Cake Love Jones

via The Beautiful Struggler - Me, Myself and Eye

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Sisters is mad/I got more cake thank baker-ies
Fuck pre-made, make mine the old fash way
Bundt pan way/ butter, sugar yo'
Far from Julia/but a sister bake, child
(What you bake?)
More cookies than Keebler/
Divas shaking in their heels
Invisible wife skills and lack the whip appeal
Disappear/you're wack beside me
Take them Entenmann's back to the factory/
I see the box cake, the shake and break/
The shit is depressing, synthetic
Please forget it
You're mad cause my baked goods you're admiring
Don't be mad
Having kitchen skills is tiring
With no bake skills, you're bound to get dropped/
I can shake and I bake a lot
Pack the pans a lot
The flav's about to drop/
I'm kicking new flava in ya' mouth/time for new flava in ya' mouth....

Folks, I want you to know that I didn't sit down and write that. I accidentally took what I thought was a sleep aid, which turned out to be the complete opposite, and I laid in bed with my eyes wide open for hours. That little remix just wrote itself during that time. Lacking sleep and clarity, I do not have much in terms of gems to drop.

In all seriousness, if someone can find Craig Mack for me, I would bake him a cake. Just because I sometimes randomly wonder what he's doing now and if he's sad.

However, I am cranky and I did get a new comment on a post I wrote two years ago that REALLY ticked me off. So what better time to lose a reader than now with a heated
response?

"Showing Love Jones to a group of Black women in their early 20's is like showing a bunch of Iranian kids a Disney World brochure. Dream all you want to, kids. But that trip probably ain't happening for you."

props

In real life, legit dudes like myself would never kiss Nina's ass like that at a club. She had a salty attitude, was a smoker, and didn't deserve the special attention he gave her. Darius was a simp, but Hollywood makes it come off like he's some hopeless romantic. Nina was horrible and he was a lame for taking her back after she went back to NY to see old dude. Nina was fly looking, but not THAT fly, and even if she was real dudes don't trip over a good looking woman without knowing what's under the hood. They lose respect for you and you come off like you're in the middle of a sexual drought. Being subservient is not a part of the man code.

I don't know what you are giving me props on. This is probably one of the darkest, worst posts I ever did. There was no context, just sadness and frustration. Which is fine, for me, looking back on it. Because I can see both my growth as a writer and a thinker. I think the passage the fella chose to cite (which was recently linked on Jezebel) was a clever one and that it does hold somewhat true. The Darius character was in a lot of ways a fantasy worthy man: nurturing, sensitive, creative and understanding. He was flawed and nuanced as well, which is why this film has always had such a special place in my heart.

What's so disgusting to me is that this (hopefully very) young man didn't think Nina (meaning Nia Long, the actress who played her) was "fly" enough to deserve the attention Darius gave her. Um. It was a movie. The Darius character (like most men I've known) thought the Nina character was beautiful and was highly attracted to her. It wasn't a film about a guy who made a conscious effort to go all out for a woman he thought was marginal. And had she been prettier to the guy who made this comment, would Darius' actions been warranted? Oh, and Darius started Nina smoking, as well.

Don't you love how man who does almost all the things sisters want to see is a "simp" in the eyes of a "legit dude"? Is there something not legit about having emotions or doing nice things for a woman? I think the Darius character had some asshole moments too, he wasn't all poetry and scrambled eggs and jazz records. Furthermore, I do know that having sex with a man too early can definitely derail a potential relationship due to the sexist double standard and virgin/whore complex a lot of men have. Part of what made Darius appeal to women was the fact that he didn't hold Nina's willingness to have the same sex HE wanted against her, but was mature enough to chalk it up to the strength of their mutual desire.

Maybe I'M awful, but I'm just not getting "legit" or "real" dude from this comment, nor the very hateful post he did about Bitch Is The New Black (love the "emasculating" image he chose to go with it). More like, "tired, trite, sexist, lacking the ability and/or desire to think critically, flawed perception of masculinity and young". But I could be wrong. I think what bothers me most is that there was so much material with which one could have attacked this post, ripped it to shreds. But instead, I got this. More sexism, more hatred, more evidence that I belong to a generation of men and women who are virtually incapable of being loved or loving or being worthy of love.

Thanks for reading, sir. "Acted like a nigga/and got stomped by an African." My tolerance is thin these days. I can't take the poison of sexism and anti-woman foolishness and if you bring it to my house, I will react accordingly.

As far as the original Love Jones post goes...I'd never write anything like that now. I try to keep my despondent thoughts to myself and honestly, they are rather few and far between these days. Darius was perfect because he was a character in a movie, but I do think there are men like that. Maybe I'll get one, maybe I'll get something else. Even in my darkest recesses, I don't really see the world like I on the day when I wrote this. Has being more positive had a 180 degree impact on my life? No. But it's just who I am these days. I'm grateful, if not moderately embarrassed from time to time, to have a very public record of how I've progressed as both a writer and a woman.

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