i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaack

warning: this post may contain language unsuitable for minors and well-behaved, conservative adults. 

well i'll be damned.

I leave for like a month and a half only to come back to find myself with 101 readers. Like I say over at my tumblr, which I unfairly update more often, "how you doinnnnnnnnnnn' ". This is always said in a Wendy Williams voice, by the way. Y'all lemme just say this: I've missed you. NLYP has been on my mind every single day of this semester, but I just did not have the time, courage, strength, or wisdom to do so. Oh, it has been oh so long. I'm not sure that all of you will like the personal route this blog is about to take, but well, I'll risk it. There will be pictures of me in my places of inhabitance for the next few months. Pictures of my adventures. Of my life. Of my experiences as a black woman abroad, so the title/picture might change, but the blog will ALWAYS BE "Nappy Like Yo' Pappy".

Now: 

First, we must congratulate our very own Alice for making a SEXY debut over at LITK (Leave in the Kinks), the ever popular hair blog managed by my own two baby mamas Miss Fizzy Fizz and Z. I feel like they may have fallen out of lust with lil' ol' Luna, but I love them just the same :)

Here's the link to that baby! 

Oh, not to mention that Fizz's hair looks oh-so-sexy and Z is getting locs and the starters are absolutely gorgeous!

To Rachel Stewart, I'm waiting on that Fresh necklace, boo. When you make more, give me a personal holla. As you know, I wear my afro pick earrings every single damn day. EVERY day.

So I'm going to rant now:

TO COVERGIRL,

What the f*@! is your issue? I know that Queen had the little beef with the unpaid makeup artists and the tabloidal bullshit about her being butchy and hiring bucknaked asseded strippers, but really, you just gon' up and DISCONTINUE a line? And then advertise it on your website like that shit is still available? Why is it that I can't find cheap ass, affordable black makeup that actually matches my skin tone and manages to get in where I need it to? Like the what the f@*#? So, Walgreens, CVS, Sav-on, Ralphs, Vons, Rite-Aid, Walmart and Target can't carry at least one damn type of her makeup? ONE pressed-powder foundation? Hegemony is some straight up BULLSHIT. White girls can go ANYWHERE in the world, to any bootleg ass store, and be guaranteed to find some cheap ass makeup, and I can't? I have to search high and low for some expensive ass Mac, Bobbi Brown, Fashion Fair, and Iman? What is that? You see that there? That's what I'd like to call some BULLSHIT. What did Queen ever do to you? Why do I have to find a Sephora to be guaranteed a chance to find some kind of makeup in my shade with decent coverage that doesn't make me look like a busted ass Forever 21 mannequin? Why can't I have find makeup that is decent enough so that I don't have to buy one shade lighter and one light shade darker of another cheap ass foundation, blend it together, and hope and pray that people don't see me in artificial light so that I don't look RuPaul's baby whore cousin? This is REEdonkulous, Covergirl. Obama is President. The LEAST you can do is ensure that his daughters will have access to affordable, non-whorish makeup when they hit puberty. I'm sick and tired of going all the way to f#!*ing Hicksville to find a different Walmart, only to find out that they, OF COURSE, don't carry Covergirl Queen, either. Your website is a SHAM. Your beauty consultants are dense. And you just lost a loyal ass customer. To hell witchu--you might as well go and name all of your foundation tones "Flesh" and "Nude." You and Crayola are bedpals, huh?

TO UNITED AIRLINES:

What in the HELL is your issue? Trying to charge me more than my damned ticket to pay for my slightly, and by slightly I mean 9 lbs, overweight suitcase. $125? Really? WTF?!?!?!? Do you know how much U.S. Airways charges? $50. How are you going to just UP and double that? Wait a second. How did I end up flying on your sneaky ass airlines anyway? When I bought my ticket, it SAID US AIRWAYS. When I got my confirmation number, it was from US AIRWAYS. And so, you think that you can just sneak and slip in your planes and itineraries onto their roster cuz y'all have this special ass agreement to save you from bankruptcy, and that I'm just going to go quietly? What the F@&$* is wrong witchu? Then you tell me I can buy a box. Okay, that's fine. I'll buy a damned box. Then you say, you can only pay for it in cash. Okay then, where's the ATM? Oh, it's downstairs. And you can't leave your stuff here.  Way to wait until I unpack all my shit right in front of your counter to do that. Good job, Iva. Then you wanna tell me to just go and find the ATM. Kiss my black countrified gentrified bougie ass. So you know I decided to write the check, and deep inside, I really hoped that the check would bounce. And she kept calling down the counter to make sure that it didn't. Trick please. So you know I bought the box. NO one was pleasant. It was ridiculous. And I had no say in the matter as to whether or not I could even FLY on United. Yo' United! F*#@ You.

on to the next one...

