Nicole Richie -- In Search of an Authentic Negro Experience?

Maybe it's because I just returned from the Loving Decision conference where I was surrounded by healthy multiracial individuals, that I just can't stop thinking about Nicole Richie.

If there was ever a mixed chick who needed help, it has to be her. Although she vehemently denies an eating disorder, Nicole clearly needs to put on some weight before a strong wind picks her up and carries her away. And the drugs and other illegal substances she likes to ingest before driving backwards on the highway, make me think she is a very troubled little girl. Duh! Right? So I did a little research and I have a theory.

Nicole apparently self-identifies as African-American, because her adopted father is Lionel Richie or because she actually has African-American ancestry, I'm not sure. But the point is, maybe Nicole is so troubled because she feels she really is a Black girl trapped in a skinny White girl's body and she doesn't know how to let her inner Shanika Jones out. Maybe, just maybe, instead of hanging with Paris Hilton, Nicole should be paling around with Queen Latifah and India Arie and they could help her get in touch with her interior authentic Black self. (Note: If Hollywood is reading this, that would be a really good reality show.)

I'm speaking from experience. I know what its like to want to be authentically Black but have nobody to turn to for lessons in Negritude. I moved to Brooklyn to learn my lessons, maybe Nicole could exit LA and try the same thing. It's just an idea. Or maybe Lionel could come down from dancing on the ceiling and be a good father and take his daughter down South and fatten up body and soul with some down home cookin' and sweet tea therapy.

With rumors now swirling that Nicole might be preggers, I just hope she finds some peace sooner rather than later.

And now back to things that really matter.

Peace!

Memories from the Loving Conference 2007

Well, the Loving Decision Conference 2007 is officially over. As expected, it was a wonderful conference attended by incredible people. Authors, activists, educators, artists and one daytime soap star came together to discuss, debate and share thier ideas about the future of the mixed-race community. Jungmiwha Bullock, conference coordinator and president of the Association of MultiEthnic Americans deserves a great big round of applause for her tireless work.

For me, the best part of the conference was seeing the many forms of artistic expression with multi-ethnic themes. Represented were artists like Laura Kina and Katrina Grigg-Saito. Writers like Janet Stickmon and Heidi Durrow. And then there were the documentary filmmakers like, Jessica Chen Drammeh and Octavio Warnock-Graham. Each of these artists brings their own creative genius and multiethnic heritage to their work and the results are truly inspiring. Check them out and prepare to be moved.

Peace!

Two Families Who Should Really Go to the Loving Decision Conference

Just four days to go before the Loving Decision Conference 2007. Registration is still open for the three-day conference dedicated to examining the "Next 40 Years of Multicultural Communities." The conference is being held at Roosevelt University in downtown Chicago and will feature authors, educators, activists, artists, and sociologists on hand to discuss (and celebrate) the issues surrounding multicultural identity.

I'll be there talking about some of my favorite subjects like, Black hair as an expression of cultural identity, multi-culti relationships and parenting SpaNegro boys. I can't wait to be in a room full of like-minded meltingpot folks!

Of course there's that element of preaching to the choir. Many of the people who have registered to attend the conference are doing so because they, like me, want to commune with Our Kind of People. On the other hand, those who would benefit most from attending the Loving Decision Conference probably have no clue that such an event exists.

For example, the two families I'd really like to see in Chicago this weekend are:

1. The Andrews Family from Long Island.
The Andrews are suing their infertility clinic for inseminating Mrs. Andrews with the sperm of (gasp!) a Black man. Their daughter, Jessica looks Black which fills Papa and Mama Andrews with unspeakable dread. Despite the fact that Mama Andrews is a Dominican woman with light brown skin. The Andrews complain, "We fear that our daughter will be the object of scorn and ridicule by other children.” Why? Because Jessica has “characteristics more typical of African or African-American descent.” (Ouch)

Of course there are so many legitimate medical malpractice issues on the table, but in the meantime, this family needs to get their act together and figure out how to live harmoniously in a multi-hued family. Move on from the bitterness. And stop giving their beautiful brown daughter a color complex. If there was a poster family in need of a trip to the Loving Conference, I'd say it was this one.

