to me negative about, not only Obama, but Michelle, his kids or anybody in his family. I was talking to a co-worker Thursday, who told me she had to walk away from another black woman who criticized Michelle’s Inaugural outfit and her ball gown. She couldn’t just say, she didn’t like it; it wasn’t her taste but that quote” her dress was ugly and she doesn’t dress her girls right.” My friend told me, “That is what is wrong with our people. We always have to be negative about each other. That woman is so beautiful; she stands tall and proud with grace and anything she puts on is beautiful; I just had to walk away.” That is exactly how I felt. I had had someone tell me something similar over the phone from another campus that same day. I just had to shake my head. I am sick of negative people. Always moaning and complaining; some of them, poor things, are so negative about life in general, they cannot rejoice in victory for tearing down and dissecting every move our First Family makes. Get over yourself. It is not about you. Geesh! As my grandmother used to say, if you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing. Get over it!

Where the Line Bleeds--A Southern Tale: Review & Commentary

2009-01-19T01:30:00.000-08:00

I read a lot of books, about 100 a year. I read some good books, and some great books; needless to say, I have also read some bad books. Every once in awhile I run across a book that resonates with me emotionally and leaves me with a feeling that belies the publishing industry’s assertion that black readers are satisfied with reading mediocre writing, drama for drama sake, gratuitous sex, and drug warfare.

Jesmyn Ward, debut author of Where the Line Bleeds, in my opinion, has created a work of art. Now, I know that art is in the eye of the beholder, or is it beauty?; maybe I am getting confused with another saying. Is it one man’s art is another man’s garbage? No, that’s not it—but you get the picture. What are the ingredients or essential criteria that make me sit up and take special notice with some books? Besides the fact that I am a nerd, albeit, a cool nerd, as my daughter says?

Give me a southern setting, family dynamics, descriptive scenery, a sense of place, flawed, wounded characters, cultural aspects, conflict and good writing and you got me on GP. Put the story together in the backdrop of African American culture that is real, reverberates with a contemporary and current theme juxtaposed with historical aspects and that makes for the Dera Williams stamp of approval. Beware, this book is not for everyone, and maybe not for most people and from the reaction of my online book club, I might be the lone fan in my reading circle.

It is the summer 2005, in the rural town of Bois Sauvage on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and 18 year-old twins, Joshua and Christophe DeLisle have just graduated from high school. Joshua is able to obtain employment at the dock, a job “with good money” while Christophe, unable to secure a job, drifts into selling drugs; he feels it is his only option. Their lives are influenced by the area in which they live—90 miles from New Orleans, in a small town, where segregation is practiced by tradition as it is in most small southern towns, by the socio-economic status that is endemic to these conditions in the South and the U.S. in general, by their Creole culture, by the limited opportunities and the seemingly low expectations and aspirations of the characters; this is not a pretty story. On the eve of Katrina, when the nation was exposed to the ills of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast; with all the inadequacies that America witnessed and appalled the majority of us, the DeLisle twins; their beloved maternal grandmother, Ma-mee; their mother, Cille, who abandoned them; their crack addicted father, Sandman, and a host of other relatives, friends and townspeople are like characters in a play called Disaster About to Happen.

I felt as if I were sitting in a theatre, a witness to a family and a people on the verge of a crisis; a series of scenes of people playing roles that were foreshadowed to end badly. Someone said Southerners move slowly; I can attest to that as a frequent visitor to the South, place of my birth. The hot, lazy summer days, time moving at a snail’s pace, summertime in the rural South is like no other. Sweet tea, swatting flies, family gatherings, Friday fish frys; there is an attitude of I’ll get to it when I get to it. The fictional town of Bois Sauvage could have been the rural town where my family reunions in Arkansas on the Louisiana border are held or any of the surrounding towns . Joshua and Christophe could be any one of my young male kinfolk who are victims of their circumstances; wracked by poverty, lack of employment, lack of ambition, lack of opportunities, real and imagined, drifting, aimless; their biggest hope to get a job at the mill or plant where their fathers and uncles work; the jobs that have dried up, that are no longer available. Walking around with a beer can in one hand and a blunt in the other, occasional trips to the gambling boats on the Misssissppi, making babies, and bringing another generation into the same vicious cycle. Despite integration decades ago of schools and workplaces, there is the pervasive awareness of racial differences, complicit consciously or unconsciously by both black and white in keeping it alive. Driving along the highways of Arkansas and Louisiana, I have seen the fine, stately homes that are inhabited by whites, homes the native blacks see on their way to Little Rock or Shreveport or the nearest Wal-Mart as the Highway 110 Joshua and Christophe drive by on the way to New Orleans; places they cannot imagine to live in and the simmering resentment that is carried in their hearts.

These were the circumstances and the breeding ground; the stage I saw that was set for Katrina when I was down South in 2005 just one month prior to the biggest natural disaster of the century. But as the Gulf Coast was virtually washed away, I see hope; hope in the rebuilding, and a change in our nation with a new presidency and a renewed hope by those who have felt disenfranchised and displaced.

I loved the nuances of the characters, their dialect so reminded me of my childhood friend’s New Orleans born family; the characteristics of a black family with Creole roots; the family loyalties and closeness. This was a story about twin brothers and their unconditional love, loyalty and conflict, about mothers and sons, about fathers and sons and the complex emotions of abandonment, and choices that can change lives in a blink of an eye. There was some exquisite writing, phrases reminiscent of Morrison--- “The marsh greenery shuddered and bent into the caress of the air crossing from the gulf to the lake……” (pg 161). Having said that, I will admit Ward did occasionally get bogged down in details and that is coming from someone who thrives on detailed stories. She also overdid it on the metaphors and similes; indicative of writers who obtain a MFA in writing. There is this belief in degreed writing programs that the more literary devices used the better; this is so not true, in fact an oversaturation can be deemed amateurish. But do not get it twisted; this is a literary work; it is not urban fiction as it has been defined by publishers despite the presence of young people and drugs.

So, there you have it. The thoughts of Dera R. Williams; I loved this book but as much as I did, I would not recommend it to my local book club; I can see them cursing me out, right and left about the long meandering sentences. So, my recommendation would be for other nerds that are lovers of southern, family dramas with a literary bent that address social issues.

