FRYE Gretta Criss Cross Platforms Wedges Shoes Gray Womens

I just had to.... I love love love love these shoes! I'm giving myself 30 days to make them mine!

FRYE Gretta Criss Cross Platforms Wedges Shoes Gray Womens

Be Cause.

My brother and I had an amazing discussion the other afternoon, as we always do. In the midst of our chatter, he said as beings it is important for us to be cause. Stop "blaming" others be they people, deities and or luck for the good and bad in one's life and start being cause. Be cause. Be the cause of that which you manifest. Or, more commonly, be the change you want to see. In my "light skin, dark skin" video I challenged myself to address and acknowledge how I benefit from a privilege that has been invisible to me my entire life. In acknowledging it publically,  I can no longer stand by when I see my darker friends suffering from what I benefit from. I challenged others to speak on this issue as well. I took a risk, knowing that some of my darker viewers who have been treated ill for this subject may lash out. I had a handful of persons try to set me straight and accuse me of and easier plight. Obviously, my words caused some anger to arise. But I also had more people speak up about how they too benefit and or how as a light skin person, colorism has caused difficulty in their own life, albeit a less acknowledged one. Three women made videos thus far, and while I am under the presumption one did not fully "get" what I was trying to do with my video, they contributed to the discussion and have stirred a discussion of their own. In my original video, I ask what can be done? Can anything at all? I attempt to get people stirred with discussion and my hidden goal was/is to cause people to take inventory on their personal attitudes and create change where necessary in themselves. I wanted to cause a world where at least one more person was aware and no longer pemitted themselves to live their life in oblivion to this issue or feel as though is was a lost cause. Since two days ago, I have caused a change in people I have never met in my life. What have you caused lately?

Christmas battles, braidout and eyeshadow....

I went to a Christmas party with my husband this evening. I believe this may be the first Christmas party I have attended as an adult.... We are actually somewhat celebrating Christmas this year as well. We are not spending the holiday in Nassau as per our usual, so we can't simply concede to my in-laws wishes of giving our son a Christmas tree. He has asked so sincerely and looks so broken hearted when I try to explain to him that we do not really celebrate the holiday so we bought him a tree. I try to recall my parents tactics, well my father's fear instilling that people who celebrate holidays will be destroyed by Jehovah at Armageddon.... it never curbed my appetite for a tree but simply made me keep it to myself.

Anyhoo..... I decided I was tired of my week old mini individual braids and took them out just in time to get ready for the party, but not in time to wash or seriously style my hair. I had no plan and simply grabbed a handful of bobby pins and got to pinning. My result? Simple and cute. I decided to take pics after we returned home so this is four hours after my initial styling. Very simple, no frills, perhaps a bit tacky in the manner that the pins were showing, but eh, my hair was the longest and thickest there, so I feel I get leeway with my sloppy pin work. I've got more to deal with, though I do envy my friend's awesome fade.... Essentially, it's a mini-braid out. The braids I had in were tiny and though initially put in while my hair was straight, they shrunk some (however minimally) after I washed them. I got excited after looking at the pics because I see my hair has actually gotten thicker, something I once believed impossibly as well as longer. Keep in mind, this is shruken hair.  I wonder how it will look when flat ironed?




I also took some pics of my eyeshadow. Makeup is really a craft. I only wear mascara and eye-liner normally unless I have somewhere to go. I've been dabbling with color for a year and a half now but only once in a while. I feel I've come a long way. So here's my eyes. Maybe we'll do a comparison in a years to see how much my craft improves. My shadow is from www.coastalscents.com. One day soon, I'll get better lighting. 

Colorism, the Perspective of a so-called light skin woman.

