My son frequently walks to the neighborhood store for a drink and some candy.

My son often wears a hoodie.  Most recently a Stanford hoodie.

My son puts the hood up when it’s rainy or chilly or if he just feels like it.

So.

Would you question his motives?

Of course not.

Because from reading this blog you know that he is

Middle class

Intelligent

Well-traveled

And comes from a 2 parent household.

He plays the violin, for God’s sake.

There is no reason to be suspicious of him. You know him.

And yet.

Taken out of the context of this blog, taken out of the “safe” labels of #middleclass #intelligent #2parenthousehold,

And now just a nameless brown boy, hood up, walking in YOUR neighborhood…..

What do you think now?

Suspicious some?

Scared some?

Many are.

(If I had a dollar for every neighborhood-watch email that begins with “there’s a suspicious black male….”)

Don’t be surprised and don’t get it twisted.  This is real.  Even for intelligent, middle-class brown boys like mine.  It does not matter who he is or where he comes from.  The suspicion, the fear and the profiling is very real.

Trayvon Martin could have been my son.

So my hoodie is up

For all the brown boys who are watched when they enter the store

Or take a short-cut through another neighborhood

Or cruise around in their parent’s car on a Friday night.

My hoodie is UP.

© 2012, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Our Wedding Day

November 27, 2011

Today my wife Sherrelle and I are celebrating 18 years of marriage. Whoa! Where did the time go!! I know without a shadow of a doubt that marrying her was the single most important decision I have made in my life. Have we had problems you ask? Absolutely, our marriage has endured its share of ups and downs. Has it made us stronger? YES. I can say that at 18 years today we are a solid unit and work in total unison. Didn’t say total agreement, I said “unison.” I know that my approach and look at things is totally different at times than my wife’s. It is operating in this difference and respecting each other’s unique perspective that help us make wise family decisions. One thing that we are completely on the same page about is the fact that without a spiritual relationship our marriage means nothing. We give Jesus Christ the glory, honor and praise for guiding us daily. This “relationship” is more than just attending church but it’s about a filter in which we view life’s challenges on a daily basis–and there are SO MANY daily challenges to filter.

As an entrepreneur my wife is an “investor” in my company by providing the backbone support for the family. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that I would be able to run a successful business, manage employees and maintain two offices if Sherrelle wasn’t operating as COO of the Andrews Family. That trust I have in her managing the details which include but are in no way limited to: Paying the bills, planning vacations, managing the school calendar, researching things for us to do on weekends, and so on, and so on, and on. My wife’s ability to organize all the other functions of my life allow me to focus on running the company and simply having the room to create visions and for that she is a huge investor in my company. I cherish the role she plays and really travel when I have to and when in town do my best to support her role. Lastly, my wife is my emotional cheerleader and confidant. It is here where I need and depend on her so much. The way I look at life, business, friends, family can be so out of wack that without my wife giving me a proper grounding and sometimes additional viewpoint I would completely make several “bonehead decisions.” I confer with Sherrelle on so many decisions and trust her intution. I know and respect a “woman’s intuition” and my wife has the best “Spidey Sense” in the business.

Some of you reading this may not be married yet and considering marriage one day. Maybe you have been married in the past, it ended badly and you are tainted by the whole experience. Perhaps you are in a marriage and are trying to figure out how to get out. Whatever your situation I have this to say to you: Marriage is A MARATHON, NOT A RACE. In plain speak it means that you have to CHOOSE to be married not expect some “oooeey goooey” feeling to take over your body on a daily basis. Our media obsessed culture has many of us totally confused on what real love looks like and most importantly what it takes to survive. So many men I know have a “jacked up” view of sex because of a lust filled culture and pornography. Lastly couples in general lack the commitment to sustainable marriages because of the popular “He/She is not making ME HAPPY” mentality that permeates the way we view marriage. By true confession I’m not a marriage counselor or trained therapist. However (and unfortunately) at 18 years of marriage I’m a member of this rare fraternity of people who make it past 7-10 years of marriage.Here are a few tips that might help you on your journey of marriage:

