One Liner of the Week Award: Ebony Adams

I have a friend that is what, in the technical jargon, is classified as straight up country colored Kookers McGee. Look that up in the DSM-IV, and you will find a picture of Miss Ebony Adams formerly of Cheyenne, Wyoming (one of three and a half Negroes in the entire state) and currently of Los Angeles, California. Bourgie ass Brentwood to be exact.

I ain't mad at her, I am currently sitting up in her living room, drinking her wine, and cooking her food.

Ebony and I met through my Non-Romantic Life Partner Jason Ruiz who was, whilst finishing his PhD, a dissertation fellow at Macalester College where Professor Kookers McGee was teaching the children a thing or two. Upon meeting Ebony, I immediately developed a colored crush. She was brilliant and country and sweet and sassy and so much goodness wrapped up in a gorgeous little box that I had no choice but to love the Hell out of this girl.

She been there for me through some crazy ass shit I put myself through and kept right on loving my Kookers butt, and now, four and some years later, I am sitting in her house in LA doing the colored things I mentioned above.

Hey glory. Praise Him.

Yesterday, Ebony and her fab roommate Jen threw my first book party to celebrate the launch of It Ain't Truth If It Doesn't Hurt (which is now available for pre-order from my publisher and Amazon.com). Despite the fact that immediately after finishing a radio interview an walking into her living room and slicing my foot open down to the meaty meat on a sliver of glass, I still love her.

Eb prepared all kinds of goody snacks for the fiesta including a black bean dip that she lamented was flavorless.

Fast forward to this morning.

It was early as Hell, and Ebony had gotten up and made breakfast before she had to go to work. I walked in the kitchen to dish me up a plate, and I noticed that Ebony had the black bean dip out to put on the eggs and stuff.

All of a sudden I hear Ebony exclaim from the front room,

"Oh snap. These beans done sat around and got good all of a sudden."

I laughed so hard I almost fell face first into the hot ass cast iron skillet on the stove.

And that, mon cheries, is the One Liner of the Week.

And thank you to Ebony and Jen for hosting a fabulous book party. Love ya'll.

Negro

So, like many Americans, I was tickled to death to see the word NEGRO on my Census form. Ten years ago, when I filled out my first Census form as an adult, the word Negro was not on the form. Now...all 10 questions on the Census form are approved by an act of Congress. Setting aside the stupid and ridiculous red tape that must have gone into actually getting 535 members (or, at the very least, a majority of those 535 members) to agree on 10 questions for a form (only in the US of A), where the hell was the Congressional Black Caucus when this question came up?

I mean, I know, for example, that the entire CBC is not made up of 75 year old black men from Georgia. For example, the Congressman that represents Minnesota's 5th District aka Minneapolis is Keith Ellison...a young black man that is also Congresses first Muslim Representative. Was Keith absent the day that they debated those 10 questions? Was there some "Back to Negro" movement that I missed out in the last 10 years? I know on first glance I don't necessarily appear as the most niggerish of Negroes, but even as a stealth Blacky, I still tend to know at least any major movements/issues/discussions going on within the black community. Did Kwame call up the Census Bureau and say that his great-grandma was mad that Negro had been taken off the form in 1970 and wanted it back? Maybe Maya Angelou, old and fierce as she is, wrote a poem called "On The Pulse of the Negro," and it created an intense but narrow movement to bring back the word Negro.

Negro. Negro. Negro.

I can't stop saying that damn word.

Negro.

See...there I go again.

Really...I am not offended at all by the use of the word Negro on the Census form, but I am, perhaps overly, amused by it and a little confused. Is there an enclave of Black folks in America that neither recognize that the word "black" and the words "African American," are referring to them? I can TOTALLY see if the word "black" were omitted as there are many many many black non-African-Americans in the United States. The word black, for me, indicates everyone of African descent no matter their country of origin...so black Puerto Ricans, black Brazilians, and Africans living in America are all encompassed in the word black, but African-American covers, nicely, all those not covered by black. Negro just seems like an archaic redundancy and perhaps a misguided attempt by the Census Bureau to make Michelle and Barack Obama feel welcome and included in Washington.

Negro.

I'm just saying.