2. Britney Spears, Kevin Federline and Shar Jackson

Not that I'd personally like to spend any time with any of these people, but their lives seem to be ridiculously intertwined and just plain ridiculous. And at the end of the day, whether K-Fed ends up with Brit Brit or Shar he's got a passel of differently hued offspring that need tending to. And whether they like it or not, both Brit and Shar will probably be babysitting K-Fed's kids at some point or another so they should all attend and take notes to take back to Hollywood.

And that's all I have to say for now.

Peace.

Speaking of Interracial Loving

As I begin the countdown for the Loving Decision Conference 2007, I thought why not write about some groovy, important, interracial relationships, past and present, that deserve celebration. Because really, how often does that happen in real life?

It's ironic really that there ever even existed anti-miscegenation laws since it never stopped people of different races from falling in love or even marrying for that matter. History is full of romance and relationships across color lines, but many historians would like to conveniently delete them from our collective memory.

This weekend, while strolling through the Philadelphia Museum of Art I discovered the artwork of William H. Johnson. Johnson was an artistic genius, born in South Carolina in 1901. I'd known of Johnson only as a painter of the Harlem Renaissance who grew frustrated with America's hostile racial climate and so he escaped to Europe.

Indeed Johnson did find the freedom he longed for in Europe to pursue his art as an artist instead of the suffocating label of Black artist. He ended up living for sometime in Denmark where he met his wife, Holcha Krake, a textile artist more than a decade older than himself.

In Denmark, in the tiny fishing village Johnson and Krake called home, the locals were more surprised that Krake had married at age 44. The fact that her husband was a Black man was inconsequential in their eyes. Johnson and Krake supported and influenced each other's work, sometimes they collaborated on pieces and eventually the couple moved to New York City. Krake, reportedly faced far more criticism in the US for being a Black man's wife than Johnson ever did in Europe. Still, their passionate love for one another seemed to sustain them and their art in the face of America's "race problem."

The end of their romance is tragic. Holcha Krake died of breast cancer, circa 1944. Soon after, around 1946 Johnson was diagnosed with "syphilis-induced paresis," which basically meant his brain turned to mush over the next 20 years, leaving him completely without memory of his former life or loves.

If you get a chance, look into the art of William H. Johnson, not because he married a White woman, but because he was a man who refused to allow the color of his skin to limit his passions.

Peace Out and keep Loving!

(illustration by William H. Johnson titled "Cafe" )

A Black Woman Learns A Lesson from Her Biracial Son

The other day I picked up my son from kindergarten and told him we’d be going over to my girlfriend’s house for a play date. Even though my girlfriend’s daughter is only two, my five-year old son loves her to pieces and more importantly, she has cats.

Sure enough, my son grabbed his coat from his cubby and ran over to his teacher and announced, “I’m going over to my cousin’s house and she has two cats.” I smiled at my child and felt all warm and fuzzy inside knowing that he is still so innocent and unsullied that he believes his Jewish, milky white playmate could be his cousin. I left the school with my multi-culti, rainbow-tinted glasses firmly in place.

As we were driving along to my girlfriend’s house I was still thinking about what my son had said and trying to remember what age it was that kids started to notice color and race. And then as we approached a stoplight, it hit me. My son wasn’t being colorblind when he declared that Samantha was his cousin. He wasn’t fulfilling some civil rights prophecy either. It wasn’t that deep. He probably just thinks Samantha is his cousin because her mother and I are so close. We celebrated Hanukah together last year and a couple of times her whole family has slept over at our house. That’s what families do. And the fact that Samantha and her family is White surely doesn’t disqualify her as family –as it would in my old-fashioned mind—because half of my son’s family is White!

When we go to Spain every summer, I’m the only Black one in the bunch. Abuela y Abuelo, Tia Eli, Primo Juan…they are all white and they are all family. So why couldn’t White people Stateside be cousins as well my son made me realize. It was an amazing lesson. As much as I profess to be a member of America’s meltingpot, my mind still sometimes functions like a single ingredient.

Lesson learned.

This would be a good time to mention that America’s Meltingpot families, scholars, activists and educators will all be descending on the Windy City (Chicago) on June 21-24 for the Loving Decision Conference 2007 to discuss and celebrate the future of Multiracial communities. There’s still time to register for what looks like a fabulous conference.

Peace Out!