A Teachable Racial Moment
Filed Under All Posts, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, Politics | 19 Comments
We’re very excited to welcome guest blogger Honorée Fanonne Jeffers. Honorée is an award-winning poet and fiction writer who’s been blogging on culture since 2009. Her most recent book of poetry is Red Clay Suite.
Usually, my blog posts deal with African American community or political issues, and I talk as one cultural insider to another cultural insider.
However, I’ve realized that sometimes, well-meaning, really nice White people (of which there are many, by the way) want Black folks to talk to them in non-angry, non-confrontational, and patient ways about Black cultural issues they don’t understand.
So I wondered if it might be useful for me to write blog posts that break racial things down for good White folks who mean no harm—and who either have Black friends or are in the midst of acquiring friendships with Black people—and are just trying to navigate these racial waters that ironically (and to me, bewilderingly) have become far more treacherous since the election of our first Black president.
Sidebar: I use “race” as a shorthand because that word usually means “Black” or “People of Color” to White people. But really, “race” is not a real, like, biological thing. It does not exist except in people’s minds. What I actually mean when I say “race” is “culture.”
I hadn’t even planned to post again this week, but I’ve noticed the online furor on Black social media concerning Governor Jan Brewer’s pointing her finger very close to President Barack Obama’s face. The response from White folks? Some are upset, but I get the impression they don’t really understand why we African Americans are so troubled. Some of us are even enraged.
So I thought that it might be time to write a Teachable Racial Moment post. Read more
The Bermuda Triangle Century
Filed Under All Posts, Politics, Prudence Baird | 15 Comments
Prudence digs deep into an ocean of insight
In 1998, if you hadn’t seen The Titanic by week two of its release, you were in danger becoming marginalized; a social misfit unable to contribute to the main topic of conversation du jour—a shipwreck from 86 years before. Sheesh.
This brings me to chair number 18 at Umberto, a Beverly Hills über-salon where—for the right price—even nobodies like me can rub foiled locks with B-list celebrities.
David, my stylist and a dog show aficionado who could have walked straight (so to speak) out of Best in Show, was trying to ignore overtures from a buff young man in a tight black t-shirt sweeping up shorn locks from Umberto’s imported Italian marble floors. Read more
What’s Wrong With Me? And Other Orgasmic Tales
Filed Under All Posts, Carine Fabius, Health | 10 Comments
Due to technical difficulties, this has been re-posted (RSS readers will be getting this twice).
Carine explores the pursuit of big business and the big O
Ladies!
Do you know that you are sick if you don’t have vaginal orgasms? If your libido is kind of low, you have an illness? If you are not instantly lubricated when your partner suggests lovemaking, you are diseased? And did you know that not climaxing when you engage in sexual activity means something is wrong with you?
Listen up. Your debilitating ailment has a name: Female Sexual Dysfunction, or FSD. Don’t you feel better knowing what’s wrong with you? Now you can go to reputable sites like Mayo Clinic or Web MD or AAPF (a peer-reviewed medical journal of the American Academy of Family Physicians) and read all about it. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, unfortunately, not even one of those smarty-pants scientists out there has been able to come up with the Holy Grail otherwise known as female Viagra. Ain’t life a bitch sometimes? Does God hate women or what? Read more
Back in the Saddle Again
Filed Under All Posts, Connie Stetson, Reinvention | 13 Comments
At Connie’s roundup she meets a milestone head on — yee haw!
Well, dear readers, our Fifty is the New summer vacation lasted so long, that while we were away, I climbed the proverbial hill, lurched over it, and landed smack into the shitsky—I mean sixty. 60. Yes—I’m up to my neck in a steaming pile of years. I’m happy to report that in the wake of this monumental event, the earth did not rend itself in twain, the seas did not turn red with blood, the crops did not wither and fail and the climate has not changed. Oh—wait a minute, yes it has but not because I turned 60.
I had been dragging my ass towards this birthday, really glum, and I thought I might greet the day by sitting in the dark alone with a half-gallon of ice cream, a fifth of vodka, a sharp knife and some Joan Crawford movies. Happily, it turned out, my nice husband rented a cabin on the east side of the Sierras and nine of us spent a weekend in Mammoth eating, drinking, hiking, laughing, enjoying the scenery and each other’s company. Our Cathy was there too, celebrating her birthday, and all of us had a grand good time. Read more
Mining Bits of Goodness
Filed Under Health, Melissa Howden | 16 Comments
Melissa works at creating a personal survival guide for the tumult of the times
These are tough times. This is the one thing we all can agree on. At this juncture, I am forced to acknowledge that personally things are also rough and ragged. This could be a chicken and egg question, “Is it the state of the world that is making me sad or am I just sad which is affecting how I see the world?” Does it really matter? It’s perilous out there and its perilous in here. So what to do? The very wise ones say that it’s not what is happening that is important rather how we respond and relate to what is happening.
With this in mind I’ve begun to make some changes – they may seem superfluous and shallow but I’ve noticed immediate improvement in my outlook. I have blocked the posts of people on Facebook who persistently lambast. It depressed me. Truth be told I’m limiting my FB time and when I am there I find I am looking for inspiring stories and cute animal photographs of interspecies bonding and acceptance. These things lift me up and contribute to an overall feeling of well being. Read more
Good Enough is Good Enough
Filed Under All Posts, Cathy Fischer, Reinvention | 13 Comments
Cathy contemplates the source and the cure for her perfectionist ways
This is revolutionary… get ready for it…
Being a perfectionist is a waste of time.
There I said it.
Perhaps it’s the energy suck of hot flashes and other midlife maladies, or just the wisdom of the years, but lo and behold, I have come to realize that I must conserve and preserve my time and energy, and that no one really cares if what I do is less than perfect—no one, that is, but me.
According to Wikipedia, in its pathological form, “perfectionism is a belief that work or output that is anything less than perfect is unacceptable.” Read more
Summer Reads
Filed Under All Posts, Group Posts, Miscellaneous | 13 Comments
Whether it’s Nook, Kindle or iPad, hardback or paper, library or bookstore — we can never get enough great stories. So as summer starts to wane, we at Fifty is the New share some recent good reads. What we did on our summer vacation, literary style.
Prudence
This summer reminded me of my girlhood, when every Saturday I checked out 11 books (the maximum allowed) from the Pasadena Public Library, and returned them a week later for another near dozen. Two I liked:
Wesley the Owl: a Remarkable Love Story of an Owl and his Girl by Stacey O’Brien. Mandatory reading for animal lovers!
The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery: a romp through France’s bourgeoisie told by two razor-sharp wits whose lives collide in a fancy apartment building in the 5th arrondissement.
Connie
Summer for me means sun, sand, sea, and books, lots of books, and though I now live in the mountains I still make time for long, slow days and words that make my heart sing.
I am, for the dozenth time, re-reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This delicious froth of manners and misunderstanding within the Bennett family is a perfect summer distraction from our modern miasma.
I’ve also started Pompeii by Richard Harris, the historical fiction of the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius. Sounds like a potboiler, yes? Read more
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