Real Talk Quote of The Day

"If you don't like the road you're walking, start paving another one." - Dolly Parton

Get Up, Get Out, Go, Do Something...Today!

I am a small town girl that grew up afraid of many things, including the fear of flying. Yes, the fear of flying was instilled in me at a very young age. Many of the older people in my life would say things like, "if the Lord wanted us to fly he would have given us wings" and "birds are the only animals that should fly." As I have grown up, I have realized that many of the things that I was afraid of as a child were because they were unknown. The people that were saying not to fly had not ever experienced flying first hand, but quickly would say not to do it. In my opinion, this is one thing that parents need to correct because fear is paralyzing.

Think about it for one moment. A majority of the prejudice that people have do not have anything to do with first hand experience. I will use myself and my fear of flying as an example. My fear of flying caused me to miss countless opportunities to travel for free when I was younger. It was not until I was in my late twenties when my job needed me to travel for business, that I boarded my first flight. No one on this earth could have told me that I was not going to die that day. I was certain that the plane would crash. Of course it didn't and neither have the many flights I have taken since then. We need to begin challenging ourselves to broaden our horizons. Opening our minds up to new people, places and things in order to break down the walls of prejudice is key to have peace in this world.

Overcoming my fear of flying began my love affair with traveling. My personal goal is to visit all 50 states and all of the Wonders of the World! To think that if I did not overcome that one fear, I would not have enjoyed spending time jet skiing in the Gulf of Mexico, walking on the beach and playing in the Atlantic Ocean. I have enjoyed some of the best fresh seafood in the world and know the best is yet to come. All of this because I overcame just one fear and opened my mind to new experiences. Just think what you could do by overcoming just one fear.  Get Up, Get Out, Go, Do Something...Today! (You can thank me later)

Real Talk Quote of The Day

"By going to the movies, and because of other things, too, going to college, making a wide variety of friends, moving around traveling, I became a lot more open-minded than the heritage I was born into might have suggested." - Roger Ebert

Real Talk Quote of The Day

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page." - Saint Augustine

Let's Go! My Trip to Ghana by Stephanie

On March 11, I boarded a plane and began what would become the most amazing and life changing experience of my life. At about 10:00am on March 12, that plane landed and I took my first steps onto the continent of Africa, yes, the motherland. I had arrived in the country of Ghana, in the city of Accra. I traveled with a group of my church members. We went for the purpose of doing a historical and cultural tour of the country and, along the way, do a little mission work. I was very excited about this trip even though I really did not know what to expect. I, like most of you, had this misperception of Africa that was based on what we see in today’s media. I was expecting to be hot and dusty and see a bunch of disease and poverty stricken people lying in the streets. Instead, I was pleasantly surprised by the lush greenery, beautiful coconut, palm nut, and plantain trees, sandy beaches, beautiful waters, and a sea of beautiful black skinned people. Everywhere we went there was a smiling face, greeting us with “Akwaaba”, which means welcome.

We experienced many African traditions, including traditional drumming and dancing and a naming ceremony where I found out that if I had been born in Ghana, my name would be Akua, which means female born on a Wednesday imbued with the qualities of service and general helpfulness. We ate traditional African meals consisting of chicken, goat, fish, different types of rice, fried plantains, and many different sauces to accompany the dishes. Even though these meal items can be found on American dinner tables on any given night, the spices used and the way the food is prepared make the taste very different from anything I am used to eating. One restaurant even had a sign saying “This ain’t no fast food. It could take up to 2 hours to get your food.” All their food is prepared fresh when ordered, no sitting under heat lamps for hours…

I guess I should get on to the life changing and amazing parts of the trip. There were three parts of the trip that really had a major impact on me. These all happened in the third city we visited, Elmina. Our group did a canopy walk in the rainforest. Unfortunately my asthma did not allow me to climb the 250 foot elevation to see the forest floor from a canopy bridge. But as I sat and waited on the rest of the group to finish their canopy walk, it began to rain. My initial thought was that it is not supposed to rain when you are on vacation. But in just a few seconds it hit me that I was sitting watching the rain fall in the rainforest in Africa, and I was instantly filled with awe at the beauty of it all. I actually had to restrain myself from running out to just stand in the rain. It was truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in nature.

On the drive from the city of Kumasi to the city of Elmina, we stopped to see what is known as Slave River. During the slave trade, captured slaves were chained together and forced to walk for months to reach the coast of Elmina where they were held in dungeons until ships came to bring them to the US. They were made to walk through wooded areas, no shoes, often no clothes. BY the time they made it here they were dirty and bloody at the very least. Keep in mind that if you had to urinate or defecate or if you were a woman with menses, you just had to go where you stood. Here at the Slave River, slaves were given their last bath before being put on the auction block. For years the waters of this river were red, blood stained from our tortured ancestors. Standing beside the river is a very large, lush, and thriving plot of bamboo. This bamboo grows on the place that the Portuguese used as a mass grave for Africans. If you were too weak to continue, or too old to continue, you were just thrown into the mass grave. If you gave birth to a baby, the baby would be thrown into the grave. There are no words to describe the feeling of standing on the banks of this river and being able to actually dip my hand into the waters where these ancestors had their last bath in their homeland.