• Fellas Take The Sword: This means at times (like 90%) you need to “fall on the sword” in an arugment for the sake of your marriage. I promise you this will save you a lot of heartache, time and pain. BE the peacemaker by being the bigger adult. Yes EVEN when she’s dead wrong.
• Eat Dinner At Home As A Family: I noticed that our marriage and relationship as a family changed for the better when we actually committed to a consistent family dinner time at the table. It may last 30 minutes but it is the best time to connect with your wife and family
• Shut It Down: Try and turn off electronics and just soak up your wife. I am still working on this in true confession which tells you how long it actually takes. The fact that I work in Social Media and my wife is a blogger doesn’t help. Try it I promise it works
• Find A Shared Passion: My wife and I have recently realized we share a passion for health/fitness. Sherrelle has done a Clean Program Cleanse with me for 21 days and I most recently took up Kettlebells at her suggestion and we work out in the morning together
• Snuggle Up: Every time you come to bed you don’t have to hit a “home run.” Practice the art of some good ol’ Spoonin which in the end leads to even bigger fireworks.
• Care About Things She Cares About: Guess what, life is not just about YOU. Get into her life and be bummed or be happy about the things that move her emotionally. Women are driven by the details of the day. Be authentically involved in her daily details
• Wise Counsel: You need to keep a few men around you that have some wisdom and have been married several years. If your mentor’s advice to you is “Go get you a chick on the side” RUN IMMEDIATELY and find a new mentor, he’s not your guy homie!

There are so many tips that I could share but I just wanted to get this blog post off my chest. I hope that you find some of what I’m sharing helpful. As we celebrated our marriage today I felt so blessed and humbled that we have made it this far. DIVORCE IS NOT AN OPTION for us and we truly practice that. I would be nothing if I couldn’t at least help a few marriages make it. It’s really tough out there and I want nothing else but to see marriages survive. Again without God I would not even be able to write this post and celebrate this marriage. My best to you. Let me know what tips you have.

© 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

How do you feel when it’s revealed that your teacher, brother, mentor, priest or friend is an embezzler, alcoholic, adulterer, drug addict or chronic liar?

The specific who and the specific what doesn’t matter; it’s all bad.

I can tell you how you feel: depressed, angry and betrayed.  I want to whoop somebody and hard.

This has happened to me before–several times in fact–but yet I am still surprised when the darkness of man eclipses the light.  I am still shocked when addictions and impulses become somebody’s twisted definition of normal.

Many will be harmed.  Generations will be cursed.  Victims, family and friends, even neighbors and colleagues–their lives are changed forever.   Why can’t people understand that there is a ripple effect to their actions that extend far beyond their limited vision?

I am battling the cynicism that is circling my heart. I am trying to silence the voice in my head that says, “People are evil and can not be trusted.”  I am asking God to help me forgive.

But until God has placed his healing hand upon my spirit, until God has taken all the fire out of my tongue and rage out of my fists, I pray that God will keep this fool out of my way.  An encounter with me right now would be a very bad idea.

Jesus, be a 2×4 upside their head until the good sense that left finds it’s way back in.

What about you; have you ever felt betrayed by someone?  How did you get over it?  

© 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

A heart can get pretty abused that way.

The first time they don’t cry when you leave them with someone else.  The first time they drop your hand and run to catch up with a friend.  The first time they wax poetic about their favorite teacher/babysitter/other special adult with the same rapture that was previously reserved for you.

Your heart breaks, just a little, with each milestone of independence and each snip of the apron strings.  But you shake it off and solider on.  After all, isn’t this your job?  Aren’t you raising them to leave you one day?

At first it happens slowly in early childhood, with enough recovery time to adjust to this new level of parenting.  Get your wig on straight again.  But then during the teen years it’s a full blown assault.  Bam! Bam!  Bam!  There are new adjustments and negotiations that happen at an alarming rate.

At this time, you fully understand the phrase “with my heart in my mouth.”  It’s there so no one can hear you scream.

I’ve been the mother of a teen for a few years now and just like parenting a smaller child, it’s both joyous and heart-wrenching.  Sometimes within the same day.  But I roll with it.  I have learned to take the hugs when I can get them and not take it personal when I don’t.  I have learned to listen when he talks and not take it personal when he doesn’t.   Sometimes he wants to spend time with the family and sometimes he would rather be with friends.  I don’t take it personal.

That’s the key to being the mother of a teen and keeping your heart in tact–don’t take anything personal.

Except this.  This I am taking personal.

How can I not?

I’ve read the books out loud to him since he was 5 years old.  Every. Single. Book.  Even the last books when he was more than old enough to read on his own.

I’ve been to bookstore parties, played trivia games and bingo.

I’ve stood in line–at midnight–with hoards of other fanatics.

I’ve taken him to every movie.

I’ve bought every dvd and watched the movies again.  And again.

I admit, I’ve enjoyed reading the books as much as any kid and I am a fan even without my son, but I love that this was something that we experienced together.  His dad could not follow our long detailed conversations and nor did he try.  This was “our thing”–just us two–for over 10 years.

As I read the last page of the last book I was sad to have that time come to a close.  Yes, I would miss that world, but mostly I would miss sharing that world with my son.