Are Black Women Looking for a Heroine?

2009-01-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

As Black Americans, are we always looking for a hero or heroine? I was forced to stop and examine this question because of an online conversation I had with someone about Michelle Obama. I had sent to this person what I considered a very well-written article, American Girl, by Ta-Nehisi Coates for The Atlantic. Coates has deftly made the correlation of being black and being American as being synonymous with his portrayal of Michelle Obama. I do not know if the person I sent the article to did not read the entire article or just did not get it because her remark was that she was sick of the drama around Michelle Obama and black women seeing her as some kind of queen, and that black people are looking for a hero.

Wow. That was two days ago and I have not responded as yet. I thought it was best to get my thoughts together because I did not trust what I wanted to say or that it would come out the right way. So, I am asking, is this true, are black people looking for a hero? I had forwarded several articles about the Obamas and especially the ones on Michelle. Many of them were black women writing about Michelle as a shining example of the ultimate black woman. Some of them were quite adoring, a little syrupy maybe, but I found no problem with them. So I am thinking now, are we putting the future First Lady on a pedestal; are we building her so high on the throne because we are hungry for someone to look up to?

Speaking for myself and myself only, I do not put anyone on a pedestal. Only God can be elevated to the status of royalty as far as I am concerned. But I give credit where credit is due. I feel a kinship, a sense of sisterhood with the future First Lady. In a world where black women are vilified and disrespected on an everyday basis, of course I delight in a woman such as Obama, beautiful, intelligent, accomplished, a devout mother and wife as being an example of a black woman we ALL can be proud of. That is it, plain and simple. Nothing more.

Just after Thanksgiving, I was sent an email about submissions to an anthology for a book of letters to Michelle Obama to be published by SUNY Press. It was due in a couple days, December 1 and I wondered what I had to say that would be significant but I sat down and typed up something I was finally pleased with. To my surprise and delight my submission was accepted. The goal was reached to have the book published in time for the Inauguration January 20. So now, I am doing some shameless promotion of Go, Tell Michelle, African American Women Write to the New First Lady. Am I in need of a hero or heroine? I don’t think so. Do I think First Lady Michelle Obama is worthy of being recognized and feted? She is all that and a bag of chips.

Go, Tell Michelle
http://www.sunypress.edu/index.asp?site=True

Behind the idea for the book: Uncrowned Queens
http://wings.buffalo.edu/uncrownedqueens/

First Quarter 2009 Reading Challenge

2009-01-02T22:18:00.000-08:00

It’s a new year and with that comes new books. I belong to several literary groups, newsletters, and book clubs and such I am able to keep up with the latest releases. There are a number of promising books I want to read in 2009. APOOO, my online book club, is starting the New Year with a book challenge, The First Quarter 2009 Reading Challenge. The deal is to read thirteen (13) books from January 1 through March 31, 20008. That is not actually a challenge for me because I generally read 100 books or close to it yearly. Thirteen books average out to be a little over four books a month. A piece of cake. Most of the members can easily read 13 books in three months but there are a few members, who for various reasons, read slower. They have decided to take the challenge and by actually publicly making a commitment and posting the books they plan to read, it gives them the incentive to do so.

My list includes a number of 2009 releases and they include fiction and nonfiction, including several memoirs. In truth, though I plan to purchase and read them, more than likely they will not all be done by March 31 (BTW that is my birthday) even if they are released during that time.

Books I am planning to read are:

Something Like Beautiful by asha bandele. I have enjoyed everything this Sister has written. Daughter is one of my favorite novels. Something Like Beautiful is a follow-up to The Prisoner’s Wife, both memoirs.

The Washingtons of Wessynton Plantation: Stories of My Family’s Journey to Freedom by John F. Baker. Baker traces his family history going back to George Washington’s plantation. As a genealogist, I love family history and this promises to be as exciting as Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemingses of Monticello, which is already in my possession and on my list.

The Black Girl Next Door: A Memoir by Jennifer Braszile. A coming-of-age story by a sister who grew up in Southern California’s white suburbia.

The Ties That Bind: A Memoir of Race, Memory and Redemption by Bertice Berry. Again, more family history by an author whose fiction I have enjoyed. The fact that Berry is from Savannah, Georgia makes this more an anticipation as it is one of my favorite cities.

Bring on the Blessings by Beverly Jenkins. What can I say? Beverly is the queen of Black historical romance and in this story she brings some of her historical characters ancestors in a modern setting. I can’t wait.

Triangular Road: A Memoir by Paule Marshall. I have long admired this veteran writers since I read Brown Girls, Brown Stones at least 25 years ago. The daughter of West Indian born parents, this promises to be both historical and cultural.

God Only Knows by Xavier Knight. After reading the review by one of my sister APOOO reviewers, I knew I wanted to read it. This Christian-themed mystery sounds like a winner.

That Devil’s No Friend of Mine by J.D. Mason. One of my favorite contemporary literary authors, I love her writing style and her take on familial relationships.

Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead. I have been scurred to read this author. This coming-of-age story set in an African American enclave sounds more palatable then his past offerings.

Life is Short but Wide by J. California Cooper. This sounds like vintage Cooper.

Best African American Fiction: 2009 edited by E. Lynn Harris. I am salivating at the thought of so many great literary authors in one volume. Helen Lee, Mat Johnson, and Chimamanda Ngozi, Adichie are just a few of the writers.

Best African American Essays: 2009 edited by Debra Dickerson. Contributors are Walter Mosley, Jamaica Kincaid, Malcolm Gladwell and James McBride. Rut rah!

These are just a few. Others are carryovers from 2008; the aforementioned The Hemingses of Monticello, A Mercy, The Island of Eternal Love, Palace Council, and Black and White.
Still others are The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Rampart Street, In the Laps of God, The Audacity of Hope (yeah President Obama), The Red Tent, and my current read, Red Light, Green Light.

To check out what folks will be reading in the First Quarter 2009 Reading Challenge and to post your books, go to http://www.apooobooks.com/quarter-2009-reading-challenge/

Happy Reading!