This post is to fill in some blanks about the video above. I had more to say, but I really could not go there because I do feel people will say my feelings and invalid. Plus, I wasn't trying to make a super long video as the video is already pushing 20 minutes. Here is the thing, many of us tend to assume colorism benefits lighter persons and punishes darker ones. But the reverse is true as well. While in larger society I may be "privileged" within my group community I get ostracized. In elementary, middle and high school, there was always pressure to prove that I was authentically black because my skin served as a means of questioning that identity. In my black family, my brothers and I are the only light skin persons. My mother has been told and is said behind her back, to be stuck up because her children are light skin. I have family members who assume my siblings and I think we are "better than" them because we are lighter than them. In undergrad, because I was quiet among people I didn't know, and kept my nose in a book, I was told I was stuck up and full of myself when in actuality, I was painfully shy.  I hate that people assume my dark skin husband married me because he does not prefer dark skin women. He married me because he loves me not my skin and anyone who insists that my achievements are not really mine, but handed to me because I am light skin are insulting me. Yes, I have opportunity due to this crap, but I also work hard for all I do. I am not a 4.0 student because I am light skin. I do not have a happy marriage and intelligent five year old because I am light skin. I do not have an amazing life because I am light skin.I am not light skin, I have light skin. I have those things because I work hard to get what I want. I have repeatedly been told by women who are darker than me that they thought I was full of myself because of how I look only to decide I am a genuinely nice and caring individual once they get to know me. When I asked why they thought that, the answer always has to do with that I "looked" stuck up. Light skin and long hair looks stuck up. 
Thankfully for me, my lightness does not come directly from an ancestor who was raped producing half white children who continued to exclusively mix only with other light persons. My father is Mexican, his mother is Mexican and Chinese. If you didn't know, Mexican has been the new black for a while, so there is certainly no privilege there. But if I was, a child  of so called blue vein blood, raised in wealth, Jack and Jilled, cotillioned and status sororitized, what is there to feel so high and mighty about? Ancestors who were raped in front of their husbands who were stripped of all power and could not protect their women. So called house negros who were kept close only so perverted white men could have easy access to them while white women abused them out of jealousy and shame. The house was a prison and those in the fields who felt (not all) jealous of those in the house no longer accepted their half breed. In the long run, the foul treatment led to better opportunities as one could possibly "pass" for white alleviating the persecution reserved for blacks. Because who honestly wants to live through that if they don't have to? But it means separating yourself from your family as well. 
Let me tell you about my family. My black family thinks I think I'm too good for them. My Mexican family thinks I'm not good enough for them. To my black family my skin is light, to my Mexican family it is way too dark. 
My true family consists of my husband, son, siblings, mother and father because those are the people who love me with or without my skin. 
So please, don't tell me I don't understand, or it doesn't hurt me, or I don't suffer because my skin cost me a high price. And I don't even really care for it. 

the girl effect. Please watch!

Update: HAIRCUT, Braids and more....

From my youtube channel. :-)

Ask and it is given.... Dream log #1

IT'S TIME TO FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS...
I am a firm knower of the Laws of Attraction. So last night, as I sat pondering my future, I asked the universe to give me a sign, aid me in knowing I am making the best decision. I currently have a single semester left in completing my master's degree. All I have to do is complete my thesis. I have been saying that I will go on to a PhD program but could not internally commit to continuing in history. I'll be honest, when I applied for this program, my view was that I wanted to be in any field that would allow me to study what I wanted to study. History has done that somewhat, and my thesis is to serve as the culmination of that. I have considered Women's Studies and even American Studies, but I think I am ready for something more than theory. I want solid practice. I want to know that what I'm doing is worthwhile because I can measure the change caused. Teaching undergrads who take a course as a requirement is NOT where it's at.

So, I have begin to contemplate law. When I bring this up to others, no one seems to take me seriously, as if law is a plan C or D. But I cannot begin to fathom why. I have been interested in law since high school. I LOVE legalese and interpreting contracts. I had a brief stint as a real estate agent before returning to school and was obsessed with contract law. Two summers ago, a lawyer girlfriend of mine had me do some contract work for her with EEOC cases. I ate it up but didn't pursue it because I was about to start my M.A. program.


Yesterday evening I decided, firmly, that I will apply to law school. I went to the LSAC website, got a waiver and signed up for the LSAT test immediately. I told my dad, my mom and my husband. I'm being realistic with myself. I want to be a corporate lawyer and or politician. I will have to work my ass off, seriously work, to be the top of my class my first year. Bottom line, I want to make money and not the kind of money that is more than most but still causes me to say I'm poor like my professors. I want to give my child all that he needs and then some and for lack to be a thing of my past. I grew up poor and now am ready to grow old wealthy.


I sat and stared at my computer screen asking myself, how do I know this is the right move?