The random misadventures of a (formerly)Single Super Mom

 In 2006, my ex husband sent me an email saying, "I want a divorce. You need to find a job". Needless to say it shattered my world. I had been a stay at home mom for 5 years and had no idea this was coming. He found someone else, someone that he would eventually go on to marry, but at the time I was left with a kindergartner and a third grader, no college degree, no work experience for the past 5 years, and a looming deadline of figuring out what I had to do to survive.   However, the one thing I always had was a village. I watched and cared for other people's children, and their families, helped out in church, volunteered, was a team parent... all of those people helped me find my feet again. One of my best friends in the world helped me get a job, other friends helped us move when I found a little townhouse to buy despite making $11 an hour, helped feed us, and helped support us. I could not have done any of this without them.  We STRUGGLED. And when I say struggle...

I have written multiple times about how amazing of an organization FIRST is, and how I have seen first hand how it can impact the entire trajectory of a child's life. Last year, I was invited to become a member of of a FIRST Robotics Competition Black Mentor Advisory Group. It is one of the only, if not the only organization of its kind in the United States. It is no secret that there is a distinct lack of Black representation in STEM and other professional areas. There are a couple of hundred FRC Mentors in North Carolina alone, and I would say about 10% of them are Black. We had a virtual meeting recently and the council head, who is White, and one of the staunchest allies I have ever met in my life, told us a story about a colleague who ran a robotics event at a school in North Carolina. There was a young Black girl in the group and when asked if she wanted to participate, she said "she couldn't." And when the program lead, who is White said that she could do anyth...

As a little girl, I was a superhero fanatic. I watched Wonder Woman, the Super Friends and every hero show I could.  I started collecting comics when I was about 15, and still have a huge box of them in my closet.  Wonder Woman was my favorite from the beginning, and she still is. Superman is a close second. The very first comic book I bought with my own money was an issue of the Teen Titans, and that was the first time I saw a Black female comic character. Bumblebee was introduced in 1976, and the name "Melissa" means "Honeybee", so I was absolutely entranced. Storm from the X-Men was a close second, as I admired her strength and intelligence as well as the bad ass way she delivered a beat down. Soon after I discovered that my ultimate superhero, Wonder Woman, had a Black twin sister named Nubia, who was sculpted from Black Clay as Diana was formed from White Clay.  Bumblebee courtesy of DC Universe Comic strips were the first to introduce Black characters , but t...

I grew up in the North, the Midwest specifically, but always knew of my roots and my family that lived down south. I heard the stories of the conditions that my father had to face while trying to go to school in Morgan City, Louisiana. The struggles of generation upon generation of family members and the racism and hatred they faced. The injustices that were done to them. And the triumphs as they succeeded and overcame.  When I told my mother 20 years ago that I was moving to the south, she was genuinely afraid for me, because the perception of the world down here is very scary sometimes.  I've lived in North Carolina for 20 years, and until a few years ago I hadn't really traveled around the area.  Most of my family still lived up north, so time off was spent visiting them. My trips to Georgia consisted of going to the airport, South Carolina was Myrtle Beach, and that's basically it. My husband is a native Californian and a huge history buff that has been down here long...

With all of the racial tension so prevalent in the world today I had to sit and ask myself.  What the hell?  What are we going to do about it?  How do we fix it?  How do we change it? The simple answer is, I don't know.  I know what I was taught in my home.  I know what my mother and my grandmother and great grandmother taught me.  I know what I taught my children.  I remember the stories that I was told by my elders growing up.  The stories of segregation and fear. The stories of being treated "less".  Of having to work harder to be better to overcome. A very good friend of mine posted something on Facebook that resonated with me.  Because she's 100% right.  I have endured years and years of " microaggressions " and back handed comments because I'm (blank) for a black girl. My name is Melissa.  Non-threatening.  It's a White girl name.  My co-worker, whom I love dearly has the name Duwana.  She's Whit...