Sister Souljah, Part III: The Creative Side

2008-12-18T01:06:00.001-08:00

Sister Souljah, Part III: The Creative Side

I closed the final page of Midnight: A Gangster Love Story the other day and though it left me with a million and one questions, I have to give Sister Souljah her props. If it was her intention to grab the reader and give one a walk through a cultural landscape, she accomplished it with me. If she wanted to give us an intimate view of how people live, die, work, play, love, and make money in New York and how a city can become a character itself, she did it for me. If it was her desire to impart the importance of a sense of values in a society that has declining values, mission accomplished. Sister Souljah WROTE this book. Did she need to take nine or ten years to do so? I don’t know, but I ain’t mad at her. That is not to say the book was perfect; it was not. There were holes, flaws, and nicks in some of the logic going through Midnight’s fourteen year-old man-child constant stream of consciousness. There was stuff that even had me slightly pissed off, until I remembered, hey, this is fiction; or is it? The pen is a mighty sword and I suspect that a lot of Sister Souljah’s beliefs and feelings were spoken through the character of Midnight. She said at her book signing that this is her favorite book. Pieces of her heart went into the writing of it.

How did Sister Souljah create this book? She was asked the question every author is asked: What is your writing process? She said that you hear over and over that a writer is supposed to write every day; her process though is that she might write twenty pages and then write nothing for two weeks. She might get up in the middle of the night to use the restroom and end up writing until morning and then not a word for several days. She also writes everything in long hand first. Now with 498 pages that sounds like a serious case of carpal tunnel, but that is her process.

Sister Souljah wanted readers to get a feel for the characters and she wanted creative control and so she had pictures in her book. She was told that fiction books do not have pictures and her response was well, I want pictures, I am a leader and I will set a precedent. The model for Midnight was a teen she saw at the mall and approached him with her husband and asked if she could have him professionally photographed. After talking with his mother, everything was set up. For the character of Akemi, she advertised and the model in the book is her perception of that character. Umma’s model was referred to her by a neighbor who she had asked to find her someone who could instruct her in the Sudanese culture.

Sister Souljah was a curious, intelligent child who was always asking questions and was teased by her brother’s friends who said things like, “When is your sister meeting with the President?” or “ Is your sister having tea with China officials?” She said she had a lot of male friends; there was nothing sexual, but that they were into her mind. Sister Souljah was able to write in a male voice because of her ability to get into their minds from being around men and being able to talk with them and understand how they think.

Everyone wanted to know about the movie version of The Coldest Winter Ever, so here is the deal. She met Jada Pinkett at the Million Woman March and Jada told her she wanted to produce TCWE. HBO bought the rights, (BTW, Jada was never the intended actress for Winter as that character’s age ranges from 13- 18) they talked, negotiated back and forth, etc and then basically HBO faked on them; they backed out of the deal. In order to get her rights back, she had to pay $250,000.00 dollars. It is back in her possession and she insists it will be made but ONLY when the business is right. And Sister Souljah is a business woman; you just know she don’t play when it comes to her business.

So, there you have it; the creativity behind Midnight. And that concludes the Sister Souljah series.

Peace out--

Sister Souljah, Part II- Did We Get It Yet?

2008-12-12T00:38:00.000-08:00

Sister Souljah, Part II- Did We Get It?

Winter

In the first few pages of The Coldest Winter Ever, Winter Santiaga, the main character, makes a disparaging remark about the Sister Souljah character. That, right there is a direct clue into Winter’s attitude and personality. Nevertheless, most readers loved Winter, the fly, rich bitch, living in a mansion, designer wearing girl with the cool guys. Many wished they could be Winter and many tried to be. But did we really get what Winter represented? Sister Souljah was solid, an activist and unpretentious, and uncelebrated while Winter was glamorized and romanticized. The first few chapters made Winter’s life look as if it were all that, but as the real Sister Souljah pointed out last Saturday, the remaining part of TCWE was the story of a dismantling of a drug empire, a fall from grace. Winter ended up in jail, disfigured and her family destroyed. But did we get it?

A young woman in the audience at the book signing said she read TCWE in high school and unlike her friends who loved the book, she did not like it. When she asked them why they liked it, they could not tell her, they just liked it. This young woman was unimpressed with Winter’s antics. Sister Souljah replied that 100 people can hear a message and maybe 20 will get it right away, and maybe another 20 will get it some years later, but everyone is not going to get it.

A lot of folks did not get it. In the ensuing years, we saw a resurgence of The Coldest Winter copy cats; imitations that just did not measure up with Winter-like characters, bling blinging and living large. A new genre was reborn that had not been in vogue since Donald Goines and Iceberg Slim in the 1970s. Street lit, urban lit was on and poppin’.

Midnight

In Midnight: A Gangster Love Story, the life of the character, Midnight is chronicled from age seven to fourteen years old. The story is told in the first person point of view of a young Muslim boy who becomes a man. He arrives from the Sudan, a place where he had intimate knowledge of his father, his grand father and his great-grandfather, and comes face-to-face with American ghetto life in Brooklyn, New York up front and personal. He is precocious, mature, intelligent, and wise beyond his years. How is this possible? We wanted to know and this question was asked of Sister Souljah. She maintains that one of the biggest fears is fear of black intelligence, black genius. Interestingly, the fear is not always from the mainstream culture, but WE, black folks fear black intelligence. Sister Souljah said if she told us some of the things she did and said as a little girl, we would claim she was lying. She was an inquisitive child, wanting to know everything. As she puts it, she was annoying to the adults around her. Her mother took her to the library at age five to get her library card and there she began to explore the universe. I took it that Sister Souljah was a genius. Have we gotten it yet?

Exceptional intelligence and the culture in which Midnight was raised dictated that boys become men at an early age. Men that were about business and taking responsibility. At the age of seven, Midnight was given the charge by his father to come to America with his pregnant mother and take care of and protect his family. He took that seriously. Sister Souljah immersed herself in Sudanese culture and literature. The authenticity of Midnight’s character was formed by her research and her study of the Koran, the Holy Torah and the Holy Bible, three books that she contends, anyone who wants to know what is going on in the world, need to study.

