As I type this, it’s been 3 days since my 39^th birthday and I’ve been living in a forest hut in virtual solitude.

You see that? That’s not entirely true. In your mind’s eye, you probably imagine me sitting in some darkened hovel in the woods with only cheetahs and baboons for company, when in reality, I’m at Tsitsikama National Park, there is a well-stocked restaurant called the Cattle Baron just a lazy 15 minute walk away and a cleaning lady comes to tend to my cabin every day around 10am. Words have the power to create perception, which is why I imagine the bible advises us to use our tongues wisely. You can mess someone up with one false word.

I hate liars. Don’t you? There’s nothing more vexing than catching someone in an easily verifiable lie. What was the point in the endeavor, you wonder. People lie about the silliest of things – like their age, their income…even the size of a crowd at their inauguration. Eventually, it all comes out in the wash and instead of the respect/admiration/adulation that the liar hoped to earn by telling the falsehood, all it warrants them is mistrust and scorn from the audience.

Yeah…I hate liars. So what do you do when you become the thing that you hate?

I lied about something once, and it’s been tearing away at my spirit for several days. Unlike the sort of lie that only has consequences for yourself (e.g. a butt whuppin’ because you took all the Snickers from Grandma’s candy dish and swore you didn’t), a lie whose ramifications have a domino effect are the worst to contend with. Oftentimes, once the lie is told, there is no way to restore everything that could/will be taken from the accidental victim. For instance, I earned the reputation for being a slut in high school after some dude told his friends (and therefore half the school) that he’d got into my panties. The immediate consequence of this was that it emboldened a number of undesirable nyuggaz with a scrotal itch to request if they could use my vagina as a scratching post. It was now confirmed that I was “easy” after all. Fortunately, I’m sure if you ask around today, only a handful of people from my year group would remember the incident and the damage to my reputation it caused, but I do; naturally. And naturally, I imagine that the two young women who my lie affected will remember the circumstances and the effects for many years to come.

As I mentioned before, I’m sitting in this cabin/hut all alone, and it’s given me a lot of time to think, reflect and remember a myriad of things. For some reason, foremost among these thoughts are two sisters – twins – who came into the retail store where I was working in Alpharetta many years ago.

The sisters were about 5 or 6 years old at the time. They wore identical hairstyles: big, shiny braids and baby hairs impeccably laid as though an offering for the ancestors. They were friendly, sweet little girls who didn’t bother their mother as she shopped for her shoes. They were the type of kids you wanted to give things to because they were so good, you know? (We got a lot of bratty, darn near feral kids running in that store all the time, so the twins were a breath of fresh air.) So because they were the sort of kids one gifts things for no reason at all, I ‘gifted’ them a blank store gift card each to aid in their play. I’d picked the prettiest cards on our shelves.

“So you guys can pretend to have your own money as you shop at our store!” I said brightly.

“Yay!!” said the twins. “Thank you!”

And play they did.

Satisfied that I’d made two little girls day a little cheerier, I returned to my post at the check out lane, where I watched another cashier help their mom. She called for the twins to join her and they quickly obeyed. A few minutes later, the twins returned to the store, their mother raging ahead of them. She came directly to my station at the check out lane.

“Did you give these two girls THESE?” she growled, throwing the two worthless gift cards on the counter in front of me. She looked as though I’d given her children poison.

Now, before I go on and tell you what I did, you guys have got to understand: I’m afraid of Black women. I have been afraid of Black women MY WHOLE LIFE. You never know if you’re going to get cussed out, get the devil cast out of you, or be welcomed into a bosomy hug; And because this particular Black woman (about 10 years my senior) looked like she was about to cuss me out, I did the only thing that previous experience coupled with my flight or fight reflex told me would keep me safe, at least for the moment. I lied.

“Noooo…” I said breathlessly. “No.”

Her posture straightened and her forehead lost a few of its wrinkles. It was if I’d sucked the wind out of her sails with one word. She left without another word to me and shouted for her twins.

“Come on, y’all!”

As I stood there shaken and in a cold sweat, I watched the trio leave and heard the girls protesting mournfully. “But she did give it to us, Mommy. She did!”

And then they were gone. And I never saw the family in my store again.

