When I saw the headline, I though I was going to get to send a traditional gift of tea cozies and yacht club shot glasses to Roxanne Shante.

Shante overcame the burden of being a rap star, from the ghetto and a teenage mother and was awarded a Ph.D from the Ivy League school Cornell that was paid for by her music company. She sounded like a perfect candidate for Oreodom.

But then I read the rest of the story.

Her degree is in psychology…so far, so good. But a further investigation shows that any Oreo points earned by attending an exclusive university and earning a degree level that puts her hands and feet ahead of the average education level of most people, let alone most people of color, should be immediately stripped. 

Shante wasted this perfect opportunity and used her degree to start a therapy center that not just focuses on exclusively helping African Americans, but on urban African Americans. 

She could have at least poached from the Jack and Jill population.

But no. She was handed the keys to freedom, to comfortable homogenization and instead put the shackles of expectations right back on.

And for no good reason. There are already plenty of people of color, scores of non-profits and a bunch of guilt-ridden white people serving this population. Why not cater to people who do not get such constant attention? People who would a take a budding therapist from cliche to really interesting. 

Here are some suggestions for appropriate practices.

Birds of a Feather: A google search for “depressed parrots” will yield more results than you might realize and will reveal the inter-species use of Prozac. But where is the mass media coverage of this emotional pandemic? Parrots are the type of pet typically enjoyed by those who live in homes large enough to not hear their angry squawks, or sad squeaks, on the other side of the east wing. And this makes this population a great one to concentrate on for one striving for Oreodom.

Potential Problem: Parrots are also owned by people who live in the rainforest. Who tend to be brownish. Therapists should avoid this demographic in favor of the citied birds.

 

 

 

You Are What You Eat: While McDonald’s may be trying to lure people of color back to the fold with horrible campaigns like 365Black, it’s more than easy to ignore these when one considers the benefits of controlling all manner of emotional ills through the eating of food grown by organic farmers and never cooked. These foods are always more expensive and not nearly as immediately satisfying, so you’re sure to get a clientele that has the money and time to waste on getting satisfaction from their food.

Potential Problem: Eating food raw can also occur when one’s gas and/or electricity has been disconnected. Do make sure clients are eating food sans heat processing voluntarily.

 

Waste Not, Want Not: Finally, a urine therapy center is always a great option. Yes, this is a real thing. People can drink, bathe in or dab on urine in all sorts of ways to cure all sorts of ills. Again, as this must be practiced by people with disposable income enough to pay for the issues likely to occur when one ingests his or her own waste products. 

Potential Problem: Just because someone smells like urine doesn’t mean that they paid the big bucks to do so. Do make sure that your urine enthusiasts have purchased the proper storage containers (and they exists) and do not have the golden miracle on them because they lack a working restroom at home.