The Clemson CRIPmas Party: a response from a Pro-Black Girl alum.

In case you don’t watch CNN or FOX News, my dear old alma mater is in trouble, its students accused of throwing racially insensitive holiday parties. No, I'm not talking about the Blackface Party Fiasco of 2007. I’m talking about CRIPmas 2014, otherwise known as Clemson’s second major (reported) racial incident in less than 10 years. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, an SAE fraternity, threw their annual “CRIPmas Party”, where frat members and sundry sororities get together in their best Gangsta Themed clothes, sing along to Biggie Smalls albums, and play beer pong. Or, you know, whatever it is that they do at those types of frat parties. I never went to any because you don’t always have to bite the donut to know that it’s sweet.

Or, in this case, you don’t have to go to the party to know that you really don’t belong there. I'm not a party girl in general, but racist frat functions definitely aren't my cup of tea. These good ol’ Clemson kids certainly seem to like them though. After all, it’s an annual CRIPmas Party. And then there was the aforementioned Blackface Party Fiasco of 2007. And all those lovely Yik Yak posts about the Die-In protests last week. You know which ones I’m talking about. “Stay safe, blacks are attacking whites nation wide.” Whites a minority?! Haha. We’ll always been the superiority.” “Clemson used to be a plantation with slaves. Atleast be happy we gave u freedom[.]”

Nothing will show the character of an entire geographical region like anonymous social mobile apps, amirite? Thanks, Yik Yak!!

And what does Jim Clements, Clemson’s newish president, do in the face of this ignorance and poor grammar/syntax? He writes a little letter and puts it on the school website, wherein he basically says, “Guys, this is bad, okay? But y’all need to calm down about Ferguson. And Eric Garner. Let’s not get violent here.” I would say I’m disappointed, but I knew that blame-shift was coming. ...nah, I’m still disappointed. He started out so well! And begging your pardon, Jimbo, but disenfranchised white boys upset that they couldn't play ultimate frisbee on Bowman because of die-in protesters drew first blood with, “Damnet do I have to put a sheet on and go scare the people in front of Tillman away[?]” That sounds like violence to me. Did y'all know that intimidation is a crime punishable by up to 30 days in prison under the South Carolina Code of Law? Because it is!

I’m going to be real with y’all, if that’s alright. Is anyone really surprised that this happened? Because I’m not. Clemson has been wiggling its way out of messy hate crime allegations for a long, long time. They’re old pros at this by now. Same shtick, different day. Tomato. To-mah-tah. To-mah-to?

“Now Lyssa,” you may be saying, “dressing up and having a party is not a hate crime. You might be offended, but it’s not a hate crime,” to which I say, isn’t it? This CRIPmas Party is basically a form of Black minstrelsy. You know what Black minstrelsy is? It’s a type of “performance art” used by white people to mock and otherwise demean Black people and Black culture. The most common form of this is what we know as blackface, and I think that mostly* everyone agrees that that’s bad. It’s psychologically damaging, promotes negative stereotypes of the Black community, and bolsters beliefs of white superiority. In short, Black minstrelsy is a racialized form of violence, and do you know what racially based violence is? That’s right, my friend. That’s a hate crime.

“Lyssa,” you may now be saying, “no one was actually in blackface!” To this I say, “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that you were thinking of white people every time you heard the word Crip/Blood/Folk. My mistake. Do carry on with your day.”

Sip on that tea for a minute. Or, if you need something stronger, keep reading.

I’ll be fair. It’s not just the SAE, IFC, and NPC men and women running around campus with their TuPac t-shirts and fake butts in miniskirts and brown face paint, though they’re the best hands down at getting caught. Bravo, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, Alpha Phi, and all other Greek-lettered individuals who actually participated in this disgusting display on being a disgrace to all of us Greeks and on being so spectacularly mediocre. But this is not your burden alone. I had plenty of self-proclaimed liberal, GDI white friends in college who voted for Obama in 2008 and were also low-key racist and full of microaggressions. My homeboy that “wasn’t attracted to Black girls” (a problematic statement in and of itself, but we won't talk about that today) had an undeniable crush on one of my few Black girl friends that he denied every chance he got. Another guy I knew didn’t see a problem at all with The Blackface Party Fiasco of 2007, because, you know, “people dress up as rich old white guys all the time.” He was on student council. I used to see my friend’s parents, Clemson alums themselves, on campus at sporting events I attended with him; they were very nice, but later my friend would chuckle as he told me how his dad had asked him, “You’re not dating That Black Girl, are you?” after I left. I knew 2 guys who made jokes about Black people being on tv because it was MLK Day. One told me I was “being too sensitive” when I called him on it the next day (a staple retort learned in Racism 101), yet still thought he was better than his sister who thought that “only a fully white person should be president.” An RA from another floor once talked to my RA and some others about a white girl she knew that went by “Gel” instead of Angelica. “Are you sure she wasn’t Black?” because that’s an easy thing to mix up, and then, “Shh! A Black girl lives right there!” They were standing outside my door. There was also the staff who never went forward when I reported being called “the dark one” and other racist names by my friends’ RA who couldn’t seem to decide if he hated my Black guts or wanted to notch his belt with me, and then just decided to multitask. My friends thought he was funny. One friend who met my family later only seemed to remember how, “It’s so funny how all of you say ‘Mmmhmmm chil'!’" And those are just the ones I care to make examples of right now. There are plenty more.

You want names? Come talk to me. I’ll give them to you. I keep my receipts.

