A Southern Gul, Southern Genius Feeding Her Own Meter

Though I am ostensibly a U.S. Citizen (some days it feels tenuous as hell), I also have a Crunchy Nation green card, which means my Twitter feed was full of earth mother goddesses, headwraps, and the like drooling over Erykah Badu's new video for "Window Seat," the lead single from her album, New Amerykah Part 2: Return of the Ankh.  They think it's genius; they are probably right.  Erykah Badu makes the best music videos ever.

(Real) Pay for Play

Part of the reason I'm so unproductive during the first quarter of the year is because of sports.  The NFL Playoffs are quickly followed by March Madness, which is followed by the NBA Playoffs.  I do most of my work during the summer when baseball season is well underway.  Watching nine innings of baseball on television has never been my idea of a good time.  Anyway, the first weekend of the NCAA tournament is officially in the record books.  Although my Boilers have survived, thanks to Kansas and Georgetown, my bracket looks like a window during L.A. Riots: busted.  I'm still waiting for Duke to choke.  Though it doesn't make up for the refs not ejecting Laettner, there's nothing I enjoy more than watching Coach K. smugly accept defeat.  (Has Duke ever recruited a [black] ballplayer who was not from a two-parent home and ostensibly solidly middle class?')

The Nannie Diaries: All Boxed In

Nannie gave me my first lessons--and anxieties--about race.  My great-grandmother was pretty damn light.  So much so that I remember being nervous during grandparents day at Weisser Park Elementary School.  Kids' grandparents would show up sometime in the afternoon and sit in on our classes.  We'd introduce them to our fellow classmates and perform poetry or songs on our recorders--terrible renditions that only a grandparent would love.  I recall being simultaneously excited and lightweight shook at the thought of Nannie and Papa showing up to my class, and I knew it had everything to do with a very light-skinned black woman claiming to be kin to my little brown self.  I just knew that one of my white classmates would question how we were related.

Perhaps this anxiety stems from the one of two times in my life I can recall Nannie being visibly upset with me.  One ordinary afternoon, I was sitting on her lap and decided that there was no more perfect time to ask why her skin was white.  (Yes, that's the term I used.)  Nannie got upset, and I knew then that what I said had hit a nerve so deep that I'd never get an answer from her.  I shut up about it, and never mentioned Nannie's complexion to her again.  It was much later when I discovered what it meant to be "mixed" or "biracial" and the integral role blackness played in those designations, or one's inability to be described as such.  I'm almost sure the issue was clarified in a school lunchroom when a classmate, technically mixed, offered the quick and dirty version of the one-drop rule.

Hate to Say I Told You So

Gabby didn't even have to win the Oscar; she got the Ebony spread anyway.

Words I Manifest

Mad love to Guru in this time of need.

And the Winner Is?

It's only March, but Mo'Nique is indeed the frontrunner for the Best Year Ever award.  In a little less than a week, the self-proclaimed queen of comedy and Golden Globe (and Screen Actors Guild) Award winner, will probably win an Oscar for her work in Precious, despite her reluctance to "campaign" for the little gold statue.

Talk about a come up. 

Before her turn as Mary Jones, monstrous mommy of Precious Jones, Mo'Nique wasn't one of the more highly sought after comedic actors.  I doubt Oscar voters had seen her work in films like Soul Plane, Phat Girlz, and Hair Show.  Yet with the critical acclaim and support she's received since her role in Precious, Mo'Nique not only has the opportunity to shout out George Clooney in her acceptance speech should she see fit (see: Mafia, Three-Six) and excitedly jump on Oprah's couch (see: Cruise, Tom), but the late-night talk show host not named Conan or Leno has the opportunity to go where very few black women have gone before her: the Oscar winners party.  Sorry, Gabby Sidibe, but I don't think you'll be on that guest list.