I prefer a broken neck than a broken heart

She said that she would prefer a broken neck to another broken heart.
I said "Remember, even the beauty of birth leaves its own scars
And know that you will find your home right where you are."

She said, "I know it sounds cliche, but I really am just waiting to exhale."
She's not looking for a perfect man, she ain't holding out for Denzel
She's just looking for a real man,
But she said "Most of the realest were in graves or in jail"
Just an upright brother, but she's left with low down brothers, homo thugs, and downlow brothers.

And it took her some time with herself to discover
That having love is even more important than having a lover
But what am I supposed to tell her?
That it's going to be okay? But it may not be.
It may be hard and ugly,
Difficult, complicated, rough and bloody
And I said, "So many women are struggling"

She said, "Yeah, I'd like a man to kiss me, I'd like a man to hug me
But he's gotta truly love love before he can truly love me"
I said, "I feel you." She said, "No, you're not feeling me.
We are women bringing up seeds,
Our own sons grow up thinking love is a disease
Ducking and dodging real relationships, and just gonna take what they please
And they treat pregnancy like it's an STD
If the test comes back positive, it's a negative
And they are ghost in the streets,
Drunk in the wind, only a moment is spent and those moments are brief
Our sons' role models are rolling stones unknown or deceased
They figure we can't teach them manhood, so they'll get grown in the streets
So in the cold world they find warmth with the men holding the heat."

I said "There's gotta be a change."
She said, "Yeah, it's gotta be more than poems on TV"
I said, "I feel you." She asked me how I survive.
I said, "By Allah, it was my mother otherwise
I would have been dead, crazy, institutionalized."

"She kept us in the good neighborhoods, even though she couldn't keep on the lights
So we could go to the best schools learning to read and to write.
Sometimes we'd be so broke, in the store, she'd have to pick between the beans and the rice.
Sometimes she'd put ketchup on a navy bean so it wouldn't seem like we're eating the same thing every night.
Two jobs during the day, and one at night.
And the stuff I saw her endure, I never wanna see my wife [endure]
So I know being a man is more than being male, and I'm focused on doing it right."

"But when I think about my childhood, I don't think about poverty
I remember how she hugged me, kissed me, taught me, loved me.
And I know you prefer a broken neck to another broken heart
Broken parts that litter the night sky like stars.
But remember, even the beauty of birth leaves its own scars
And know that you will find your home, right where you are
We will find our homes right where we are."

-Amir Sulaiman

Discrimination in societies

Today I was talking to a friend about societies when the subject of discrimination. She had tried to enter the Islamic society and was criticized for not being Muslim "enough",  later on she was rejected from the Somalian society from not being "enough" Somalian.

I remenber when I mentioned I had european blood to some guys in the Afro Caribbean society, I could read in their eyes : you ain't black enough to be here.

Hum...I lived fourteen years in Africa,
 And four in which I was constantly reminded I was black,
Called a "nigga", got punched by  discrimination
Speak two african dialects,
Visited the basilic in Ivory Coast,
Saw the statue of the African Renaissance,
Have been in three conflicts in Africa and still love the motherland
And know by heart the story of the no return door for slaves


yet you with your british accent, lived all your life in london, doesn't even consider black girl as an option for girlfriend, ignorant of your ancestor's past....

You look down on me because my skin is a shade lighter than you

What it is it not to be african enough or black enough?
Do i need to be a loud sista with a afro?
Do i need to be cussing people out?
Do i need to be hatin on white people?
Do i need to be a baby mama with always drama?
Do i need to be uneducated black girl with four children?
Do i need to be THIS stereotype? To be called African or just black?

I am sorry I don't fit the definition, I am just trying to create a new definition in which black or african women are seen as a lady, educated with a master's degree and a job, beautiful and proud of whatever they are.

