Black Woman, I Apologize | Nova Sankofa

Black Woman,
I apologize for all the times you came with an issue and instead of listening, I combatted it with an issue of my own.

Black Woman,
I apologize for excusing or dismissing your feelings.

Black Woman,
I apologize for every time I justified in my head my own verbal abuse of Black women in the past.

Black Woman,
I apologize for every time you told me what bothered you and I argued semantics instead of the real issue at hand.

Black Woman,
I apologize for every time I stood idle while witnessing someone else mistreat you.

Black Woman,
I apologize for the influence I had over other brothers to perform the same ignorant acts I once performed that outlived my own ignorance.

I’m sorry.

If you don’t forgive me, I understand.

Black Woman,
I promise to try my best to love you better now and in the future.

I could go on and on… I have trespassed so many times against you that I can neither write it all down or ask for forgiveness.

I believe us as Black men sometimes get overwhelmed with our own struggles and injustices we don’t want to hear it from others, even if it is from people who support us the most… Black women.

When we are falsely imprisoned, killed, and/or abused, it is always Black women first on the scene to help.

It is time for us to do better, Black men.

-Nova Sankofa

Dedicated to my two Black daughters, my Black wife, and every Black woman.

Peace

We Don’t Want To Be Included. We Want To Be Equal. | Nova Sankofa

This should go without saying, but inclusion is not equality. If I had a nickel for every time I saw my Black brothers and sisters online, on television, or in magazines, in an outrage for not being included – I’d have enough to buy 40 acres and a mule. They say they want equality, but equality isn’t winning awards given out by Whites, being on television shows created by Whites, or not being included on a list of recognition constructed by Whites. Equality would be having our own outlets to better represent ourselves (we have a few).

Malcolm X said:

“If you can’t do it for yourself, what the white man is doing for himself, don’t say you’re equal with the white man. If you can’t set up a factory like he sets up a factory don’t talk that old equality talk.”

I agree wholeheartedly. Equality isn’t us being able to play in a game they created, or to be a part of movements they created. We can fight and fight to be included (still not equal), and if we are finally let in, we still won’t be seen as equals. If anything, it will build animosity and/or have us looked at in pity, as charity cases. I don’t want to be pitied, I want to be respected.

Imagine yourself on the sideline of a basketball court all day. On this sideline, you’re watching Michael Jordan in his prime playing one on one basketball with all worthy contenders and beating them. You watch him as he plays against Dominique Wilkins, Reggie Miller, and Joe Dumars, all people who have earned their respect on their own basketball courts to play against him. Then you, the spectator, walks on the court and challenges Michael Jordan. You very well could be a better ball player than him, even though he doesn’t know it. Instead of you going to a different court and earning your own name and becoming a known contender, you whine and talk about how you’ve been watching him all day and deserve a shot. If he accepts your challenge, you still aren’t seen as equal to him or his other contenders. You didn’t earn equality, you only earned inclusion. Even if you win, you don’t win, because others will say you didn’t earn it, you were pitied. If you win, they most likely will say “he let you win to make things fair”. You may beat him, but it will still be his court and you still don’t have one of your own. What is fair? What is equality? What is inclusion?

I, Nova Sankofa, don’t want to be included. I want to be equal. I want to be equal in every way. You will never see me or anyone who thinks similarly to me in the cold, picketing to the White man to be hired and used by a job he created. You will never see me attach myself to a movement not designed for me to only cry to them because I’m being treated unfairly in that movement. You will never see me cry about schools being closed down that only poison our childrens’ minds with eurocentric and White supremacist teachings anyway. You will see me trying to align myself with others to create our own jobs that sustain our communities and families. You will see me working with other people and organizations that have my best interests at heart and I don’t have to compromise my integrity for. You will see me trying in each and every way to diversify curriculums being taught in schools and eventually creating our own schools.

WE DON’T WANT TO BE INCLUDED. WE WANT TO BE EQUAL.

Peace.