In TCWE Midnight was the object of Winter’s affection, yet a fantasy. Winter was empty-headed and Midnight was a man driven by his faith of Islam. Midnight is a powerful coming-of-age love story years before Winter enters the picture. So who is the object of Midnight’s affection in this story?; a Japanese born girl named Akemi. A brother in the audience, a poet and community activist I see quite often at Marcus book signings asked Sister Souljah, why an Asian girl? Her reply was that people who asked that question either did not read the book or they read it and didn’t get it. With the theme of immigration, these are two young people, from foreign lands who found a commonality. She said that New York City is a place where all the cultures and races of the world live; Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, West Indians, Africans, Jewish, Asians, Middle Easterners, Eastern Europeans, and the list goes on. It is inevitable that the children of these immigrants will meet and come together at some point. When that happens, love can happen. As one of my APOOO sisters said, the world is getting smaller. Sister Souljah also noted that in TCWE, it was mentioned that he had studied the martial arts and had always been interested in Asian culture. That is evident in Midnight’s story also. Furthermore, Sister Souljah said she wants Midnight to reach out globally.

So, do we get it yet?

Sister Souljah: Part I, A Commentary

2008-12-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

They came in anticipation to the East Bay Church of Religious Science in Oakland Saturday evening, December 6. And they got everything they expected and more. Sister Souljah, activist, former rapper, and best-selling author of No Disrepect and The Coldest Winter Ever, was in town, and she did not disappoint. Sponsored by Marcus Book Store of Oakland, the event was well attended and despite the competition of the De La Hoya fight and several football game playoffs, the brothers were in the house representing. Sister Souljah was ready. She started off saying that she would answer all questions; she is a big girl and she can take it and hopes we can do the same. Brown-skin, face devoid of make-up, a pug nose, she had two pony tail puffs, very young looking, belying her claim of being the mother of a 15-year old son; black long sleeved tee and black slacks, very unpretentious

We sat mesmerized for almost two hours as this Sister preached, philosophized, and prophesied about life as she saw it and of course, talked about her new book, Midnight: A Gangster Love Story. Let me back up a little. The book, Midnight, is a bit of a controversy. You see, what happened was…. Sister Souljah wrote The Coldest Winter Ever almost ten years ago, which was one of the most phenomenal literary occurrences in history. It was particularly popular in the black communities across the U.S touted. as the new re-emergence of what is called street or urban literature. Literature that speaks to the hearts and minds of the hip hop youth, the disenfranchised, and those who are living on the edge of society. TCWE and the copy cats that followed has been touted as responsible for bringing a whole generation of formerly nonreading teens into the literary arena. While TCWE opened the doors for a lot of authors to write stories that “kept it real”, surprisingly or surprisingly not, Sister Souljah does not want to be labeled a street/urban writer. She wants to be a writer that appeals worldwide. But let me tell you about the book signing event; I will go into detail on some points SS made so this might take two or three blogs. There is a lot to talk about.

My online book group, APOOO (A Place of Our Own) www.apooobooks.com chose Midnight as our December book of the month. Now we are a group that gets down to the nitty gritty when discussing and dissecting a book. So, I will be referencing some comments as well as conversations with others about this new release.

Somewhere along the way, something got misconstrued. We had been hearing for almost a year that SS was writing a sequel to The Coldest Winter Ever. So, and because almost everything promoting Midnight, including the publisher of the book, Simon & Schuster sending out material indicating it so, that is what readers were expecting. It was not until Sister Souljah gave an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, when she adamantly emphasized that Midnight was a prequel, not a sequel Unhun, um. Well, the book was one of the all time best-selling of pre-ordered books on Amazon.com and a lot of those people did not get the memo, according to many of the reviews on that site. Not only is the book getting mixed reviews, Sister Souljah has been getting hot emails, folks complaining about many things among them, not having Winter (the main character in TCWE) in the book to what they perceive as blatant disrespect to Black Americans.

So let me school you on what Sister Souljah has to say about all that noise you all are out there making.

To the charges that she, as a proud black woman, is disrespecting black people, she finds ludicrous. The angry, passionate letters and emails she is getting has her scratching her head. She is writing from a point of view of a young boy from the Sudan in the character, Midnight. This is the way he sees things in his young mind, having grown up in Africa where men are taught to be men and take responsibility. Besides, Sister Souljah wants to know if these same people who are writing to her, would they write to the sister who sold millions of books by telling the world how she slept with some of hip hops most respected artists.

In speaking with one of my Marcus Book Club members Saturday, she said she read the book and was not the least bit offended by the things the character, Midnight, had to say about black people. She said something to the affect, “What is being said, is for the most part true and the truth hurts.” Ouch! So, I leave you with this, for those who have read Midnight: A Gangster Story, do you feel American born blacks are displayed in a negative light? For those who have not read the book, do you think Black Americans/African Americans are in competition with other blacks from the Diaspora (African natives, West Indians, South American blacks, black Brits and other black Europeans)? Are black Americans unfairly compared to these others?

More on this and much more about Sister Souljah and Midnight: A Gangster Love Story.

My name is Dera and I am a bookaholic

2008-11-18T01:46:00.000-08:00

My name is Dera and I am a bookaholic. Is there a 12- step program for those of us who cannot stop buying books? Probably so, there is something for everybody. Well, I better join and quick. One of my sister members in my online book club, APOOO- http://www.apooobooks.com/, lamented today that she is a bookaholic. She spoke of the excitement, the giddiness of holding a book in her hand of one of her favorite authors, and then purchasing it, and the joy in knowing she now owns it. Many of you are very familiar with the feeling; I need not explain. Have you ever walked into a bookstore and felt like you could spread wings and fly. That is the feeling I got walking into the new Borders in Alameda a couple of weeks ago. It is huuuuge. Two large floors, wall-to-wall books. Time got away from me as I became engrossed up on the second floor, buried in the colorful travel and cookbooks. I even ventured over into the inviting children’s section, planning holiday purchases. And then they had the nerve to put a Peet’s Coffee café over in the corner. Grab a cup of gingerbread cocoa and a book on a late fall day; it just does not get any better than that.