During a meeting in Hayneyville, Alabama, on March 1, 1965 King inquired about voter registration procedures but Registrar Carl Golson told him "It's none of your business." HORACE CORT / AP Today is MLK day in the US, and the day that social media timelines are invariably flooded with quotes for peace and understanding by the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  However, most of those quotes are just pieces of a greater picture, and people do not truly understand the entirety of them. Dr. King has been " softened " into a much more palatable icon for those who he made so uncomfortable in the past.  He was radical. He was reactionary. He was revolutionary. He was not all "let's hold hand in a circle and sing". He was ready to fight and break laws when necessary. His views on nonviolence have been grossly distorted over the years. The incidents in this country over the past year have severely underlined the lack of racial understanding and harmony we ha...

Did you know that Black women are over 1.5 times more likely to die from cervical cancer than White women? And over 200% more likely to die from complications due to childbirth? Can you imagine being a Black or Brown woman and going to the hospital to get your appendix removed...and finding out that the government and your doctor sterilized you without your consent? African-American patients tend to receive lower-quality health services, including for cancer, H.I.V., prenatal care and preventive care, vast research shows. The dirty and sordid history of women's health in this country is terrifying and appalling. Dr. J Marion Sims, called the "Father of Modern Gynecology", was a pioneering physician and slave owner in the 1800's. During that time, Blacks were still thought to be little more than "animals", and ostensibly Black women didn't feel pain. He used enslaved Black women for countless experiments without their consent, during a time when Women...

I recently had a conversation with a very dear friend of mine who has been a nurse for over 20 years.  She was taking a break from Social Media due to a lot of different factors, but I reached out to her to see if she was okay.   She told me that she'd heard over and over during the years from Black patients, "I don't trust doctors", and she couldn't figure out why.  Why would you not trust the people that are supposed to keep you healthy and help you when you're sick?  And that would make sense under most circumstances.  However, since the slave times, there has been a lack of regard for the health of Blacks in this country, and it hasn't changed.  From food deserts to disdain from providers to the root of so many health problems for Blacks..it's a bitter pill to swallow.  Currently we are seeing extremely disproportionate numbers of COVID positive patients in the Black community.  For the first time, people are asking "why?" and they are fl...

If you don't know who Harry Anslinger is...you should. He said the following.... “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men. The primary reason to  outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.” "I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigarette can do to our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents. That’s why our problem is so great, the greatest percentage of our population is composed of Spanish-speaking persons, most of who are low mentally" Marijuana has been illegal in this country for close to 100 years, but many people don't know why it became illegal in the 1st place. Harry had a personal vendetta against people of color, jazz music, and a fierce need to prove that whites were superior and that BIPOC were basically...trash. There was a HUGE push with nationwide propaganda using fear tactics to "scare" the White Majority into keeping Cannabis public enemy number one. In 1850, cannabis, a plant with a history of medical us...

During this time of racial unrest and tension, I have tried my best to educate and illuminate some of the lesser known parts of Black History that have led us to this place. Everything from Slavery to Systemic Inequality to Redlining, and I myself have learned things that I never knew.  So much of the history of this country, and the world, has been diluted and sanitized to make it palatable.  This history is ugly.  It's raw. It's destructive. It's horrific. And it's time that we know the truth so that we can do better.   With today being Juneteenth, or Emancipation Day, I will start here and collect each post I have written and researched so we can all have a better understanding on how we got here.  What is Juneteenth? PEOPLE were taken from Africa and MADE into slaves. They had families that were ripped apart. Women were forced to breastfeed grown men in the holds of ships after their babies died so they could provide sustenance for the crossing. The thi...

Events over the last 4 years have turned this country into a powder keg of racial tension, and there have been explosions everywhere.  The most recent one, the murder of  George Floyd by 4 White police officers in Minneapolis, has put the nation front and center in terms of racial disparity and unrest.  There have been peaceful protests as well as rioting, and people are at a loss as to what to do.   This is just one in a long line of things that have happened to make my heart bleed.  As the daughter of a Black man, the sister of a Black man, and the mother of a Black man, I am saddened and disappointed and scared because things in this country seem to be getting worse instead of better.   I was born in the North and was subject to my share of racist behavior. It wasn't nearly as overt and often, but it happened. The problem is, I learned later, that I was raised in a "nice" Black family. A Cosby show type of family. A non threatening family that...