So I am now officially in a relationship

with myself :)

To all the boys I ever loved

After listening to Mayda del Valle I wonder what I would say if I was writing this poem, so here it goes ( obviously don't expect me to be like her, i don't have her talent)

They were five of them, five that I loved inconditionally, five that I lost myself in, five that I experience the sweetness and freedom but also the pain

The first was the the puppy love,
where you're never sure of how things ought to be but you know you just love him.
It was innocent and deliciously comforting. I
thought we were meant to be together forever and ever,
See we had the same values, the same complicated surnames,
the same motherland, the same experience of hurt.
But as months passed by I got arrogant and wanted more, and that's where I found the second.


Always there for me, always soothing, words sweet as honey but his problem was he was a rotten fruit. He loved me until madness
Sweared he would kill himself, sweared he would kill meme if I left him and he nearly did
I was too young to understand at the time, but I was broken down until I finished on my knees
I stayed and fought, stayed and fought and stayed and fought sum more
Until my pride, my confidence, my everything laid down in the earth
until I understood he was gonna take my soul and that appetite, that appetite for life

The third was a pearl, I dived into him trying to find solace
I dived and lay down all of myself 
He was caring and gentle, nothing to complain about
I took his first and showed the path
But something in me started to change, I became unhappy with life and I had to say sayonara
 He did remain as a friend and I still apologize for being deceitful as I was

Fourth was summer love, he had the swagg and the confidence
I thought we were perfect and was ready for a long distance
We spent the summer in the beaches and under the covers
We were into each other and closed out from the world until summer ended
I wrote him but he never did, I still have no regrets as I recall our sweet summer loving

Fifth thought he was the shit, and he kind was
Five years older and with crazy dance moves
We matched up perfectly as if we were true soulmates
I loved him until I could not bear
He was there for me and loved me for who I was
Yet I let him go because he was too simple, not enough dreams and lack of ambition



From all I learn something, they helped me see clearly and finally they all changed me. I am who am because of them and I don;t have no regrets. Who will be the sixth?

Feelin the Def jam poetry

to all the boys I’ve loved before by Mayda del Valle

part 1:
we are not your mothers
and are not meant to be
it is not our responsibility to raise you into respectful beings
you have been weaned from the breast of a woman for years
yet you come to us
wounded and half filled with promises you can only keep half the time
trying to suckle our sense of self dry
we’ve become much to accustomed to sleepless nights and damp pillows
have become accustomed to waiting for our empty beds
to be weighed down with the bodies of men heavy with the scent
and the hands of other women
mornings with swollen puffy eyes are becoming routine
and we simply wanting to be loved
simply wanting to be able to love ourselves unconditionally
simply wanting to be held and feel safe
simply wanting the truth of whether you can really love us or not
play Hester Prynn
wear scarlet letters on our chests
become adulteresses
cheating ourselves out of what we truly deserve
willing to settle for less
willing to act like a little less than a goddesses
willing to sleep with the enemy
men too scared to stop acting like boys
thinking we can love away their scars
so we take the lashes of the insecurities they pour on us
and lick our wounds in quiet mourning for the little girls we lose by the minute
fast fading memories of playing hopscotch
and skippin’ rope
we now play freeze tag with each other’s hearts
play hide and seek with our love
if we just don’t breathe maybe we won’t get caught
up in the spider’s web we weave while waiting for what we give away to be returned
part 2:
you said you had a photographic memory
but apparently you forgot that honesty
begins by being real with yourself
and the ones you claim you love
should have never wasted my time
and just acted like the man you claimed and told the world you were
made a production of setting my folks at ease with tales of how you’d do all it ever took to never break my heart
I guess you thought you were talking to a roomful of the deaf and blind
figured they didn’t hear you
coz I never saw it coming
but the truth cannot be hidden
what’s clouded in darkness will always come to light my love
you shoulda known that
claiming you saw my light so clearly and brightly
so I left
chasing paper trails of promises you’d already set on fire
left with nothing but the ashes of who you’d written that you were
and singed fingers from trying to grasp the impossible
and the only thing I’ve really lost
are lukewarm kisses
that for too long I kept trying to tune the beat of my heart, a few lies, and stories
about honesty and truth
I guess shit happens
I just wish it wasn’t me
and I guess
it’s so much better to have loved and lost
than never to have loved at all
I know that’s some easy shit to say
but I’m still gonna try to live by it
I’m still gonna try to put my faith to rest in it
I will sleep on dry pillows now in a bed big enough to love myself in
I will awake these coming mornings with my eyes dry and shining
full of the knowledge I am priceless and worth nothing but honesty
I will remove the scarlet letter from my chest and hold the hand of the little girl I used to be
and say I’m sorry to her
I’m sorry for cheating you out of the joy you have always deserved
and I will wait
for a man
to come along
that can give me the truth of how much he can really love me
©2005 Mayda del Valle

