NEW BLOG

 Dear readers, due to technical problems especially with the comment box, i would like to introduce my new blog so this blog will no longer have any postings.

www.roseofsharoninc.blogspot.com

introducing the blog of the alter ego and myself.Thanks.

OBAMA IS BLACK

The news gets funnier everyday. I woke up to read the news on MSN this morning and i saw a caption sayin "Its Official, Obama is black" Duhhhhhh!!! Seeing him for the first time what would one categorize him as? Asian? Caucasian?Waoh. His skin is black, he has features of a negro, his wife is black,his kids have no trace of being "not black" so were did people get the notion that he wont be black. He is the first African American to be in the White House so doesnt that signify he is black? he officially became black according to Census when he checked off African American in the Race Classification box and he did the same for the rest of the members of his family which includes his wife,children and mother in law.

ERYKAH BADU-WINDOW SEAT

Okay now, Erykah Badu is one of my weirdest singers and that was before lady Gag came along. Her music might be inspiring to some but her uniqueness comes with her style, her approach, the way she dresses up and ties her head wroaps and al. That is the first thing i thinlk of when i see Erykah Badu and in the year 2010 she decided to go nude. She was trying to pass a message across which is breaking the norm. JFK was assasinated about 40yrs ago where she filmed the video. And??? The gunshot in the end, trying to prove what point?
Well nudity in a video where you are trying to pass a message across is no message, the lesson learned or message she passed across is the response to how she looks without her clothes, i am tired of the "booty" "booty" phrase, thats all i hear when Erykah Badu's video is talked about. "Did you see that booty? She has been hiding it in all those clothes all this while" The video might have had some video privacy censor, i saw some of that in some parts of the video but it doesn't explain or change the fact that the message in the video was nudity.Plain and simple!!!!!!!!! Maybe thats my own opinion.

FORGET OR GET EVEN

There are people in life that would hurt you so much you don't know what to do, and one thing i have realised is that, it is the people that we love that hurt us the most so i have one question. Should i forget or get even. Forgetting might sound easy but the pain is there and getting even may be fun at first until you realise that you are hurtig yourself. I don't know what to think.

MY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank God i have officially added another year to my current age. I am grateful for my life and the wonderful people that are in it. I am thankful for the immediate members of my family and my friends, to those top 20 people that have written on my wall before my day started thanks to the time zone, i will specially thank you all on my blog. Chichi Oraukwu, Chinny Onu,Adunola Okupe, Motunde Femi Pearse,Uju Abah, Yetunde Olowoyeye, Anita Umebese, Temitope Oloketuyi, Labake Awosusi, Oyeyemi Fajemirokun,Kele Utubor, Tundun Onileere, Sonia Joe,Tolu Babalola, Tope Shoga, Amaka Ezekwe, Katherine Enchill, Funsho David Cole,Stella Isokariari and Joseph Fagbamila. Thank you so much for your birthday wishes and i wish you God's blessings as you wish me the same. To everyone else who did after the top twenty you are loved and my Dave and Buster's accomplices, Dayo, Chinelo, Fadeke, Aisoso, Uche, Ann, Azuka, Soco, John, Uwa, Bisola, Jackie, Tope and lastly my brother, thanks so much for everything.

SPARE THE ROD AND SPOIL THE CHILD

Hmmm, those good old naija days we endured a lot of beating and deety(dirty) slaps. As a child back then when i was growing up you don't want your parents to tell you the same thing twice especially when the second time lands you a slap on the face or an unexpected beating from behind. Those were the days when the rod was not spared. The phrase spare the rod and spoil the child doesn't apply to a lot of nigerian parents espeically mine. My dad had a way with words especially when he spared the rod but this child was not spoiled. There are some things that your parents would say that would hurt worse than being beaten,my dad had that as his weapon but my mom on the other hand would just throw one dirty slap that would let your wisdom teeth take a walk out of your mouth.

Usually it didnt just end at home , in school ,you had teachers that would intimidate you with their canes and that alone was scary. Canes of all sizes would sit behind the teachers table waiting for one ripe buttocks to flog. Back then i would have endured punishment to those canes, and there was this myth that the thinner canes hurt more than the thicker and fatter ones. It didn't matter. Never be afraid of the weapon ,be afraid of the person holding the weapon. I can take a thick and a thin cane and flog a kid and it wont hurt but if i decide to flog you out of frustration or annoyance you can as well call yourself dead meat. Some teachers were just plain mean. I remember back then when we had this mean math teacher in Primary six, if you get anything less than 15 out of 20, you are dead meat and he gave more strokes of cane if you got more questions wrong, imagine if you got 2 out of 20, 18 deadly strokes of those his canes that God knows where he got them from.