Like I said. This isn't just a Greek Life problem. It is fundamentally a Clemson University problem because these people were RAs, student council members, student organization leaders, and athletes. This whole “One Clemson” family thing is a lie. There is Black Clemson, and White Clemson, and Sri Lankan Clemson, and Korean Clemson; White Greek Clemson, Black Greek Clemson, Service Frat Clemson, and a lot of other Clemsons, plus a few brave souls who dare cross the lines outside of class. Let us not forgot that Clemson doesn’t have the greatest history with race relations in general, no matter how hard they push Harvey Gantt in our faces. Talk to your elders from the area and see what they tell you. Read a book. Google it. Remember: Clemson was founded on plantation land by a plantation owner’s son-in-law who was so influenced by Benjamin Tillman--a US Senator that did some cool stuff for agriculture, I guess, but who was directly responsible for a lot of white supremacist legislature and a vocal proponent of Lynch Laws and Jim Crow--that he made him a chairman of the (then) college and named the clock tower after him. You know the clock tower. It's that pretty red brick building you see on all the commercials and postcards and paintings.

Do you see what I’m saying? Respect for Black students isn’t in Clemson’s culture. It wasn’t there from the very beginning, and many of the non-Black students that the school attracts act accordingly. This bigotry was put in between the brick and mortar of Tillman Hall itself. It is a vicious cycle of hate and iniquity that dies with every graduation ceremony and is reborn with each incoming freshman class. Jim Clements thinks that Clemson is “better than this,” but is it? Is it really? Because this seems to keep happening, and it’s not those same kids from 2007 that are making it so.

Here's some more realness for you. I’m both a pro-Black girl and pro-Black girl. This does not mean that I am anti-non-Black, anti-white, anti-Black man, etc. It means, in the words of  Malcolm X, that I am Black first. My sympathies are Black, my allegiances are Black, my whole objectives are Black. I’ve been a pro-Black girl so hard and for so long that in high school when I asked for college recommendations my French teacher wrote that I was “dedicated to disproving stereotypes.” I’m so staunchly pro-Black that when I studied abroad one of my professors approached me about helping him teach a two-part seminar on Black History in the United States (and I did). It is because I am a pro-Black girl that I cannot like Clemson University, much less love it. How dare I love a place that hates me, and still claim to love myself? The short answer is that I can’t. The long answer is this:

I do not want to sing your football chants, I do not want to rub your rock, I do not want to go to your alumni parties (will there be blackface there too?), I do not want to wear orange on Fridays. It makes me physically ill to set foot in that godforsaken hill country where the Blue Ridge yawns “I’m racist!” Let me be plain: I hate that place as much as I love myself and my people. It’s not a safe, healthy, or good environment for our Black and brown children to enter into, and honestly I mistrust any Black or brown person that likes the orange and purple too much. That means I give a lot of side-eye at a lot of people I love. I give it to some of my former classmates, to my friends, my sorors, my old professors, my uncles, to anyone with a paw print or orange flags flying on their car. I pity their babies with their big purple bows and little orange overalls and their cheerleader outfits at tailgates. My Black children, who will be Black to this country regardless as to whether or not their other parent is Black, white, Thai, Montenegrin, or Indigenous Australian, will not be Clemson alums, so help me God. I will not take them on walks around Bowman Field, or to 55 Exchange for ice cream; they will not come with me to homecoming because I will not be going. Not when it is my job to protect them. Not if I don’t want them to look back on their college years like I do: with bitterness and hate and regret.

Some time this week, I am finding out who to call to get my name off of the alumni donation solicitations list and I’m calling them. I’ll even ask them nicely to take me off. I only ever throw that stuff in the trash anyway.

If Clemson doesn’t want to respect or value my Black personhood, they sure as hell don’t deserve my Black money.

The Clemson Experience

Clemson is all about this thing called “The Clemson Experience.” To the university, that means that every student is the happy, football loving 20-something that gets interviewed for polls in the Princeton Review. They wear orange every Friday, turn up every Thursday, and show up drunk on camera on game day. I am not that 20-something. And this is my Clemson experience.

In class the other week, one of my classmates went off on a rant about poor service he received at a bank where he wasn’t an account holder. Someone had written him a check, he had gone to their bank to cash it, and the teller had the audacity to tell him that the bank’s policy required a $5 fee on transactions like his. In his own words, “it got ugly in that lobby.” Part of his tirade? “I know you don’t want these Hispanics,” he spat the word like venom, “from [a plant nearby] coming in here cashing their paychecks, but this check was drawn on this bank!” He called the bank manager and the regional manager. Apparently being a non-Latino white male means you don’t have to pay to get your checks cashed at banks where you have no account. He laughed like he was proud of himself for being so clever.

As this happened, my professor, seeing that I was offended, offered me an apologetic smile and a nervous laugh. Racists, you know? They’re just so cheeky. What can you do?

When I was freshman, I dealt with a lot of harassment. Racially insensitive jokes. Predatory sexual advances. General disrespect. I reported my friends’ RA for these things. The university never did a thing about it.

When I was a sophomore, I was talking with friends about that MLK Day Black-Face Party from 2007, the year before we matriculated. One of them was lying with his head in my lap and said, “I don’t see what the big deal is about [the party]." When I reminded him that white students painted themselves Black and stuffed padding in their skirts he said, "It’s just a party.” I left the apartment. I don’t think I ever spoke to him again. It’s a shame, really: he was smart, and handsome, and had a beautiful voice. If he hadn’t had such terrible views on my culture as costume, he’d have made an excellent trophy husband.

I had a roommate once that treated me like a maid. Left her food on our table for days, and her clothes strewn all over the floor because I had nothing better to do than pick up after her. I remember asking her once, “How long are you going to leave that basket there? It’s in the way of the closet.” She glared at me and said, “Why?” Once, she came home from a frisbee game and left grass and mud in the bathtub. We had been friends before. She moved out at the end of the year without saying goodbye, and never spoke to me again.

