african american

Anything They Can Do, Blacks Can Do Better! (Hospitals!!!)

People often ask me why I try so hard to hide my blackness from the world. And I say, well, mainly because I’ve seen The Blind Side (and Precious Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire and Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers, O, Hardball, Up the Down Staircase, Step Up, Bring it On, Step Up 2: The Streets, Finding Forrester, Precious-Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, Fighting the Odds: The Marilyn Gambrell Story, Hancock, Wildcats, The Gridiron Gang, Friday Night Lights) and um, yeah…being black looks really scary and makes you way more likely to cut a bitch. And I don’t want to cut any bitches.

Being black also brings along with it a certain competitiveness. Blacks are always trying to outfill the judicial systems faster than

Get used to it, black people. Whether the ambulances are scurrying you away from the drive by or just double checking the doctor's work, apparently, you're going to be seeing a lot of them. Statistics say so!

non-colors, flee from PhD programs faster than non-colors and get hypertension way more!

And those things are so not me!

I mean look at today’s story:

After leaving the hospital for treatment of three common conditions, older black people are more likely to be readmitted within 30 days than older white people, a new study finds.

Black patients have 13 percent greater odds of readmission within 30 days after discharge, according to the study.

Boo! I don’t want to spend extra time in the hospital. I mean, the idea of a handsome, wealthy man in a nice coat touching my forehead softly and asking if everything is okay is just fine. But I can probably just hire that out, right?

Check back in for more things that blacks do better than whites! If you don’t, I might have to summon the color in me and cut a bitch. And like I said, I don’t want to have to do that.

Awesomely Awkward – Jumprope

Sometimes, my Oreo-ness is totally validated when someone says something to me that they totally wouldn’t say to a regular black

Wondering if what's on the tip of your tongue is odd or offensive? Say it anyway! It might just be a compliment in disguise.

person (You know, like the n-word!). When someone looks at me and says something…odd or potentially off-putting about race and then stare back at me with eyes wide open and blinking sweetly, it makes me feel like I’m doing my job at making those around me forget that my ethnicity of origin.

Today’s gem came to me last night at the gym. I was in the middle of a two-hour boxing workout (20 mins of running then 20 minutes of shadow boxing then 12 minutes of jumproping then 120 pushups then 20 minutes of mitt work then 20 minutes of abs then an hour and a half of recouperative sobbing). It was the jumprope section and the girl next to me kept catching her rope with her feet and whipping herself in the back with the rope.

After a few of these began to bring up tiny red marks on her back, she turned to me and said: “Man! Now I know how the slaves felt!! That must have sucked!”

It probably did suck, I thought. But not as much as you not being able to share that with me.

I have pilates tonight. Here’s hoping someone compares the resistance band to leg irons!

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This anecdote aside, it’s inevitable that awkward stuff just slips out sometimes! What’s a convo you’ve had that still makes you blush? Let us know in the comments!

Diary of a Mad White Black Woman – What’s Up With All the Black People?!

Dear Diary,

When I choose my weekend events, I do so with a purpose! Whether it’s a dinner party based on Myers-Briggs Personality Typing or a trip to Medieval Times, I expect to be the only person of color in attendance. Maybe one of two or three. But I certainly don’t expect to blend into the crowd due to the fact that the crowd looks like me!!

This is how I normally do it. Can you find me??

 

Imagine my shock and consternation this weekend, then.

It started with my weekly riding lesson. This time I was on a new horse named Calvin–a beautiful red rome who looked like he galloped out of a fairy tale and into my cross-ties. As per usual, I was the only one of me at the barn.

That all changed when I walked across the street to the Equestrian Center. There was a rodeo going on and though I prefer English riding to Western, Western is still pretty impressive, so I sat down and that’s when I saw it.

The stands…the arena…the holding areas…all full of black cowboys!! It wasn’t the shadow cast by the hundreds of Stetson hats over faces that made those faces look dark. It was the pigment! To my left, black riders. To my right, black riders. On the microphone a black announcer announcing more black riders.

The black I usually see at horse events.

Normally when I’m around this many black folks, I’ve gotten lost on the campus of an HBCU, am at Roscoes or have wandered into a check cashing place.

I didn’t know what to do. I knew I should run, but I wanted to see the horses, so I sat and assured myself that the trip to the spa I was taking later that afternoon would right the balance of black in my life.

It didn’t.

A bit flustered from my day at the rodeo and from the fact that the parking structure I had to use looked like something that Theseus would have to solve, I tumbled into the lobby of the spa, expecting to see …well, not so many black people.

The lobby looked like a Southern Baptist convention. Behind the desk, in front of the desk, tons of black people!

