March 2017 – Myalogy

MyMedialogy: Work, Black Women!

zyansaeed615 / March 31, 2017

Ooooh y’all. They tried it. Twice in one day and then once on the next. I mean they try it every single day, but since Porangetus took office, seems like they are more emboldened than before. They try it in meetings. They try it when you show up with a new hairstyle. They try it when you come with a great idea they want credit for. They try it when they walk in your business and ask if they can speak to the owner instead of asking if you ARE the owner. Bill tried Auntie Maxine….but all the kids know that next to spellchecking someone in a text battle, coming for their physicality is the laziest of reads. Lil Shawn Spicer, the mad press secretary, tried April, but she was there to do work and paid his ass the appropriate amount of dust. I guess she knows like we do…she was there way before him and she will be in that room way after him. What I didn’t get to address in this weeks commentary, was how the one-term congressman dead beat dad Joe Walsh tried to try Angela Rye, Barack Obama, and ever other hard working black person in history who has done more with less and to make less than his MAGA ass ever has. Maybe, Ill fit that in in a future rant….

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DjangNO: Not Another Slave Story

zyansaeed615 / March 28, 2017

Let’s imagine, shall we…. That we are: an Academy Award winning screenwriter a Golden Globe nominated director creator of a critical darling unwitting participant in one of the biggest flubs in Oscar history recipient of a bounty of goodwill due to the aforementioned flub a black man that took on a topic that can be uncomfortable and made it into a thing of beauty You are pretty much able to write your own ticket at this point in LaLaland – mega superduper pun intended. You begin to mull over your next project and you select: SLAVERY. Yes. Barry Jenkins’s next project is a one hour series based on “The Underground Railroad”, the acclaimed Colson Whitehead novel of the same title. I could go on to explain the subject of the show, but Im too fucking over it to do so. I’ll just get to griping. First, WGN America already has beloved show about the exact same thing. I’ll stop there. Now I know…one of you is sitting there reading this, dismissing me and thinking to yourself all the trite shit people say when it comes to slave stories. “It’s a must see.” “This story needs to be told.” “If we dont know where we been, blah blah the fuckity fuck fuck blah” Listen, I know what “they” are doing, with the “immigrant” talk, with the “slaves were well fed and happy” fuckshit, with the “sally and thomas had an affair” gobbledegook. But the fact is, we know what happened. That’s our conversation to have with our children, to ensure they know their history, cuz its OUR HISTORY. No one else cares. We know the names Toby, Nat, Chicken George, Toussaint, Harriet and Sojourner. Mention them to some of your other friends and watch the look on their faces. Others have just been introduced to Frederick and I guess they are happy to know that he’s done a great job. Jesus wept. I for one am good on the stories of our suffering, especially when there are great stories of triumph to be made – and that people will pay to see. Hidden Figures proved that. Our history didn’t start or stop on Juneteenth. With that being a solid indisputable fact, some stories I’d like to see told. How CJ Walker built a beauty empire Tulsa, Black Wall Street Dr. Carver manipulating the hell out of that peanut The Genesis of <insert your fave BGLO> (but only 5 out of the 9 matter – LMAO, fight yourselves) Timbuktu How Hiram Revels or Blanche Bruce were Barack before Barack was Barack The founding of Cheyney University or Lincoln University, the oldest HBCU, depending on who you ask. That’s just off the top of my head. What are some stories that you would like to see told? Hit them comments. Oh wait…Im lying yall. There is one more slave story I’m eager to see……Forty Acres by Dwayne Alexander Smith, which you should read if you haven’t. A young successful black man is taken under the wings of some older more successful black men and invited along to their exclusive club where the “staff” does NOT look like the staff’s of most members only clubs. That’s all I’ll slave. Awwwwww fuck it…the jig is up, the post is bout slaves. Yall know where im going. These black men done started a plantation with white slaves! YES. PLEASE. If GET OUT worried them, wait til they get a load of Becky in leg irons! When it drops you can find me and my popcorn, reese’s pieces and water center last row.

