"The Quiet," A Poetry Post

Ourselves
against
ourselves
is
the
quiet
genocide.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Where We Lost Them," How Sisters Lost the Black Man's Love and Respect

"Deep Love" by Kolongi Brathwaite

"The Black Feminine Dilemma" addresses the difficulties successful Black women experience when trying to begin relationships with beautiful (but perhaps offended) Black men. Well, there is another side to this issue... which a few brothas have been wonderful to point out.

Not all of us sistas have been good to them. And perhaps, those of us who have been good might not have been good all along. Still more of us don't understand what "Good-to-a-brotha" or "Bad-to-a-brotha" entails.

There are places where we lost them... their attention, their respect, their love... and it is terribly necessary that we address those checkpoints if we can hope to rebuild the Black family again.

The Place of Total Dependency
While men enjoy feeling important and needed in relationships with us, they don't want to be made gods in our lives. They don't want to be responsible for purchasing nuanced items--like feminine products and toothpaste--for their girlfriends; some requests aren't valid until wife status! They don't want to become our only source of friendship because they are not our female peers. They don't want to plan all of our experiences, all of our excitements, all of our dreams. They don't want us to be entirely dependent upon what they do or do not do.

For sure, that brotha feels proud when he is asked to lift, to move, to fix, to improve anything, but... he does NOT want to be asked to lift, move, fix and improve EVERY THING. There is a balance to be struck. The moment a sista turns her man into her personal butler, her personal piggy bank, her on-call counselor, she has likely begun building a new exit for that man to use out of her life.

The Place of Infidelity
Women cheat. We do. We make and take booty calls (like men do). We creep away to covert locations (like men do). We make commitments to men who are head over heels in love, and we--intentionally--target other brothas who are willing to be temporaries to fill in the gaps (like men do). We are not innocent here. We have got to realize that in the process of living out these fantasies, what some of us might call "Being a Boss Chick," we breed distaste in the lives of two, three, four, five, fifty brothers. Why do I say that?

The brotha that you play is gonna tell it to at least one more because--we know this--they talk a lot amongst each other (like women do). Break one heart, and his whole crew has to suffer the awkwardness of rebuilding a dude who put his all out there for you to enjoy. The bitterness takes root and grows up in the group. The story gets retold and retold. And guess what happens? A whole team... maybe even that team's following generation... writes us off in one fell swoop.

They decide, "I'll never be played again."

The Place of Abuse
I'm not talking about physical abuse, though that sometimes occurs and some of us want a pass for it.

No honey. You don't get a pass for punching a brother up and crying out, "I'm a lady and you can't hit me back."

I'm talking about women who willfully manipulate good men into wasting or tabling their intellect, their social prowess, their finances, their vocations, their drives. Women who enjoy and exhaust all of the energy in a relationship and then refuse to let a brotha go when the courtship has obviously ended. Women who threaten to expose brothas' weaknesses when things don't go their way. Women who systematically war against brothas being brothas: wanting to watch the game, wanting to watch The Godfather on repeat, wanting to find out what rappers are wearing and driving (whether or not they ever intend to wear or drive any of it). It is abusive to ask a man not to be a man!

This does not mean that we ought to lower expectations such that the brothas can be primitive man, running about the world grabbing up any sista by the hair and just dragging her into a spot for some bang and a good day. It means that there are things that men enjoy, introvert or extrovert, young or old, that they must be allowed to do! They are good things. They are clean things. They are sometimes outstanding things. To ask him not to be and do those things is abusive and criminal.

The Place of Entrapment
Now, there are a lot of ways we can look at this, and I need to be candid about them.

Babies are gifts to the world. They are innocent and pure and totally unaware of what it means to be alive... clueless and totally dependent on their parents. They are beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Some people would take the issue of premarital pregnancy and use it to argue for the woman's right to abort, but this particular conversation has nothing to do with what happens after conception. This has to do with what happens before.

Sistas, you know what is required to raise a child. You know the sacrifices that must be made. Why would you allow a brotha in his moment of passion--if you're going to let him borrow you in his moment of passion and you don't belong to him permanently--why would you let him borrow you in such a way that both of you might end up trapped in a relationship in which neither of you intended to commit? Unprotected, pre-marital sex can't be more than one person's intention to trap the other.