When I was a junior, talking to friends about the way Belgium pushes its immigrant population into slums on the fringes of Brussels, one of them said, “Lyssa, you just need to go find Blackville.” I stood there, stunned into murderous silence. Realizing what she had said, she turned red and apologized. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to offend you!” Hadn't she? Was that meant as a compliment to Matongé, the Brussels neighborhood populated by African immigrants? “Well you did,” I snapped. I’ve never forgiven her.

When I was a senior, I was talking to a professor about the reasons why I didn’t like Clemson. I began with the story about my friends’ RA, and when I mentioned that the university failed to investigate my complaint, this man--a man with a wife, a mother, with daughters--said, “Okay, but that can’t be it.” I hope the things that were said to me are never said to his little girls. Babies, this is the sympathy you will get from your father.

Last year, my marketing professor used the Confederate flag as an example of a “confused positioning error.” You know, because history is so confusing.

These are my memories of college. There are more like these. There are more like these than there are of anything happy or good.

The people in these stories have names and I remember all of them, though I doubt any of them think of me anymore. I let them stay anonymous today because their names are not the point. The point is that while there have been a few bright spots in my educational experience, I look back on my college years and see a dark, dark cloud of otherness, loneliness, and not belonging. I see six years in a place whose culture was not my own, whose values were not my own--a place full of people who couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel grateful to just be there in the first place and who clearly didn't think I should be there at all (except, of course, as the maid).

This is not the experience Clemson will tell you that its students have, but I know I’m not alone. How can I be? I am not so special.


This is not the experience Clemson thinks it is capable of, but it is mine.

The Valentine's Edition

It's Valentine's Day, y'all. Some of you have had Valentine's Day all week because you've been snowed in and were boo'd up at the house. Good for you. I hope you're happy.

(Ignore the implied bitterness there; it was a joke.)

Happy Valentine's Day! I sincerely hope that those of you who were trapped in the house with your significant other all week are not now so sick of them that you're thinking about returning those chocolates, or whatever it is that the Boo'd Up buy each other on V-Day. I am not boo'd up, nor have I ever been, so I have no idea.

(That wasn't bitterness per se; more like the deep breath before the plunge)

This year, I'm single on Valentine's Day. For that matter, I'm single every Valentine's Day. No one make comments about how sad that is. I honestly don't care. At the same time, there comes a point in a girl's life where she has to wonder if it's normal that she'll be 25 in 8 months and has never crushed on anyone less famous than Joseph Gordon-Levitt (seriously guys he is so cute). It's easy to buy into the unmarriable/unlovable Black woman trope when it's been a quiet understanding from the last few guys you might have been into that you weren't what they were expected to bring home to Mama. Y'all know what I mean. It's easy to feel like you're doing something wrong in your life when you're the last single cousin and your relatives tell you every chance they get, "I can't wait for you to get a man; you'll feel so much better."

But that's not me! Not today it's not! Y'all post all the cute "Look what bae got me" pictures on Instagram that you want. I'm going to get myself a new book to read now that the roads are clear, I'm going to pick up something cute for my mom, and I'm going to flex my culinary chops in my really great but underused kitchen. I have 3 words for y'all: Turtle. Brownie. Pies. That's right. Be jealous. Again I say happy Valentine's Day. And since literary humor is fun....

The Problem with Apathy

Two weeks ago, I applied for graduation and it didn’t feel anything like I remembered.

There was no sudden lightheartedness at the weight of college being lifted off my shoulders, no urge to cut cartwheels all over the house, no overwhelming joy. It didn’t feel like anything at all. It was like I was one of those women on Say Yes to the Dress that expects a big, teary-eyed AHA moment when they find the perfect gown, and then they get to Kleinfeld’s and nothing happens.

I remember exactly what it felt like in undergrad when it sank in that I was finally graduating. I had spent the 24 hours previous running all over hill and country trying to get a last-minute class substitution (because it’s never as easy as your adviser says it is), and was up all night rewriting an old paper leftover from engineering to make sure that class got substituted. I’m pretty sure I cried for 9 straight hours because there was a serious chance my request was going to get denied. I remember that the sun was shining that day and the sky was blue. It felt like cold relief.

Nothing like that happened this time. I just hit submit, closed my laptop, and watched Duck Dynasty for the next 4 hours. (I can see y’all judging me, and I’m telling you right now I don’t care)

My lack of reaction was disappointing.

I have fought Clemson tooth and nail for six long years. I hate the place. You guys know that. And all of that hate needs to manifest itself somehow, because it can’t stay bottled up inside of me. Most often it appears as snark and anger, both fueled by too much caffeine since I'm not much for drinking. It never wells up and dissolves into 4 hours of Duck Dynasty on my couch. I didn’t think too much about it at the time, but some time last week I had a horrifying thought.


Is apathy what happens when you stop caring and start settling?

The Easy Let-Down

Earlier on this week I thought to myself, “I have no idea what to write about.” I was drawing a blank. Nothing exciting, infuriating, or otherwise important had happened, I was fresh out of rants, and I was feeling, well, boring. Then I walked into work this morning, and as I was being laid off I thought to myself, “Well there’s a blog post for you,” and here we are.

This morning, I got laid off.

I’m not upset about it. I’m pretty sure the ones letting me go felt worse about it than I did. That’s not to say that I didn’t like my job--I’ve said over and over how much I surprised myself by liking it as much as I did. It just means that I’m practical. And I saw it coming.

Honestly, I’m glad it was me because I’m a 24 year old kid without any responsibilities. I live at home with my mom. I don’t have a mortgage, or rent. I paid for my car in cash, so no note there. My student loans haven’t kicked in because I’m still a student. The only bill I really have is $160 in car insurance every month. And tithes. Can’t forget that 10%. I don’t have credit card debt. I don’t have a spouse to support. I don’t have kids (thank God). I don’t have any of that. Let it be me who goes home today without a job.

