You're Supposed To Write This

Note: I was over 30,000 feet in the air when I wrote this. And I felt so much better after I did. If she had a watch, she’d probably be counting the seconds. Her phone was off because it had to be, so watching prayerfully as each digit increased was impossible. An hour and forty-seven minutes of terror. “Either pray or worry, but don’t do both.” She could hear her grandmother’s voice now, pensive and heavy with wisdom. Usually grandma’s words rung true, but right now they were extremely difficult to believe. How could she? She felt every jolt, tremor and turn. Turbulence . She made a mental note to look that up when she got home; if she got home. She pressed her lids together hard, exhaled and shook her head, trying to free her mind from her dad’s trademark pessimism. Why did the “worst-case scenario” trait have to be hereditary? she thought to herself. Her stomach suddenly lurched in discomfort as the craft fought through the deceptively innocent fluffy clouds and made a dip.

Today, I had to shake my head a lot more than usual. Black people, we have to do better. Somewhere in the world, a white person is sitting behind his or her computer marveling at the prospect of “Black Twitter,” trying to master the twerk performed by ebony honeys and bookmarking an epic community melee on WorldStar .   Meanwhile, instead of trying to counter the ratchetry constantly on display (simultaneously for our entertainment and our exploitation), we’ll picking petty battles with EACH OTHER over the digisphere. Look, I’m all for playful boasting and a healthy competition never hurt anyone, but when our negative words overshadows the mission of us functioning with a sense of camaraderie IN FRONT of those who doubt us, that’s just a shame. I say I love my school (HU, You Know!). You throw shots about how we ain’t sh*t and how your educational upbringing makes you superior to us. Honey, you're reaching for low-hanging fruit in the form of ruffling feathers for page