Marriage

What Are We Wearing For Serena’s Wedding?

Yesterday I woke to wonderful news. The first pleasant surprise was that no one who defined or impacted my adolescence had died. The second was that Serena Williams had gotten engaged! I greeted the news with the exuberance of a sunflower saluting the sun. I basked in it. I welcomed in it. I reveled in it. And even before I had a chance to go out onto the innanets-at-large to talk about it, I knew folk would be mad about it. Why? Because Queen Serena Ama Williams had announced her engagement to Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, a man who happens to be white.

Whooo, they mad.

They big mad.

So mad that my boy David has offered a cape so that anyone offended by the pending union can be Super Mad.

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Predictably, the Ankh-Right and their flagella have come forward to call Serena a self-hating ‘bed wench’ and who loathes her blackness to the point that she would wish to cancel it. The same Serena who has dated both Common and Drake, both men who define Black maleness and neither of who saw fit nor reason to put a ring on it. The same Serena who twerked for one of the blackest visual albums of all time. That Serena hates her blackness, eh? Your brain is only firing on one synapse.

There were no Black men serious about marrying this woman. You all only tune into her matches to see what color Spandex she’s wearing and to ogle her posterior. Don’t lie! I have been in the house with a 54-year-old man who could barely get his fingers dialing his keypad fast enough, breathless as he called up his buddies as he heaved one-word sentences.

“Dawg. ESPN. Serena. Black jumpsuit. Dat azz!”

54 years old.

Yet you are the same people who said she looked like a dude, that she was built like a dude, and yet – ironically – have never fought to make sure that she was paid like or recognized for her prowess like a dude. But when Reddit Takes Serena to Rome, you are angry? Please go and find an opera house and have aaaall the seats, balcony included. You did the same thing to Lupita. Called her dark, skinny and ugly but then got angry when it was rumored that she was dating Jared Leto. What would an African Queen want with such a white peasant? You people just want Black women to be miserable for your sport and pleasure, living for your validation and yours alone.

A comment on IG in response to Zoe Saldana, her sisters and their white spouses.

A comment on IG in response to Zoe Saldana, her sisters and their white spouses.

What shall it profit a Black woman to wait for a Black man to make up his mind? Did not Janet stick with Jermaine for a decade to no avail? And now you are angry because she dresses like “a Muslim” as she carries her very Arab, very billionaire hubby’s child.

My sisters! Flourish! Let them talk!

I’m sickened by, but not at surprised by the ill will exhibited towards Serena. Black men have long freed themselves from the unspoken obligation to marry within the race (Notice I didn’t say procreate, which many do with the utmost ease) and pursue committed relationships with women of other ethnicities. As a group, Black women have not yet given themselves permission to do so. The sexual violence meted out against Black women’s bodies at the hands of white men over the centuries does not inspire much confidence on a subconscious level. There is always that question of whether the interests of a man whose race phenotypically differs from yours is the result of exoticism or viewing you as an item to be checked off on his ethno-sexual exploits list. I once went for lunch with a co-worker who coyly (and I think, suggestively) told me that he’d “been with a Black girl once”. The words slid around his beer-moistened lips like melted lard – unctuous and fascinating to behold.

Of course, not all white men think or behave this way, but just like guys have to question if a woman is with them because of their money, we have to wonder if men of other races are trying us on for size because we’re Black. It takes time and effort to discern true interest.

On the other side of the divide, there are Black men who feel vindicated by Serena’s engagement to a nerdy white guy. Now NO Black woman can ever say anything about them dating women outside of the race and have credibility, they cry! You hateful Black women can’t be mad at us for choosing white women any more!

I know it’s hard for these men to understand or believe (because they consider themselves SUCH catches), but the vast majority of Black women greet the sight of an interracial couple with a shrug, if with any reaction at all. We really don’t care. I don’t think Black men dating/marrying white women has been an issue for the community at large since Waiting to Exhale. And when our irritation for your mating/marrying preferences is provoked, it is ONLY because certain men go out of their way to present their selection of a white wife as an improvement over Black womanhood. That’s disrespectful and unnecessary.

Why would we hate white women for marrying Black men and vice versa? White women have birthed and raised some of the most socially conscious and loving men of color of our times. Was it not a white woman who gave us Jesse Williams? Was it not a white woman who carried Barack Obama in her womb? These women are not the problem… the Black men who would seek to make Black women feel inferior solely and simply because they are not white, are. Because the reality is that like violent crime, most marriages will be intra-racial. Neither Black nor white people are going to disappear because Serena decided to marry someone who doesn’t look like her daddy.