Diary, I did not cultivate a love of all things anglo and deny myself listening to Miles Davis as a kid so that I would just end up surrounded by RBP at a moment’s notice!

I was too shocked to sound any of the Oreo distress calls, so I couldn’t even ascertain if these people were friendlies.

Luckily, the lights were dimmed, so it was just as matter of moments before I couldn’t really see anyone else anyway.

Thank goodness the deep tissue massage was extra deep to flush out the additional stress.

You would think this was where my crazy dark day would end. But no! Fate had even more in store!

I made dinner plans with a friend and while I was waiting for him at the bar, a guy began chatting me up. He asked me lots of polite questions about myself and gave me his card…. And he was black

WHAT THE FU–!?! Diary, I spend a lot of money and time straightening my hair and wiping the ethnicity from my voice. Why such a fluke of a day?

I will meditate on this while playing my flute and enjoying some apple, pear and beet salad. And hope that tomorrow goes better.

 

The rodeo did have mutton-busting, which looks like this (only with a tiny black kid instead). So that was...fun.

 

 

-OW

How do you solve a bad day? Let us know in the comments!

What happens when you find yourself surrounded? Read here to find out!

Even when they are friendlies, don’t get too cozy. Read here to find out how to protect yourself!

Why do I not generally accept business cards from black guys. Watch this video to see!

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It Hurts So Good, II

So after my poplock debut this weekend, I had to get back to my Oreo ways and content myself with some anglo-tastic stuff post haste!

To erase any unintended ethnic affect, on Sunday, I  bought some crossstitching, picked up my new guitar to learn some Neutral Milk Hotel and made a Quiche.

Hot.

And between the needlework and my first time playing the guitar, my fingers are killing me!!!  Seriously, I washed my hands this morning and it burned! How long does it take guitar callouses to form?

But good things will come from that pain. And it got me out of thinking of other things that were painful in just the right ways.

Relaxer – It goes without saying that a relaxer is on this list. Sure, the salve that’s spread on my scalp once a month is expensive and burns like a thousand angry suns. But for that pain, I get pretty straight hair to whip back and forth.

Dressage Training – Making a 1400-pound horse dance by controlling it with the muscles at the top of your inner thigh makes it nearly impossible to walk the next day. But if you do well enough and you get to competition, you get to wear such pretty hats!!

He's whipping his hair back and forth, too!

Spin Class – Going spinning immediate after dressage is especially painful…but bathing suit season is only 6 months away. Ladies…am I right!

Blue Valentine – This movie is one of the best I’ve seen. Painful to watch (especially with the $14 Arclight ticket!!) but Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling are also beautiful, urgent, truthful and memorable.

Also hot.

That one break up – We all have one. The one that was so spectacularly awful that we were pretty sure we’d never be able to put ourselves back together. But not only did we get back together, all that scar tissue fused strong. Stronger than it was before. We learned more than we could have imagined and made promises to ourselves that this time, we intend on keeping.

*ahem* Now back to your regularly scheduled snark.

Shots – Burning and painful all the way down. But often delicious and always socially freeing! F u, inhibitions! Ladies…am I right?! 🙂

What do you do that’s painful but good for you? Let us know in the comments!!

And check out this vlog that details my journey toward poplock domination.

For Mor-eo Oreo: Follow The Oreo Experience on Twitter (@oreoexperience)

*uck Finn – 4 Reasons Why The N Word Should Stay In

They're not okay with the n-word, but are okay with kids running away, stealing stuff and smoking. Got it!

You remember Huck Finn, right? The book about a boy and his slave friend who run away and learn about each other. Oh yeah, and they say the n-word a bunch. You know, because it was set in the American South, pre-Civil War and that’s kinda what people did.

But a new edition of the book is coming out and the publishers of the book will replace the ethnic slur with the word “slave.”  You know, to make the book less offensive. Because owning slaves is totally okay as long as you call them nice names…or something like that. It’s hard to be clear on exactly what the publisher’s goal is, but they say it’s not about PC-tastic censorship.

The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told [Publisher’s Weekly]. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”

 

Now, I get it, the word makes some people uncomfy**.

Not her, though.

But that doesn’t mean we should just strike it from the record completely.

Here are four reasons I think Huck Finn should stay just the way it is.

1. More Oreos! A selfish reason for sure, but nothing made me want to escape my skin quite like sitting in a classroom with my peers reading these books aloud. Sure, I hated the stares I got when someone mentioned Twain, or anything to do with Civil Rights, Martin Luther King or firehoses, but it put me on a path toward just the right amount of self loathing to take up some hobbies more interesting than gospel singing or dominoes.