We all know the consequences of unprotected sex, and not-a-one of them ends with lasting, win-win pleasure. If you're still doing it that way, you setting up for the cage to drop and neither one of you will escape. Watch out for a brotha that asks you to "go raw" that doesn't belong to you. That brotha has a problem.

And then, there are some of us who take on men who are totally dependent upon us. This too is a trap. The brotha in his defeated state is a ticking time bomb. He will allow himself to be mothered by you, to be your personal slave, to be subservient to your financial lordship for a time... but after that time, both of your lives are going to atomic-bomb-style explode with anger and hysteria. That you have trapped him by becoming his surrogate mother is a huge mistake. You are still going to lose him the moment he grows up.

The Place of Least Resistance
Finally, sista, don't be mad. The old women used to say, "He ain't gone buy the cow if he can get the milk for free." You might hate that I used that, but the brothas tend to agree... it pretty much applies. The "milk" doesn't have to be the body either. In general, brothas need to see and know that we have standards. Without that, they don't trust us!

It seems contradictory, I know! The word on the street is, "All they want is one thing, and if you don't give it to them, they'll leave you." Perhaps a few will... but if you keep giving it up to the street on every third date, I guarantee you that nobody will keep you. See above. Men talk. If it used to be you and you changed your life, you get our solidarity... but if you are still kicking it by easily giving up the goods, you are asking to be left by the wayside.

These are just some of the ways that we have lost the men that we love, but I want to invite them--the brothas--to further explain to us where we have gone wrong in the equation. If there is any hope to restore the fabled Black love that we once held so dear to us, it rests--surely--on our ability to discuss these issues openly.

Love to You All,


-T. D. James-Moss

"Techno," A Memory

My God...
You got to
walk up
three flights of
stairs
to
start dancing.

Yeah.
We almost there.

Ain't
nobody
in here.

You know
college kids.
They ain't even
out yet.

They ain't 
coming out
until 
we leave
basically.

What the Hell...
Why is the music
doing that?

It's techno...
It ramps up 
like that.

Ooh...
That's making my
heart race...

That's how they 
like it.

It feels like I'm
going to Hell in here...
why is it smoky?

American people
dance to some
dumb stuff.

What you even
supposed to
do to this?

I feel like
I should be
turning around
screaming.

Laughter.

Sometimes,
that's what they
do.

This how you dance to it...
like how they do it on TV...
Just jump up and down and say
Aaaauuugh!!!!!

Laughter.

It's coming around again.

That's how it does.
It goes way up and
then the beat drops and the
music comes back.

Alright...
here we go... it's coming up.

This how you supposed to do it...
1-2-3-4...
Aaaauuugh!!!!!
Whoooooo!!!!

Laughter.

This is ridiculous.

Alright,
after this song
that's enough of 
this floor. 

I swear...
in this country
people will
dance
to anything.

Let's go
back to the
salsa floor.

-T. D. James-Moss

"The Black Feminine Dilemma," An Olive Branch to the Brothers

The game has changed. It used to be that when grandma called you into the kitchen to talk about women's things, it was to make sure you knew how to cook the family's best "way-to-a-man's-heart" recipes. Now when grandma calls, it's to say this:

"Get a good education, get out of this town, get a good job, and once you get yourself settled you can buy or borrow any man you want."

What happened between conversations A and B that changed the Black feminine narrative so significantly? Was it, as people regularly conjecture in Black "love, sex and relationships" blogs, the result of a social movement to empower women as a whole? Was it the revolutionary way that depictions of Black women have changed in the entertainment industry? Was it the total deterioration of the myth of the Black Superman in the modern world?

It was none of those things. In truth, the Black woman evolved--she became something different--when the Black fairy tale ended.

A Perceived Lack of Interest
Damon Young, Very Smart Brothas Editor-in-Chief, explains that the brothas have ceased trying to begin relationships with women before they "have their sh*t together," and we can respect that. We, your sistas, know the narrative about the slack Black man, and we know you want to prove that you are not that guy. At the same time, this means that you are not speaking love to us at all. You are doing excellently, building your dream life, padding your bank account and working overtime to prepare yourself to be the perfect man for the perfect woman, but you have forgotten what the elders taught us. It takes a lifetime to build a dream.

