And Speaking of Single Mothers...

I realize that my last few posts have all in some way highlighted the single mother experience. So I'm going to keep going with that theme and talk about a newly single mother who is also in the media a lot, my girl, Madonna.

For all accounts and purposes, Madonna is a White woman, and yet she is parenting a Latina, British and African child. We give Angelina all the rainbow coalition credit, but when you think about it, Madonna is doing her part too to expand the definition of the multicultural/international/transracial family.

So, my Meltingpot readers, here's our first Meltingpot opinion poll. Who do you think is going to do a better job at instilling in their children a sense of ethnic pride and identity, Angelina Jolie or Madonna? Why do you think that way?

Everyone who answers will be entered in the second Meltingpot Giveaway. I'm gifting a copy of asha bandele's new book (in hardcover) about being a single mother, Something Like Beautiful. Get your answers in by Friday at 6pm. The lucky winner will be announced on Monday, February 9.

Peace!

This Is What Depression Feels Like

I just finished asha bandele's new book Something Like Beautiful. It is subtitled: One Single Mother's Story and indeed it depicts bandele's struggle as a single mother, raising her daughter Nisa alone after the dissolution of her marriage. She receives no help from her ex because he lives in a prison. He is a convicted felon and bandele actually met and married him in prison. She details all of this in an earlier memoir caled, The Prisoner's Wife.

In Something Like Beautiful, bandele doesn't so much tell us what happened next chronologically as meditate on her feelings of loss, hopelessness and fervent desire to, despite it all, be a good mother to her daughter. The first lines of the book, "This is a book about love and this is a book about rage," kind of give you a sense of where bandele is heading. She is a poet and despite the fact that she's dealing with abusive relationships, single parenting, the criminal justice system, substance abuse and a whole host of other societal ills, the book is not ugly. It is actually, something like beautiful.

Personally, I wanted to know more specifics, more details, more linear travel instead of jumping form scene to scene, emotion to emotion and the stream of consciousness letters to her daughter. But then again, that's what depression feels like, apparently. It's not linear, and it doesn't always make sense. I do not in any way identify with bandele -- except that she too is a Black woman -- but now I feel like I can honestly say that I feel her pain, which is something that we all need to be able to do for other women in the same place. We need to learn how to be compassionate, instead of judgmental.

The book is a quick read that will probably have you searching out more of bandele's work. She also writes fiction and poetry. I didn't love this book but I appreciated the raw honesty poured into it and I felt I learned something about the painful choices women make for love.

Peace!