Nova Sankofa

www.NovaGiovanni.com

This is Part 2

The Top 5 Reasons Why I PREFER Black Women by Nova Giovanni

 

Hello, loyal reader. Before I begin this list, I’d like to state the fact that it is possible to like one thing without disliking the other and I am fully capable of this feat. Therefore, my reasons for preferring Black women in no way automatically means I dislike women of other races.

The following is only five of MANY reasons why I (Nova Giovanni) prefer to date Black women. I’m sure there are a lot of men who share the very same sentiments:

1. A Black Woman Can Relate to “The Black Experience: As a Black man, there are certain things we experience that other races don’t. Even our thinking is different, and a Black woman can relate to it. If I’m driving and a police car is behind me, I get nervous. A Black woman won’t ask a seemingly (to me) dumb question like, “why do the police make you nervous if you aren’t breaking the law?”

2. Black Women Season Their Food: Most Black women season their food in a way that is pleasing to my taste buds. Before you accuse me of perpetuating a stereotype, remember that there is a bit of truth sprinkled in most stereotypes (sprinkle, seasoning – you see what I did there? Lol). Furthermore, coming from a multicultural family, I’ve seen this stereotype proven true time and time again. Put a blindfold on me, sit me at a cookout table, and witness me taste the difference between my White aunt’s and my Black aunt’s potato salad.

3. Black Women Have Brown Nipples: I prefer brown nipples (remember, this article is about my preferences). Pink nipples remind me of pepperonis. I hate pork!!! Enough said.

4. I Love Black women’s Hair: I love it all, ever texture and length. I love every kink, curl, and hue. Even if it is weave. You paid for it, lady. Mix and match it, glue and stitch it, show off your arts and crafts skills. Show the world you creativity has no limitations, Black woman!

5. I Love a Black Woman’s Strength: Going back and reiterating the point made in the foreword, this doesn’t mean women of other races aren’t strong. However, Black women emit a different kind of strength. Turning on the television, logging onto the internet, or opening a magazine and seeing that the world isn’t playing fair when it comes to you is enough to hurt the average person’s self-esteem. Not a Black woman though. Most of the Black women media broadcasts is the image of an obnoxious, lazy, and/or dumbed down woman. In my personal life, I know and have dated way more professional, intelligent, and career having Black women than what popular culture depicts. I’m not even going to speak in depth about the slew of Black men who attempt to make Black women feel uncomfortable in their own skin (that would be a whole separate article.) Brothers, we can prefer to date outside of our race without attempting to hurt the egos of Black women in the process. Nova Knows.

I Love You (even if you’re not Black),

Nova Giovanni

Nova Giovanni is owner and head writer at www.NovaGiovanni.com and also the author of the underground classic “Ramen Noodle Soup for the Soul”, available at www.NovaGiovanni.com/bookfor only $2.99

Twitter – @NovaGiovanni

Facebook – Facebook.com/NovaKnows

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He’s Mr. Wrong… But You’re Ms. Something Is Wrong With Me Too by @LaughCruz

By Dave Cruz

 

This goes out to the beautiful girls…

 

Too often I hear statements which echo a similar sentiment, something along the lines of:

“Oh I just know he’s my Mr. Wrong, but it’s so hard to turn away from him…”

If you’ve heard a statement like this before from a female friend, coworker, or family member, then you know of the age-old story which depicts a female who is apparently aware that her male partner is “Mr. Wrong;” a guy who has no redeemable qualities, and serves no positive purpose in her life.

Quite often, this so-called Mr. Wrong also happens to wreak havoc in this female’s life by cheating, misusing her money and time, causing a riff(s) within her family, and never valuing her opinion/worth. This causes her to deal with constant emotional distress, and leads her to the understanding that he is indeed, a “Mr. Wrong.”

If the fact that men like this exist isn’t bizarre enough, we find an equally bizarre set of circumstances when it comes to said female’s handling of Mr. Wrong. To the average logical human being, it is 100% clear at this point in the story that Mr. Wrong should be ejected from the woman’s life, thus ending her emotional distress and freeing her from all the trouble he has caused her.

But no! According to these women, it is “too hard to turn away from Mr. Wrong” because there is some mysterious, unexplainable force keeping them from ever breaking up with him. So, we often find the female putting up with Mr. Wrong’s nonsense – while consistently adjusting her lifestyle and her psyche so that she might fit him into her life in the most comfortable way possible, all because there is “just something about him.”