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Dear Mr. Dickpic

zyansaeed615 / March 13, 2017

On Saturday, I found myself sitting in an impossibly large home, artfully decorated, adulting and celebrating the birth of an impossibly large personality in an artfully decorated Asian outfit. While sipping something I can’t pronounce out of a glass I likely could NOT afford, my phone buzzed. It was from LongTimeMaleFriend™. I smiled. This my boy y’all. We only see each other a couple times a year, but it’s always a good time when we do. Nothing physical – nothing has ever been physical between us – just a good solid friend. So imagine my surprise when I open the text and see: “I just realized, I forgot to send you a Christmas card lol.” I open the attachment and see: The unwrapped version. Sigh……… I looked at that pic with such a mix of bewilderment and disappointment. A flurry of questions. Did he mean to send this to me? Why would he send this to me? Shouldn’t he be sending this to his girl? Shouldn’t he not be sending this to anyone since everyone knows he has a girl? What does he expect my response to be? Doesn’t he know I’m the WRONG one to do this to? Why would he mortgage our friendship over some fuckshit like this? The utter disgust (ouch) I felt upon seeing this picture must have registered across my face cuz my girl gave me the what’s wrong face. I showed her my phone, and she gave me a knowing sad headnod. The party grew to a feverish pitch….as did my indignation. Because women are socialized the way that we are; we sometimes inexplicably sympathize or empathize with our oppressors/abusers. My bad attitude and biting wit notwithstanding, I guess that meek girl still resides somewhere deep inside, unearthed at times when she is most definitely NOT welcomed. I text messaged him the next morning and let him off the hook. Blah blah, you musta been drunk, blah blah, don’t do this again, blah blah we better than this. His response to my forgiving nature? Your (sic) right…drunk, lonely and tired. Um…….. I’m sorry, but WHERE’s THE FUCKING SORRY? THE SINCERE FUCKING APOLOGY? THE NOW SOBER MEA CULPA? Not coming? Fine. This open letter and scathing phone call I will make later today will have to suffice. Dear Mr. Dickpic-cer, Did I spell your name correctly? I hope so. I don’t type it that often, cuz I’m generally a well received and respected person. This means I don’t often have to address an issue such as this. I digress….I’m not sure what you were thinking as you decided to not only take, but SEND that picture to me and to be quite honest, I really don’t give a fuck. This is about me……and every other woman who gets assaulted in this way. I know you have a dick, I saw it in the picture you sent to my phone – so I’m pretty sure you don’t know what it feels like to be a woman and have a nigga’s manhood impressed upon you figuratively and literally your entire life. When I opened that pic, I was immediately transported to being catcalled by grown ass men as pre-teen Mya and her friends made their way home from their latest excursion to procure the finest penny candy one can buy from the store on Halsted. Or that time I was 14, a freshie on the way to high school, and had a grown assed man expose himself to me and everyone else on the CTA. Or that time a male co-worker invited me to lunch, then drove me down to Lower Wacker and told me how badly he needed me to touch it. Or maybe it made me recall the time my friend showed up on my doorstep, at the tender age of 12, not quite sure why her panties were ripped when she woke up from a party where a lecherous older brother presided over a sleepover. Or the time my other friend told me how her mom’s boyfriend used to slip into bed with her at night sometimes just to hold her. I can almost see your thoughts as you read this. Thinking I’m being dramatic – comparing your simple picture to rape and molestation. But again, I don’t give a FUCK what you think. Just like you didn’t give a fuck about where I may have been when I got that message. Just like you didn’t give a fuck about the fact that I felt safe opening it as I would never in a million years think you would send me something like that. Just like you didn’t give a fuck whether the man I’m seeing and trying to establish something with may have seen it and doubted the sincerity of my efforts. Just like you didn’t give a fuck whether this would have totally torpedoed my evening. Maybe it wasn’t that you didn’t give a fuck, maybe you are just what I like to call my best male friends often – ” a dumb ass man”, just a clueless fucking man. That’s the side I wanna err on, because I believe truly in my heart that you are better than this. You have always been better than this…a consummate gentleman. Always respectful. Always kind. Always generous. So much in fact, that this recent action confused me so much that I made this alright for you. I made excuses and conjured reasons why you may have done this, but it’s not alright. Don’t do this again….to anyone other than a woman with whom you are in a sexual relationship. There is not a woman – that I know of – and I know plenty, who has ever expressed to me that she enjoyed an unsoliticited dickpic – NOT ONE. And to my fellas, whose heart rates are returning to normal, RELIEVED at the fact that you aren’t the subject of this post, move with caution. Mr. Dickpic-cer, aint the only one,