Are your shelves bulging with books and overflowing off of the bookcase? Are books in every nook and cranny throughout the house? You have a problem. If you cannot locate the book you are reading (because you carry it from room to room), are you yelling at someone, “Who took my book?” Even when no one else is there? Then you have a problem. If someone gently suggests that maybe you should have a garage sale or take your books to the flea market or church fundraiser, are you mumbling under your breath, silently cursing that person, who only means well and is really concerned about you? Do you look at them like they have two heads and act as if they asked you to give away your first born? You got a problem.

Despite the dismal economic outlook, are you still sneaking books in the house? Sure, I have made a half-hearted attempt to go to the library and make use of my library card for something other than videos, but it is 3 to 1. For every book I check out, I am purchasing three. And don’t let the book be unavailable? That’s it, Amazon.com, here I come. I have a problem. But those same people also enable you. They are always giving you book gift cards for birthdays and holidays. Every month, after I order a pile of books, I swear this is it, no more until next year, and then I do it again, claiming just one more. I have a serious problem.

Well, they say the first step to recovery is acknowledging you have a problem. I acknowledge it. But I think the purpose of a 12- step program is to rid you of your damaging vice. And when I think about it, I guess there are worse things. After all, I got this honestly; I inherited it and it appears I have passed it on-- to an extent anyway. So, it is 1:00 am and I’m still up wondering what I am going to get with this Amazon.com gift card someone just sent me. Let me see, I only have 1,250 books on my wish list. I have a serious problem. Somebody stop me!

My name is Dera and I am a bookaholic.

Black Republicans. Who Needs Them?

2008-11-02T18:27:00.000-08:00

Commentary
Black Republicans. Who Needs Them?

I have wanted to write this column for three months, but I did not trust myself to say the right thing the right way or even the wrong thing the right way. I was trying to keep in mind a blog I had read regarding writing about political views that admonished bloggers about getting personal or indulging in name calling. That is why I have remained silent. But two days before the most momentous, historical election and one of the most outstanding, if not THE most outstanding occasion in U.S. history, I feel compelled to just let it out. In the words of our guest pastor today, Rev. Mark Wilson of Oakland, California, if you need to make a stand, JUST DO IT.

I do not have any need for Black Republicans. If that sounds blunt, it is meant to be. Let me explain. My grandmother was a Republican; southern born and raised, she was proud of the fact that she was able to register and vote. If she was still living, she would be over 100 years old, so what does that tell you? The Republican Party, at one time, may have been the party for blacks but it has not been for a very long time. But even though my grandmother was a Republican, she understood that she was black first, or in her words, Negro, and that race trumped party affiliation.

I agree with a local columnist who said that the majority of blacks are overwhelmingly conservative in some of their views. In California we are voting on a controversial measure, Proposition 8, which would ensure gay marriage. This is one that many black folks have to agree to disagree on, but that is a whole other story or blog. Because black people highly regard their church and religious views, sometimes they get the thing all mixed up. Based on a religious organization’s poll, black churches in Ohio were urging their congregants to vote according to this guide. http://www.wallbuilders.com/LIBissuesArticles.asp?id=5386e
My God, have they lost their ever-loving minds?! Don’t fall for the okey doke black people.

I also do not have any need or respect for smug, rich or wanna be rich black folk who are so self-centered and have self-serving agendas by voting Republican because people like Donald Trump do so. In their quest to be in the company of those who make the multi-million dollar deals or desire key appointments, they forget from whence they came or from whence their ancestors came. I remember back in the 1980s when the Amway pyramid was all the rage, many black people who were in that business said they were changing to the Republican party because that is the party of the rich. Come on black people. Again, don’t fall for the okey doke.

We are not a monolith, you say. You are so right. That is my mantra; we do not all think alike, we don’t all like the same thing, have the same view or values, or talk the same talk. Should we be one party? Nope, that is not what I am saying. This is a free country and everyone has the right to choose who they support and how they vote. What I am saying and I hope it comes across, is just like my grandmother, if you are a Republican, does not mean you vote Republican. There might be a Republican worthy of voting for but it sure is not in this election. I’m saying, THINK. Think about the issues, think about how those issues affect black people and realize that a vote for the Republican candidate is not the way to go.

Most of us tuned in to the Republican convention—if only for a few minutes. It was overwhelmingly white and frankly, most of them like it that way. They kept showing the same few blacks over and over. Cindy McCain even brought an African woman onstage, her friend she called her, to demonstrate that they are “We are the world.” Not buying it.
When I see a black Republican on CNN embracing the Republican ticket, they look silly to me. They look and act like puppets. One guy even had the nerve to say that Obama running for President is a conspiracy. ??? They look like they are singing and dancing a tune for Mr. Charlie. Yeah, I said it, it’s a coon dance. Paraphrasing Kanye West here, “The Republicans don’t like black people.”

Well so much for trying to rein myself in and trying to adhere to good, political blogging etiquette. Believe it or not, I did not write near about what I truly wanted to say. But I’ll leave it at that. I have had a good day at church and the sun is shining after a blustery, cold downpour of rain on Saturday. Whew! Glad to get this off my chest. Wish I had done it months ago.

*See a likeminded opinions
http://thedailyvoice.com/voice/2008/10/the-plight-of-the-black-republ-001260.php

http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/baw_commentary_news/1516/1

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/stations/Profile.aspx?stationurl=HeadingLeft&userurl=africanamericanpoliticalpundit&year=2008&month=09&day=12&url=Black-Republicans-are-getting-very-little-respect-from-black-folks-or-white-folks

Fall into Fiction 2008

2008-10-10T10:34:00.000-07:00

Fall Into Fiction 2008

It was a beautiful, sunny day of 80 degrees weather in beautiful Long, Beach California when over 200 beautiful people descended on the Long Beach Petroleum Club on Saturday, September 27, 2008 for the second annual Fall into Fiction event sponsored by the United California African American Book Clubs aka UCAAB. UCAAB is a consortium of African American book clubs in California. They all have two things in common; they love books and they love to meet and mingle with the authors of the books they enjoy reading.