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Enough about the ill wishers; The rest of us are ecstatic! All around the internet, people are expressing their joy. The tailors are going to be very busy in the coming months. One friend has pledged to sew aso ebi whether she is invited or not. Another said she has been saving a special dress for this day in particular, because she knew it would come. As for me, I am going to the fabric shop to purchase tulle, organza, silk, shweshwe and any other expensive material in stock at Lapland Fabrics to wear on the day. I can’t think of a style elaborate enough to honor the nuptials of Sister Ama Williams, so I may just wrap myself in the cloth and sit on the veranda, staring into the sunset, pretending to be part of the bridal party seated at the high table. I hope she publishes the day of the wedding. I hope she publishes the menu. I hope they make shrimp cocktail. It will be the most elaborate pretend play date of my adult life. Oh Serena! We are so happy for you!

Please make babies. Lots and lots of babies. Talented, tennis playing, Trinitron developing babies! And if you would like to preserve your physique rather than lose it to the rigors of child carrying and birth, I offer my uterus as tribute. I’ve already had 4 babies and after 6 years since my last birth, it’s obvious that I’m not bouncing back from that endeavor. This kangaroo belly is yours, should you desire the services of a surrogate. *Call me…*

Brother Alexis, you are welcome to the family. We know you cannot fix computers, but you work with computers, so we will ask you to look at our ailing Gateways anyway. We expect that you will make our dear Nana Ama Williams very happy. In announcing your intended union, you have provided us with the final act of 2016’s Summer Celebration of Interracial Love. The trilogy started with ‘A United Kingdom’,

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continued with ‘Loving’,

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and has concluded with ‘Love-Love in Rome: A Serena Williams story.’ Nothing in Nollywood can come close to this splendor!

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What a wonderful way to close out this year. Thank you for this gift, because seeing your happiness unfold is indeed a gift to all of us. Now, to Aneres! There is wedding shopping to do!

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Generated by IJG JPEG Library

 

 

PSSSTTTT! Now that 2016 is coming to a close, here a PSA for some unhappy people:

As some of you know, the geneses of this blog were as amusing anecdotes and personal observations about my environment and the world at large, posted on Facebook. I was encouraged to bring those thoughts and the writing that accommodated them to a larger audience and ended up on this platform. I was assured that “people will just love what you have to say!” Now that I’m nearly 7 years into the blogging game, I am more confident than ever that sharing your “baby” (your art, talent, money, etc.) for the love of people is a poor decision. In fact, it’s a crappy reason to do anything at all, because people are cruel and fickle.

But that’s neither here nor there. What’s done is done and come February I will renew my subscription for this domain name.

You should know that the thing that’s kept this blog going is my sister. I don’t write for revenue or exposure. I write so that my sister has something to read when she comes into her office during the week, to get her day started with something other than work pressure and mundane emails. I pick topics that I know my sister would find thought-provoking or diverting and write about them. In the process and over the years, I’ve picked up a handful of readers along the way; readers may (and frequently, may not) appreciate or understand my style of writing on this platform, which is informal, often satirical and sprinkled with a good helping of dry wit. That’s because this is how we communicate with each other in my family. We navigate pain and serious issues through our brand of humor. We are what Charlie Murphy refers to as “habitual line steppers”. So if you’ve come here over the previous year – or more – and have found yourself taking exception to anything I’ve written pertaining to jollof rice or John Mahama or jeggings, just understand I am not writing for YOU. I never have, and I never will. I write for my sister and I write for myself.

Here is the blessedness in all of this: Over to the right side of this page, there is a button. It says “Subscribe”. You may have pressed it once. Go and un-press it. There are lots of ways to keep my content from showing up in your reading material, and one of the quickest ways to ensure your peace is to keep my name outcho mouf and away from your fingertips. You found your way to my blog, and you can find your way out of it. Why are you stressing yourself about something I’ve written when you aren’t my audience anyway? Do you go to KKK websites and object to the content therein? No! Because you know it would be futile… or at least, I hope you would know that. God, I hope you know that…

I am what I am and I write what I like, the WAY that I like. That’s never going to change.

So dear dissatisfied reader and faux ally: LEAVE. You don’t pay me to read my posts and I have never begged anyone to stop by here. We will both take pleasure in knowing that Mind of Malaka is one of the things that made your “list of things to leave in 2016” for reasons that don’t require further explanation. There is a blessing in knowing when your participation in a relationship has run its course. This time may be yours. Buh bye.

To the rest of my beloveds, I look forward to seeing you #onhere in 2017! May you conquer your obstacles. May your adversity suffer the same defeat as Rhonda Roussey in her final match of 2016: swift, ferocious, and obliterated in under a minute! Happy New Year!

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