2. Equal Opportunity Offense. There’s something in pretty much every book that’s going to offend most anybody. Should we take out references to sex or the church in The Scarlett Letter lest we offend people who pray or put out (or, like myself…both. :)? Should we take out half the words in anything written by Dickens because it’s just so g*dammed long and that is offensive in and of itself? Should we stop the production of Tyler Perry movies because they’re just offensive to everyone?  Nah. A little thicker skin is good for everyone.

3. Keep the word somewhat safe. If we remove the n-word from classic works of literature, the only people dealing with it are plucky talk show hosts like Dr. Laura and the hip hop and rap industry. I don’t know about you, but I totally trust one of the greatest American writers of all time over the the guy who wrote the song “Bitches Aint Shit.”

4. And seriously…yes, the n-word is pretty damn offensive. But if we lose sight of how offensive it is and the damage that it caused and causes, then we run the risk of perpetuating those offenses and creating them anew.

5. Too Much Change! If we start changing the words in Huck Finn, then it’s only a matter of time before someone changes the libretto to Big River, the Broadway musical written about that story. And I already have the current version commited to memory. Not ready to re-learn all that music! Seriously, listen to these harmonies. That’s a lot of work!

What do you think? Let us know!

Oreofail – John Hughes (it’s not too soon for this, right?)

 

No, sir, you are not cute or charming...but do you wanna get a coffee or something?

I tried, I really did, but I finally came to my decision: conclusion that I do not like John Hughes movies.

 

While this upsets my friends who so fondly organize Pretty in Pink parties, it upsets me even more because there is little in the film canon that is as waspy as a John Hughes flick.

Lest you think I came to this decision too hastily, I have tried several movies. There was “She’s Having a Baby”  which should be named “She’s Having a Baby…in the last 5 minutes of this snoozefest, don’t even bother looking for the baby in the first 180 minutes of this thing or you will be sorely disappointed.”  I also managed to get through..ugh…The Breakfast Club and…wait for it, yes I don’t like this one, either. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Why don’t I like FB? Because he’s an arrogant little shit…though if you look at my dating life, it seems to indicate that I really like arrogant little shits.

But I digress…I know people are supposed to like these movies. But every plot could be summed up with this tagline:

The Breakfast Club:

“My perfectly acceptable life could be way better if I made some very minor changes, but that’s too much work and not as sexy as f*cknig brooooooooding about it.” ***

(** Judd Nelson, you’re excused from this. Kevin Bacon, you are not!)

And, yes, I do get that not all of the film and TV that I loved in my childhood holds up today. For example:

  • The Neverending Story. This movie will always be beloved to me, but after watching it as an adult, I realized…it’s not very good. (The “sadness of the swamp,” really Atreyu? And WTF does she yell at the end? And if there’s nothing left of the world, WTF are they standing on ?!?!) But I love it. Because it was dear to me when I watched it.
  • Boy Meets World. Yes, it’s also full of broody teens, too, not unlike a John Hughes movie…but, but, but Sean was so dreamy!!…and he dated an Oreo! How could I not love it??
  • Rent. When I saw this play at 16, I thought “F yeah! How dare those fascists make you pay rent!!” As a 20-something, I watched it and thought “Hmm, you know, you could get a job and write and paint at night if you’re having a hard time making the bills.”

So I get why people like the JH flicks…if I had seen them for the first time(s) when I was a teen and watching Brendan Frazier’s School Daze in back to back screenings, and not a few months ago when I’m well-past the broodings, I probably would have loved them, too.

 

Do you like John Hughes? Anything you can suggest I watch that might change my mind? Or any childhood faves that only stand your personal test of time and don’t actually hold up?

 

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Leave a comment here or at any of the above and let us know what you think!

The Pros and Cons of Having Been Called “Colored” at the Equestrian Center Today

Embrace it! Awkward moments are good for you!

I was taking a turn about the Equestrian Center after riding today when I had an experience that definitely made me take stock in my Oreodom.

I was nearly of the gate and back to my car when an older man rode up to me in his golf cart and asked what I was doing there.

To be fair, there was a competition going on so most of the people there were in formal riding gear, though I had hoped my jodhpurs would have helped me blend in a bit.

I told him I was just there to watch, he informed me that he was the show vet and we started a lovely conversation about big animal care, James Harriet and our favorite places in Ireland and West Hollywood. Then, my new friend said this to me:

“There’s another colored gal who has a horse up here…do you know her?”

Now, while I’m sure the gal was at the last meeting, I didn’t know who he was talking about and I told him so.

At first, I forgot my Oreoness and was a little put off by having been called colored. But then, my Oreo senses kicked in and I decided to chart it out and see how I should feel…

CON: Even with the jodhpurs and tightly-pinned bun, he still noticed I was black.

PRO: Though he noticed I was black, he still talked freely to me, suggesting that he didn’t think I was angry RBP.

CON: He made the small circle of people around us uncomfortable, as they all did quick side glances at me to see how I would react.

PRO: My Oreo-sense allowed me to put everyone else at ease by responding sweetly and without malice to his thoughtful inquiry.

CON: Getting away with saying it once made him say it again and more when he added: “Oh yeah, and there’s this other colored fellow who owns a couple of horses down the way. I mean, I think he’s a black guy, he’s really, you know, dark like you are.” Equal amounts of uncomfyness followed.

PRO: Each time he said an adjective that described the hue of my skin, it made my back stiffen straighter and straighter–which made my my posture much better for my next riding lesson.

Antiquated terms, FTW!

His questions also made it clear that there are other Oreos nearby…if any of you are reading this, let me know you’re out there and we’ll grab a scone or something.

What’s the most uncomfortable thing someone’s asked you in public? How did you respond? Let us know in the comments!

Looking For a New Name

It’s been called to my attention that some people find the phrase “RBP” (that’s ‘regular black people’ for anyone new to the blog) offensive. Ironically, many of the RBP who find RBP offensive don’t mind using the n-word in casual conversation.

But anyhoo.

Just like affirmative action and Title IX, I’m of the equal opportunity ilk and I’d like to find a phrase that carries the same punch, but stings less. I’ve listed some suggestions below. Please vote on them to let me know what works.

What do you think? Any other suggestions to add?

You can also share your opinion with other polls!

Other names for the Oreo

Government programs and their level of socialism

The Black-and-Whites chasing a Black and White

Thanks to the folks at Sociological Images for posting a great story that made all my little Oreo hair stand up in their chemically relaxed folicles.

You can read the whole story here. But here’s the gist.

Two 7-year-old boys took their family’s cars without permission and led police on a chase. One kid is white. The other is an RBP. The videos below show how differently these kids were treated by the media.

The white boy, Preston, is interviewed with his family on the set of the Today show.  Knowing his kid is safe, his Dad describes the event as “funny” and tells the audience that if this could happen to a “cotton candy all-American kid like Preston,” then “it could happen to anybody.”

This story contrasts dramatically to the CNN story about Latarian Milton, a black 7-year-old who took his family’s car on a joy ride.  I’ll put the video first, but be forewarned, it’s disturbing not only because of the different frame placed on the boys actions, but because of the boy’s embracing of the spoiled identity:

With an absolutely polar introduction of “Not your typical 7-year-old,” this story is filmed on the street. Whereas the Today show screened the chase footage in real time, this one is sped up, making it seem even more extreme.

The non-color kid got a fluff piece on The Today Show and everyone laughed at his little mistake. The police held no grudge and everyone’s fine in the end.

The police who dealt with the RBP kid said that they do “want to get him into the system.”

Obviously, I was upset.

Had this kid just put on an Oreo game face, he could have totally booked the Today show! Imagine how much more fun his story would have been if he had worn a collard shirt and not used the word “hoodrat” or been named “Latarian.”

*OreoWriter rushes off to begin Oreo outreach program*

Interestingly enough, CNN did Oreos a favor by showing us that kids still prefer white dolls/kids to black ones…and then I suppose, the story on the car thief was the answer as to why they do.

Former ‘Black’ Sport Now Oreo Haven

There was a time when the lauded black athlete was skinny, short, jaunty and not nearly as scary as a basketball player with a grip of guns in a locker room. There was a time when the worst a blacklete could do to you was kick you in the shins and not kill you then make a terrifying reality show post acquittal. When the abused animals in their care weighed 1500 racing pounds instead of 80 fighting ones.

I’m talking about black jockeys.

Between about 1865 and 1900, of color riders dominated the sport. Going to see a race was like watching the NBA finals and black jockeys set impressive records.

Luckily, their legacy was preserved and distilled into a piece of sculpture that you can still sometimes find today. The lawn jockey.

While many lawn jockeys are now painted white, the history of the statue remains in tact.

This makes equestrian events a perfect choice for Oreos. Not only are few to no black riders of note on the circuit, but putting that jaunty outfit will give you the perfect chance to make an on-color joke and assuage the minds of those around you. Because if you can’t laugh at history, what can you do with it?

Looking for other jobs that are good for Oreos? How about shilling for classic American institutions!

See how The Oreo Experience responds to other animals.

or

Check out how horses can help you hook up with an Oreo.