Dear Portland Public Schools,

Way to f*@! up. I mean really. I know that I used to love you. Hell, I used to trust you. But now it seems that your business practices are steeped in institutional racism and I hope that you realize that YOU are the reason why you have such high dropout rates among students of color. You are the reason for the low retention rates in the schools. You are the reason why students pursue unhealthy options as opposed to realizing their potential within the academic process. Let me tell you something: If you treat a child as a criminal, there is a small chance that you will be projecting that criminalization upon that child's future. When you label a child remedial because of their behavior and not because of the academic challenges, you are setting them up for failure. When you talk to a child as if they are stupid, you will cause that child to doubt their own intelligence. When you put your budget before the well-being of that child's academic environment, you are throwing away the key to that child's brightness. And when you mess with my little brother, you have a serious problem. The fact is that PPS, you have not only done all of the above that I have listed, but you have done more. You have systematically denied my brother the opportunity to CHOOSE. By placing the majority of K-8 redesigned schools in neighborhoods where there are mostly people of color, you overcrowded schools with students who clearly need individualized attention; the same kind of individualized attention that white students are getting at their normal-sized schools across the district. These students are placed in classrooms that are full, they are lumped together with classmates, treated as if they were domesticated animals, and it's not okay. What part of having a white teacher tell her young black student that he was going to grow up and be a thug is okay? What part of having that same teacher force her young black student to turn his desk to face the wall and to sit apart from all of his other classmates is okay? What part of having that same teacher tell other classmates that her young black student is going to one day grow up, join a gang, get himself in trouble, and get his other young black classmate killed is okay? Especially when that young black student tries to be an active participant in class, meets or exceeds all of his state testing scores, and is one of the brightest students in his class. Instead of encouraging and uplifting, you are tearing him down. And that is not okay. What part of forcing a group of students to be in remedial classes because of their presumed behavior out on the playground and not based on their academic record is okay? PPS, you are causing the problems you are already having.

 You want to know how to fix the issues that you have with rowdy, distractive, unruly students? Stop screwing them over when they're still children. Stop robbing them of that academic fervor that they start off having when they are still fresh in the system. Stop privileging white students by separating them into Gifted and Talented, ACCESS and TAG programs, while second-guessing any student of color that comes into the system with the same academic capabilities. Stop creating a talented tenth with certain students of color, making them feel like exceptions, making them privilege themselves, further separating themselves from their communities and from their friends. Stop making those who are more academically challenged in certain areas, and not in the positive sense, feel like they are worthless and like they will have no future outside of meaningless jobs and vocational training. By telling them that their future lies behind a McDonald's counter, you are perpetuating the ideal that they will not have a successful life and you are discouraging them from even trying. Only a few will feel motivated to prove you wrong. The rest will believe you. If you plant turnips in the ground, you will not harvest grapes. If you think that by having teachers in the classroom who are only teaching to make a living and not to make a difference will produce actively learning, motivated, bright, and determined students, you have an issue. If you think that by putting teachers in front of a classroom who have no respect for their students and low expectations for their behavior, you have another thing coming. Don't get mad at the students you receive in high school. If you had done the job that you were supposed to do when these students were in elementary school, you would have harvested the exact type of students that would make productive, effective, successful citizens in our society. That is YOUR job. To teach, to support, to love, to help, to nurture. And you are failing. And the fact that your students are failing is no surprise. 

No surprise at all. 

The ones that succeed do so because they had the support and they had the encouragement that gave them the motivation and the drive to develop within themselves the passion for education. None of us would be where we are without the foundations that were laid for us by our mentors and teachers. Would you try to argue that this is a meritocracy where we can all pull ourselves up by the bootstraps? You do realize that not all of us have equal access to the boots themselves, right?  And while we can argue what we want about the home life and the parental portion of the equation, I've seen many a student succeed because of the teachers they had outside of the household, despite what their circumstances may have been at home. There is always an impact that teachers will have on a student. And the sad fact is that many teachers ignore that fact or take advantage of their power of authority. The severity of those poor decisions have manifested themselves and will continue to do so until change happens. Why are you afraid of change already? 

on to the next one...

To black women who live in the damn club,

what in the jheri curl made you think that lace bodysuits were okay? What the hell are you THINKING?

stop that shit. no really. it ain't cute.

on to the next one...

My hair was well-received by the women on my campus and the men surrounding my campus. While many a white woman and man felt privileged enough to reach over and TOUCH my hair, most were respectful and in awe of my strands. I've never felt more comfortable walking around in my own "skin". I became known quickly for my beautiful afro and my afro pick earrings. And my hair flourished in the climate that I was living. After only a month, the length had visibly increased. I knew that I was hot shit. And I felt more comfortable claiming certain parts of my identity. I am more comfortable saying that I am young, black, fabulous, talented, queer, and that my future is so bright. Oh so bright. 

I dream of places far beyond. I always have. I always will.

and to my readers, I've missed you. 

I really have missed you.