Ohhh, but this week I’ve seen them in my dreams and in my waking moments! I don’t remember exactly how many years ago that incident was, but I’d put it around 7 or so. The store had just been renovated around that time. That means the twins are now 12, possibly 13 years old. The tween years are tough. Children are still trying to hold onto their innocence while adolescence quietly beckons them to all its drama. Today, I sit in my cabin and imagine what those twins look like. I wonder if they were ever able to convince their mother that they were indeed telling the truth and that I was a cowardly liar, not them. I wonder if she beat the brakes off of them when she returned to their vehicle and uses my falsehood against them on occasion. I wonder if my lie cost them the complete trust of their mother for a very, very long time.

That’s really what’s eating me up inside. I have no way of knowing if they turned out all right; and worse, I have no way of reconciling my sin other than to pray for them and hope I get the chance to make amends some day, by some miracle.

In our home, we have been dealing with two children who have problems telling the truth the first time, which is what probably has me reflecting on my own folly. Even when they know we know their lying, they stick to and build on the untruth until it crumbles all around them. Somehow, somewhere along the way, I/we have created an atmosphere that causes them fear the consequences of telling the truth rather than the horrible fallout that always follows a lie.

Or maybe a lying spirit is inherited. Who knows? I’ll ask a dreaded Black woman to cast it out of us all, if that’s the case.

If I could give an encouragement to just one parent today, I’d say this: When it comes to kids, don’t always assume that the adult at the other end of the exchange is telling the truth – not at the expense of a healthy relationship with your child. Believe your child first so that they know they always have a loving champion in you. Even if it does turn out in the end that the child was lying, at least they have that assurance that you loved them enough to have faith in them until the truth exposes them. I believe love is far more effective at drawing out an honest confession than fear and mistrust ever will be. I hope that in this way, we can teach our kids (and maybe a few adults) to love truth more than we hate/fear the lie.

Wait a minute! Allow me to disabuse you of the notion that I’ve lost all my savagery! I do believe that there are situations in which an untruth is prudent. For instance in answer to the questions “Was that good for you?” or “Do you like the way I styled your hair?” a response in anything other than a tepid affirmative will result in bruised egos and a fruitless attempt at a do over. But now I wonder, in this age of “alternative facts”, how precious is the truth? How precious is it to you, personally?

First of all: Happy John Boyega Day! Today –and forevermore, quite frankly – John Boyega belongs to all of us, not just Nigerians. Just like sister Lupita is for Africa. Kenya alone cannot commandeer all her shine!

Much has been written and commented about Black representation (or the lack of) in film, particularly in the realm of fantasy and fiction. Even to the casual observer, it is obvious that actors of color get the most work on big budget films when there is a slave narrative to be told or the haphazard biopic depicting our two kings: Mandela and MLK. That’s what has made John Boyega’s casting as a Storm Trooper turned Jedi so exciting for many of us. I mean, according to Hollywood and science fiction, there are no Black people in the future… and certainly none in space! This notion has led to an outcry from entertainment critics and consumers alike. We want to see more people of color starring in iconic roles! We want to see actors and actresses of color portraying complex characters beyond the tired tropes we’ve been dished out to date! We want Idris Elba to play ‘James Bond’!

James Bond, eh?

This is where discord rears its head in our collective chorus. While we do want more representation in the mainstream arts, we can’t decide how to achieve that goal. Should roles that have traditionally been played by white actors be opened up for Blacks, Asians or – gasp – people of Middle Eastern descent? For instance, could Shah Rukh Khan convincingly played Matt Damon’s role in The Martian? (Personally, I don’t see why not. After all Chiwetel Ejiofor played a scientist named Venkat Kapoor, which is about as southeast Asian as a moniker can get.) Or is it up to Bollywood and other non-western film industries to produce their own versions of The Martian and cast the lead with their preferred ethnicity? Some people say yes, emphatically! We have a duty to stop feeding off the fruit of Hollywood and build our own industries!

That’s all well and good, but back to Idris and the ‘James Bond’ question.

Perhaps of all theoretical casting possibilities, this has given folks on both sides of the divide the most angst; has caused the most perplexity. There is no doubt that Idris Elba is a fine actor (a fine MAN, period), a great box office draw and has all of the qualities of a leading man. He would make a far better Bond than Timothy Dalton or George Lazenby, in my humble opinion. The only problem is Idris is Black. Blackety- Black. True, African Black. And a lot of people can’t see past his color and allow for him to portray a Scottish spy who serves in Her Majesty’s most clandestine intelligence agency. Because Black.