Last year we met in Oakland and Marcus Book Store (home of Marcus Book Club) was the bookseller. This year, Eso Won Books, another long time black-owned bookstore was the designated book seller. LaRhonda Crosby-Johnson and I flew down for the festivities from Oakland and hooked up with our sisters, Tira McDonald and Deb Burton.

This years guests were Tananarive Due, Stephen Barnes, Gabriella Pina, Victoria Christopher Murray and Gary Hardwick. Roland Jefferson, a local writer, gracefully maneuvered a Q & A session with the authors as the master of ceremonies. Some of the questions asked were about reviews; can authors influence them and how do they react to negative reviews? Other questions asked were “What motivates you to write?” and “How did you get published?”

Tananarive Due does not appear to take well to negative reviews; her first book The Between received an unfavorable review from a fellow journalist which was quite painful for her. She has an upcoming anthology, The Ancestors, with Brian Massey and L.A. Banks (which is going to be an Essence book of the month), and her current release is Blood Colony, the long awaited sequel to My Soul to Keep and The Living Blood. Speaking of which, everyone wanted to know if and when My Soul to keep is going to make it to the big screen. Due said that the studio still has the rights and they are in limbo. Surprisingly, her best-selling book has been Casanegra, a mystery she collaborated with her husband, Stephen Barnes, and actor Blair Underwood. Due is a favorite with both Marcus Book Store (we have discussed all of her novels) and my online book group, APOOO. www.apooobooks.com

Stephen Barnes’ current release is Great Sky Woman and he is working on the sequel. He appreciates well-written, intelligent reviews by people who actually read the book. He went to Africa for research for GSW; it was a must to create this half-science/half-mystic masterpiece. Barnes is also a screenwriter with several credits, including a BET movie based on Hannibal with Vin Diesel in the lead role. He believes you can break into publishing by writing short stories and giving yourself permission to suck. He recommends The Lion’s Blood as an introduction to his work for the first time. In that book where slavery was reversed with whites slaves, he gave more humanity to them than they ever gave to us.

Gabriella Pina is a wife and mother of three children. She finds it is best to work on one project at a time. Her third book is actually due to her editor this month but it might take a little longer. She believes authors have no say-so in reviews and does not take them personally. Pina went back to grad school at USC for a writing degree and is now teaching there. She cites the Writers Market as a great resource to get an idea of what agents and publishers want. Her books, Bliss and Chasing Sophea are favorites with fans.

Victoria Christopher Murray has been called the bad girl of Christian Fiction because she includes gasp! S-E-X in her stories of fire and brimstone, redemption and forgiveness. She has even received reviews that have gotten personal, questioning her Christianity. A puzzle to her is how she even got pigeon-holed into the CF genre. She is the author of three books that feature bad girl, Jasmine, the woman you love to hate. The series includes Temptation, A Sin and a Shame and Too Little, Too Late. She writes three books a year and is now writing young adult/teen fiction. She believes persistence is the key to getting published.

Gary Hardwick was clearly a favorite at the event. This brother, writer of political thrillers and screenwriter/producer of such films as The Brothers and Deliver Us from Eva, is a multi-tasker, always juggling several projects on any given day. Hardwick is working on a script to make his Executioner’s Game into a movie with Jamie Foxx playing the lead. He has thrilled fans with other novels Supreme Justice, Double Dead and Color of Justice, which has been one of his biggest best-sellers. He has been called the black Elmore Leonard, who like Hardwick, is a Detroit native. But Hardwick said he could not have dreamed up what is currently happening in his hometown with the sex, lies, and tapes replete with bodies in the river scenario being played out. Hardwick would like to produce Due’s My Soul to Keep and is quick to acknowledge the racism that goes on in Hollywood.

I was able to catch up with my APOOO sister, Joan Burke Stanford, with her sisters from the African Violet Book Club from the Los Angeles area. Membership is open to all African American book clubs in California. We are looking to grow to grow our membership. See you next year back in the Bay Area.

I've Been Called Out

2008-09-18T00:34:00.000-07:00

I’ve Been Called Out

It isn’t the first time I’ve been told to get off my duff in regards to writing. This time Yasmin Coleman of http://www.apooobooks.com/ told me I need to blog every week. Not something I didn’t already know. I have a million and one excuses but none are good enough. Nothing like someone pointing the finger at you to make one ashamed. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say or write about.

Wednesday night my local book group, Marcus Book Club, discussed one of my and our favorite authors, Diane McKinney Whetstone’s latest release, Trading Dreams at Midnight. Diane McKinney Whetstone is a master storyteller and does an excellent job of placing her readers in the landscape of Philadelphia; a definite sense of place. Her stories give us a view of black people navigating the complexities of urban living in the “City of Brotherly Love” against a backdrop of the social and economic issues of the United States. The city is actually a character in itself. Whetstone has written a complex story that entails an often convoluted storyline involving relationships on different levels, mother/daughter conflict, mental health issues and alcoholism. Our book club has reviewed every book Whetstone has published but this was our least favorite. It was received favorably for the most part. Individual ratings ranged from C- to A with an average of B minus I was the facilitator and I jotted down some of the comments.

It kept my attention
It didn’t keep my attention.
It read quickly.
It was a slow read. I just wanted to get finished.
It wasn’t my favorite but it was well-written.
It was missing something.
The characters were well developed.
Some of the characters weren’t developed enough.
This book was about the complexities of life.
It taught me to have compassion.
I like the way she revealed things little by little.

As you can see we have varied opinions as it should be. My online book club discussed this book about a month ago and we pretty much were in agreement with Marcus Book Club--- mixed reviews. What we all agree is that Whetstone is one of the best and that she can write circles around the many writers who churn out garbage and expect us, the reading public to lap it up. I see there are mixed reviews over at Amazon.com.

Now that wasn’t so hard. So yes mam, I need to be blogging every week. A couple of weeks ago I started a folder of topics I want to sound off, tell it like it is. They include:

Stevie Wonder Summer Concert
Black Republicans
The Face of Romance
Cuba Travel Stories
Until the next time. Peace out.