In the Western world it is a lot ddifeerent, the breed of kids in this generation makes wonders really never end,i watch some little brats come to my job and act up and their mothers behave like the kids are remote controlling them such a scenario as this

A kid is playing with a wig and acting the fool meanwhile there is a sign on the glass that say

"PLEASE CONTROL YOUR KIDS". And then the mother reads it and this is the kind of conversation that ensues

Mother: Honey put the wig down

CHILD: (still acting the fool) NO!

Mother: I said put the wig down

CHILD: No (starts throwing a fit)

Mother: Be quiet i said put the wig down

CHILD: No, you be quiet (tantrums and then throws the wig on the floor)

ME: (silent thought: you are so freaking lucky you are not my kid, i would have marinaded your ass in the store and given it to yo daddy for dinner, better put that s*** away and get your little behind on the floor)

Mother: Oh dear, i need to take him home he needs a nap, he is getting grouchy.

Me: (silent thought: only grouchy)

Another scenario is some hispanic lady who came to the store with her little kid and the little girl was playing with the hair dye bottles and putting it in her mouth,my coworker saw her and told her nicely not to play with the bottles and the mother acted like she had earphones on, she didn't correct her kid , next thing the girl was opening the bottle and then my coworker intervened again

COWORKER: Put the color down, don't play with it.

MOTHER: You don't have to yell at my daughter.

COWORKER: I am not yelling at her, can't you see she is playing with the hair dye. She was just about to drink it.

MOTHER: She is just a little girl, if you wanted to talk to her you should have said so nicely and by the way english is her first language.

Bamm!!!!!!!! Right there, a fifth grade is definitely smarter than this lady. What does first language have to do with simple obedience?

Like for real, i have seen some mothers make some lame excuses for their really bad kids. If your kid is acting up, its not because he or she needs a nap, they don't even need to get one, whoop their little behinds. I believe the reason why i act responsible is the fact that i got whooped as a child and it helped my thinking and choices. Its not abuse, i believe that sometimes those once in a while whoopings just help the children to know not to repeat that same act again and know when to behave. If my kid acted funky in the grocery store, i would beat daytime savings out of that kid, you cant just display embarrassing behavior in public and then try to make excuses for it. If you keep making excuses for your kids behavior they would never become responsible for anything. You would continue to do stuff for them because they are so dependent on your excuses, the stupid ones you make for them.

Practical parents who know how to instill discipline in their kids can do so without whooping them, it may come in form of taking something that the child values a lot or just some sort of punishment thats the sparing of the rod and spoinling the child. It can work either way but it depends on the child. Children learn as they grow and experiences make them wiser. Experiences such as putting your hand in a flame and knowing it would burn you.There is nothing wrong with correcting kids. I would never whoop my kids just becuase ...,but if it is a corrective measure i won't mind doing it but there are other ways,but our African parents, i give them kudos.

Image: Photobucket

1st Position

One thing i love about Nigerians is the fact that we are ambitious. We always want the best in life. Naturally who wouldn't ....but it gets to the stage whereby the best professions are Law, Medicine and Engineering,.. Everything else just doesn't count and we have parents that push those things into our heads they will say stuff like "See Aunty Betty's daughter, she is a medical doctor or Uncle Tunde's son is a pharmacist do you know where he works, he is making a lot of money." Another common 1st position categroy for ambitious nigerians is driving top class cars like Mercedes Benz or BMW. I have also taken note that many Nigerians love Japanese cars, Infiniti, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Lexus, Acura and the likes, those are relatively top of the class sort, Hummers, Escalades are even more impressive so gentlemen dont be surprised when that girl who has been shunning you at work decides to go on a date with you so she could ride in your car and impress people.
To the one thing about first position, i read this on twitter and i have never laughed so hard "Nigerian parents always come first position in the class". That's so true, i remember when i was growing up and my parents would tell me how they always came first in class, I always believed them but i also found out that my other friends' parents told them the very same thing, so what position do other people come in class? I believe that this is a positive form of motivation to always see the best in ourselves and strive for the top. This might be a popular nigerian norm but i think this is the best form of positive self motivation.

TELEPHONE

I am not a Lady Gaga fan like seriously, once a singer is just not like "normal" i don't care much for whatever you decide to sing, i am not listening. But i happened to be at work and took a sudden glance at the Tv and Beyonce was on the screen, she was said to be doing a music video with Lady Gaga and first thing that came to my mind."Oh my goodness, are you kidding me, the world is about to come to an end". Beyonce sold me with a line"This is going to be epic" so I went home and decided to check it out and alas, it was much better than i expected, i like the video for some reason with all the weirdness it had a story to it. Smh. What do you think? I just read that MTV banned the video and i agree some of the scenes were rather too...............