But at least we still had the movie, the last movie, to extend that time together, right?

Wrong.

My son just informed me that he wants to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows with friends.

“But” I said,  my voice sounding small, “that’s our thing.”

Let me say that I think kids should want to spend time with friends.  I encourage it.  It’s healthy and expected but how can he be okay seeing Harry Potter with anyone else but me?

“Sorry,” he said.

He didn’t sound sorry.

He sounded perfectly okay seeing Harry Potter with anyone except me.

Sure, I’ll see the movie.  Alone or with my husband who will keep asking questions because he didn’t read the books and knows nothing about Harry Potter, but will feel sorry for me.   Or maybe with my friend, a Harry Potter fan with children still too small to share her passion.

Either way, it won’t be the same without my son.

I get it; he’s growing, changing and finding his own way in the world.  Trying on who he wants to become.  I fully support that, but sometimes it’s hard to find common ground and I miss how close we used to be.  But at least we had Harry.  Harry and the Wizarding World was always an easy thing between us.

I know that we will be close again one day, when he feels that he’s himself enough to be mine again.  And we’ll find new interests to share.   But we’ll never have Harry again.  That bond is, sadly, prematurely, over.

Can someone please come take this knife–er, Gryffindor sword–out of my heart?

***************

Other posts about me & The Boy that you may like:

A Great Day With The Boy

*Just when I am burnt from blogging, I write from the heart and get an awesome response you, the Funkidivagirl.com community; thanks so much.  Also Blogher liked this post so much that they paid me to syndicate it on their blog!  Read it there and check out other great blog posts too.

© 2010, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

I like dogs in the same way that I like babies: I notice, I coo, I pet them if they look well-groomed, but I won’t let your dog lick my face; I can only guess where his tongue has been.   I’m sure his breath smells bad and he may have fleas.

But my dog, MY DOG, I love.  I kiss him, rub his belly and snuggle his nose.  He may have fur (and fleas and stinky breath) and I know where his tongue has been (ewww) but he’s more than a dog to me, he’s family.  He’s home.

The last few years have been stressful for me.   It was pretty traumatic moving away from my beloved New Jersey town and although we have been in Georgia now for 7 years, it still doesn’t feel like home.   I live here, but I’m not rooted.   Adding Chili Dawg to our family last year made me feel a bit more anchored.

Of course I have a human family that I care for everyday.  I plan, I cook, I drive, I play.  I love and propel them towards their dreams.  It’s both what I love to do and feel called to do.   But they are humans and as such they are complex creatures intellectually, physically, emotionally and spiritually.   Those relationships are as rewarding as they are exhausting.

Humans: can’t live without ‘em and can’t throw yourself off a cliff when they get on your nerves.

But my relationship with Chili Dawg is wonderfully simple: I love on him and he loves on me.   That’s it.  No words, no deeds, no negotiations necessary.

That’s love.  That’s home.

© 2010, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

…….a doll that looks like me.  Christmas: a time for showering the little people in our lives with toys and all that their hearts desire.  This can give adults with so much joy, but it can also produce gut-wretching angst when you can’t find a doll for your little brown girl that looks like her.

*Most of my posts for this series of The 12 Days of Christmas have been fun and light-hearted, but I have been meaning to talk about this subject for awhile and it is something that many people struggle with this time of the year.  Roll with it, think about it and please add your two cents in the comments.

A couple of months ago–well before the holiday season–emails were flying on the Mocha Moms listserv about Addy, an American Girl doll.   If you don’t know about American Girl dolls, let me school you as I just entered this world last year when my daughter asked for an American Girl doll for Christmas.  American Girl historical dolls are based on historical fictional book characters; each doll comes with a set of books that highlights a particular segment of American history.  So I had to check out all the dolls and surprise, surprise  there is only one African American historical doll, Addy.

And Addy is a slave.

Of course.

This is what the Mocha Moms were emailing about: why does Addy have to be a slave?  Is that the ONLY part of African American history worth telling?  Oh, and when they saw Addy’s doll, Ida Bean (although I’m sure she’s historically accurate), Lord, the emails were flying fast and furious.

To be fair, Addy is escaping slavery and her story is a courageous and compelling one; all the American Girl stories show how the characters display bravery and tenacity often in the face of the most trying times in American History.  So, they are good books and the principles of the American Girl company are sound.  Let me be clear: I like the American Girl company and support their mission and products both philosophical and financially.  They also make modern-day “Just Like You” dolls that come in several shades of brown with various hair textures, so the lack of brown dolls in general is not in question; the rift is with the historical dolls.