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The Day My Music Died

zyansaeed615 / March 9, 2017

(one my my earliest Facebook notes….precious in its infancy) TWENTY years ago today, I woke up screaming. I remember it vividly cuz it was my JFK moment. I fell asleep the night prior with the channel tuned to MTV, and awoke to a breaking news alert…Kurt Loder came on and said…Rapper Notorious BIG was shot and killed last night………….. I jumped out of bed, racing around my dorm room frantically looking for a phone, (this news pre-dated my accessibility to laptops, facebook, twitter and whatever else would have allowed me to double and triple check the news.) I need to talk to someone anyone, I just could not be alone. Unfortch the news came so early that no one was answering their phone. I sought solace in the one place I could think of, where I knew my devastation would be shared…I went down to my boy, Ceelo’s room, a true NooYawk nigga. I knew he would understand. See Big came about at a time of great transformation for me. I’d spent the last twelve years with the same folks in the same city, my city, my hometown – Chicago. We were super caught up in Snoop and Dre, (gthangin and gettin high) having been snatched by them from the tight grip of the East Coast Boys we grew up on… RunDMC, Big Daddy Kane, LL, Hev, Tribe, Pre-West Coast Pac…(SIDEBAR: there are many that no me and think I aint got no love for pac…wrong I can never forget the feeling I got the first time I heard the baseline of “Violent” beatin in all the blazers the dopeboys was pushing then, plus Hit’em Up is the BEST dis song of all time…ironic, I know.) Biggie came thru like a tornado for me, takin me back east where I was headed anyway…the ocean kissed shores of Hampton University…..he ushered the rebirth of the east coast that perfectly mirrored my rebirth. My intro to boys in timbs and different accents…swagger before I knew what it was. My attraction to him was both instant and undeniable, all I wanted to do was hear his music, take in his cadence, laugh at his puns, marvel at his ability. His voice grabbed hold of me and never let me go….from the opening intro “come on push, push harder…you did it baby!” to the outro, “im sick of niggas talkin, I sick of bitches hawkin, matter fact Im sick of talkin”, THAT NIGGA HAD ME OPEN. Music was never the same for me. I realized that things done changed, he was telling the industry, “Im here now gimme the loot!” and he was gone use his machine gun without warning to get it. He aint give a fuck cuz he was ready to die, and he wasnt givin your ass one more chance to get with HIS program. WHAT? You heard him right. Wit that juicy sounding mouth, he was saying, “listen to my everyday struggle. My shit is crazy, my baby even got killed behind this shit. Oh, you aint know, oh well, you aint gone believe this one bout me and my bitch!….ahhh, but I digress….my big poppa is gone, but never forgotten he gets all my love and respect as an artist, lyricist, rapper and constant spins in my ipod….In interviews he seemed so funny, cool and fly, I just know if I met him he would have been a friend of mine….Its unbelievable that he’s been gone for 20 years. A lot of times I tear up when I think about him, and how he was snatched from the world so soon. Nah, I ain’t over here havin no suicidal thoughts but to this day it hurts like hell, I miss him, and want him to hold a back from the dead concert. I will always love him……..THE G.O.A.T. – BABY BABAAAAAY! Don’t We look good together?

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MyMedialogy: Hill Harper

zyansaeed615 / March 7, 2017

Y’all. I’m so angry this morning. Like visibly angry. I had to sit this morning, visit my favorite place in all the world, Facebook, and see a black male post a screenshot of the word immigrant, as if it gave credence and validity to the statements of the world’s dumbest brain surgeon, ol boy, HUD whatever the fuck. Then, I overheard a lily white woman pontificate on whether or not Dumb Brain Surgeon meant the slaves were happy to come here or if my ancestors got happy once slavery ended and they could seek out new opportunities…as if the years since slavery have been lit. Like we still ain’t fighting for the got damn right to vote……..and live. As opportunity would have it, I fortuitously ran into someone I admire, Mr. Hill Harper this morning. I had to pick his brain on the state of Black America and how we keep from going straight Mau Mau in these dangerous times in Porangetus’s Murrica.