FOR ALL OF YOU THAT LOVE TO TEXT AND DRIVE

This is one habit that people have. Texting. Its better than talking, instead of picking up the phone and having that two minute discussion, they would rather text and sometimes a great conversation can also contiune while driving.Anyway after watching so many Scare tactic videos and all, I saw a picture on a friend's wall on facebook. That gave me the creeps, i still have the creeps seeing that man's body divided into half, he is not here to tell the story, i don't know who hit who or who was wrong but right now it makes absolutely no difference. Please don't text and drive and it also applies to me too.

LEFT HANDEDNESS

I remember when i was much younger and being scolded for giving older people things with my left hand. It is said that it is rude and totally wrong to give elderly people or rather just anyone things with your left hand. What????????????

I don't know where that rule came from or who brought that whole should i call it an urban legend or some silly tradition up but if one of those ancient traditions have to be deleted i think that has to be included on the delete and definitely not recycle bin list. Are you kidding me??????

A co worker once explained to me that the left hand is used to do dirty work and that's why it is wrong to give people things with the left hand, dirty work such as wiping the behindafter one has put down a big fat number two in the bathroom. Okay so what does that have to do with giving someone something with your left hand especially after you are supposed to have washed it ( some people don't and i mean really don't).

In places like India and some Islamic countries i also found out that it is wrong to hand people things with the left hand and also for the very same reason.

In primary school children who wrote with their left hands were called "lefties" in the United States, they are called "South paws"

Left handedness has been attributed to very negatively, it is associated with being the improper side,the wrong side and also associated with awkwardness. Apart from just being attributed to negatively by humans. The Bible also talks about the coming of Jesus christ and how Jesus will divide the people with the good people who are like sheep to the right hand side and the disobedient goats on the left hand side (Matt 25:31-34).

Some famous left handed people

Bill Gates,Bill Clinton,Albert Einstein,George W Bush,Barack Obama.
In actual fact the 41st to the 44th president were all left handed and that includes George Bush Snr
I think being left handed is not a bad thing, i think being left handed is being different. In my own opinion whatever hand suits you, you can use it to the best of your ability, sometimes all those myths and urban legends about left handedness would reduce one to being a true left hand which as people say "useless"

Image from:www.radioinsidescoop.com

THE QC GIRL- A MEMOIR

I remember this statue was one of the main Queens college landmarks. She was between the senior block and the junior block and she was right between the lecture theatres and behind "love garden". Goodness gracious. She is the famous "Queens College Girl". She has been in that school for decades and still counting, through the rain, sunshine and worse weather. She has seen other girls come in wearing pinafores and left wearing skirts. She has seen parents come and go, everyone has walked past her at some time or the other. Even nine years after graduating from QC her statue is still there intact. I think she was just touched up a little with paint, the statue still looks good.

I remember the time a tale went around saying that she moved, others said she went to the principal's house one night and asked to wear a skirt and blosue as she was tired of wearing her pinafore. Come to think of it, she needs to wear a skirt and blouse. Her junior days are seriously over.

AGEGE BREAD

In this part of the world where i live, one would wake up to the sound of those hungry crows that inhabit the area or the leaves of the trees beating against the window or the blazing sunshine coming through the blinds. Nothing and i repeat nothing can be replaced with the sound of the bread seller and her shrill voice that would wake you up at 7am after the Imam at the local mosque near your would have woken you up to subconscious level with his prayers over the public announcement system hooked up to the point where one can hear it three streets away at 5am. The bread seller would scream "Agege Bread". I miss that wake up call or "Bread re, butter re"( There is bread and butter here).

I am going to lament, i have not eaten Agege bread in almost 7 years, What??????????? True. I miss that hot, soft, pillow like bread. Fresh and hot straight from the bakery has been replaced with Kirkland bread from Costco or Great Value bread from Walmart or Orowheat bread from Safeway. Where can i get some Agege Bread? Someone help me...........................This is a real call for help especially when i am blogging about it (wink).

THE BLACK COLOR THING

This is racist against one's race and just thinking about the terms "light skinned black people" and "dark skinned black people" make me cringe. There is a color segregation between the individuals of one race with one thinking that they are superior to the other. Total nonsense. There has been this notion over the years that the light skinned black people are superior to the dark skinned black people. My own two cents on that is that it is not just absolute nnsense, it is also sheer ignorance.

I think this whole thing started back in the slave days. I think and that is my own personal opinion that everyone is black, we all started out black until we started interbreeding. Africans back in the day were genetically pure with a dominant black gene, so where did this light gene come from?My theory is that there were probably some families who had a tinge gene of being a shade lighter than others and the biggest possibilty was inter racial breeding which actually brings out an obvious light complexion. So a white man has sex with a black slave and their baby is mixed which makes the baby light skinned!!!!!!!!!!!! Hmm. So whats so superior about being light skinned?