So again we (“we” being me, my Mocha Moms chapter and I’m certain many African American mothers everywhere) ask: is slavery the only story that we have to tell about the African diaspora in America?  It’s not that slavery isn’t a story worth telling, it’s the fact that we are limited to just one story.  There is so much more.

What about the Harlem Renaissance?  Besides great stories about the art, music and literature of that time period, that doll would have some fly clothes for sure.  And what about the ’60s or ’70s?  There is a doll now, Julie, who is sort of a hippy girl living in Berkley California; couldn’t they at least make an African American friend for Julie who wears a dashiki?   That’s what I’m talking about!

I was not opposed to the Addy doll, but my daughter was not interested in her.  So here was the dilemma: do I let her ask Santa for a white doll?  Well, that’s always the question for African American parents whether it’s American Girl, Barbie or Disney Princesses dolls; are we going to let our daughters play with dolls that don’t look like them?

Of the people I know, for most the answer is a resounding NO.  I too feel that way, but my daughter does have many of the Disney Princesses, who up until Princess Tiana (bless her!), were mostly white (Jasmine is Arabian and Mulan is Asian).  I justified buying those dolls because they were “real people.”  Her Cheetah Girls dolls are Latina, African American, mixed race and white, so they’re okay.  And I think she also has a couple of random white Barbies; I don’t know how they got in there.  So, while my daughter doesn’t exclusively own dolls of color,  that is my strong preference.

She just got the new So In Style Barbies, which I love and think were long over-due, but whew!–those dolls have been controversial and they just hit the market.   The articles in Jezebel.com,  Essence.com, and The Wall Street Journal.com show what a hot topic this is for the African American community;  liking the Barbies or not is the main thread, but that we care immensely about the images that are reflective of our daughters.

Why?  Why do I prefer for my daughter to play with dolls of color?  After all, she has a mixed race background so it shouldn’t matter, right?  Wrong.  No matter what her background, she is a brown girl and everything in the world is telling her that she is marginal.  Including the toy industry.  It is up to my husband and me to tell her that she is beautiful and worthy; one of the many ways we can do that is by providing her with playthings that reflect her image and consequently boost her self-esteem.

Back to the American Girl doll dilemma last Christmas: what doll did Santa bring?  After admittedly a few strong suggestions from me, she asked for and got Josefina, a hispanic doll.   A compromise: not African American, but still of color.  I could get with that.   Both she and I love the Josefina doll; she has a rich culture which makes for good stories and beautiful clothes.

This Christmas she asked for another American Girl doll and again I subtly steered her towards dolls of color, either Kaya, a Native American Indian or Sonali, a modern-day doll who is the friend of a white doll, Chrissa.  I’m not sure of Sonali’s heritage, but she’s brown-skinned.  I’ll take it.

It is true that the toy industry has come a long way from when I was little when dolls of color were few and came in one very dark shade of brown, but they still have a long way to go.  As evidenced by the throngs of African American parents I see in the American Girl Store and the Princess Tiana dolls flying off the shelves, we are responding to the increase in diversity.  We have money and will spend it if given the chance.   Just give us the chance.

*****************

The 12 Days of Christmas by Funkidivagirl

On the 1st day of Christmas my true love gave to me….the words to the song.

On the 2nd day of Christmas my true love gave to me….Christmas cards.

On the 3rd day of Christmas my true love gave to me….Chili Dawg.

On the 4th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…..a Christmas vacation.

On the 5th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…..Santa Claus.

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

For those of you not familiar with Kurt von Trapp, he is a 10 year old boy in The Sound of Music, which was first a broadway musical in 1959 and then became a movie in 1965, starring Julie Andrews.   The von Trapps were in fact a real family; although names and other details were changed, the musical and movie are based on the autobiography, The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria von Trapp.

The von Trapps were Austrian and the story takes place right before World War II, so are you surprised to learn that a von Trapp boy had brown skin and wore dreadlocks?   Not very likely, right?

Apparently not.   Not even in a high school production in 2009 is this thought even permissible.  The sentiment was made plain by a man who said to my son–fresh off the stage as Kurt von Trapp–”I bet they didn’t have many dreadlocks in 1938 Austria.”

This was overheard by my husband and I;  My son just smiled wanly and continued on his way.  I don’t even know if he completely heard the man, didn’t understand what he was saying or didn’t know how to respond. I mean, what would one say, “Thank you?”

Dumbfounded, I analyzed what I was feeling and why.  What the man said wasn’t racist per se and he could have even been giving a compliment (in a weird way), but yet the hairs on the back of my neck were standing up.  Why?  Thinking about it later I concluded that it comes down to this: that man was essentially saying that my son was in a role originally meant to be played by a white person–because I know he wasn’t just talking about the dreadlocks.   He did not say anything about his performance or experience as Kurt von Trapp, like “Great job!” or “Did you enjoy playing that role?”, but rather the focus was on his appearance as clearly not what a typical 1938 Austrian would have looked like.

Even in a high school theater performance, is it naive to think that we can be color-blind and focus on the ability of the person to convey the character in a convincing way and not whether or not they “look the part”?  My son gave a great performance as Kurt von Trapp–he was a von Trapp child.  In his first school musical he was cast as Winthrop Paroo in The Music Man, played by Ron Howard in the 1962 film version, and he tore the house down with his performance of “Gary Indiana.”

Thankfully that man’s comment was in no way indicative of the audience at large or my son’s school.  In my research for this post I learned about color-blind casting–also called non-traditional or integrated casting–which is the practice of casting a role without thought to the actor’s ethnicity (I knew that my son’s school did this, I just didn’t know that it had a name in the acting world).   I would hope that all schools employ such practices, because after all a school should be a place of exploring, learning and growing.  I expect young actors to continue to challenge and change the status quo of traditional casting in theater and film.   There are already organizations dedicated to theatrical inclusion such as the Non-Traditional Casting Project and there are notable non-traditional roles that African Americans have played in recent years: Denzel Washington in Much Ado About Nothing and Julius Caesar, and Laurence Fishburne in The Lion in Winter and Othello, just to name a couple.   Grey’s Anatomy was created completely without specific character ethnicity, so the casting process was wide open; consequently it has one of the most diverse ensembles casts on a prime time network today.

I honestly don’t think that man meant anything by this comment.  I just think that he is myopic and uncultured.   The fact is that the world is becoming increasingly more diverse in the workplace, politics (hello Mr. President!) and culturally.   If a small high school in Georgia can show a middle-aged white man that yes, Kurt von Trapp can have dreadlocks, perhaps his eyes were opened just a little bit wider.

*Check out these fantastic performances on YouTube:

“Do Re Mi” from The Sound of Music

“Gary Indiana” from The Music Man

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

While I enjoyed being pregnant twice before, there are things that are not so pleasant: the weight gain, nausea, exhaustion and all the other mysterious ailments that bombard a pregnant body.  And let’s not forget the pain of childbirth, an experience really best forgotten or remembered through the hazy, rose-colored lens of time.

Of course once the baby is here there are the sleepless nights, leaky breasts, endless crying (both me and the baby), constant cleaning and the whole 24/7 of it all.  When would I find any time for me? It’s something that I have slowly grown accustomed to.  I like having the space to explore different parts of me; that would be hard to give up.   With a baby, my day would revolve around nap times, which of course the old saying goes, I really should be napping also.  As much as my mind thinks that I am 25 years old, it’s actually not true (are you as surprised as I am?); I would need to nap!

The truth is that I would be a different kind of parent for the 3^rd child because Gymboree groups and floor play are not as fun as they once were.   I relished those days when I did it, but there are only so many games of Candyland that you can play without wanting to bang your head on the table.  What I once found delightful and fulfilling does not seem appealing to me anymore; I can’t even romanticize it.  I like sleeping all night, wearing clothes free from spit-up and being able to take my children anywhere; naptime meltdowns or tantrums are no longer a threat.  I really enjoy the conversation and fun that I have with my children now.   The last few years of traveling have been so light: no strollers, sippy cups, snacks or toys needed.

Do you know what else I’ve discovered, by having a teenager?  Mothering doesn’t get any easier!  The infant/toddler parenting is physically exhausting, yes, but a piece of cake compared to the anxiety and worry that goes into making sure that you are releasing a decent human being into the world in just a few short years.  I think I know too much now.  It’s probably best to have children all at once—knock them out, as people say—before you have too much time to reflect on what an awesome responsibility you have undertaken.

These are sound arguments for being thankful for the 2 wonderful children that I have and not even consider having a 3^rd–and I’m sure that my husband can come up with many others.   Still I can’t deny that I feel regretful.  Now that I see how fast it goes—zoom!—I wish that I would have been more intentional about planning my family.

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

Los Angeles used to be (still is?) a city that was notorious for racial profiling by the L.A.P.D. and it’s something that I witnessed first hand as a college student.  One evening about 10:00 p.m. my friend and I were driving back to his mother’s house.  He was born and raised in L.A., so well versed about L.A.P.D.;  he was purposely driving the speed limit and making complete stops at each stop sign.   Still, when we were a block away from the house he got pulled over by the flashing blue lights.  In my naivete I made a slight move forward to get something that had fallen on the floor and my friend pushed me back against the seat.   He knew what I didn’t: that move could have cost us our lives if the police thought that I was reaching for a weapon; they shoot first and ask later.   We were asked to exit the car.  When I began to protest, my friend shut me up with one look.   I complied because I thought if my Public Enemy-listening, not-afraid-of-anybody friend was complacent, then I had better be too.  I sat on the curb while they put my friend face down on the grass.  They searched his car (of course they found nothing), ran his plates and driver’s license (both clean) and then released us.  There was no apology, no explanation–nothing to explain our detainment except for the obvious.   It was a very scary and sobering experience.  And even more devastating was the silence from my friend on the way home.

How does a young man reconcile distrust of the very people who have sworn to protect and serve him?  Most African American males I know do not trust the police.  Even my husband gets paranoid if he sees a police car in the rear view mirror.  I tease him and ask, “Are you running from the law?”, but it’s ingrained in him to think the worst.   He’s not speeding and all car registration is up to date, but he knows that it doesn’t matter because it is all too common for a black man to be pulled over for absolutely no reason at all. 

Is this what I am supposed to tell my son when he starts driving in a few years?–Son, if you get pulled over, don’t talk back, don’t make any sudden moves and comply with anything because they will just as soon lock you up or hurt you than be concerned with your rights as a citizen.   Even when my son was a child and I gave him the “stranger danger” talks and told him to look for a police officer if he ever got lost, I cringed inside.  I knew that while I was telling him one thing as a child, there would be other instructions as a young man.

As professor Gates knows, racial profiling is not just limited to driving.   It seems that sometimes the diversifying of a neighborhood brings paranoia as well.  I can only assume it was paranoia that led the 911 caller who reported Gates to describe him as a “big black male wearing a backpack”, when in fact he is not a big man and was wearing a blue blazer.    My neighborhood has a crime watch email loop to inform each other of any criminal or suspicious activity.  While I appreciate the emails about criminal acts and truly suspicious behavior, the repetitious emails such as “there’s a hooded black male riding his bike down Hickory Street” are starting to get on my nerves.  

As Professor Gates says on The Root, he is but one man that this has happened to, one man in too many. The good news is that unlike many of those who have no voice, he is in a position to create dialogue, write essays, make films and in general call attention to racial profiling.  

Maybe then I can believe again in the “Officer Friendly” of kindergarten days.

© 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

This was a tweet that my husband sent this morning…after the, ahem, “discussion” we had.  I imagine that we are not alone and it’s a constant battle for most people, balancing work and home life.   Years ago my family was featured on 20/20 about this very subject.  We got excited calls from around the country, “Hey, we saw you on television!”, but were they not listening to what we were saying on TV?   Yes, we had an adorable son.  Yes, my husband had a glamorous career.  Yes, we lived a financially comfortable existence.  Yes, we were on 20/20.   But it wasn’t good, our life.

At the time my husband was an executive at Columbia Records, a position that 3 years prior caused us to pack up our apartment and newborn son and move across the country from California to New York.   It was big move literally, financially and emotionally.  We were leaving friends who were like family to us and moving to a place where we barely knew a soul.   But with our plans for me to be a stay-at-home mom, a huge career defining position and double our combined salaries, we thought it was a golden opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.

To say our life changed overnight is an understatement; my husband walked off the plane in NYC and hit the ground running.   Adjusting from a work environment in Los Angeles to one in New York was huge; I like to say that people in L.A. try to work as little as possible, while people in NYC try to work as much as possible.  I’m being funny because of course people in L.A. work hard, but the culture of the city is also about enjoying the sun and surf.  If they can make the money and still make the beach before sunset, why not?   Back in L.A. a late night working meant about 8:00 p.m. and it was rare; in NYC it meant about 10:00 p.m. and it was often–then a bus commute home.   In L.A. we took strolls around the block after work and dinner; in NYC I never saw my husband before 11:00 p.m.   And I was alone, with a new baby, in a strange city, without friends or family nearby.

My husband adjusted to the grueling work schedule, I adjusted to to not having him around and sadly we both adjusted to doing our own thing.   He made a life for himself at work and I made a life for myself at home making friends, getting involved in the community and tending to my baby boy.   It worked, but dysfunctionally.   I don’t know how to get ahold of the 20/20 episode to show you, but we do not sound happy on there;  I talk about how resentful I am and he talks about how stressed he is.  It was a recipe for disaster and that’s what happened, disaster.

Fast forward many years to this morning and here we are again.    Trade NYC for Atlanta, record executive for digital media influencer, a baby boy for two active growing kids and it’s a different scene, but the same movie.  It’s still a struggle to make it all work, although as evidenced by my husband’s tweet, he’s much wiser for the wear and not willing to let us get very far off-track without taking action.  The fear of what happened before is too great and too real to take this subject lightly.

I’m sure we’re not the only family who struggles with balancing a productive and happy home life with building a career.  What does your family do to make sure that you are still connected and growing together, despite the demands of work?   How do you strive to give the best to both your family and your career without having either suffer?

© 2009 – 2010, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

I’m a sucker.   Basically I like to think the best of the human race and give people lots of grace to make mistakes and well, be human.  And I really try to do my part to make my daily interactions with people be as pleasant as possible.  But sometimes I am reminded of just how unkind some people can be and it really makes me sad.  I have a blog, I am on Twitter and I love Facebook for interacting with my friends.  And I’m not the only one; social media is one of the fastest growing forms of media today.   I think that is very valuable in connecting people on both a professional and personal level.  But just like other forms of media, it can also be used by cowards and gossips.   I would never say anything in any form of media that I wouldn’t say to someone’s face, but that is obviously not the case with everyone.  (And Diddy…if by chance you are reading this…yes, it is I who said that your tweets were lame.  I don’t mean that they are terrible; you just need to tweet more about your fascinating life and have more dialogue.  ”On my way to CSI set” is not very interesting.  That’s all I meant; just trying to be helpful.)

Just like the tabloids in the grocery line that people gobble up by the millions or those awful celebrity gossip blogs on the internet, people love to form opinions about somebody based on ill-gotten facts and mis-information taken out of context.  I refuse to read those rags or blogs or follow anyone on Twitter who promotes that trash.   

And this is what basically happened when my husband’s recent tweet hit the internet.  Did he say “I hate Memphis; it is a hell-hole of a city?”  NO!  He tweeted a very obscure and heavily veiled dislike for an unnamed town. The person who was initially offended by the tweet made an incorrect assumption and the readers of Shankman.com ran with it.   I’m amazed that half of the debate was whether or not Memphis is terrible looking town in need of a major over-haul.  THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID!  Now, what I would have said was “Some racist fool in Memphis almost got a beat-down; I hate this town!”  But, that’s just me.

Anybody who uses Twitter and knows what they are doing, knows that it is a dialogue that takes place.  Any sane Twitterer would have tweeted back, “What town are you in?  Why do you say that?”  And it would have been a conversation shared with many people.  That is the beauty of Twitter and social media in general.  Where it gets ugly is when people abuse it by carrying out their own vendettas against individuals, companies or groups of people.  

Are we so out of touch with each other as humans that we can’t confront each other in person, if the circumstances allow?  Is all human interaction reduced to emails, texts, tweets and internet slander?  I suppose that is the easy thing to do because it makes the person you are attacking less human.  

Many of the comments on Shankman’s blog were not constructive or thoughtful discourse about the use of social media, but were insensitive attacks against my husband’s character–someone that they don’t even know.  I think that people forgot that they were talking about a real person with a real job and a family to support.  

People: that is my man that you are talking about!  He is my husband of 15 years, my best friend and partner.  He is a father to 2 beautiful children.  He is a son, a brother and a friend to many.  And he IS the Keyinfluencer; anyone who knows my husband would say that he is a master connector, network guru and social media rock star.  And anyone who says otherwise is a hater.

You got beef with my husband?  Then you say it to me.  My name is Sherrelle Kirkland-Andrews, otherwise known as Funkidivagirl and I am proud to be married to James Andrews, The Keyinfluencer.  

Bring it.

© 2009 – 2011, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.

On November 1, 2008 a good friend, father, son, brother and life partner was lost when Shakir Stewart committed suicide.  I barely knew Shakir, but my husband had known him for many years and considered him a friend and “little brother”.  We were at home when we found out the news and my husband was devastated. At first he refused to believe that Shakir took his own life and insisted instead it was foul play.  But as it became clear that indeed Shakir’s death was by his own hand, my husband grieved even more as he struggled to make sense of it all.  How could this man, so young and successful, take his own life? 

We attended the memorial service on Morehouse’s campus and the place was packed with those who loved and respected Shakir.  Many people spoke, my husband among them, and all said the same thing: that Shakir was loving, loyal, funny, supportive, smart, and most of all, that he loved life.  It was no doubt that Shakir was a special person put on earth to touch many people and change many lives.

I will never forget talking to Shakir’s mother after the service and she said, “I didn’t really know my son.”  I’m sure that it is a sentiment that many suicide family-victims share.   Who was this person in their last hours, in so much despair that life didn’t seem worth living anymore?  Certainly he was not the person that everyone spoke about at the memorial service?

But, yes he was.  He possessed all of those good qualities and some bad ones too.  Everyone one of us has, for lack of a better phrase, a dark side.  A part of us that is full of doubt, insecurity and pain.  And if you don’t have it, just keep living.  Life has a way of eventually breaking us down.   By “life” I mean careers (too stressful or non-existent), money (too much or lack thereof), people who break our hearts (by dying, leaving and just being human) and all the other things that grind on us day after day and have the potential to zap our strength and steal our joy.   Life can really suck sometimes.  The thing about despair is that it can be such a slow decent downhill that you think you are handling it fine, but then one thing can happen to send you careening over the edge. 

I was once in a terrible state and my entire life was crumbling around me.  I was blessed to have support from family and friends, I had joined a local church and I was in therapy.  I was in a mess, but handling it remarkably well, or so it seemed to me and everyone else.  And then when I thought that my life couldn’t possibly get any worse, it did.  Just like that, I snapped.  I hastily packed a bag and jumped in my car.  I didn’t even know where I was going.  I found myself on the Garden State Parkway and 90 minutes later I got off on the exit for Ocean Grove.  I vaguely remembered my local librarian talking about this beach town in New Jersey that was founded by a Methodist preacher and somehow I knew that it was where I needed to be.  After exiting I remembered that I had long ago heard of a bed & breakfast there called the Love Letter Inn, and without any directions I drove straight into town and stopped directly in front of the inn.   It was late in the evening when I knocked on the door and was greeted by the owner.  The only room that she had left was the bridal suite and it was over $150 for the night.  I couldn’t afford that, but she took one look in my eyes and gave me the room for $75.  I cried and slept and looked at the ocean outside my window. 

The next day I checked out and looked for more affordable accommodations as $75 was even too much for me at the time.  Another kind hotel owner found an inexpensive room for me with a shared hall bathroom in a place a block from the beach. I had been missing now for almost 24 hours and my cell phone was ringing continuously as friends and family became worried.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so eventually I just turned it off.  I sat and cried and stared at the ocean.  On the beach there was huge cross planted right in the sand.  I don’t know if it is always there, but it was there then and I knew that it wasn’t an accident that I ended up in that coastal town.  At the time, I really didn’t know how to pray or what to say, but just sitting near that cross soothed me.

That evening I finally checked my voice mail and as I listened the messages became more and more frantic.  The last message was from our town’s police chief (who was also a family friend) saying that he was going to Lo-jack my car if I didn’t return his call.  Trying to head off any drama (too late for that, right?), I called him back.  See, the funny thing was I had just talked to him before I received that “last straw,” so he didn’t understand my disappearance.  I told him what had happened to make me run away and I will never forget what he said to me as it changed my life forever: He said, “You are putting too much faith in people, in circumstances.  Only ONE will never let you down and that’s Jesus.”   I clung to those words, re-dedicated myself to Christ right then and checked out the hotel.  As I left, the owner gently took my hand and said, “You look so much better now; I think that you’re going to be okay.”  And I was.  My entire life drastically changed and although things got much worse before they got better, I handled them with humility and grace. 

Unlike Shakir, during my darkest hour I didn’t want to harm myself.  But like Shakir, I felt so much pain, and so much despair that I had to do something to cope, so I ran away.   My absence, for even just a short while, caused many people grief and that I do regret, but understand that I was just trying to keep myself from breaking in a million pieces.  From all accounts it seems that Shakir, like me, had many people that he could have turned to for help. Could have one of his many friends or family members helped pull him off the edge?  Perhaps they could have if they had known what was troubling him, but your mind and soul can be a powerful battleground.  If the war isn’t won there first, it can be really hard for someone else to reach you, no matter how much they love you.

Has life gotten better for me?  Yes, it has.  Do I still feel broken and beaten sometimes?  Yes, I do.  But I am certain that I will never run away again as I have something to believe in more powerful than the people and circumstances around me or even myself.  There was, as they say, “a blessing in the storm”, in that I now know that I can handle whatever life throws at me, hold on to His Unchanging Hand and emerge stronger and wiser than before. 

I wish that Shakir had won the battle that was raging inside of him, because I’m certain that he would have used that lesson to be a blessing to those around him, just like he always had.   But his death doesn’t have to be in vain.  We touch each other everyday in big and small ways.  Let’s let our touch be a gentle and loving, yet lasting one.   With God’s grace we can make the decision to be a better person and love harder, laugh longer and live louder.  In doing that we honor Shakir and others who just couldn’t hold on another day.  

Shakir Stewart

April 12, 1974 – November 1, 2008

© 2008 – 2009, Funkidivagirl.com. All rights reserved. Republished only with permission.