Fourth Thursday

So, a few months ago, Naia and I went in on a #yousuck topic. I was thinking back on that today and decided that I would make a "Suck Wall." This will be a list of things that frustrate the hell out of me.

Remember, I am a self-confessed asshole. If you're sensitive...you may want to turn around now.

Things that belong on the suck wall:

1) Greeks who spells shit with their greek letters. I understand that you have to have pride for your PHrAternity, but do you reAlly need to KApAtAlize every letter And replAce every phoneticAlly similar KhArActer to make me believe that you are part of your group? The stuff looks stupid, it's hard to read...and it took me 7 minutes to type that last sentence. Get out of here and stick to steppin.

2) Lord of the Rings fans. Yea, I said it. I can't stand those long, boring movies and books. They just never end. The movie is hard to follow and boring. The book is just filled with unnecessary details that distracts from the story...which is still hard to follow and boring. The fans, however, will call you stupid if you don't like it. Just because you read each book 5 times to understand it doesn't mean you're smart, jackass.

3) Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson. You put out that boo-boo Before I Self Destruct and Curtis. Why? Why do you hate your fans so much? No, I will not support your beefs. No, I will not keep ranting about how you were dope when Get Rich or Die Trying came out. You've lost your hip-hop edge. Congrats on the businesses...but maybe you should drop the title of rapper.

4) Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh. For obvious reasons.

5) Atheists who look for reasons to bash God. Y'all like to list ways that the church has ostracized people and ish but then bash God in the same manner. That's kind of hypocritical. I don't really care if you don't want to believe. Just don't bash my God to make yourself feel better.

6) Black women with hairy lips. Before the dogs come loose: I don't like white women with hairy lips either. The difference is that I can see them from a distance while with a black chick, you gotta be right up on them to see the multitude of straggly hairs accumulating around their mouth. That's deceptive. I will gasp and point at it.

7) Conspiracy Theorist. Sometimes y'all say some thought provoking mess...then mess it up with Satan and aliens.

8) Stores that should ALWAYS have something but always run out. St. Louis Bread Co., I'm talking to you. You are a BREAD CO. You should never run out of bagels or anything bread related. C'monson!

9) The Bold Ugly Friend. We all know these people. Someone's cute but they got the velociraptor with them. They, because of people like Oprah and Tyra telling them so, wholeheartedly believe they deserve attention like their much cuter friends. They will hate on any dude that talks to the friends and try to steal the spot light. I carry a tranquilizer gun for these creatures. Real talk.

10) Twitter Thugs and Twitter Hoes. Fellas, if you are on Twitter braggin about your stroke game, you have know stroke game. If you are talkin about all the people you bodied, you have never been in a fight. Women, all of you can't be models. Half of y'all look like Geodude from Pokemon. Stop it. Also, you are not a barbie. You'll need much more than 140 characters to make me believe otherwise.

That's my list for today. What's on your list?

So, it's the November Poetry Slam. I'm preparing to fight for my spot in the Grand Slam. Someone I consider a friend does a poem during the open mic. It's called "Let Me Tap That Ass." He says some pretty sexist things in the poem.$ I won't say otherwise, lol. He also brings up an interesting point. He's a worker in the DUC, spends hours cleaning up after us. He's 22-23 and a student at a neighboring school. He noticed that his status at the school automatically disqualifies him from talking to women at WUSTL, who he finds attractive.

In the wake of the poem, a girl retorts against his sexual language and uses her age as the signifier of his deviant advances. (She's 17, which is the Age of Consent here.) The women of WUSTL all stand and applaud the piece...which was kind of...bad... while uniting against the guy who did the initial piece.

Yes, the language he used was aggressive, was sexist, yadayadayadayadaya. Like I said, i won't argue that. I completely agree with complaints against his poem on that turf. I also think his poem showcased a big issue with the general community at WUSTL that will be overlooked because of the other things he said.

So I'll say them.

Classism is very prevalent in our environment. It comes from this sense of entitlement that a lot of the students have. Y'know, the "I worked my ass off in school (even if I didn't), So I deserve a man/woman who is this-that-theother and will make X amount of money and do X amount of things for me!" This sense of entitlement isn't necessarily a bad thing. Classes are a necessary evil. As people accomplish more, their standards should rise. The problem is then those standards lead to 1)a negative assumption about someone who is not in your same class and 2)the belief that higher class equals higher value.

The negative assumptions about the initial poet were that he was an older, uneducated, lecherous man. Although the third quality is contested because of the piece, the first two were far from true. As a worker, people at WUSTL look at him and assume that he automatically has certain qualities about him. Most of the people who had negative experiences with him cited the way he looks at them...all the while dating someone who attends our school who looks at them the exact same way. In fact, looking at the males in our school, I'm surprised that more women don't go for workers. At least they cherish the women more. We hold certain qualities against workers (even when they haven't exhibited them) but not against fellow students.

But hey, they're students. They have more room for improvement.

Now, we would be mad if someone treats us different based on skin tone. Why do we do it off something as trivial as occupation?

What I find just as interesting is the rebuttal argument: "I'm not classist! I always make sure I make friends who work at my school."
If you intentionally seek out certain people to make friends based on their class, you're doing it as a form of charity work. That uses the same assumptions as someone who treats them negatively. They both also have the added bonus of making you feel better about yourself.

Well, that's my two-cents.

(I know that my last few entries have been poorly written and all that...but this is a blog. A lot of these thoughts are incomplete. I just write what I feel and move on with my life.)

Last week, I went to Legacy Books open mic with my dude, Justin McCain aka 4Real. I didn't feel like performing, but he did and I wanted to be there for support since he hasn't performed in a few months. The scene was dope. A lot of older folk who have some real stories and some younger folk who don't adhere to some of the poet stereotypes. The only stereotype that really stood out is the whole "Poet Name" thing...Why does every urban poet have to have "Poetic" in their name? It's played out, people.

Anyway, on the way back, my boy and I were talking about relationships and the problem with time. We're both two very busy people with a busier life coming up, so how do you find time to work a relationship in there? The biggest fear that came up was that you may be able to work someone into your life only to find out that they were a complete waste of time. Like most people, both of us have been burned a few times, which was okay in HS, but now, getting played doesn't only affect you emotionally, there's a practical side also. Time spent developing a relationship with someone could have been productive to other areas that needed the attention. For example, I run a non-profit. The operation of this non-profit in it's 2nd year takes a toll on my free time. For me to make time for a relationship, I have to cut down on the time I spend on the non-profit. Now, let's say I'm in this relationship for a year or two and find out the nasty heffa cheats or something like that (Listen, bitter chicks, I already know men cheat. We ain't talking about us, tho. That's not part of this discussion, go back to your hole and wait for areal opportunity to be angry.) There a significant emotional shock that occurs, which is natural. There is also the reduced efficiency of the non-profit that was incurred when i reduced time to work on it to make time for a relationship.

This can be applied to art, work, hustlin, whatever you're doing.

Now, I normally think it's justified to turn away from the compromise needed for a relationship if too many other facets of your life are going to suffer because of it. On that same token, I don't want to block blessings, and the person I turn away because of other responsibilities could be the one who is "the one." (I HATE that term, just so you know.)

My question is: Do you ever find yourself avoiding relationships based on other responsibilities?