So here I find myself suddenly with a lot more free time. A lot more free time. And I’m kind of at a loss for what to do with it. I have so many personal projects that I’ve let fall by the wayside just because I haven’t had the time to work on them. I was learning to sew. I was learning Spanish. I was learning Mandarin. I was running several blogs outside of this one. I was practicing my MBA-ness on a family business. I was reading roughly 2 extracurricular books a week. I was doing my eyebrows on a regular basis (excuse you that is WERK). And now I have time to do all of that again. That’s my plan, and I’m sticking to it.


But, uh, if y’all come across a job you think a BA-toting polyglot and future MBA would be a good fit for.... Let me know.

Serious Business

Alright, boys and girls, here's an important departure from the usual. Y'all know I'm not the most serious person in the world, but I just had a chat with my law professor and I think this is worth sharing.

Most of you guys know I had a hard time during undergrad. Let me rephrase that: most of y'all know I had multiple hard times in undergrad. It was one thing after another, every semester, every day, every hour. I can only really recall one or two periods of college when I wasn't miserable 75% of the time because of an unexpected death, problems with my advisers, my family going batcrap crazy, my roommate trying to kill me with her pet hair, mold in my apartment; you name it, I dealt with it. But there is one thing--one incident in particular that, so many years later, still really sets me off.

Have you ever been harassed?

I'm not talking, "Johnny asked me out yesterday; as if I'd ever go out with him ew." That isn't harassment. That's slightly annoying, a little bit funny, and really unfortunate if you're Johnny, but it's not harassment. I'm talking "to trouble, torment, or confuse by continual, persistent attacks, questions, etc." Because for a period of time, I was.

I won't go into details. Most of y'all probably already know them. If you don't, shoot me a message and we'll talk. The point is, I filed a complaint and got told, "He's just being immature." I insisted that some higher ups be spoken to, was promised something would happen, and then I never ever heard anything about it again.

And the next year when I returned to campus, one of the first things I saw was that absolutely nothing had been done.

And according to my law professor, whom I spoke with today about the situation and what maybe could have been done since we were discussing anti-harassment laws in class, if something had happened to me I could have sued the university for gross negligence and a boatload of other fancy law terms that I won't bother naming.

I will definitely be mentioning this in the letter I'm writing to President Barker explaining to him why I will never ever ever donate one red cent to Clemson University. EVER. And he'll be damn lucky if in the future I even admit that's where I went to college.

I guess my point is if someone is bothering you, or hurting you, or generally making you uncomfortable, find a way to document it.

And if it doesn't stop, you go get yourself a lawyer.

Happy Black History Month, y'all!

I love Black History Month. I really do. I love it love it love it. I also love Black folks that say they don't see a reason for Black History Month. While I'm at it, I especially love white people that say things like, "But why isn't there a white history month?!" You wanna know why there's no white history month? Holla at me. Let me educate you.

...that was a little scary, wasn't it? Yikes. Let's lighten things up! Here's a list of my favorite Black historical and contemporary figures: one for every day of the month! If you see some names you don't know, look them up! You might learn something!

1.  Josephine Baker
2. Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
3. Alexandre Dumas, père
4. The Statue of Liberty
5. Richard Allen
6. Mansa Musa
7. Zora Neale Hurston
8. Emperor Haile Selassie I
9. The Queen of Sheba
10. Saint Benedict the Moor
11. Madam CJ Walker
12. François-Dominique Touissant L'Ouverture
13. Alvin Ailey
14. Stagecoach Mary Fields
15. Nina Mae McKinney
16. King Peggy
17. Queen Nzinga of Ndango and Matamba
18. Lady Sarah Forbes Bonetta Davies
19. Mary Edmonia Lewis
20. Abram Petrovich Gannibal
21. Alexander Pushkin
22. Eartha Kitt
23. Malcolm X
24. MLK jr.
25. Angela Davis
26. Grace Bumbry
27. Jackie Ormes
28. Stokely Carmichael (Kwame Touré)

They're all fascinating folks, really; or objects (Statue of Liberty). Seriously; do y'all think I'd bother making a list of boring people? Go Google them!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

I was going to go for a less specific title, considering a lot of my friends aren't Christians and some of them celebrate multiple new year holidays, but then I said no. I learned that working at American Eagle as a lady screamed at me for wishing her a happy holiday (how do you get more generic than that?!) because, "Not everyone celebrates!"

She then asked me for gift receipts. Long story short, you can't please anyone, so I'm just gonna please myself.

That was poorly worded. Moving on!

My holiday's been great, thank you for asking, mostly because all of my favorite people came home. My friends came back from California/DC/Virginia/France/everywhere else in the world. My sister and her boyfriend came up from Savannah and my midwest family finally made it back to the southeast from Texas/Colorado. My dad was even around for a few days before the holidays! That never happens! Ah! I even got a few holiday messages from some people I hadn't expected to hear from. It was awesome.

I hope you all have had a great holiday/break season, and didn't do anything I wouldn't do on New Year's. I'm bringing in 2013 with a 3.0 GPA (I'm not getting kicked out of grad school!), marathon Simming, and a deviated septum.

Yes, you read right. I have a slightly deviated septum. No, I do not snort cocaine. Apparently it's pretty common (and natural) for a person's septum to be more to one side without recreational/habitual drug use, but according to my doctor mine is most likely the reason why I can't breathe 90% of the time. Or smell. Or get restful sleep. And that probably has a lot to do with why I snore like a moose. I'm going to an ear/nose/throat specialist sometime soon, and fingers crossed I won't have to have surgery on my septum/tonsils/sinuses/adenoids. Seriously. Cross your fingers.