By the time you finish padding that nest, you'll be forty... fifty... maybe sixty, and this is not a Snow White situation. We could not lay around waiting while you became a magnate, so we learned how to make moves of our own to create our own stories: stories of personal power, of wealth, of self-sufficiency. How could we not have done that? It appeared to us (as it does now) that you would never come, and when you did get ready to saddle up that horse and ride off looking for your princess, we would be forty... fifty... sixty... and you would expect us to be, look and behave like we're in our twenties.

Because you, seemingly, weren't interested, we just decided to be more interested in ourselves and introduce you to "the perfected her" as we saw fit, on our terms. Turns out, you don't like her so well.

A Change in the Black Female's Status... in Your Eyes
For centuries it was "us" against "them," whoever they were. There was some social travesty that thrust us together in warfare against outsiders: enslavement, racism, wage-ism, you name it. When we fought together, against "them," it was a ride-or-die situation. We had to be "we" to survive.

The game has changed. While there are still faint heart beats of these social wars raging in our current world, most of the battles have been fought and won. The remaining struggles are turning in our favor. There are now no "theys" to contend with. There is just "us." But... there is no "us."

The Black woman, to Black men, is now the butt of a deep, secret joke among the brothas. Where being strong, forward, loud, impressive and (dare I say) thick were assets in the fight against injustice, they are now mocked as uncultured, wild, embarrassing and inconvenient. The argument can be made that among other cultures, the black woman has always been deemed exotic using these same negative adjectives, but it's not "them" anymore.

It appears that you, our own brotha, can only see us as the Hottentot Venus, an object of sexuality and fertility to be ogled and jeered at, but not kept, cherished or loved for any period of time. The entire music of a generation--the current generation--is being built upon this premise, that the Black woman is only good for you if she strips, if she's into three-ways, if she's a trap queen, if she's willing to hide your secrets and use her energies to... well... be uncultured, wild, embarrassing and inconvenient.

A Realignment of the Race
I'm not talking about skin color or ethnicity either. Remember grandma? You should probably know that she is also saying this:

"The Black woman is last. It's the white man, then the white woman, then the black man, then you. If you want to be somebody, you can't just work hard. You got to work the hardest. You can't just run this race. You got to be the fastest to be first."

She's not saying, "Be fast enough to run next to your man." She's saying, "Be first." While we recognize that this sometimes puts our men in an awkward position, we have learned to enjoy the splendor of standing on the top block and having the proverbial gold medal placed around our own necks. I recognize that this is a huge turn for our brothas, who may have been taught--again by the elders--that a Black woman is empowered to push you until you achieve that coveted win. We are! We are! Yet, you must remember what happened when suddenly (for reasons we understand) you weren't there.

Now, when you encounter the woman who is equipped to thrust you into your shining moment, she is as bright as the sun herself. She works full time. She goes to school at night. She manages community events. She has her own properties and investments. She has a full calendar. Her phone rings non-stop. She is a boss in her own right. She is ahead. In some cases, she is way, way ahead, and she is busy trying to keep up her own pace.

The Dilemma
The dilemma is, despite these changes in how we handle our dreams, your interests and your perceptions of us, we still want you to want us. For sure, when you encounter your sista now you are looking at something bordering on alien. There is this blend of gender roles that might be overwhelming--hurricane-style overwhelming--and we cannot help that this is the end result of having to do things differently for a long time. Yet, we want you to walk up and introduce yourself. We want you to ask for our numbers. We want you to ask us out for coffee. We want you to send us flowers. We still want your love.

We can still cook grandma's "keep-your-man" dinner, but we might not be able to do that every night. We can still disappear behind the scenes sometimes to develop and support your vision in private, but we also have to live very public, very professional lives. We can still raise your children, but we cannot change all the diapers, do all the play dates, handle all the doctors' visits. We probably cannot do stay-at-home. We are runners now, and we want you to be proud of that.

If we are better runners than you, we want you to see that as an asset since we are still willing... after all these years... to unveil to you the secrets of how we got there. We can still hide behind you, by choice, when appropriate, and we still desperately need your embrace, your words of strength and your approval.