On being mixed....or should I say multicultural third world kid

I was never confused when it came to answer the question "what am i?",  I never really gave it a thought  to be honest. I was born into a rainbow family where everyone was different, from a different place with a different skin shade. We had whites, mulatos, cocoa, chocolate, ebony, cafe au lait, porcelain, everything.  Most were black while me and my sister were light skinned, but no one was resentful or made us feel this difference. Until 6 colors only existed when painting.

After the civil war I was forced to attend a all white school in which for the first time I was confronted with discrimination and racism. I could not be European because my skin was too dark. I always ended with the villain roles when playing because I was the darkie. My teacher threw away the flowers I had given her on Teacher's day because I was dark and nasty to her.



Fast forwarded to high school where I was surrounded by mixed people and finally understood that I was different from their kind of mixed. My mom was not white or black nor was my father. I did not have a white and black side in my family. We were all black.
I did not struggle in adapting into two families, juggling traditions of different cultures. I was a mixed kid in another way.  My great grandfather who was white never raised my grandma and his sons with his wife, rejected my grandma because she was black. On my dad's side, it was a mix of capeverdians and Portuguese, who somewhere along the line had disappeared in the memories. Both sides  married africans and gave birth to rainbow children of all shades.

I am mixed but in a different way, I struggled also to find my place in this world. I was brought by lusophones, studied in french and lived in french west Africa most of my life. I define myself as a black woman from french west Africa with originis in lusophone Africa, and i am proud of what I have become. Even more proud of a family that made it through everything and is multiculutural

Are you sure it's in west africa?

I come from a tiny country in West Africa that no one seems to know the existence of it. However the next person who will ask me: "Are you sure it's in west Africa" I will cuss them out. Seriously! Like I would not know where I am from!

And I hate when people ask me, where are you from originally? Which just means how come your light skinned? Where s the black or white in you from? I always felt like it was the most impolite thing to ask, people should have the freedom of telling you whatever nationality they prefer or feel attached to. Now I don't deny my European or African side, the question always bothered me for some reason

I will never do this

So Saturday I finally got a decent clubbing experience in London in Hackney. It was the best night I had, I seriously grinded with a guy, drank a bit too much of bacardi and sprite and laugh until my ribs hurt. I did finally meet two decent guys, let's see what the future will bring us...

Everything went well but so many things could gone wrong, because i had a couple of drinks I was unable for the first part of the night to control myself. Luckily I have good friends and I didn't do anything stupid apart from shouting and giggling. Two guys came up to us and started randomly filming us for their youtube, in my right mind I would give them the "kissing teeth" thing or like i call chiputu! Later on after leaving the club we met this kenyan dude on his bicycle that walked us until a friend's house, it was very nice and all. But imagine we were talking to this guy who could turned out to be a weirdo or maniac and could have attacked us! From now on no more drinking! And no more walking at 3 am in Hackney!

:0

Tomorow I have classes at 11 and I feel so tired and sleepy but can't and don't feel like going to bed...So let me talk about myself

Every day I am so grateful to be studying in London and in such a great university. I love every thing about it, I have been dreaming of being here since I am fourteen. I study politics and development, it is very enriching and I have met so many people since being here. It feels great to be finally surround by smart people that, rarely at least, make dumb assumptions because of my race or my origins. London is such a vibrant city with so many opportunities, I want to enjoy to the fullest!

well time for me to go to bed....good night ^^

Beauty Secrets that work always

Body scrub
Honey mixed with sugar and one or two teaspoons of olive oil
to maximize the effects rub some coconut oil

