Thursday, April 21, 2011

Early Morning Twitter

A special shout out to @berealblack4me and @tyrese for inspiring this post.

I should totally do a day in the life post. You know, where I tell you what my typical day looks like; what exactly I am doing while I lie in wait to judge your latest mistake- LOL. Well, this won't be a complete "day int eh life" but below is a small portion of my morning.

I live on the far south side of Chicago. Think almost 120 blocks south of downtown. The el does not come down to my neighborhood- but I do live within the Chicago city limits. I work downtown, so every morning I ride the train. Metra- think local Amtrak. Metra services the suburbs and those of us in the city without el access. My ride is approximately 33 minutes long; just long enough that I have to occupy my time, but not enough time to really get into something. So what do I do? Read Twitter posts, drink coffee and laugh at people. Early morning Twitter posts are HI-larious. Some people should not let total strangers into their stream of consciousness. But they do, every morning and every morning, there I am reading their thoughts with a steamy cup of coffee.

This morning was a little different. Generally when I tune in I see Tyrese's latest piece of advice for women. Yes, Tyrese Gibson. No, I generally don't agree with him... I think a month ago, he was advising women to try to work it out with their men after he did some "dirt" because real love forgives, and women should build their men up... I am of the thinking that by the time a "man" comes to me, he should be a man and not trying to hump everything walking. Whatever, that is a completely different conversation, because TODAY Tyrese was talking to men. (Which, just as an aside, he should stick to. Don't be a man, telling me how to be a better woman... especially if you 1. don't have a woman and 2. aren't married. You aren't a woman, you have no idea what we go through every day and I am not interested in where YOU think I can improve. I digress.)

This morning Tyrese spoke to men about being in the streets and how ridiculous it is. His first tweet says "MEN... Stop all this dumb shit you doing on the block. Them same dudes you tryna impress will NOT put money on your books or VISIT you #Period" Dude, kudos for saying it. As the seasons change here in Chicago, and violent crimes begin to go up, especially in my neighborhood, I appreciate that someone is telling these goofballs how life REALLY is versus what they think will happen. What brought on this tweeting to "the block"? Gibson says that we NEED our men- and I couldn't agree more. The sins of foolish young boys have very real consequences these days. People are going to jail FOR LIFE. Juvenile offenders are being charged as adults, there is mandatory sentencing for crimes... young men need to know that youthful foolishness is NOT being tolerated- and, with all his nonsense about how to be a better woman aside, I am so happy that Tyrese chose to speak on that this morning. If you are on Twitter you should follow him-- but only pay attention when he is tweeting to the correct demographic! :)

The other twitter buddy that made my morning? This guy who's twitter handle is @berealblack4me. So, I have to admit that he usually brightens my day. There were a couple tweets were I was like, um no... but I generally disagreeable so that is to be expected. :) The hashtag that he uses almost every day is #StopBeingImpressedByMediocrity... See, you HAVE to love that!! He has a great love for Black women, natural hair and real booties. The man knows what he likes! LOL But this morning, he was talking to the guys. One of the first tweets I read this morning said "Bruhs... ask her who she is, and then show her who you are. #GoDeeper" Then I went back a few tweets and found THIS gem "Bruhs, stop smoking so much weed, and invest that money (& time) into your children and on becoming a better man for your family #GoDeeper" OMG- someone was speaking the truth on Twitter this morning!! He was full of great advice and I was happy to see it this morning. You know why? Because often times when someone speaks about Black men, the first thing that they say is Black men suffer, life is hard for a Black man, you don't understand... And that MAY be true. But y'all know that I am not an advocate for treating anyone like a victim. We all make choices. We all get to where we are by choices that we make. Poppa Hot, Black and Bitter is a strong Black man. He will be the first to tell you that his choices have not always been right; he hasn't always done the right thing... but he works his ass off for his family, and if push came to shove, I know I can always call Daddy. He is not a victim. He made some choices that weren't great and he learned from it. In order to that- someone had to hold him accountable.

Accountability. Maybe that is why I loved the tweets this morning. They were thought provoking and they held people-- men-- accountable for their actions. Hmm- now I have to stop before I let y'all into my stream of consciousness! ;)


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