Autumn House happenings: For Coloured Girls in 2010

So I watched "For Coloured girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf" I wasn't moved or inspired or overwhelmed. When the film finished I was angry and resentful that 30 years later as coloured girls that story is still our story. The same things occur and even in a higher proportion. How many people do we know that say " I only like light skinned guys" or "I only like light skinned girls". How many of you guys have seen your boy put his hands on his woman or his children and have told him he is wrong? Look at all the teenage pregnancies we see day to day it is like an epidemic. Last year I lost count of the amount of under-age girls on sex tapes I saw. This movie didn't show me anything I don't already see everyday. Women sleeping around under the guise of sexual liberation, when really all they are doing is becoming a sperm bucket for the next person lined up to take their worth and these women are content to just give it away for free. The dance teacher that got raped by someone she knows, not the big bad stranger she thought it would be, doesn't it go to show that bad things happen to good people. ( Didn't anyone already know this?) The husband who was not gay "just a man who liked to sleep with other men " ladies we know about men on the downlow. I didn't get it but maybe "Being coloured is a metaphysical dilemma that I have not conquered yet...." -A coloured girl

Autumn House happenings: A thought

You know whats really funny ALL the sexist, racist and oppressive crap that everyone finds hilarious, yet still society wants to know why everybody is so messed up. 

Autumn House happenings: I'm tired in my spirit.

I'm tired

not physically tired

spiritually tired

I'm tired of all these women who dont want to fight for themselves,

I'm tired of being upset on their behalf when man of all races and hues regale me with tales

of them

it feels like I am the only one fighting

and I cannot fight for you

if you don t want to fight for yourself

so many beautiful women are just reduced to a bang or a fuck.

I am tired of being upset on your behalf when these men ridicule you and call you derogatory names.

I am tired, are you not tired?

I need to rest.

A original poem By Kae-Toya Lee-Bramble

Autumn House happenings: For Coloured Girls (Opinion piece)

For Coloured girls who have attempted suicide when the rainbow is enough is a choreopoem written by Ntozake Shange some 30 years ago. It has since been turned into a film directed by Tyler Perry.  Some love it and most hate it. However it has been the most talked about film  in the last month, and has called to mind many issues. The men hate it, the women love it and the words racist and racism have been bandied about quite a bit.  Since when is it not within your right as a person with any cognitive ability to disagree with something?  All of a sudden it is not ok for anyone to question Tyler Perrys work because we are being racist and empowering colonialism.  Excuse me how am I embracing colonialism when he has put a bunch of stereotypes in a bag and sold it as the finest thing  ever made? Yes the movie itself does bash men alot, in response to this I want to know where are the books about the good men, the facebook statuses, the phonecalls to your girlfriends rehashing the lovely dinner he made or  the clothes he washed and put on the line? The men that are part of our families, our friends, the ones that we call  to fix the broken things around the house and to cut the grass. Even the ex boyfriend who was a complete ass towards the end of your relationship at some point along the way he must have done something right, even it it was just the one time he made a cup of tea and a sandwich he still deserves a thank you. Why because not only did you benefit from that cup of tea, you learned from that experience which traits and habits you do not want in a man. For that some thanks should be involved.


This  whole thing has highlighted  to me that  the black experience so caught up in being negative, oppression, rape, ghetto, downtrodden, broken, unfixable and undeserving. Is this all we can get, is this all we have, is this all we will ever be? 300 years after slavery? If this is how we see ourselves we cannot be upset with people our own black brothers and sisters who use skin lightening creams and lotions to bleach their skin to get lighter. Those people see what I see and its is all the negativity associated with blackness, they internalise this and they don't want to be black. Can I blame them no I cannot I have always pursued education as a means to making a better life for myself and in turn my family and children. If those people see being lighter as a means to creating a better life for themselves whether it is getting a job,moving to a new area, being considered for a promotion all I can say to my brothers and sisters use that 50+ spf  along with the bleaching cream.


bless

Autumn House happenings: A revelation

Today I was bored as hell you I was just chilling then I came across the strangest thing. Then I really had to read it again and again and again to really let it sink in that what I read was such. Then it hit me BAM You know what the problem is with Black Women? They have no damn sense Yes they went to University read and learned what was in the books, graduated top of the class, but still they have no sense. They operate on this thing I call selective intellect. Now it is strange to me how people have no stance on anything, but from time to time they jump up on their high horse and decide to chat rubbish. I find it shocking that people who routinely comment on posts which demean and decry woman suddenly find a moral compass today. Where were you to say hey this is not funny you need to dial it back? Where is your status to call for a boycott of certain tv channels until the Bring better programming?--------------> **crickets** Where was your status calling for recruits to join in with some sort of community based programme to empower youth and young people-----------> **crickets** Every year carnival costumes get less and less where is your status calling for mas makers to put more feathers and beads on the costumes so they have more coverage and preserve more modesty?---------------> **crickets** The women on tv who are degraded sooooooooooooo badly get paid to be half naked, whereas you pay someone to make you walk the streets half clothed. So you who has made no stand why are you complaining about other people? See that I am speaking about?----------------------> no sense.

Tyler Perrys movies and his 2 televisions shows have no depth. Tyler perrys movies are one dimensional his characters have no depth and they do not grow they are mass of clichéd ideals regarding black people. That is why people along with myself dont think he should have directed the movie "For coloured girls who have attempted suicide when the rainbow is not enough" it is not about racism or the portrayal of black people. This is the same selective intellect that has them drinking lady gagas kool aid but treating nicki minaj like a leper.