To this strange phenomenon I offer a simple, yet important solution:

 

Cut the crap, hoes.

 

Do you really think that all of us in the world are as dumb as you are to believe that there is a so-called Mr. Wrong in your life, but you can’t seem to push him away because there’s something about him? Do I look retarded?

There are two major issues at play here, and the first concerns this idea that you, as a female, can recognize and acknowledge the fact that this man is Mr. Wrong in your life but yet you refuse to remove him.

Nothing (and I mean NOTHING) is dumber than hearing someone say that they KNOW something is bad for them, but they can’t get rid of it.

Tell me, woman: if you had a cancerous tumor in your body, and you KNEW it was going to kill you, would you keep it around because there was something unique and interesting about the tumor? According to your Mr. Wrong equation, the answer is yes. “Oh there’s something so mysterious and unique about the way this tumor makes my body sick and forces me to get chemotherapy. Even though I hate being bald now, there’s something about this tumor that I can’t put my finger on… (Especially since I’m too weak to move my fingers now anyway).”

Again, if this guy is so wrong, anyone in their right mind would not hesitate to drop the mufucka like the New Year’s Eve Ball at Times Square. But not you. You don’t have a right mind.

Which leads me to my next issue…

Implicit in a statement like the one mentioned above is the idea that this “Mr. Wrong” is with a woman who is apparently a Ms. Right… Right?

I mean, how else would he be a Mr. Wrong if you weren’t the Ms. Right he was never meant to be with? If you were Ms. Wrong, you wouldn’t be complaining about Mr. Wrong ‘cause y’all obviously got married, since you carry his last name and all.

See, the problem herein lies with the notion that this guy happens to be such a screw-up, but you honestly believe that, on the flipside, none of your screws are loose.

WRONG.

The fact is: He may be Mr. Wrong, but you, young lady, ain’t Ms. Right.

You are Ms. Something Is Wrong With Me Too.

The sooner you can understand this, the better off you’ll be. In no way am I discrediting the idea that this man in your life, despite all his hang-ups, may be special to you in some way. If we refer back to my example: it’s true, you might actually LIKE tumors in your body, who knows. Hey, go nuts. I don’t care. Some people enjoy pain, and some people just don’t know what’s best for them.

However, I will not allow you to believe that you are this “Ms. Right” who deserves my pity and attention because you’re unfortunately stuck in some inescapable whirlwind of confused love. Stop that bullshit. You’re just as fucked up as he is, and you should embrace it, like the crackhead who holds up a sign saying “Please give me money so I can buy more crack. God Bless you.”

I respect the honest crackhead more than I respect the delusional crack pot who thinks she’s right and he’s wrong. If he’s a thief, you’re his getaway driver. If he gets a 740 on his SATs, you’re the fucked up calculator he was using during the math portion of the test. If he’s out on the street eating peoples’ faces, you’re the one in Rite-Aid buying his bath salts. Two wrongs don’t make a right, and in this case y’all ain’t right at all. Y’all are just one big ass Wrong.

 

In closing, I quote Mary J. Blige from her song, so aptly titled, “Mr. Wrong”:

Me and Mr. Wrong get along so good (so good)
Even though he breaks my heart so bad (so bad)
We got a special thing going on
Me and Mr. Wrong (mister wrong)
Even if I try, no, I never could
Give him up cause his loves like that
Ain’t no way that I’m moving on
I love my Mr. Wrong

Well spoken, Ms. Blige.

That’s why your dumb ass will never be Aretha Franklin. R-E-S-P-E-C-T bitches!

