SAH's Nook

Buried under my chocolate duvet, I peek my head and hands out just enough for the light of my laptop to guide this entry. So here we are. Just you and me.

Oh, before I forget..Happy New Year!!

Her words dance resiliently as she speaks of living a life full of magnetizing courage. She’s walked many a red carpet, sat with the most famous, been featured in everything from Essence to the NY Times, and even appeared on Oprah. Make no mistake though, this 27-year-old trailblazer is no movie star; Hydeia Broadbent is a walking testament that life is a gift to be owned.

At 6-years old, when many little girls were playing with their dolls, Hydeia was center stage educating the world on HIV/AIDS. Abandoned at birth, Patricia and Loren Broadbent took Hydeia in as a foster child and later adopted her. Hydeia was sick as a child, but her parents thought her symptoms were the result of being born to a drug-addicted mother. It wasn’t until she was three years old that they learned Hydeia contracted HIV at birth from her mother who was an intravenous drug-user.

Do you remember the children’s game, Simon says, where one player is ‘Simon’ and issues instructions, (such as, jump up and down) to the other players?

On Sunday, President Obama said, “I can report to the American people and to the world, that the US has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden.”

I was shocked, but convinced that bin Laden was dead and in-fact buried at sea.

“Beauty myth is a political weapon used to exert control over western women and that the value of what is and is not beautiful is an instrument of control and of disqualification.” – Naomi Wolf

The black community has debated what it means to wear one’s hair “natural” or “relaxed” for centuries. One camp has argued that wearing one’s hair natural is equivalent to liberation, while relaxing it is oppressive and a rejection of one’s African lineage. I’d argue that such a dichotomist perspective is more nuanced as we inhabit an increasingly multi-cultural nation.

Jessica Gamble, a 21-year-old black woman, is about to do some time – jail time. A grand jury has indicted the Ohio woman who is accused of giving her 2-year-old daughter marijuana to smoke. I should just stop right there, but I’ll go on.

A disturbing video shows the little girl holding, inhaling, and exhaling the drug like a pro. An unidentified person sent a copy of the video to the state family services agency. Gamble is in jail and could be sentenced to up to 11-1/2 years in prison if convicted of all charges.

Wearing sagging pants has become a criminal offense in some communities, with violators subject to fines, community services and/or jail time. Recently, Dublin city mayor Phil Best reignited the debate by passing an amendment to the municipality’s indecent exposure ordinance in Dublin. The amendment prohibits the wearing of pants or skirts (yes, skirts too!) “More than three inches below the top of the hips exposing the skin or undergarments.”

Sagging is now playing in the same pin as public: masturbation, fornication and urination. The argument is that showing ones underwear is indecent exposure and illustrates lack of respect for others.

What’s more compelling is that some lawmakers are correlating the fad to specific youth behavior, in particular: challenging authority, delinquency, poor learning, and criminality.

On Friday morning the Port of Oakland was inundated with hundreds of police officers clad in riot gear. The officers were participating in a number of mock riot exercises. Why? Because if Johannes Mehserle is acquitted in the case of Oscar Grant III’s death Oakland will literally and figuratively be on fire.

On New Years Day in 2009 police were called to the Oakland Fruitvale BART station after the train conductor reported fights on the train. Moments later, Oscar Grant III, lay on his stomach with his hands behind his back as BART officer, Johannes Mehserle, fired a shot that later proved fatal. A bystander captured the searing video footage of the tragedy: the video showed the already restrained 22-year-old being shot in his back by Mehserle. As the news spread of yet another unarmed black man dead at the hands of a white officer racial tension bubbled and the theme of police brutality inflamed the Oakland streets.

While it’s easy to interpret Alicia Keys’ undeniable track “Un-thinkable (I’m Ready) as a tribute to her highly publicized and controversial love affair with current beau, Swizz Beatz, she flips it and takes us on a spin across race and through time in her daring new video.

The talented songstress truly aims to illustrate the title of her fourth album, The Element of Freedom, as she tackles the topic of interracial dating. The Jake Nava directed gem takes a trip through the decades brilliantly showcasing the complications that often surround race and love, in particular a black woman with a white man. Yearning for her love interest, played by the former One Tree Hill actor, Chad Michael Murray, Keys is faced with the challenge of leaping across racial confines and defining her own ending or allowing others to dictate it.

After the catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake rocked Haiti the world sat at the edge of its seat. We were shocked, worried, saddened. And like with most tragedies we came together as a people ready to aid the country. For those of us who weren’t able to lead huge relief efforts we sent small donations to Red Cross, Yele, UNICEF, and other NGOs supporting the relief efforts. And after that the images kept pouring in and the death poll continued to rise: many of us were temporary shrouded in hopelessness feeling paralyzed as if there was nothing else we could do.

Kitchen Dread in 1992

As a kid, Stacy dreaded the twice a month Saturday morning ritual that she shared with her mother. She usually shuffled her feet across the floor until she made it to the kitchen. She would inch herself up the tall wooden barstool and plop her small frame atop the hard surface.

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