Lip scrub
either do the same for body scrub or take a teeth brush and some vaseline, scrub your lips with it
don't forget to moisturize your lips after

Face masks
Honey and cinnamon ( put enough to make it thick paste)
Baking soda and water ( enough to make a paste)

Hair
Avocados and Honey plus some olive oil= nourished hair
Coconut oil is amazing hair oil that rejuvenates and protects it
Coconut milk gives you soft and detangled hair


Rosewater is a fantastic toner ;)
Black soap followed by shea butter as a moisturizer are all natural products that will benefit so much your skin

Black and dating

I was watching black in America on youtube, it was dedicated especially at black women. It was very interesting and it did open my eyes to a phenemon that is happening right now. It seems like seventy per cent of black women are single in america, the reasons for it? These women are highly educated, and are making a lot a money...unfortunately there are not a lot of black ( i should say enough ) men that are as educated, and accepting that their woman makes more or men that earn more. I personally have not been in America, only once and for a week, so I can't really talk about this issue regarding the states.

However....

I did once dated a guy that was twenty and....( U_U oooh boy) still in high school, he had no ambition and often would come up to me complaining " how come I don't buy him something"...yes I know, it's like WTF! He just wanted to have babies and chill while I work ( so not happening bro xp)

And unfortunately for me, there were several guys where I lived that were like this, no ambition, zero. I have learn my lesson at least

I do find it tough to date a guy, not just black, that meets my requirements ( not that i have a supe long list but...I am all I have got and I aint compromising). The video then finished concluded that many black women were now dating outside of race, now let's pause here. I think black women should stop limit themselves, there are so many great guys out there, we are still waiting for our chocolate prince. I myself didn't think twice when meeting a white guy I must admit, but after that video I thought: here I am waiting for my chocolate prince to come ( i have been seriously waiting!), kissing frogs that I (reaallly) shouldn't kiss while there is so many other kinds of princes right next to me.

Now I am not saying I'm through with black guys, I just decided to date good (and every color of ) guys <3

So tired yet don't wanna sleep

Tomorow I have classes at 11 and I feel so tired and sleepy but can't and don't feel like going to bed...So let me talk about myself

Every day I am so grateful to be studying in London and in such a great university. I love every thing about it, I have been dreaming of being here since I am fourteen. I study politics and development, it is very enriching and I have met so many people since being here. It feels great to be finally surround by smart people that, rarely at least, make dumb assumptions because of my race or my origins. London is such a vibrant city with so many opportunities, I want to enjoy to the fullest!

well time for me to go to bed....good night ^^

So about the protest??

Interesting experience I must say, I was at the front holding the banner and it was really exciting. Although my heart was not hundred per cent with the cause to be honest, while protesting I felt so connected to it. It was really amazing!

So many people came, I am talking about thousands, even from Scotland people came! Unfortunately a group of people resorted to violence and broke some windows, it really made feel angry because now people are concentrating on the negative, rather than message the thousands of students came to London to deliver. Unfortunately politicians seem even more sure that they will not cut the fees, I am wondering if something will change, let's hope so!

When they say cut back! WE SAY FIGHT BACK!
No ifs no buts! NO EDUCATION CUTS!

Shadeism

I was watching a video called shadeism on http://bglhonline.com/, a short documentary on five women's experiences with the concept of beauty being, the lighter the better..It really got me thinking, we do live in a messed up world. Magazines are lightening celebrities like Beyonce, Sidibe Gaborey, Vivica fox because black aint lovely enough. I am light skinned but I can relate to this documentary, growing up everyone commented on how white I was as a baby, now I wonder the true meaning behind this. I remember how everyone also always compared my older sister hair to mine, until this day there is always someone to say: but your sister's s hair is thicker, yours is very fine.

Why can we black accept how we are? Why do we keep o fighting ourselves? Why do we constantly feel the need to be changing how we are, how we were born?