With Love,

 

Dave Cruz

 

p.s – This was not written to be a humor piece. This is something that actually bugs the shit outta me.

p.s.s – If you have a friend like this, please feel free to let her know, explicitly, that she’s a dumb ass. This is ok for two reasons; a) it’s true, so who cares what she thinks, and b) you’ll be fine because she’ll probably do some dumb hoe shit in response anyway, like post an angry status on Facebook about the whole situation, i.e. “Deez NUT a$$ b!xtchez oUt huRr qoinq @ MAH nek BuT dEY ScAreD 2 C mee inn da sTreeTz doe”

Follow me on Twitter to discuss this and more: @LaughCruz or twitter.com/LaughCruz

**Special thanks to Nova Giovanni for being a great resource, and an inspiration to share thoughts with people all around the world

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Black Will Always Be Beautiful by Ayana Ellis

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. But I’ve long since grown suspicious of what it is today’s black man is finding beautiful. It seems as if the black woman is not on their list of beautiful things and I’d like to know why.

Now I can get into the whole theory of black men having self esteem issues if they don’t love the black woman or maybe they don’t love their mother because they don’t love the black woman, but I’m not trying to go that deep.  This issue is not even a deep issue. I think that today’s black men are a bunch of followers, a bunch of dick riders who can’t seem to think for themselves. Today’s black male is so caught up in material bullshit, image, mockery, fuckery and disrespect toward women period that not only do they have no respect for females, they have no respect for themselves.

Now let me back track. I’m aware of the fact that WOMEN these days have no respect for themselves either. Between instagramming pictures wearing nothing, sending pussy pictures to strangers on twitter, having your ass facing the camera in every picture just to get some attention, sucking his dick before you even know his last name and idolizing reality tv stars, shit is fucked up out here. (Most) women have lost their morals to either a) conform to society’s vision of them b) gain acceptance from these weak Negroes who really believe that hoes are winning or c) they have no self-esteem in the first place because of how they were raised because we all know half of today’s woman is being raised in single parent homes. But that’s a whole other demon.

Over all, carrying yourself like a whore seems to be way more accepted than carrying yourself like a  lady these days and my question is, why is that the black man LIVES to crucify black women for every thing they do but its okay for other races to do the same, yet you either turn the other cheek or make excuses for it. Whether gold digging or hoeing, if a black woman does it, she’s all kinds of scum of the earth and you’ll hear a chorus line of men saying, “That’s why I don’t fuck with black chicks because…..” YET if someone of another race does it,  the black man is the first one to be in line to get down with the program, making “it acceptable. Why is that?

If a woman of another race gets “ass shots” its not a problem, but let a black woman enhance the size of her ass, she’s a dumb bitch, she just wants attention, she has low self-esteem etc. Why is that? I think that the Black Woman slander is played out. I believe that (most) black men are just hiding behind the fact that they are puppets and slaves to society’s opinion of black women and instead of standing up for us, standing beside us and walking proudly with us and our imperfections, they join the peanut gallery of naysayers and put us down as well, not because they believe the hype but because they don’t believe in themselves.

Your preference is your preference but I refuse to believe that half the black men walking around with mixed breed women are doing so by choice. I strongly believe that this decision is made based on wanting to fit in.  If Kanye, Jay-Z and every other rap star walked around with 100% black women, the majority of these men would do the same. (Most) Black men need to learn to think for themselves and stop trying to fit in. Every woman isn’t a model and every black woman doesn’t have a bad attitude nor is she a gold digger. As women we all have the same angle when it comes to men yet, the black woman is always being slandered and its corny already.

Black will always be beautiful, there is no disputing that and when loving the black woman and showing her respect becomes trendy enough maybe the black men who think that black women aren’t worthy will hop on that bandwagon and start acting like they have some damn sense. But don’t be mad when the black woman doesn’t want your ass anymore.  Shit, half of us have had enough and is well on our way to the other side.
Who’s to blame?

Ayana Ellis

www.ByAyanaEllis.com

 

With novels such as the Gritty but Triumphant “Full Circle” which is based on her life as a Domestic Violence victim, Ayana Ellis has proved that she can roll with the big boys of literature. (read more)

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Let Her Feel Free As Your Freak by Nova Giovanni

Hello, loyal reader. I’m back with Volume 2 of the Bedroom Files. Volume 1 entailed “Lick Her Crack For A Late Night Snack”, this is the sequel. With this, I will present to you a problem plaguing our community and probably communities worldwide. Men not allowing their women to feel free in the bedroom. The bedroom (or wherever else you choose to have sex) should be a place where your woman’s wildest dreams are met, not a place of judgment.