I'm not really one for new year's resolutions, but this year I'm going to pick up some form of exercise. I say this every year, or at least most of them, but this time I mean it. Yes. And I want to read at least 35 books (already started one). I also saw a really cute thing online about writing down everything good, happy, and otherwise memorable thing that happens to you over the year and keeping it in a jar. At the end of the year, you read them all. I've already started writing things down.

And that's about it! According to a magical crossword I found online the 3 things that are coming to me this year are love, beauty, and experience. Really I had a tie between experience and popularity, but I think experience sounds more grown up. These things are all open to interpretation, so if any of y'all can interpret them let me know because I'm mad confused about it.

Starting next Wednesday I'll be back in class and the MBA battle will continue. One semester down, 2 and a half to go. December 2013, here I come!

Finals are upon us!

Or, as my Belgian friends say, it's blocus!

I don't know why I'm using all these exclamation marks. I hate finals/blocus. There's this sense of satisfaction and anticipation because there's only one more week until Christmas Break starts, but at the same time you're filled with an impending sense of dread because, well, finals. I always panic around finals, because, well, finals, but this year I have the added stress of needing to maintain a 3.0 GPA or else get kicked out of school. This does not make me a happy camper.

Yesterday, I had a sorority function to sufficiently distract me from my graduate student responsibilities, but today I'm not so fortunate. So starting right now, I will be sitting around looking like this for the rest of the week:  

Nervous grimacing smile and a stats book. Well, the stats book will be gone after tomorrow. But you know what I mean.

Yes, I wear Santa hats when I'm at home. Where's your Christmas spirit?

So good luck to all you guys who have exams! I'm putting it in the universe that we will all make it out of this with 3.0 semester averages at the very least, because I don't know about y'all but I don't fancy getting booted out of grad school.

The Big Sleep

I think I may have found a fix for my sleeping problem.

If you've ever tried to wake me up, you know it's pretty much impossible because I'm the perfect opposite of an insomniac. I sleep through car rides. I've slept through tornadoes. I've slept through tree limbs covered in ice falling on my house. I've almost slept through every final exam I've ever had to take because I don't hear my alarm clocks, or I somehow turn them off without realizing it. Freshman year of college I spent the night at my friends' dorm just in case because theirs was closer to my sociology exam than my own dorm, and even then one of them had to wake me up. Senior year, I went home to have a nap before a Library Study Party with Nick and when I didn't answer any of his calls he came and got me himself. The list of examples goes ever on and on.

I am firmly of the opinion that when I go to sleep, I actually die for 8+ hours. It's kind of like Sleeping Beauty, except my "true love's kiss" is usually my mother standing in my doorway yelling my name. It's bad, yall.

So last night, I tried something new. I was actually looking for a low-intensity workout to add to my (non-existent) regimen, not a sleep-fix, when I finally clicked on some videos on the master list of YouTube workouts I posted to a friend's Facebook page. It was almost 1 AM, so I looked for something with "evening" in the title and came across two quick yoga routines. I did both of them, and this morning I popped straight up. I was even awake before 6:30; I'm just so unused to waking up on my own before 10:30 that I laid in bed confused and not knowing what else to do.

And now I'm sitting in Starbucks with a chai latte and a cheese bagel, wide eyed and bushy tailed (or bushy headed, as I washed my hair yesterday and it hasn't deflated) (more on deflating hair later, probably). It's Monday. This is crazy.

Obviously there is the possibility that this is a fluke, but obviously I'm going to keep testing it. What if I'm on to something here? Something that doesn't require medication, strange therapy, or experimental treatments? Do they even make drugs that work like Ambien but backwards? Do you know what I could do with an extra 3-5 hours in my day? Oh the possibilities. Oh the productivity! And it's exercise! I can wake up earlier and fit back into my clothes! There is no possible way that this could be horrible!

Unless, of course, I pull a muscle in my legs or tear a ligament or something. I'm not as flexible as I used to be, guys. Once upon a time, I could bend myself into a perfect circle. Not. Anymore. And if you're thinking that that's a bit extreme, you obviously don't know me. If anyone could find a way to tear important muscles and/or break bones doing yoga, it's me.

I'm just that talented.

Obligatory election day post is obligatory!

By now, if we’re friends on Facebook and you pay attention to my updates (which you have to, or else you wouldn’t know about this blog!), you’ve noticed that I changed my profile picture. If you follow me on tumblr, you’ll notice that I posted the same picture there. Let me tell you, I didn’t realize how badly my eyebrows needed shaping until I started photographing myself. Why did no one tell me this? We are not friends. But that’s not the point. This is the point:

IT’S ELECTION DAY, SNITCHES!

That means that I woke up this morning, put on some clothes, and went to the polls! The line at my polling place was in the parking lot when I got there (at 10:30!) but it only took an hour for me to finish. It was kinda sorta a lot cold, but I was standing next to nice people in line and that made it go a little bit faster. I checked my ballot like three times to make sure my selections didn’t mysteriously get changed, I got my sticker and I’m happy. The end.

But not really because I hope you all (my US friends of legal adult age, anyhow) voted too! I don’t care who you voted for (that’s a lie; yes I do, but for the sake of an argument…) !  I just hope you voted! A vote for no one is a vote for the enemy, whoever your enemy is! Do your civic duty! Other inspirational quotes! Yeah!

And if you’re a brown person/general person-of-color of voting age and you didn’t vote for reasons other than you’re dying, in labor, in areas affected by the storm (victims in NY can vote ANYWHERE IN THE STATE, by the way), or unconscious, don’t let me find out about it. Because I will hurt you. For those of you confused at home going, “Lyssa, why would you want to hurt people that don’t vote?” I honestly don’t have enough time left in my life to explain to you why brown folks that don’t cast a ballot need their behinds beat. It would seriously take me that long.

All people of color should vote every opportunity they get. We need to be voting for homecoming queen at high schools we don’t even go to. It’s that crucial.