September 18, 2008

I've Been Tagged

2008-08-14T23:03:00.000-07:00

I just received an email from Jennifer Coissiere saying I've been tagged to participate in the Book Buzz Tag. I guess she was determined to help me keep me my word to blog on a regular basis. This is her link.

http://bizarrejcmartin.blogspot.com

Thanks J.C. for handing me a challenge. Now let's do this and keep it moving.

Here’s the idea (you can copy this paragraph to use in your post):
I am going to list three categories of books. 5 MUST Read Books, 5 Books on Your Nightstand, and 5 Look For These Soon. Keeping with the theme, I am going to tag at least 5 bloggers. They should put these same lists on their blog but SUBTRACT one book from each list and ADD one of their own. Then they should tag at least 5 more bloggers. It will be fun to see how the lists change as it goes around the blogosphere. Please come back to this post and leave a comment so I can see how the lists are changing as they go around the blogosphere. Since this is Book Buzz…please keep your lists to titles released in 2007-2009.

5 MUST Read Books:
Them by Nathan McCall
Orange Mint and Honey by Carleen Brice
Song Yet Sung by James McBride
Seen It All, Dome the Rest- Pearl Cleage
Conception by Kalisha Buckhanon

5 Books on the Nightstand:
Up Pops the Devil by Angela Benson
Blood Colony- Tananarive Due
From Harvey River by Lorna Goodison
Stand the Storm by Breena Clarke
Trading Dreams at Midnight by Dianne McKinney Whetstone

5 Look For These Soon:
House at Sugar Beach by Helen Cooper
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
In Love With a Younger Man by Cheryl Robinson
Red Light, Green Light by Margaret Johnson-Hodge
The Signifying Monkey by Henry Louis Gates

The bloggers I’m asking to post the lists (and make one book-for-book change to each list if they wish)

http://acvermen.blogspot.com/

http://www.eisaulen.com/blog/

http://www.michellemcgriff.com/

http://www.anjuellefloyd.com/

http://sugahoney.blogspot.com/

Cruisin' On a Summer Afternoon

2008-08-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is the first time I have participated in something like this, something called a meme. I had not a clue as to what a meme is, so I looked it up.

meme

Show Spelled Pronunciation[meem] Pronunciation Key
–noun
a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes.
[Origin: 1976; < href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meme">http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meme (accessed: August 06, 2008).
Modern Language Association (MLA):

Yasmin Coleman of APOOO Books threw out the challenge to cite thirteen things one remembers from childhood summers and to link it to your blog. I blog so seldom; on the spur of the moment I decided to participate. Maybe this will be a start of my blogging on a regular basis.

This exercise reminded me I have written a collection of childhood memories that have a working title of what else? Childhood Memories. Obviously, I need a better title. Two of those have been published and I need to work on polishing some more up and submitting somewhere. Growing up in Oakland, California was a lot different from the Oakland today. We roamed the neighborhood and beyond during the summer; sometimes, our parents didn’t know where we were but we knew to be home before dark. I grew up in a multicultural family neighborhood and there were a lot of Leave it Beaver moments. Boy, were those the days.

So, to get on with the Thursday Thirteen, I present thirteen summer occurrences I remember about my childhood.

Links to the post on Thursday Thirteen Childhood Summer Memories (with links to other posters’ blogs) and the original Thursday Thirteen are below.

1. 4th of Julys in Arkansas, either down in the country in Union County or in Little Rock surrounded by cousins and good food. Being the child of African American southern parents, making the trek back to the south to our place of our roots was a way of connecting with our history and ancestry.

2. Walking more than a mile to the swimming pool at Diamond Park. It would be a big group of us carrying our swimwear, including a swimming cap; even as a little girl, I had to protect the do. I write about my hair woes in the story “Shirley Temple Curls.”

3. Gathering at the top of E. 21st Street, watching the boys drive their homemade go carts down the hill. This was a bittersweet memory as one of my childhood friends, Tyrone was killed when he rolled down hill into the path of a bus and was killed. I wrote about this in a piece, “Blackberry Summer” that was published in a journal.

4. Digging up some change to go to the corner store for a big, fat, juicy dill pickle and pack of Kool-aid. There was nothing like it; busting open that packet of Kool-aid, preferably my favorite, grape and rubbing the pickle in it. mmm. Good stuff.

5. Roller skating and riding our bikes. Now my sister and brother claim I would be sitting on the porch reading while they were skating and biking but I know I did those things because I broke my arm roller skating when I was nine and stayed in Children’s Hospital for two days. But I can remember sitting on the porch reading a Nancy Drew mystery. Yep, my siblings were right, I did sit on the porch and read when I wasn’t playing and wrote in my journal also.

6. Going to our cabin in Morgan Hill as a teenager. That’s where my dad’s civic organization, East Oakland Business and Professional Men’s’ Assoc., had their annual summer picnic. Some of the Bay Area’s Talented Tenth attended this event and there were some cute guys! Mariea Johnson’s family had a cabin there also and I remember going to her debutante party in Berkeley. I definitely need to write about that, especially since the death of Dr. Clarence Avery this past spring.

7. Walking over to Jennifer’s house and the smell of her father’s gumbo meeting me at the front door. Her parents were from New Orleans and there was always something good at her house.

8. Gary U. S. Bond’s “School is Out at Last” blasting from the cars at the end of the school year. That was the standard song in the 60s. Jennifer, Lisa and I would be in one of our bedrooms watching Dance Party and American Bandstand, learning the new dance steps. Occasionally, one of us would show a new step from a visiting cousin or something we brought back from our visits to the South.

9. Walking to the movies from my cousins’ house at the Fruitvale theater on Saturday afternoons. My dad would give us money; it cost .25 cents to get in the theater. Wow, I’m dating myself.

10. Going to Housewives Market and seeing all the cases of different meats and foods and visiting with people. It was the meeting place for black folks. We also got back-to-school clothes there. We kind of mixed it up with items from Cap wells and Rhodes. A little downtown mixed with uptown.

11. Going over to Celia’s house on the day her mother made tortillas. Those were the best and the beginning of my love affair with Mexican food.

12. Playing tetherball and kickball at Manzanita School playground. I remember Deborah Stewart wanted to fight me because I beat her playing tetherball. She was a bully. Hey, I need to write a story about this.