While traveling to our hotel, The Coconut Groove Beach Resort, we passed this big beautiful white stone building sitting right on the water. Little did I know that the next day my opinion of this regal looking structure would be greatly diminished. Elmina Castle is the oldest structure on African soil built by any of the Europeans. As soon as you walk into this structure, you know that the beauty of the outside can never hide the hell that took place inside Elmina Dungeon. This place was built by the Portuguese, and used by both the Portuguese and the Dutch to facilitate their slave trade. The top floor was the Governor’s living quarters. Below this were the living quarters for the soldiers. The lower two levels were dungeons used to hold hundreds and hundreds of slaves until ships came to take them to America. The female dungeon was particularly difficult to see. As soon as you step into it, there is this smell that hits you so hard that it almost knocks you down. These women were forced to live crammed together in this tiny space, living in heat, urine, feces, menses, and death. And you can smell every ounce of it. You can feel the souls of those who were tortured and died here. Just outside these dungeons is a courtyard that is overlooked by a balcony 2 floors up. This balcony is where the Governor would stand and observe the female slaves and decide which one he wanted to rape. His chosen victim was then bathed and taken up a back stairwell to his bedroom. From the males dungeon, there is a door that my be 5 feet high that leads to the final holding space before being put onto a ship. The Door of No Return is in this space. This is the actual door that once you walk through it you never returned to your homeland and your family. By this time the slaves had been starved so they would loose weight and more could be piled into a ship. Standing in this dark, dusty, musty room, imagining the fear that my ancestors must have felt is something that I will never forget.

One of my fellow travelers said that on her first visit to Africa, she felt as if she had a hole in her filled in, a hole she did not even realize was there until it was filled. At first I did not understand. Now I do. I have always had a clear understanding that the story we have always heard about the slave trade was not a complete story. This trip allowed some of those inconsistencies and untruths to finally be cleared up. I believe I learned more about myself and my ancestors during this 10 day trip than I have in 33 years of living. This is an experience that I wish everyone could have at least once in their lifetime.

Real Talk Quote of The Day

"Never be in love with someone who left his girlfriend for you, 'cause he might do the same to you and leave you for someone else." - Martin Lawrence

Doing to Much!!!!

I couldn't help but to initiate this discussion about the whole interracial dating scene as it relates to the black man/white woman, and my personal opinions towards it. What triggered this discussion is that I happened to be scrolling through Facebook and read a post that a young Caucasian lady posted something that I considered to be very offensive, as well as untrue. Her post read "Why Do Most Black Men Want a White Woman?" I was floored by it. She even went as far as to say that it appears the black men will have 2 or 3 black"baby mommas....but want to love and marry a white woman." Now before I go even further, I would like to mention that she considers herself to be a female rapper. Having said that, I could go as far as to say that her comment would be equivalent to asking why do MOST white women try to be Black? I know that I am not up on that genre of music as well I should be, however, I don't recall ever seeing a white female rapper. Now I am intelligent enough to know that's not the case just like the MOST black men wanting a white women is not the case either. I felt that her post could be considered not only offensive to other black women but also very arrogant. I would go as far as saying that MOST black men would like to sleep with a white women due to the whole forbidden fruit thing that goes back to slavery and the stereotype of them being considered easy. A lot of the brothers that set out to date white women tend to be suffering from the Willi Lynch Syndrome and don't even realize it. After researching and and pondering over such statements, my mind sent me back to the guys that I know personally. The guys that tend to gravitate toward white women are often times the black men that are of lower socioeconomic status with little education and lack self love. One Gentlemen made the comment that black men tend to be with white women because she is more apt to allow them to do what they want without any accountability. Now, I do completely agree that the black female needs to tone down her attitude some and learn how to compromise more, but at the same time, often these women have had to be strong and maintain for the family since slavery. I feel that the black men that tend to make the remarks about dealing with drama when involved with a black women could be debated. I see white women everyday causing a lot of drama that is unnecessary, also going as far as sending them to jail. The black woman tends to be harder on the black man because she knows their flaws as well as their strengths, and only want them to be the kings that they are. If a black man wants to deal with a white woman versus a black woman because the white woman is considered more docile would indicate that these are a group weak brothers. I have noticed black men leave their queens to be with white women who are in and out of jail, not having custody of their children and yes trying to recreate themselves as being something that they are not, for example black. It is often displayed in their dialect. I don't think that the white woman truly feels superior on the inside. I think it's a tactic used to manipulate the black man to believe such things due to their own insecurities and jealousy towards the black woman. One thing I would like to mention if you really feel that most black men want most white women and this pleases you, then stop trying to emulate the black woman by tanning and injecting yourselves. Decades ago it was considered ugly to be "so dark" and to have full lips with the full hips with an onion on your back, now more and more of your Caucasian women are purchasing these things. As I stated earlier there is nothing wrong with interracial dating, but don't get so comfortable with thinking that the black woman is insignificant or invaluable to their men because we are not. Let's not forget that these same black men have black mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers and so on. That soul is present won't be replaced. So to the white ladies that happened to be blessed with a black man be grateful but don't allow yourselves to go as far as considering yourselves superior to the black woman. If you can't say anything else about a black woman, we are proud our culture and wouldn't even consider the possibility of changing our blackness which displays confidence, something that some white women are obviously lacking based on the comments and remarks you tend to make. It's okay though, I think it would be appropriate to say that the black women truly understand and are also flattered. Be Blessed.