Editor’s Note: While family members and self-conscious losers will throw out the word bougie in order to make themselves feel better about putting us down, many people ARE bougie, and more than earn the label due to their elitist behavior. What Does It All Mean? I was reading an article recently where the author was lamenting the fact that she had been called bougie (black slang for bourgeois, which essentially means an elitist faker). From reading the commentary and people sharing their stories of receiving this label from family members and the like, I realized that I had the same things going as those who had been called bougie in the past. You know… education, a love for food and wine, reading, going places where people don’t normally go… etc. etc. The difference however is that I have never been given the label; sure I’ve been called weird, nerd or even derogatory terms, but bougie… [Read more]

Misty Copeland is beauty and grace combined into one awesome package of ballerina. She is one of the first African American female soloists for the American Ballet Theatre and is currently touring with Prince “The Artist” in concert. If you don’t know about Misty, you have to consider the amount of drive and perseverance it takes to be a “raisin in a bowl of milk” in any venture. A world famous black NASCAR driver would not be “average”, nor would a standout black hockey player (if you’re going to invade, you have to be a spectacular invader). So to say that she was a gifted ballet prodigy that started dancing late should not shock you at all. she is very serious about her craft. Misty has won numerous awards and has a flourishing career that most of us could only wish we had. and for the boys Misty is perfection – cute face, slender muscularity… [Read more]

The answer of course is no, its a stupid question but one that holds merit. The amount of attention being placed on black women whether negative or positive have skewed many mens’ thinking into the realm of “high maintenance”. The blogs written by men and women about the black woman’s place in the United States mention many things but it isn’t just the blogs that are the problem, it’s their commentary. You comb the articles of MadameNoire.com, TheFreshXpress.com, Blackvoices.com and any other space dedicated to blackness and you will find that every other entry is about black women and their struggle for beauty and dealing with us “worthless” black men. The blogs bring about a bias from the male brain where you can get to a point of “damn this is too much”. When an explanation of an issue becomes 100 explanations of the same issue it becomes a very loud question. This is a… [Read more]

There’s a great wish in the African American community for a wonderful utopia known as UNITY. The word brings about images of 70′s era movies where everyone picks their blow-out afros, slaps high-fives and echo “right on” in unison. This reality was lived out by our parents but now the word has become pure fantasy. A fellow AA writer and myself discussed this unity thing and devised that there are 7 layers of division that keeps black unity a myth. This list may not be black exclusive but it plagues us and keeps us separated in a major way. The 7 Layers of Division in Black America: Layer 1 – Bourgee vs. Ghetto Middle/Upper Class vs. Lower Class for those confused by the derogatory terms. These two classes of people don’t necessarily hate one another but cannot coexist due to different outlooks and prejudice towards one another. So how would you go about unifying them?… [Read more]

Black people I don’t want you to call the Drop Squad on me but I need to ask, is wine new to us? I mean, it’s really bad when I see black bloggers touting the dessert wine Moscato as if it’s some top shelf miracle drink that goes well with any meal. One would think that with the wonderful search that Google and Yahoo provides one could simply look up a drink before touting it but day after day after day since that soft rapper Drake mentioned it more black folks are embracing this wine. Look I know that it’s nothing new, we have gone down this road a million times before and just like before it smacks of ignorance and the willingness to take a rapper’s word on anything. I respect Jay-Z but I have never been inclined to try one of those fruity champagnes that he rhymes about, nor was I on the… [Read more]

I am about tired of these commercials, not because of the underlying clueless racism in them, but the fact that they are tired and very late to the party. Last year (2010) it was open season on black women as blogs and the media took to task the “solving” of the black woman’s single problem. Every single day on “black blogs” there was post after post bemoaning the plight of these women in their single-hood, while an underlying and sometimes well hidden insult was  being ushered against the black male. This was black people attacking black people about a problem that isn’t exclusively black – but let them tell it. From the war that ensued between the successful  but single women and the “relationship experts” who chose to capitalize on it their rose the image of the bitter black bitch. Who is The Bitter Black Bitch? Well turn on your television and you won’t have… [Read more]

As if his initial book “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man” was not bad enough, Steve Harvey is writing yet another book on relationships.  The worst part about this is when you go to Amazon.com the book has a four star rating, people are actually hood winked into thinking his advice is something new.  The man is basically peddling common sense information (that should be followed by either gender) as if he’s hitting on some unknown deep topic.  All of the information Harvey is spewing is freely available on the internet at any of a dozen websites, and there are countless web forums where experts will answer your relationship questions for free. The quotes from Harvey about his new book are hilarious: “I go so deep into the mindset of men, and how we operate and function, and I give women real things that they can do, to help in their relationship,” –… [Read more]

Jesus Christ, just when the target from the black woman’s sniper rifle had begun to lose focus on black men, in swoops Oprah to sharpen the lenses once again. Fellas you can expect to have your dates querying you for “being in the closet” once again with Oprah Winfrey’s opportunistic interview with J.L. King, the King as it were, of the black Down Low lifestyle. What is the “Down Low” you may ask? Well it’s another black boogeyman right up there with dudes who will snatch your purse in elevators (snatch that thing tightly to your bodies ladies), dudes who will rape you and oh ya dudes who will shack up with your daughter and refuse to work for a living. If you don’t get what I’m saying, it is pretty plain, I am saying that the Down Low is another stupid obstacle thrown into the mix of black/black dating to scare women away from… [Read more]