Here is our olive branch to you. If the sistas offended you by becoming what we felt we had to in order to enjoy life, I can assure you that was not our intention. You should know that we thought you weren't interested any way. We need to change the conversation regarding how we see each other in the modern age. We need to rewrite the Black fairy tale in such a way that you are a winner again, a winner with a co-winner. We need to make falling in love with each other okay again.

-T. D. James-Moss

"A Dance Lesson," A Poetry Post

Okay then.
When do you
take your
next lesson?

Let me 
get out my
calendar.

Let's get you
back
soon.

What
is your
work schedule?

Unh.

Unh?
Okay.
What time
do you
get off?

If I
leave 
at 4,
I can be here 
and ready
by 5.

Okay. Good!
We are open
until 9.

Last lesson,
8-9.

Ooh...that's late.

No.
No,
that is
still
early.

Okay.

So,
why not
Monday
at 7?

7
is 
late
for a 
Monday.

No, no.
7
is
still
early
for a
Monday.

Why not
then
I
put you
in
for
5 on
Monday,
but
you come
to the
dance parties
on Tuesdays.

Ok... What time
do those
start now?

They
start at
7.

That is
early
for
us,
yes?

Laughter.

Yes,
so you will
do
private lessons
at 5,
but you will
dance
with the
group
at 7.

You must
come and
practice.

You must
meet people.

This social part...
This is important.

So,
these are the plan.

You must
try to
make it.

I will make it.

It's good,
because
7 is early,
isn't it?

Laughter.

-T. D. James-Moss

"The Judgement," A Poetry Post

Has the
Black man
left his
woman?

After
centuries
of
being
crowned
king
in the
face of
crippling
colonialism,
riotous
racism and
belittlement...

After
your
woman
has
crowned
you
king...

Have
you
replaced
her
with
your
overtime,
your
sports,
your
dating
app,
your
personal
raw
passions?

Have
you
labeled
her
unworthy
of
the
glory
she
bestowed
upon
you?

Have
you
traded
our
love...

the
rubbing
in
of
our
essential
oils...

the
fantastic
story
of
our
intimacy...

the
deep
in
the
earth's
crust
abiding
we
had...

for
foreplay-less
after breakfast
booty calls with
strange
women
you
met
via
text?

This
is
the
judgement.

When
you
sit
down
at
the
bar
with
your
boys
to
talk
about
how hard,
how loud,
how rough,
how burnt up
we are,
remember
where you were
when
we
found
you...

You
had
a
whole
world
then,
and
we
were
still
missing.

You
were
the
master
of
this
jungle,
and
we
were
still
missing.

You
were
rightful
co-owner
of
everything,
and
we
were
still
missing.

Now,
throw
us
off
like
a
bloody
lion's
hide
from
your
shoulders.

You
will
smack
the
ground
shortly
thereafter.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Widows' Wonders," A Young Widow's Post

A widow wonders.

Did I work too much?
Did I worry too much?
Did I wander too much?

Did I love too little?
Did I smile too little?
Did I touch too little?

Did I have too many kids?
Did I have too few kids?
Did we really agree about kids?

Did I call too many times?
Did I call too few times?
Did we use our call time wisely?

Did I dance when I should have?
Did I cry when I should have?
Did I support when I should have?

Did I miss something?
Did I mistake something?
Did I resolve our misunderstandings?

Would he be pleased?
Would he be happy?
Would he be angry?

What would he do?
What would he say?
What would he think?

Should we have done that, or
Should we have changed this, or
Should we have planned this?

What if we had done it
differently?

What would be different
now?

What would be different
now?

What would be different
now?

-T. D. James-Moss

"The Talks," A Young Widow's Post

One of the things
I miss most
is the talks.

The "Did you sit down and
eat your
lunch today?"
talks.

The "What did you do?
Is it confidential?"
talks.

The "Do you wanna go out?
No, let's
stay here and chill."
talks.

The
"Don't forget to
take off your glasses
when you
go to sleep."
talks.

The
"You fell asleep
in your
glasses again."
talks.

The
"Please don't
burn the
breakfast sausage."
talks.

The
"Keep the gas
at the halfway mark
in the car!"
talks.

The
"We ain't eatin'
no more of this
nuts and seeds bread."
talks.

The
"You need to
leave that alone and
go to sleep."
talks.

The
"Just come here and
lay down beside me."
talks.

The
sitting up
worrying about
family stuff
talks.