13. Walking to the library once a week and carrying as many books as I was allowed to check out. My mother, the schoolteacher, saw to it we, my brother and sister and I got library cards as soon as we could write our names. It was big brown building over by my first elementary school, Garfield, around the corner where my little red-haired kindergarten friend, Peggy lived. I have a story about our friendship.

August 7, 2008

http://www.apooobooks.com/2008/08/07/apooothursday-thirteen-childhood-summertime-memories/

http://thursdaythirteen.com/

History in the Making

2008-06-06T16:22:00.000-07:00

There are thousands, maybe millions of blogs this week about the momentous occurrence this week when Barack Obama became the Democratic candidate for the President of these United States. I’m jumping into the mix; I blog so seldom but maybe someone will happen upon my two cents worth of rambling. This is an exciting time in American history in general and Black American history, in particular. Dr. Brown, the chair of African American Studies here at Merritt College, commented that history and political science books are being written at this moment and will be a part of our children’s and grandchildren’s curriculum.

Little did I know last fall, when I attended a rally for Obama in downtown Oakland’s City Center, would I believe the man who stood before a cheering crowd of thousands, proud and tall, would make it this far. My feelings at the time were he has promise, but maybe 2012 he would come into his own. Ha! But what did I know? Like millions of people, I saw him speak on television at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention and was absolutely blown away. I knew then he was a young brother to keep my eye on.

My coworker expressed how her 81 year-old mother marveled at the fact that she lived long enough to see a Black presidential candidate. For many of our elders this is a miracle as they remember, especially those born and raised in the South, the trials and tribulations our folk had trying to cast a ballot. I think about my late grandmother, Otelia Gilliam Rowland, and what she would be thinking about Obama. Grandmother was a die-hard Republican. LOL. Yep, she sure was and would not hesitate to tell you. When she first told me I must have been about nine years old when Kennedy and Nixon were running for president. I was shocked and outraged in all of my child understanding about politics and race. A Republican? But Grandmother, how could you vote for Nixon? He doesn’t like Negroes! It took me awhile to reconcile that Grandmother was from the old school Southerners who continued to follow the party of Abraham Lincoln. After all, he set us free, right? And he was a Republican. Well, Grandmother held steadfast to that theory and she took her right to vote very seriously.

Black folk and voting have had a tenuous, often violent history. After the Civil War, during Reconstruction, we exercised the right, albeit briefly. Then we were denied, threatened, harassed and beaten to keep us from the ballot box. It was a long, slow process; much marching and preaching, blood, sweat and tears, progress was made slowly. Some folks, like my grandmother in Arkansas were given the privilege while Black folk in Mississippi and Alabama were intimidated every time they walked up to the courthouse to register. Finally the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was enacted under President Lyndon Johnson’s administration which essentially prohibited the denial of the right to vote.
http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/voting/intro/intro_b.htm

Getting back on topic here, see I told you I was rambling….. Here we are in 2008 and we have a serious Black contender for the President. But it is not all about race. Your vote is a person and private right. Just go do it.

Oh, and our illustrious candidate is an acclaimed author. Obama’s two books are, Dreams From My Father (see my review. http://www.amazon.com/review/product/1847670911/ref=cm_cr_pr_helpful
and The Audacity of Hope.

Until the next time….and who knows when that will be.

Dreaming in Cuban

2008-04-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

I took a trip of a lifetime to Cuba this spring. For eight days from March 22 through March 30, I lived and breathed the beauty of this small island of 11 million people.

I went with a group of faculty and staff from Merritt College in Oakland, California where I am employed working with curriculum. This was an educational field research trip which included visiting primary schools, the University of Havana, the medical school a polyclinic. BUT, we also immersed ourselves in the culture of the country.

Cuban live and breath their art and there was art everywhere. Music, dance, literature,visual and performing art. The children come out of the womb dancing salsa and rhumba. I got to see the world famous Cuba Internationa Ballet perform "Giselle". We danced in the streets in the Trininad Province at a block party in our honor. We walked through the marketplace and viewed the artistry, the crafts, the paints, oh my. I brought home two pieces of art. We danced at the Havana Club, learning the meringue. Pablo Menendez staged a concert for us at his rooftop home.

Not Exactly a New Year Resolution.... But a Start

2008-01-04T15:08:00.000-08:00

I'm not one to declare New Year resolutions, however, I think if I write my goals for 2008 publicly, it will encourage me to look at what I have done and what I need to do. I am one to beat myself up about what I did not do and what I should have accomplished by now. But it is a new year and no more shouldas, couldas, wouldas. I placed in a short fiction contest in summer of '06 and then I seem to have languised since then. I still have a glob of a novel that is seriously in need of revising big time and just have not touched it in almost a year. BUT it is not like I haven't been writing. I have been writing my family history with my genealogy writing group and expect to have a couple of those stories published in a family journal. And a publisher of local and family histories is interested in my writing about the area in Arkansas where my mom was born and raised. I also have had scholarly/academic work published in the last year in a Greenwwod Press encyclopedia and am in the process of writing a big piece for a peer review journal on romance writers that I feel strongly about.

Knowing I needed a jumpstart on getting back to my fiction, I attended a one day "Crazy Child Writing" workshop one Saturday in early December. I wrote twenty-five pages in long hand on a new novel that I am excited about. But I am about to set my goals and one of them is to attend a revision workshop and or make the sacrifice and get a writing coach/developmental coach to get my first novel finished because the second one is really grabbing me. My problem is discipline and sticking to one thing and I need to correct that. Unfortunately I cannot chew gum and walk at the same time. LOL.

In the last six months several women have come into my life who have expressed a need to write or restart writing and I think I have the makings of a group of sisters where we can meet monthly or whenever and write freely and safely and who knows what can happen. So that is a goal. I have a few more days before I go back to work and I am taking myself on a little mini-retreat, checking into a nice hotel about 30 miles away while the storm comes into night and raining the next few days. I will be transferring my new storyline from paper to my new laptop and mapping out my 2008 writing goals. Whew, that felt good just getting this out.