It makes me sad as I think of my four year old sister who I fear will also see her herself ugly because her hair is "too coarse" or her African features are "ugly". This why I decided since May 10 to stop relaxing my hair, I was tired of having beat up hair that could never grow beyond shoulder length because of breakage. Growing up there was never an alternative solution to your hair, you either relaxed it or relaxed it. Even my hair who has "good hair" rarely wore down her hair because it was a bit too thick with some curlies.  I want to finally love my texture and accept myself. Now I have nothing against other women who relax their hair, you are free to do whatever you want as long you are happy

I no longer want to feel bad for being the light skin girl with the strong ( and beautiful African ) features


NB: The website i saw the video is the bomb, it's so inspiring and very helpful for transitionners and naturals, and inspirational for black girls, do check it out

Sleepwalking Land

Another movie worth seeing :), it has been adapted from the book Sleepwalking land ( orignal title Terra Sonambula) by Mia Couto. He is a great author and I have loved all of his books. Later on I will talk more about it.

Lusophone film festival brought to you by Queen Mary Uni

From November 9th to 13th there will a be a lusophone film festival, to celebrate the 35th anniversary of independence of the ex-colonies in Africa. There will be numerous films and each day a country will be the focus. Many panelists will be present so it ought to be very interesting. Above is one of the movies I recommend going to see. Nha fala is a movie by Flora Gomes from Guinea Bissau, it tells the story of a young woman facing traditions and finding herself. The movies has a lot of singing and dancing but behind it, you find out the sad reality of a country that since 98 has not been stable. Through the lyrics it depicts the social drama that has been happening in Guinea-Bissau but leaves you with hope. Go see it! check out the university of queen mary's website for more info.

Who's attending the demonstration? We will march 10.11.10

Tuition fees for universities will be going up! It has been a lot of talk and discussion about it. It will raise from almost 4,000pounds to 9,000pounds. I still don't know what do I feel about, but I plan to attend to see.

Wednesday they will be a protest, and more than ten thousand students are expected. It's exciting and new for me. I cannot wait! There will be massive media coverage and it's been at least 20 years this has not happen
check out the website for more info: http://www.demo2010.org/

Dating in London?

 So as some of you may know we just started reading week ( hooray!). Me and two of my friends went out for dinner. As you can imagine when girls are together, our main topic is always boys. This time it was different, we talked more about how guys in London are so different from our countries. Me and my East African friend agreed that back home, guys were more insistent and took the initiative.

My Nordic friend tried to explained to us that usually in her experience, European boys tended to be shy and sit back while the girls would chase after them. It came as a huge shock to me, I am more used to be chased after, I am sometimes a bit shy so I could not imagine myself going after a guy. What confused me even more was the awkward stage of we are like a couple but unofficial...all my relationships it was "we go out, if i don't like you then we break up". There was none of this stage where you acted like a couple but weren't, so confusing.

Another thing that kind of bugged me was the black boys. Obviously it's only the beginning of the year so it's not like i met tons of people but....there are not that many Africans in my circle. Most of the black boys have lived their entire life in the UK and are puzzled when I talk about Africa ( or find me exotic -__-!)so I end up being angry at their ignorance about where their origins or we just have no connection


So now I am just thinking to myself this is gonna be very hard. It's a completely different culture, where I have no idea how to deal or predict the other person. It was already hard enough to find a good guy and now it's harder for some of us to understand how the other thinks. But a the same it could be a good thing, it will force me to get out of my confort zone, and be more open to other cultures. Oh well we will see how it goes :) I will try my best

First Post ^^

Hello!!!!

It's my first post in this blog and I just wanted to kind explain who I am, what this blog will be on and so fourth.

About me

 I am currently a uni student in the UK. I am West African and I am passionate about global issues and politics. I love mangas, eating good food, sports, and just having a good time.My nickname is Mango Sweet, which is a reference to my mixed heritage and my personality

This blog will be about me, my life ( at least some of it, as in hair, fashion, likes, movies), my passions, my views of the world and many other things. I started this blog because I just want to share some of the things I like and this seemed a different way to do it. And also talk about the culture shock and how cope living in London


Hope you enjoy it