The
remember when
we first met
talks.

The
apologies after
family fights
talks.

The
disagreements over
dinner vegetables
talks.

The good talks.
The bad talks.
The sweet and sad talks.

The talks...
One of the things I
miss most.

-T. D. James-Moss

"This Is Me Too," A Poetry Post

This is me,
suited up in a
tailored black
pants suit
and jet black
knee highs,
round-toed pumps and
transitional black
lenses in the sun.

This is me,
negotiating
grant funding
for community programs,
writing pages-long proposals,
conducting
collaborative sessions
over teleconference.

This is me
capped with straightened tresses or
bumped curls or
a pixie cut,
staring fiercely into
your soul with
piercing eyes
unflinching.

And this is me too,
in fitted black cotton jogging pants and
a white tank top,
black ballet flats and
no socks.

This is me
wearing a wide square frame
that sits on the bridge of my nose
and slides when I
hold my head down
too long.

This is me
negotiating
breakfast and
lunch and
dinner for
me and my son
around my
full-time
work schedule.

This is me
arguing life issues
with my teenager.

This is me,
loosing my flat twists and
rubbing de-tangler and
leave-in moisturizers and
Hot Six Oil
into my fight-the-power
afro,
spraying in
cool water from a
short green bottle
I got
from the
Chinese hair store.

It is senseless
to believe
you could
love the
all black everything
me
and
not love the
spread wide afro me.

It is senseless
to believe that
you could love the
strong-willed, engaging me and
not love the
weary, worn
exhausted me.

It is senseless
to believe that
you could love the
erect, high-heeled me and
not love the
flats me.

You cannot
have one
without
the other.

-T. D. James-Moss

"The House," A Memory

Rent's going up
next lease.

Again?

That's my whole raise,
again.

They can do that?
That's legal?

Whatever the computer says.

Whatever the computer says?

Whatever the area is worth. 
Rental market is good.
Prices are bad.

We'll never get out of this,
giving them our money,
every extra dollar we make.

We'd have to buy a house.

Then we should buy a house.
A man should own a house.

Baby, you know
owning a house 
is a lot and
we already
kinda strapped.

A family should know
at the end of the day
they have a home to come to.

What about the
medical bills?

Medical bills
would be easier to pay
if we owned a house.

What about the amenities, 
like the gym?

You could go to the gym
and pay for it
if we owned a house.

What about the 
movie theater?

You could
go to the movies
and pay for it
if we owned a house.

What about the pool?
You know our son
loves the pool!

You could go to the beach
or
we could travel
and
stay in your favorite hotels
with pools
if we owned a house.

What about the yard work?

We could hire a landscaper 
and pay him
if we owned a house. 

And for God's sake,
we have a teenager.

He should be
doing the yard.

I can show him that.

What if lenders
tell us
no?

What if we don't ask?
We'll never stop
giving these people
all the
extra.

We have to
buy a house.
I have to know
that you and our son
have a place
that nobody
can ask you
to leave.

Let's just look and see, okay?
Let's just look and see.
Let's just look and see, okay?

Okay.
We'll look and see. 

-T. D. James-Moss

"Everybody Fresh," A Young Widow's Post

When a good man leaves an
empty space
in a woman's heart,
everybody fresh.

That dude
who delivers the
FedEx packages?

Fresh.

That dude
who rings up
groceries
at the spot
downtown?

Fresh.

That dude
who reports
the week's
news highlights?

Fresh.

That dude
who mows lawns
for all the
elderly sisters?

Fresh.

That dude who
washes the cars that
come through the
service area?

Fresh.

That dude...
even that one.

He is fresh.

Or maybe,
maybe he always was,
but the man
I lost
held my gaze
so well.

-T. D. James-Moss

"Sewn," A Poetry Post

Oh my goodness,
I just love your hair.

How do you keep it like that?

You mean this style?
Girl,
this ain't even sewn in.

This is a weave 
on a cap
and I just
take it off
at night and
put it on a 
foam head.

My
black power
sunshine afro is
flat-twisted down and
sometimes,
I don't even 
gel down my
edges.

Then,
when I need a break from
decorum,
I take this thing off and
let my afro
kiss the sky.

I got a sister
on the islands that can
make you one
if you want.

-T. D. James-Moss