 A big problem men (I’ve been guilty also) make is judging other women in front of the woman we deal with. Sometimes, your woman telling you about what another woman did is testing you – because she wants to do it. When she says, “Tasha bought some whips and handcuffs while we were out. She’s weird” – Don’t you agree with her! Respond with something to the affect of “Why didn’t you get any? Maybe they had a buy 1 – get one half off sale.” You see? Furthermore, don’t scoff at your woman when she wants to try something new. One of my favorite Gospel songs is ‘Be Encouraged’. Hum that song to yourself whenever you feel like you’re about to discourage your lady. Plus, you BETTER not look at her like “where did you learn that from?” when she does something new and risque to YOU. Just be appreciative that she stepped outside of her comfort zone to do it. In fact, you better tell her how much you liked it. She’ll start doing more with you. Nova Knows…

 Another problem is – too many men are worried about things them and their women doing being labeled as gay. As long as its with a woman and she doesn’t put anything in your anus, its not gay! Whats wrong? Are you worried about what your friends might say? Why THE HELL ARE YOUR FRIENDS IN YOUR BEDROOM BUSINESS, ANYWAY?!?! Some women like licking a man’s nipples. Getting my nipples licked does nothing for me, but if thats what she likes – she can do it. Thats how high my self-esteem is. There is nothing gay about a woman licking on a man’s body (except for his anus) or visa versa. You’re afraid someone is going to label you as gay, and she is afraid of being labeled as a slut. Understand this, there is a difference between a lady being A SLUT and being YOUR SLUT. If she’s not yours, she is bound to be someone else’s.

 In this case, men are the problem. Come on, brother. You’re making your woman feel guilty for doing things she WANTS to do to please YOU. That is so DAMN WACK!!! Pass her to Nova Giovanni, I’ll show you how to treat her. I treat my women like a slut in private, and I treat them like a Queen in public. At a certain age, sex should transform from you just trying to bust a nut to you actually pleasing the person you’re with. You can learn something from me, boys.

A wise man once said –

“I like to see the girls DO ITTTTTT!!!”

-Shawty Lo

I Love You,

Nova Giovanni

www.NovaGiovanni.com

www.FaceBook.com/NovaKnows

Twitter -@NovaGiovanni

www.NovaGiovanni.com/Book for only $2.99, get my book.

“Man Laws” by Nova Giovanni

• Always take your shirt off before taking your pants off. As soon as you’re only wearing a shirt, it automatically becomes a nightgown. Men don’t wear gowns.
• If you make eye contact with another man, you have to immediately either ask him for directions or fight him. Don’t ask why. Thats just how it is.
• You are hereby to like only one team in any given sport. It is however permissible to support local teams at times if your favorite team isn’t local and isn’t playing that day/night.
• Always put your pants on one leg at a time. It is strictly forbidden to lay your back on the  bed with your legs in the air & try putting your jeans on. ONE… LEG…AT…A…TIME…BRO…
• When walking in the rain, you are only allowed to use an umbrella if you’re walking with a woman. Man law #232 states you should wear a hooded jacket if the forecast calls for rain.
• If a woman asks you to hold her purse, you are only allowed to hold it for under 2 minutes. Keep in mind that it is only permissible to hold it tucked under your arm like a football, NEVER by the straps.
• You can’t back down from a fight or lose a fight in front of your girlfriend/wife. If you do, you HAVE to break up with her! If not, every time ya’ll argue – she’ll say, “you didn’t have that much heart when that dude beat yo ass!!!” …how you gonna live with that?
• When hugging another man, he must be like family. Furthermore, it is only permissible to side hug him with one arm. No chest to chest or pelvis to pelvis hugs are allowed.

I WOULD tell you I love you (like usual), but that isn’t very manly…

-Nova Giovanni

http://www.NovaGiovanni.com

Facebook.com/NovaKnows

@NovaGiovanni

Purchase “Ramen Noodle Soup For The Soul” (the book) by Nova Giovanni off of Amazon.com for only $2.99