In the early 1900's the Paper Bag test was used and it was a big form of color discrimination back in the day. It was used as a litmus test for black people so that they could be accepted into one social field or another, if you were not lighter than a brown paper bag, you were just not light enough. Some churches, Greek systems such as Phi Alpha Phi and even schools practiced it. Some men used it as a criteria to take women out on a date, if the woman was darker than a paper bag, she just wasn't good enough. Period. Suprisingly, this practice was also carried out in historically black universities a very good example is Howard University. At parties, it was also used as a form of admission, if the paper bag is lighter, you would be denied admission, it was important back then as being 21 to drink is important today. In New Orleans, a paper bag party always had a paperbag hanging at the door, you know what that means.

In the slave times,it was used to determine what kind of slave work the slaves would do, the lighter skinned ones did the domestic chores in the house while the darker skinned ones worked on the plantations.

So what happend to Black is beautiful and where did that statement come from or is it just a consolation of being rejected by the lighter skinned black people or rather is it that the whole population of black people are just plain beautiful. Wondering? Smh. It is said that this notion is responsible for the afro hairstyle since it is said that black people have ugly facial features and our hair could be at it's worst for being thick and unmanageble without a perm.

In the media, lighter skinned black people are portrayed better than the dark skinned black people because they are seen as looking better and are highly accpeted nationally. I have seen a lot of posters with models who are lighter than a paperbag and they are said to be black women, most of the real dark skinned models always have their head shaven like its some kind of art work to look that way. Beyonce is one of the light skinned black people who is not just a celebrity but she is good enough to feature as the ad person for Loreal and Tommy Girl for Tommy Hilfiger.Lighter skinned black people are said to also be more socially desirable, the lighter skinned women would be preferably taken on a date than a real black woman. In the entertainment industry, all the light skinned dark people are prominent, Out of Eden,Ashanti,Beyonce, Alicia Keys,Chris Brown, Halle Berry, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett, Janet Jackson, Mary Mary.The last time i looked on the red carpet, a dark skinned black person was very hard to find. Even in sitcoms a replacement of a character ends up with a lighter one like in Fresh Prince of Bel Air, the Janet Whitten was replaced with Daphne Reid. (the wife of Wil's uncle) .

In the movie "Precious" from the book PUSH. All the negative characters are dark skinned such as her Precious, her mom and dad while the positive characters are the social worker and her teacher who happen to be light skinned.

School Daze and the book which is now a movie The Color Purple were written with the notion of the effects of skin color. The Barbie doll started out as a white doll with blonde hair and blue eyes, in the late twentieth century and early twenty first century the notion of a black Barbie came out but the white one is still preferable.

It is a common notion among other races that black people are not intelligent which is wrong and also what is really wrong is that lighter skinned black people are said to be more intelligent than dark skinned black people,well the only advantage i think they had in the slave time is that because they worked in the house, they had a better chance of learning to read and write from the children of the plantation owners or their wives or even the owners themselves.Intelligence has no correlation with skin color. If you are smart you are smart, if you are dumb you are dumb. Some blondes are not that dumb.i have met really smart blondes. Book smart blondes and also intelligent in everyday life.But there exists a term"Dumb blonde"

In the image of the black American woman, the light skinned one is the more preferresd one. She is said to be more attractive and is more likely to get up there in the society. This prefered image has reduced a lot of dark skinned black woman to being self conscious and also a lack of self confidence. This is one of the reasons there are so many relaxers sold on the shelves of beauty supplies and grocery stores as well as bleaching creams. The effort to look like the light skinned ones has become paramount among dark skinned black people.

I think today the light skinned , dark skinned color thing still exists espceially among our own black people which i call total ignorance. This is the second decade in the 21st century, we need to wake up. I leave on this note it's a comment made by comedian Paul Mooney on color. "If you are brown, hang around,if you are yellow, mellow,if you are white,you are alright, if you are black, get back."

I don't think i am getting back to nowhere. What do you think?

OFFENSIVE OR NOT? CLASS OF 2011

When i graduated in 2008, the class of 2008 had the slogan that went with the year "08,don't hate" it rhymed and we thought it was cool other graduating classes didn't have their rhyme that good but looking at the class of 2011 in a different school the story is different. Two young arab Americans decided to show pride in their graduating class of 2011 by making sweatshirts with the number 11 which looked like twin towers and a thunderbird flying nearby with the slogan"You can't bring us down". It was perceived negatively by some staff and students as the school as it referred to the September 11 attack on the Twin towers in 2001. The staff of Dearborn Edsel Ford High School had a meeting in which the matter was discussed but the boys were not punished because they didn't see it in that light as being wrong, they were only trying to show pride in their graduating class. Their sweatshirts were confiscated though. It is pretty sad that shirts were seen as offensive. I don't see it that way though, they were just showing some pride but to sensitive United States citizens especially those who lost family and loved ones, sincere apologies. I think somehow that the situation may have been perceived differently if these young boys were not Arab. What do you think?

Picture: 1Up.com