I understand and appreciate the struggle that these people find themselves trying to navigate. It’s far more comfortable and convenient to neatly categorize people and put them in a tidy box where they “fit”. Unfortunately, migration patterns and global integration mean that fewer and fewer people are able to identify as one thing specifically. So as Black as Idris Elba is, there is no escaping that he IS a British man – of African descent – and therefore could in real life function in the role of an intelligence operative. However why people are more comfortable with Black men performing the duties of an ‘everyday superhero’, but find discomfort with a 2hr 38min fictional flick portraying the same responsibilities is something only they can explain. It’s beyond me.

Personally, I do think it’s time that we developed our own iconic characters and I would love to see a globally recognized spy of African descent and origin in film. Of course, developing such a character would not come without significant challenges. Part of what makes James Bond such a universally loved character is that his existence is plausible and all of his feats –although Herculean – are feasible. A lot of that has to do with Bond’s supporting cast. Moneypenny is as efficient as she is dedicated to the cause of national defense. She is always at her post as you expect. Q has a first-rate lab in which he designs and develops gadgets for James in order to make each mission a success. But most of all, James Bond has the benefit of traveling around the world with a British passport in white skin.

Ei. Can an African man enjoy these same benefits and manage to get his spy work done? Let’s be realistic.

First we’ll have to pick a country in which to build our African James Bond. Such a man’s effectiveness will really depend on the country of origin. Mauritius James Bond would most likely be the most successful, since that country has the infrastructure and international integrity to support spy work at this level. Ghana James Bond? Not so much.

His passport would only allow him access to certain countries without a visa, and even then he may face discrimination at immigration. Ghana James Bond would frequently find himself selected for “random security” checks, have all his belongings confiscated and summarily his cover blown. Constant power failures means Ghana Q would be perpetually behind in his R&D for Ghana Bond. No R&D means we would constantly be putting Ghana James Bond at risk. As for Ghana Moneypenny, the less said about her, the better. Poor woman is probably rocking herself to sleep after dealing with the constant sexual harassment and requests from her family for money because she’s the ONLY one amongst the lot who’s managed to get a job in Ghana’s dumsor ecomini. Ghana Moneypenny is never at work.

And as far as field work? Kai! There would be no high speed chases to catch the bad guys because traffic patterns would always be clogged. The roads and networks in Ghana make no sense. If Ghana Bond were to rely on the services of the local police force for back up, he’d be S.O.L because the government will have spent the money needed to purchase police vehicles to brand city buses with NDC colors, thereby allowing Ghana Bond’s quarry to escape into the ubiquitous bush. Every thief and armed robber escapes into a ‘bush portal’ that materializes at just the critical moment. True story. Read the Daily Graphic. We don’t catch thieves in Ghana because they always find a bush to escape into.

Oh! And let’s not forget the perpetual requests from Ghana Bond’s relatives to “carry something small” upon his return/departure to abrokyi. The sniffing airport dogs would have a field day with the koobi. This would only lead to further detention.

Ghana James Bond will never be great…or at least not as great as British James Bond. He could find some greatness at his job, but only within the confines of his office. He can be a superhero of spreadsheets, or something.

And that’s not his fault. It’s his government’s fault. If we were to develop such a character given out current realities, he’d be a tragic, uninteresting cartoon of a man…and that’s why no one has written a script for Ghana James Bond today. The struggles he would face are just not worth it, and no movies-goer would appreciate (or believe) the depth of lies and fabrications that Ghana Bond’s creators would have to descend to in order to make Ghana James Bond remotely interesting.

The struggle. The spy struggle is so real.

Did you enjoy this post? Then you’ll LOVE my new book “Madness & Tea”, coming out on e-books on Christmas day!

 It’s Monday morning and two days before the official beginning of Fall. I won’t be keeping you for very long, MOM Squad. Like you, I have coffee to procure and a wardrobe that needs rotating. Before I begin, I want to send hugging and high five vibrations to Viola Davis for being the first Black woman to win an Emmy for Best Actress in the award’s 67-year history! That moment, her speech, that dress and THAT HAIR were historic. *Shakes under the weight of the presence of God’s glorious handiwork*

Let me ask you a question since we only have a few minutes. Have you ever sat back, looked around you and marveled at how unrelated events or the experiences of strangers seem to mirror your reality?

