Black food? White food?

I've been trying to live a healthier lifestyle, but recently there's been a hankering for soul food in my life. I'm talking the good stuff. Fried chicken, candied yams, collard greens, sweet cornbread, baked mac and cheese...ya know, the works! I want a plate that looks like...

 

Yes LAWD!

After waking Monday morning, pillow swathed in drool from sweet soulful dreams, I realized that I needed to make this happen. What better way to celebrate the March on Washington?  I told my girl that this Friday would be "Soul Food Friday". What's that? Its a fatty's Christmas. Its like the preseason for Thanksgiving. Its what Miley Cyrus's ass desperately needs. It means we will spend the night in, replicating the materials responsible for my large stature. I love food, and I'm giving into the vice on Friday. I recently took the step to move in with my girl, and one of the reasons I was ok with sacrificing my freedom is that she's an excellent cook. I have to hand it to her. The reason Friday is such an ordeal is because she comes from a different culture. She's white and from north of the mason dixie, therefore things are done just a little bit different on her plate. 

I'm not one to ever turn down food. Period. Unless the person's apparent hygiene is less than pleasant. I'm not eating burgers from bums people. But through my openness to eat what's put in front of me, I have noticed a few differences between how typical "white" food and "black" food is constructed. Am I an authority on food? Yes. Do I often cross cultures? Yes. Am I about to generalize about these differences? Absolutely. So now that I've answered your questions and addressed your issues with the following statements, read a few of my conclusions. I'm not saying these are universal, but its how i feel. You can feel free to criticize, agree or not give a damn.

• Black food is meant to touch. When that juice from the sweet potatoes intersects at the corner of mac and cheese and cornbread something magical happens. When I see the collision occur, I GET HYPE! I know THAT bite will be off the chain. My cousin Big Norm has mastered this and creates post-meal cups (judge if you want). This dude has mastered the correct order to stack leftovers into a red solo cup that captures the essence of the entire meal. White food should remain separate. Corn on the cob is good as are strawberries and salad with Italian dressing. But when these are all on the same plate, you want them to remain co-workers. Touching is strictly prohibited.
• Black food is the real reason we get turnt up about family time. We know Gramma is bringing that redskin potato salad, uncle is about to grill them ribs with the Sweet Baby Ray's and auntie is about to put it down on the peach cobbler. We know that there will be more food than you need and all you could want. When a get together is planned, what's the first question amongst black people? "What we eating?" White people are more prone to allow the gathering to be about the achievement or special event. That's great, but that's secondary to food for us. "It's awesome you graduated from college cuzzo, but make sure ya moms whip up that baked ziti, ya dig?"
•  Black food makes you wanna fight. Let someone show up to a black event later than most (CP time- if you gotta ask, just dont). Let the ribs be gone and they only get a burger or hot dog. Guaranteed they gonna be tight. Why? Because that's the real reason they were excited to come. "Man, your birthday don't mean ish if I didn't get a deviled egg or some of Gramma's pasta salad with the crab meat in it! Bet you wont get this gift card I brought." Even if they are a good sport about it, you know they are salty. When I go to white events, I'm just happy to have some type of nourishment. No one has an urge to fight.
• Black people don't believe in over-seasoning and rarely do we measure. I forgot real recipes even existed until I started dating my girl. Add 1/2 cup of this and 1/4 of that. A teaspoon of pepper and 2 tablespoons of seasoned salt. Not how we cook. I'm under the philosophy that most people can learn how to cook if they can follow directions. Soul food comes from... the soul. Not a cookbook. I asked my Gramma for a recipe and part of her instruction included, "...just keep adding that seasoned salt. You know how its supposed to taste boy." I can honestly say I've never seen her use a measuring cup. My girl can follow a recipe like no one's business, but my soul needs to be taken into account from time to time.
• Black people, mainly men, will eat themselves to sadness. Me and my baby brother are notorious for this. One minute we salivating, the next we're grimacing with joy. We are happy as hell when the food is going on our plate and we (well my family at least) will eat until it makes us sad. Pain never felt so good.
• Fruit doesn't belong on the plate with my dinner.
• You can look at a black person and know if they can or can not cook.

  

  You just know she can put it down.

• Oatmeal tastes best out of that big ass cardboard tube thing, not packets.
• Rice is not a black thing to eat at Thanksgiving. Period. 
• Green bean casserole is gross.
• Everything can't be casseroled. 
• Drinking milk with pasta at dinner? How does that even make sense? That will tear your stomach up.
• No one really like chitterlings. I think black people eat them to remain rooted in our culture.
• Cornbread needs sugar.
• Texas Pete and Frank should have been disciples in the Bible.
• Tea is meant to be sweet you bitter jerk.
• Everyone loves chicken. Everyone loves watermelon. Don't ever take offense! (Ask Chappelle)
• Mac and cheese is to be baked. No exceptions.

I mean in America, the word black usually means bad and white usually means good. But when it comes to food, I beg to differ. My Black Friday can't come fast enough. I don't think I'll be able to sleep Thursday night. Its. About. To go. Down.