I don’t really have anything deep or mind-blowing to say today. (But when do I ever?) In the words of my pastor, “I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but I will tell you to vote for your best interest.” I know who I voted for (and if you know me, you know who I voted for too), and I know I hope y’all know who you’re voting for too, regardless of who it is (okay, that’s the second time I’ve told that lie in this post SORRY I’M NOT SORRY). Hopefully at the end of the night I won’t be deciding where to immigrate. (Y’all think I’m joking. Ask around. I’ve been saying for weeks that if a particular candidate wins, I’m leaving the country. It’s all a matter of deciding where I’m going to go.)

Get out and vote, y’all! I did!

Studying should not be this difficult

If you’re at all like me, you are never in an environment that is conducive to studying.

This somehow always seems to happen to me. Sometimes it’s my own fault. Freshman year I spent too much time hanging out with my friends after class and tried to study from 11 PM to 1 in the morning. Sophomore year I had plenty of time but lived underneath 2 of the heaviest-footed people ever to walk Clemson’s campus. They also liked to play really loud music. And throw each other on the floor. Over and over again. Junior year was better, mostly because studying wasn’t all that necessary as I spent half of the school year bro’ing it up in Europe. Senior year, I had a roommate who thought that primetime to argue loudly with her boyfriend in the apartment was between the hours of 10 and 4 (AM). I also spent a lot of time chasing her cat out of my room and keeping the damn thing from breaking my dishes and climbing on the counter. Yeah. It wasn’t good. I spent a lot of nights in the library with a blanket, a pillow, and my laptop senior year. And Nick. Remember the Christmas Fort we set up in the corner on the 5th floor before finals first semester? Good times, good times.

But now there are no good (studying) times because I live at home. With 3 other people. None of whom know how to use their inside voices. This is a typical scenario on any given day when I really need to hit the books:

“Y’all, I’m trying to study.”

“Shh, she’s trying to study!”

And it works for two minutes. Then…

“AFPGIEPAJEPOJNVZ;MBS;ODHQE-[AIGFEQ-4298W=ASFGHEOHFSPOUENDFOJHDA[-QEZ.”

That’s what it sounds like. Brackets, semicolons, and all. It should probably be bolded, too. Usually I can fight the noise for an hour, and then I get frustrated and I just give up and stomp around the house hating everyone for the rest of the day. Their solution to my studying issues? Go to the library.

Oh that’s a brilliant idea, guys. It’s so easy for me to get to a library, seeing as I have my own transportation and don’t have to work myself into anyone’s schedules or anything. You are so smart. Why didn’t I think of that? You must be, like, Stephen Hawking.

So here’s a few things that might help your workload for those of you who, like me, live with people who have serious problems respecting the fact that sometimes you really need some quiet to hit the books:

1. Get as much done as you can while they’re gone. They have to leave the house sometime. Take advantage of the relative quiet and try to get as much done as you can, especially if it's hard stuff. Like accounting. Ugh, accounting.

2. Find somewhere quiet to go that’s nearby. I know I was horribly sarcastic to this suggestion earlier, but if you have the means, find yourself somewhere quiet to go. Is there a library near your house? A Starbucks? A Panera Bread? Get in the car and get to getting.

3. If someone asks you to go somewhere with them, don’t go. This one's hard. I know it's hard. But don't. Go. With. Them. If your friends/family are anything like mine, you will NEVER go to that one place they say you're going and come back home. You'll end up spending 4 hours in Lowes or being otherwise counterproductive. It's not worth it. Don't go.

4. Study in blocks. This doesn't work for everyone, but I've tried it and it's good for me. Study for a while, then take a break. Study some more, take another break. Has anyone ever heard of a site called Unfuck Your Habitat? They have a pretty good system for cleaning that also translates well into studying.

5. Reward yourself. Did you get 2 pages of that 8 page paper done? Awesome! Give yourself a cookie. Read a few pages of that book you've been trying to get through. Watch an episode of Awkward Black Girl. Sometimes when I'm just being insufferable about work I won't let myself eat dinner until I get done. That's a little extreme, though. Y'all should probably stick to the web shows.

6. Noise cancelling headphones. I can't use these because they make my head feel funny, but I'm about to give in and get a pair; consequences be damned. Noise cancelling headphones are awesome, and they're cheap, and they're so versatile. You can  use them at home. You can use them on planes. You can use them in cars. You can use them in the library. Just stick them on your head, and BAM! no more noise! And you can get them for like $25 from Amazon.com or Walmart! Trendy, more expensive headphone brands (Beatz, Bose, etc.) usually have noise cancelling models too if you want to shell out for something that'll work with your iPod. Best. Invention. Ever.

It's a short list, but hopefully that helps someone out there. What do you guys do when you need to study and your housemates won't chill out?

Now get off the internet and do some work. I'm going to price some headphones.

My city is, apparently, white.

Last week, I had an interview for an internship. I think it did really well, but it did lead me back to something I wanted to talk about like 2 months ago after orientation. You know how at the end of an interview the interviewer always asks if you have questions? Well for once I actually had a few questions, and me being me, I had to ask where the company stood as far as diversity.

I had to ask this question because of orientation. I swear I’ll run out of orientation stories soon, but this one needs talking about. Either on the second or third day of orientation, a panel of local HR people came to speak with us about general hiring practices. Should have been awesome, right? It was. Until we got to how they recruited people to come to Greenville.

“Greenville,” said one of the panelists, arguably the most self-involved (seemingly), “is a great place for white families. It’s hard to get minorities to come here.”

Excuse me, sir, but what did you just say? I bet you thought you were safe because you were speaking to an almost homogenously white crowd and you probably didn't see me sitting in the back row. No. No no no no no how many times can I say n-o NO. This shall not be borne. And it wasn't. Up went my hand to ask a question, and something like this followed:

“Well, I’m from Greenville. I’ve spent most of my life here. This isn’t just a place that’s good for white people. If that’s how you feel about us, then how do you get minorities to come work for you?”

His answer? Essentially, he doesn’t. And that made me unreasonably angry.

What exactly about Greenville makes it so awesome for white folks that isn’t translatable to other people? In case you missed the memo, sir, we do the same things you do. We join wine clubs. We use groupon.  We travel. We shop designer labels. We use the freaking internet (does anyone else remember when white sociologists were making studies about how Black people use twitter? Because I do). We go to sporting events. We eat out—we even eat foreign food. We go get advanced degrees. And you know what? You can do all of that stuff IN GREENVILLE, and if for some reason you can’t find it here, Charlotte and Atlanta are only 2 hours away!

Greenville is my city. I love it here. We’re awesome. We have great schools, an awesome downtown, and nightlife. We’re the 4^th fastest growing city in the nation (or at least we were in 2010), and you mean to tell me you can’t find a way to market us to minorities? You mean to tell me that my city isn’t good for me? Have several seats. Get your life and have several seats.

Come to Greenville. We’re great for white families. We’re good for Black families. We’re good for Asian families. We’re good for—you get what I’m saying.

Come to Greenville. We’re great.

Career Fair and Black Girl Hair

Every semester the night before career fair, I wash my hair.

Those of you who know me in person know that my hair and I have a love/hate relationship. I love it because it’s thick and a decent length and looks purdy when it’s all done up, but I also hate it because it’s thick and a decent length and takes at least an hour for me to blow dry (or close to 12 hours to air dry) and 2 hours to flat iron if I do it properly. As a result, I look a hot, disheveled mess unless I pay someone to do it for me or my sister’s in town and I can whine until she takes pity on me.

I’m also way too lazy to spend 3+ hours doing my hair. Way too lazy. So a few years ago, I started braiding my hair while it was wet and letting it dry overnight/into the morning and-or afternoon so that it’d be all wavy and curly and low maintenance. It lasts 3-5 days, and in the meantime I don’t have to touch a comb. It’s awesome. And great for weeks when I need a new relaxer/have a lot going on and can’t be worried about doing hair every day.

My mom suggested that I do that for career fair. “Just do some knots and let it dry,” she said. “It’ll be pretty.” And it would have been. I considered this, but eventually just blew it dry.

And then I got to career fair, and I ran into one of my sorors. We talked, inevitably got onto the hair conversation because it was raining and my once straight hair had poofed and I looked like a sheepdog, but the important/terrifying/horrible thing is that we had both come to same conclusion regarding our hair and job hunting.

We didn’t want to show up looking too ethnic.

I hate the word ethnic. To be frank, I think it’s a word that white people came up with to mean “things not pertaining to white people.” Don’t make that face at me. Visit the ethnic food section in your grocery store/Wal-Mart and see that it’s tamales and lo mein, not bratwurst. Go into the ethnic hair care section and see if you can find a curly perm kit. Aren’t all those pretty fabrics that are so popular in fashion right now collectively called “ethnic prints?” Go on. Look. I’ll wait.

That’s what I thought.

But this isn’t about whether or not I like the word ethnic. It’s about the fact that two 20something, college educated women that hadn’t spoken to one another since August ran into each other in September and in general conversation realized that we had come to the same conclusion.

If we were to stand any chance of landing an interview that day, we had to show up looking “less Black” or get dismissed by recruiters, and since we can’t change our skin or our faces we had to change our hair.

The War on Our Hair is one of the greatest and most well-known of all Black Girl Problems. It’s right up there with the War on Our Bodies, the War on Our Femininity, and the War on Our Virtue. We’ll probably end up talking about the other assaults on Black Womanhood later. Right now, we’re just going to focus on the fact that we are constantly told that the way our hair grows out of our head is wrong and damn near immoral. The word “nappy” comes to mind. Afro wigs exist as costume, non-Black people who have no business entering the Black hair conversation go out of their way to tell us that flat irons were invented so we didn’t have to look like runaway slaves, we’ve come up with this ridiculous, divisive system of ranking our own natural curl patterns (don’t get me started on that mess), and every Black girl that’s gone through school has had at least one ig’nant white girl put her hands in her hair (usually without asking) and exclaim, “Oh my God, it feels like mine!” or, “Ewww, now my fingers are greasy!” What the hell was it supposed to feel like? Concrete slab? It’s HAIR, and if you hadn’t stuck your fingers in it in the first place they wouldn’t have oil on them. Back. Up. Off. Me. Trick.

And all that is BEFORE you start working. I mean, look at us. Two 20something young women, still in college, have already learned how to make our hair work for us in the politics of professionalism. But why should we have to? Does my hair—even the looser curl that a braid out would give me—make you that uncomfortable? Why?

I am not Medusa. No one’s getting turned to stone. Calm down.

You will never hear me say this again

I’m starting to think that not living on campus with all the other kids is going to suck.

Background story: I hated living in Clemson/Central. It was horrible. The university is the town and that doesn’t do you much good when you don’t like the university to begin with. It was way too country even for my decidedly southern tastes: when you, like me, are without a vehicle and the nearest mall is 20+ minutes away and all the frat parties are in Anderson along with said mall you’re in for a miserable 4 years.

Yes, the easiest solution to that problem is to make friends with cars but don’t act like y’all don’t know I didn’t make many friends in college (and to the few I had, I was rather expendable). There. I said it. Are you happy now?

That aside, I was pretty stoked when I figured out that the MBA program was in Greenville. It’s right downtown, and it’s exactly 11 minutes from my driveway to the parking garage so I didn’t have to deal with all the crap I begrudgingly dealt with in undergrad (and am still bitter over). Plus, at the time I thought that all my friends from high school that I still keep in touch with were coming home after graduation like I was. Who needs to make new friends when your old friends are 15 minutes up the highway? Not me.

And then I figured out that I’m the only one staying here. Everyone else is teaching English overseas or going to grad school out of state or getting jobs and moving to DC/LA (I’m looking at you, Nina and Stacey). All of my other friends who are in Clemson for grad school are residing in Orange Hell because the MBA program is the only one in Greenville. In short, I have two of my besties from middle school and my mother.

This was not the plan.

So now I have to actually put in the effort to meeting people in the graduate program, only I’m not so sure that’s going to work for several reasons. Reason #1: they’re all older than me and some of them are married. Reason #2: I think I missed out on the “clique forming” part of orientation. Reason #3: I am painfully shy. Don’t make that face. I really am. The prospect of talking to strangers in a purely social setting terrifies me. In my head I coach myself before I say hello. It’s that bad. Social butterfly, I am not (until you get to know me). Reason #4: I can’t really join clubs. Explanation to #4 is below.

All of the clubs except for the MBASA (Master of Business Administration Student Association) are headquartered on Clemson’s campus. The clubs I was in in undergrad are on campus, Greek life is all on campus (for people my age), and so is everything else that I could possibly do with other people who are relatively where I am in life. Here’s an example: I recently learned via email that there’s a Black Graduate Student Union. There’s also a Black Student Union for undergrads, but I didn’t know it existed until I was a senior. “Awesome,” I thought as I read the email. “I can meet other (Black) grad students (because there are so few others in my classes)!”

And then I saw the time and place of the first meeting. 5 PM. On campus. Do you know what I’m doing at 5 PM? I’m picking my mother up from work. I don’t have a car of my own and I have to get to school somehow, so I take her to work in the mornings and use her car to go to class. If class ends at 4:45, her job is 20 minutes from home/class and it takes about 45 minutes for me to get to Clemson, what is the earliest time I could arrive at said meeting?

If you guessed 6:05 PM at the very earliest, you’d pretty much be right.

It’s almost the same story with the MBASA. Meetings are in Greenville, which is nice, but they’re at 5 PM. I’m doomed, I tell you. Doomed. Someone get me lots of cats and a musty old house.

Right about now would be a pretty good time to be living with mass transit (God bless the CAT bus) and other Clemson students.

You have no idea how much that pains me to admit.

And I will never, ever say it again.

The Brilliant, the Black, and the Bourgie

Brilliant: adj., having or showing great intelligence, talent, quality, etc.; splendid or magnificent

Black: adj.; pertaining or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation or belonging to any of the various populations characterized by dark skin pigmentation, specifically the dark-skinned peoples of Africa, Oceania, and Australia.

Bourgie: adj. (usually pejorative), to be pretentious in matters of taste or dismissive of other tastes, in a manner that follows a particular middle class mode of thinking. From the French “bourgeoisie.”

People who exemplify all three of these words are collectively known as “the Talented Tenth.” I’m just kidding. Or am I?

Depending on how you know me, my name is either Lyssa or Bre. If you don’t actually know me, go with the first one. I’m pretty smart, one of my cousins calls me Chocolat, and if your beer isn’t Belgian you can get it out of my face.

You've heard of The BBC? I'm The BBB. I am brilliant. I am Black. I am bourgie. In that order.

But as fabulous as we are, it’s hard on the yard for us brilliant, Black, and bourgie kids. We’re too weird, we like strange things; no one understands us. There usually aren’t enough of us in one place to be friends with one another so we’re usually forced to make friends with people who are 2 out of 3: either brilliant and Black, Black and bourgie, or, last and certainly worst in the eyes of our peers and family, those who are brilliant and bourgie—but not Black.

Or at least that’s what happened to me. I catch hell every time my extended family meets my non-Black but brilliant and bourgie friends. I know it’s all jokes and y’all don’t mean any harm, but for real? Do we really have to do this every time I have company? Is this really necessary? REALLY?

Things only get worse when you go to college—or at least they got worse for me when I went to college—especially if you, like me, attend a PWI. Here on the internet, PWI stands for “Predominately White Institution,” and I went to the PWI of PWIs: Clemson University. With a student body that’s roughly 82% Caucasian, Clemson is home to all things involving frat boys, wearing cowboy boots with short dresses in the summer time, and cornhole.

What even IS cornhole? Like, what is it? Please someone tell me. Please.

To make matters even worse, I graduated from that Gap Ad of a university in May and was all ecstatic at the prospect of never having to go back only to realize that it was really my only option for grad school. I may or may not have cried for a week after. Actually, I may or may not still be crying.

But maybe delving into this strange, strange world is my calling in life. Perhaps I’m meant to be the explorer observing the non-brilliant, non-Black, and/or non-bourgie (or any combination of the three) in their natural habitats because sweet minty Jesus there has got to be a reason why I keep ending up in these situations. Because I swear this is a plot designed by God to make me learn some lesson I obviously haven’t learned yet, I’m starting this blog.

I do not promise to always be nice. I never promise to be tactful. If you don’t want to read any speculations on any group you belong to or trait you identify with, get out now and maybe we can still be friends. If you’re going to tell me that I’m too sensitive, get out and we probably won’t stay friends. If you don’t want to hear unpleasant things about sexism, racism, or any other –ism I can come up with—if you especially don’t want to hear anything about sexism, racism, or any other –ism I can come up with from a little educated Black girl, you might not want to hang around.

Really, though, this should be about what fun adventures I have navigating Gap Ad Graduate School. There will be adventures. I can feel it. I am way too awkward/socially inept/strange for there to be no adventures. I fully expect y’all to laugh at me for the next 2 years. Hopefully, sometimes I’ll be laughing too. There’s no backing out now. I’ve already paid tuition.

Let’s do this.