Take this post from HONY, for example:

Now, this was the follow up post in this nameless man’s saga. In the previous one, he spoke about how he found himself homeless after a he failed to make consecutive sales in his real estate business. Cue the “awwws” and broken heart emojis from the HONY community. Of course there were the offers for a solution to his dilemma, which is one of the reasons I follow HONY: to watch out for those members of the community who ARE problem solvers. They give me hope. I don’t know what question Brandon asked the Nameless Man to prompt him to respond in the manner in which he did…all I know is that it got a lot of folk of a certain persuasion pretty riled up. Folk who probably think of themselves as “good people”. After all, only good people follow HONY, don’t they?

I wish I had a gentler way to put this: There is a psychosis that Good White People have to grapple with, but they can’t do this until they recognize their ailment first. The Nameless Man was not incorrect in his assessment of his interaction with Whiteness as a man with dark skin when he said “…when he’s crushed down one thousand times, and when he absolutely needs it, he will play that card to save his self-esteem vis-à-vis me. I’m not saying it’s a choice. It’s not a moral thing. I’m saying it’s a feature of his soul that he doesn’t know is there.”

Those of us who have ever spent time working in a professional setting know exactly what the Nameless Man is talking about. If you’ve ever had a White woman claim credit for the execution of a marketing campaign (as I have), or had a white male boss posture himself as the originator of a theoretical approach to a scientific or mathematical problem that was brilliant (as my sister, my former room mate, several people on this very blog have revealed to have suffered the same thing), or watched in horror as folk still insist that Elvis was the originator of Rock n Roll, then you have a sense of what the Nameless Man is talking about. History bears out this ugly trend as far back as “Eli Whitney’s” Cotton gin (whose design he reportedly bought from a slave for a nickel) if not before. And if this blatant robbery were not bad enough, the victim is accused of racism for pointing out that the overwhelming perpetrators of these thefts is in fact, white. But Good White People don’t see it this way.

What does any of this have to do with Viola’s win last night? Oh, everything. A soul on Twitter hopped onto the social network to illustrate the complications in the relationship between the races, the Nameless Man spoke of, as though Providence herself lent a hand in this unmasking.

In the opening remarks of her brilliant acceptance speech, she quotes Harriet Tubman:

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no-how. I can’t seem to get over that line.

The largely white audience, filled with Good White People claps politely…or in some cases, not at all. They don’t get the significance of what she’s talking about. In fact, Nancy Lee Grahn took to Twitter to express umbrage with Viola’s choice of words and ultimately claiming that this should have been an “All Women” moment.

She even went so far as to opine that the Julliard graduate should have let Shonda Rhimes write her speech for her!

As always and never to disappoint, Twitter showed up in the full magnitude of its dragging glory and returned fire with this magnificent response:

In one of her tweets, Nancy Grahn goes on to intimate that Viola has never been the “victim of discrimination”, making her use of Araminta Ross’ address in her acceptance speech insincere.

As you can imagine, it only gets worse from there. I don’t think I’ve seen a Good White Woman flaunt this much cluelessness since Justine Sanco’s tweet about landing in Africa and not being able to catch AIDS because she’s white. Of course Mizz Nancy is all contrition and remorse now, and has duly apologized for any “offense she may have caused” and we are expected to shuffle along like good Negroes…until this happens again at a Kroger check out lane or water cooler near you.

It’s maddening that Good White People can’t see how damaging this behavior is. These are the moments when I wish Wal-Mart sold a tote-along, press my belly Flava Flav doll that sang “You can’t see what I can see!” to emphasis the depth of their willful blindness to the fact that many things are not equal and that every occasion can’t be an All Lives/All Women/All Rainforests time to shine. But none of that matters because this entire discourse was about “me” anyway.

Whatever.

I want to conclude by thanking Viola for using that moment to show the world a different side to Black womanhood. The side that CBS news and Maury and VH-1 and the hoard of other networks make it a point to bury. The side of Black womanhood that is graceful and gracious. That shares her shine with her sisters. That honors the memory of those sisters who have gone before us. And for reminding me of the importance of my craft when she said:

“…the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”

This speech should be dissected and taught in class for its power despite its brevity. I have been tempted many times to stop writing because I didn’t see the point. But if I give up on my craft, I can’t get mad because they keep casting us as maids, or whores, or illiterate junkies…compelling as those stories may be. It’s my duty to write about the many Black women who are lawyers, or homemakers, or secret taekwondo assassins to bring balance to our story. I thank Viola for subtly reminding me of that.