No Justice, No Peace

Trayvon Martin, Kimani Grey, Kendrec McDade, Timothy Russel, Ervin Jefferson, Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, Ousmane Zongo, Timothy Stansbury Jr., Sean Bell, Orlando Barlow, Aaron Campbell, Victor Steen, Steven Eugene Washington, Alonzo Ashley, Wendell Allen, Ronald Madson, James Brisette, Travares McGill, Ramarely Graham, Oscar Grant, Unnamed Man walking out of Carl's Jr in Montgomery Park CA, James Craig Anderson, Rusell Davis, Donald Johnson, Duane Brown, Angelo Clark, Steven Rodriguez, Christopher Kissane, Atwain White, Stephon Watts, Remarley Graham, Manuel Loggins Jr, Johnnie Kamahi Warren, Raymond Allen, Justin Sipp, Dante Price, Melvin Lawhorn, Bo Morrison, Nehemiah Dillard, Wendell Allen, Michael Lembhard, Marquez Smart, Jersey Green, Robert Dumas Jr., Kendrec Lavelle McDade, Ervin Jefferson, Unnamed 16 year old in San Leandro CA, Sheron Jackson, Tendai Nhekario, Rekia Boyd

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Game of Thrones Black Count Is Offically Up to Four (Spoiler kind of)

Hoping he ends up a badass. Image Url: http://gameofthrones.wikia.com/wiki/Grey_Worm

If you've been following Game of Thrones, we recently got a new addition this season. Not spoiling to much, the episode introduces Grey Worm, commander of the Unsullied. Grey Worm is portrayed by Jacob Anderson, 22 year old British actor whose biggest role thus far was a movie call Adulthood (never seen it so I have no idea what it is). So far all he does is take off his mask, look menacing, and gabber in Vallarian. The rest of the black cast are below, minus random extra's.

Hot! Image Url: http://queendaenerysofdragons.tumblr.com/relationships

Badass! Image url: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/game-of-thrones/images/30306877/title/salladhor-saan-fanart

Colossal Douche. Image Url: http://marikalee9.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/im-like-what-in-the-books-the-xaro-xhoan-daxos-edition/

Black People….It’s okay to branch out when it comes to music

I went to a fairly diverse high school. In fact, our principal, often boasted that our high school was a microcosm of the United States. However, despite the diversity, we still manage to segregate ourselves in to various factions biased on thought, religion, race, and social status. It seemed the main factor for these divisions at the time was musical taste. It defined who you were, and connected you to the members of your various social groups. For example the Emo kids listened to Evanescence and Jap pop, Theater nerds exclusively show tunes (or the occasional rock opera), etc.


Now being a black kid it was expected that I listened to one thing: Hip Hop. So when I reached high school I was immediately placed into a gallant of social stigmas biased on my knowledge of hip hop. Unfortunately for me, hip hop was banned from my home until high school. The first album I even thought of owning was Stankonia by Outkast, and was so shocked by the profanity that I immediately apologized to my mom for purchasing it. I myself was a little budding nerd, who dug Red Hot Chili Peppers, Korn, Linkin Park, and the music of Final Fantasy. As an effect I was hit with a landslide of judgment, and public scoffing.


So what did I do? I faked it. I didn’t particularly like hip hop (with the exception of Outkast, Public enemy, and Eminem) so I forced myself. I believed that to be truly “black” I had to not only love this music, but embody it. Consequently when I entered college I was a hip hop head, to the point where it was in the very swagger of my being.


>But this became an issue. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t gangsta, quite the contrary. I wasn’t a playa. I was just a nerd, who was trying way too hard. As an effect I stuck out, having thrown on this mantle, and trying to fit into my own stereotype of what I thought hip hop was.


In college I found myself hanging in groups of radically different people, unlike in high school, and consequently listening to their various forms of music. It became insane the amount of music that I was exposed to. I listened to everything from show tunes, to classic rock, to blues, to jazz, to salsa, to even country. As an effect I began to form my own taste in music, that is truly and uniquely me.


I thought this would put me at odds with the hip hop world, whose forced exposure helped me form a resounding passion for it, and throughout college it did. What I listened to was not played by my black friends, and my other friends were perplexed and often openly laughed at hip hop. Once again I was at odds with myself.


Then I went to the Roots picnic.

What I discovered was hip hop is not limited to one style of music, rather it is an all encompassing culture that is linked within our generational heritage. It exists in the very foundation of our self expression. The Roots gathered bands from across the musical spectrum, to create an event and a sound that was truly American. It was hip hop. And it was divine.


>It helped me rest a little easier in my skin. I realized that my musical taste could not, nor should it, be dependant on the social groups that we claim.


To my beautiful people who find themselves too often listening to just hip hop or R&B: Music is a part of your identity and a foundation of what you use to express yourself. So let it. Develop a deeper love for all things with a melody, and help it inform you as a person. Allow it to enrich yourself, and perhaps we all will be a little better for it.

And Now for your viewing pleasure the Yeah Yeah Yeahs: