Archives for the month of: February, 2025

The Best Thing About the Super Bowl

February 18, 2025 //
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Is that even though there are a sh*t ton of Black people on the field playing every year, including BOTH quarterbacks (don’t worry! That is NOT the fact. That fact was 2 years ago, I wrote about that already, AND it was the same damn quarterbacks!), I can always find a new fact.

I didn’t watch the game because instead I was driving to the Bay Area to meet a new friend.

My team ain’t make it, so I really didn’t have a dog in this fight because technically I’m rooting for everybody black, but realistically, I’m rooting for the QB whose family does not support #47 because WTAF are you even doing?

And please miss me with everything doesn’t need to be political because it may not need to be, but it is! Especially THIS Super Bowl under THIS “president” (who does not like Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and uses the acronym DEI to mean Black people that he does not want to have D, E, OR I). Like, the Superdome even replaced “End Racism” from the end zones with a more “neutral” CHOOSE LOVE and I don’t know how these are different (yes I do. But WTF do it matter if they’re not choosing love either), but who are ME? I’m just a Black woman living in america (still does not deserve to be capitalized, in case you were wondering. That is not a typo).

THEN Pulitzer prize winner/FIRST solo rap artist to headline the Super Bowl halftime show, Kendrick Lamar and Uncle Sam(uel Jackson) came out and made political statement after political statement, then added a little razzle dazzle to another political statement by combining it with a diss* [Fun fact: “A MINOR” is both a child and a musical chord on the piano. The musical chord is all white keys] I’m only here to talk about Black History, BUT I’d like to point out that while Aubrey is, in fact, not like us – HE. SAID. THEY. He also said THEY like to sue, and I have a sneaky suspicion that again, YES, while Aubrey IS suing his label, there is a certain subset of the population who is infinitely more litigious and more likely to act fool when THEY don’t get their way, and it’s not Black people.

Anyway. While all of these are black history facts, these are not THEE Black History fact. Neither is the fact that Jalen Hurts management team is all women (they’re not all black, but 3/5ths of them are so does that make them… you know what? NEVERMIND. That’s a completely different Black History Fact.

This is a Super Bowl BHFOTD, so instead of talking about women who did NOT win a Super Bowl ring, we can talk a woman that did. No! That’s also not a typo. That’s me getting to the point of this long-ass-email (still working harder than my work filters!)

Assistant Sports Performance Coach Autumn Lockwood, who originally hails from Morgantown, W.Va** represented her home state better than they represent her as she became the first-ever black woman to win a Super Bowl ring.

Lockwood, started her athletic career as a soccer player. At University, she became a multi-time All-State selection and was named Co-Defender of the Year for the state of West Virginia in 2012 — the Hawks also captured a pair of Class AAA State Championships in girls’ soccer during her time with the program.

She followed her father to Arizona in 2012, playing soccer for the Wildcats for multiple seasons. After obtaining her undergraduate degree in Tucson and then grabbing a master’s degree at East Tennessee State, Lockwood earned multiple different jobs at the Division 1 level in numerous strength and conditioning roles.

She earned an NFL opportunity with the Atlanta Falcons after completing the Bill Walsh Diversity (there’s that pesky diversity where they wouldn’t need it if they had just been INCLUDING [black] women in the first place!) Coaching Fellowship in 2019. She interned in Atlanta while still working in collegiate sports and accepted an opportunity with the Eagles that arose while she was working with the University of Houston.

The move paid off because Autum has been on staff with the Eagles since 2022, holding multiple titles inside the organization’s strength and conditioning department. Now Lockwood has etched her name in history, forever to be acknowledged as a trailblazer amongst black women both inside her field and across the globe. It goes to show that Country Roads do indeed take you “to the place where you belong” — even if it’s not always inside these rivers and lakes that she’s used to hollers and hills.

*  Can you imagine an ENTIRE FOOTBALL STADIUM of people calling you a pdf file (sound it out, olds. Ain’t that what the kids say to avoid getting reported on social media?) since you threatened to sue if the artist did it? I don’t think that’s what he meant when he said, you better not say it.

** I woulda found this fact on my own, but I didn’t have to because , my BFF, who is ALSO a W.Va native was ready with this one while I was playing kissy face with a new baby. Additionally, I love when my facts are dropped in my lap. Because I’m lazy.

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A belated birthday!

February 12, 2025 //
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So! My oldest child (The Boy!) got married last year. He TOLD me he was eloping (like father, like son?) but I LOOKED UP the definition of eloping and the definition says: run away SECRETLY in order to get married, especially without parental consent. And first of all, he’s a grown ass man, even if I do call him “The Boy” and second of all, he didn’t NEED my consent and 17th of all, I love her and The Boy loves her so why wouldn’t I be happy for them?

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY, he called me up to tell me that he was gonna get hitched AND made me guess the date. And lemme just say, that’s significantly harder to do when you have zero context! Is it the day you guys met? Is it between your birthdays? Is it an anniversary?

Him: Those are good guesses, mom! But no. To all of them.

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GUESS?!

BUT I DID GUESS because I’m VERY good, but also he is VERY ridiculous and I’m not going to tell you, but I’ll give you a hint because it DOES have to do with today’s late birthday BHFOTD which is gonna be short and sweet because today’s belated birthday is about NOLA native (this is always important when yesterday the biggest sportsball game of the year was played in your hometown. YES this is me saying imma get around to a super bowl fact but it ain’t happening today, BUT ALSO it looks like the Louisiana – California pipeline works both ways ‘cause the halftime show was put on by a Cali native in NOLA) famous left-handed guitarist, songwriter and former member of The Watts 103 Rhythm Street Band AND Earth, Wind & Fire ( ß here it is you guys! There’s your hint*) with whom he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of fame, leader of the Al McKay All Stars band,  Albert (Al) Phillip McKay who was born on February 2, 1948.

McKay is listed in Spin in their list of the 30 most famous left-handed guitarists of all time, and he’s listed in Guitar Player at 25 on their list of the 50 greatest rhythm guitarists of all time.

This fact is brought to you by The Boy, MY favorite left-handed guitarist, who called me on February 2nd to tell me this birthday BHFOTD instead of “Hi mom, we finally had your grandbaby!” who, at this time, was already late, exactly like this fact. [Hey y’all, I’m a gigi! They finally evicted my grandson on Saturday!]

So happy birthday to that man! And my new little friend [sorry, guys. no pics until I get permission. But he is a perfect baby. No notes.]

*did you need another hint? September, by EWF was based on a music sequence developed by birthday boy, Al McKay. I promise you that I didn’t know that fact when I started writing.

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Me and Spank finally finished watching Vanderpump Rules

February 6, 2025 //
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Or at least. We finally got to Scandoval. Don’t worry. It’s unimportant, complete fluff TV, but we were determined to find out what everybody was in an uproar about.

Usually when I’m watching random TV with Spank, I’m watching reality TV. But for some reason, she chose Josie and the Pussycats [Hey! Did you know that Valerie was the 1st regularly appearing female Black character in a Saturday morning cartoon show? Now you do!]

While I was doing very light research (y’all know I continue to fly by the seat of my pants. Ish. I will sometimes write down inspiration although, how do I even know it’s gonna be inspiration because even I don’t always know where my stories are going when I start them lol), I found out this show is older than me by a couple of years! I remember watching it as a little girl and loving it, but obviously I don’t remember details because WHY does Josie’s boyfriend Alan look like Fred from Scooby Doo? And is that…Shaggy (it wasn’t him! Or at least it wasn’t until it was. There are crossover episodes because both groups were Hannah Barbera characters)? What is going on?!

I was talking to a fellow old about it and he said especially back in the day, cartoonists would recycle characters. So the characters would be generally identical in appearance, with only small cosmetic changes, like hair color etc. Like, Josie and the Pussycats’ manager Alex was just a dark haired Josie’s boyfriend.

Me: That makes sense. Because Valerie looks exactly like Josie. Just, black.

Anyway. This year has been a LOT for all sorts of reasons that are not in the news (and the ones that have been in the news? JFC), and I needed a pick me up, so I decided to watch Barbie. Because I love it. It’s the girliest girl movie that ever girled. It’s PINK! Every girl is a Barbie! And every Barbie is DIFFERENT. AND DO YOU SEE WHERE THIS IS GOING? Because now I want to know: When did Mattel create a Black Barbie?

WELL. In 1968, Christie, Barbie’s best friend, arrived on shelves, and she is widely regarded as the company’s first original Black doll. AND they released a black version of Francie, Barbie’s cousin. But Francie and Christie merely cemented the idea that they were the sidekicks to the white and blonde Barbie. “This provoked the question that if Barbie is the ideal and the norm, what about the people who don’t look like that and who can’t dream and imagine themselves as Barbie?” At the time it felt very progressive to give Barbie a sassy Black friend. But when you speak to the people who wanted a Black Barbie at the time, all they got was a friend of Barbie.

It was these concerns that led to the founding of Shindana Toys in South Central Los Angeles. As one of the first toy companies to create and market Black dolls that looked like Black people, not just dolls that had been painted black instead of white, its goal was to improve representation in dolls and the self-image of Black children. In 1968, Shindana released Baby Nancy, a doll that became hugely popular in Los Angeles and was eventually sold across the country. Baby Nancy’s success only highlighted what Mattel was missing.

Mattel had debuted Barbie’s Dreamhouse and car in 1962. The accessories allowed the imaginations of those playing with the dolls to expand even further. You can drive Barbie to places and put her in her own home, all of which just allowed kids to think even more about where and who they could be (yannow. As long as they were white).

Kitty Black Perkins, who arrived at Mattel in 1976 and then became principal designer for Barbie in 1978, headed the push to diversify the doll line. Having never owned a Barbie doll until she bought one to prepare for her interview with Mattel, Perkins knew of the negative impact that the toy industry’s lack of representation had on children. She explains, “There was a need for the little Black girl to really have something she could play with that looked like her. I wanted her to reflect the total look of a Black woman.” When the first official Black Barbie doll was finally released by Mattel in 1980, her box read, “She’s Black! She’s beautiful! She’s dynamite!” She was specifically a Black Barbie, unlike the other Black dolls from the company that either had a different name or the same design as Barbie just with a darker skin tone.

Over the decades, Mattel took steps to ensure that Barbie would be “the most diverse doll line on the market,” according to a statement from the company. Dolls and toys have finally started to mirror “the diverse human experience.” But there is still progress to be made in helping young people see themselves in the toys that they play with, in any color AND any size (Barbie also comes in petite, “curvy”, tall and the original, Basic Barbie™)

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I’m never paying attention when I should be

February 4, 2025 //
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I have so many stories of being places I shouldn’t be because I was just not paying attention.

I’ve ended up in VIP sections (this one, I blame security for because they shoulda been asking themselves what random black women were doing in the VIP section with rock stars, but MY GUESS is that they decided if we were back there, we probably belonged there because WHY ELSE WOULD WE BE THERE? The answer is we were lost!)

I ended up in the Tenderloin and honestly “There but for the Grace of God go I”, because I stepped over people shooting up on the sidewalk and hid between two cars waiting for my rideshare that told me to walk there and wait for a car to pick me up and I am STILL mad about that because the fucking rideshare shoulda known that I was NOT LOCAL since it had all my damn information and honestly WHAT THE FUCK.

Of these two stories, the first one where I wasn’t worried I was gonna get murdered is my favorite.

BUT I have another one to add: the kind where I find a random Black History fact!

For the end of my birth month last year I went to New Orleans. Because I went for a quick day trip when I went on a cruise a few years ago, and I promised myself that I’d come back and spend some real time exploring the city. If you don’t know me, that means walking. I walked ALL over the French Quarter, and the Garden District. Got off the trolley somewhere in between just because I saw a band playing and when I’m on vacation I will absolutely let my curiosity lead.

I also met up with one of my internet pals because of course I did. We went to one of her local watering holes where I definitely drank too much (it was Halloween and still my birth month) and had so many regerts the next day. But the one thing I do NOT regret is going to one of the places that she recommended for breakfast. I went to the Buttermilk Drop Bakery! No this is not an ad, I’m just greedy and I wanna put y’all on.

Breakfast rice, bacon and a biscuit so good I’d slap a Georgia white woman. TWICE. [this may be a terrible photo but when I tell you this breffis was fie?!]

Anyway. We’d walked every place that we’d been eating this whole trip, but I didn’t know where this was, and it LOOKED too far to walk. So I decided we could rideshare there and if was close enough, we could just walk back after breakfast. But what had happened was as we were driving farther away from the French Quarter, I realized that we were much farther than I thought we were, and we were not going to be able to walk back because where even WERE we? My sissie: WTH were you doing in the 6th ward?! The answer was being greedy, tbh.

But the other answer was I was standing on Black History guys! Welcome to the first fact of Black History Month about the Oldest African American neighborhood in America. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, free persons of color and eventually enslaved Africans who obtained, bought or bargained for their freedom were able to acquire and own property in Tremé. The ability to acquire, purchase and own real property during an era when America was still immersed in slavery was remarkable and only in New Orleans did this occur with any regularity and consistency.

The Tremé neighborhood began as the Morand Plantation and two forts—St. Ferdinand and St. John. Near the end of the 18th century, Claude Tremé purchased the land from the original plantation owner. By 1794 the Carondelet Canal was built from the French Quarter to Bayou St. John, splitting the land. Developers began building subdivisions throughout the area to house a diverse population that included Caucasians and free persons of color. Tremé abuts the north, or lake, side of the French Quarter, away from the Mississippi River—”back of town” as earlier generations of New Orleanians used to say. Its traditional borders were Rampart Street on the south, Canal Street on the west, Esplanade Avenue on the east, and Broad Street on the north. Claiborne Avenue is a primary thoroughfare through the neighborhood. At the end of the 19th century, the Storyville red-light district was carved out of the upper part of Tremé; in the 1940s this was torn down and made into a public housing project. This area is no longer considered part of the neighborhood. The “town square” of Tremé was Congo Square—originally known as “Place des Nègres”—where the enslaved gathered on Sundays to dance. This tradition flourished until the United States took control, and officials grew more anxious about unsupervised gatherings of slaves in the years before the Civil War. [Hey did you know that there was a Jim Crow law that stated it was illegal for Black people to gather in groups of more than 5? That law no longer exists, but lemme just say that when you’re black, you’re never really lonely, because there will always be a white person. all up in your business. ]

The square was also an important place of business for slaves, enabling some to purchase their freedom from selling crafts and goods there. For much of the rest of the 19th century, the square was an open-air market. “Creoles of color” brass and symphonic bands gave concerts, providing the foundation for a more improvisational style that would come to be known as “Jazz”. At the end of the 19th century, the city officially renamed the square “Beauregard Square” after the French Créole Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard, but the neighborhood people seldom used that name. Late in the 20th century, the city restored the traditional name of “Congo Square”.

In the early 1960s, in an urban renewal project later considered a mistake (that probably happened on purpose) by most analysts, a large portion of central Tremé was torn down. The land stood vacant for some time, then in the 1970s the city created Louis Armstrong Park in the area and named Congo Square within Armstrong Park. In 1994, the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park was established here.

The neighborhood is viewed by many as ground zero for New Orleans culture. It’s the site of many major events that have shaped the course of Black America in the past two centuries. Filled with incredible history in terms of culture, music, and more, Tremé is arguably the most significant neighborhood in the whole city.

:::closes up all the websites I popped open to give y’all this information:::

Also. The buttermilk bakery is not a sit down restaurant and I didn’t know that until I got there, so I had to once again stand awkwardly on a corner while I waited for my rideshare to come pick me and my friend up and this is really why people don’t like to let me roam around the country without supervision. Yes, I know I said I was with a friend but that changes nothing because she also just stood there when I opened the door for a grown ass man, and said “get on in here, princess” so I’m not sure she counts as supervision.

ANYWAY.

Happy Monday! Happy February! Happy Black History Month! Please know that I’m keeping this month aggressively Black because every time somebody shares a Black History fact, a Black girl’s edges lay a little smoother.

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