Happy 25th Birthday Isis!

Y'all knew I wasn't going to let today slide without saying something on my Little Sis' milestone birthday.

Today is Isis King's 25th birthday, and I wrote this in my open letter to her two years ago.

As time goes on, transition will get easier for you. Your confidence will grow as you learn who Isis is, get comfortable with your body and figure out what type of woman you want to project to the world. As you work through that ongoing process, you will eventually get to the point in which you feel as strong, sexy, beautiful and confident as the Egyptian queen you chose to name yourself after. This America's Next Top Model experience will only help speed that inevitable day along.

And two years later, Isis has survived and thrived .

She's also happily evolving into becoming the woman I predicted she would be and is constantly evolving and growing to become.

I couldn't be happier for her.   


Happy 25th birthday sis! Enjoy your milestone birthday and may you have many more.

Someday I hope to be able to give you that big hug you deserve from me in person.

You Can Write STFU All You Want....

I am still going to speak my mind about whatever issue I see fit to inject my chocolate flavored commentary in. 

Just as you feel your commentary on various issues is valuable and you express yourselves while doing so, I believe just as strongly in my First Amendment rights to write and express my opinions about the issues du jour.    

My chocolate flavored opinions sometimes neatly line up with yours on some issues.  In other cases they may run counter to them.   When they do, that is no excuse for you to start wielding the vanilla flavored privilege bat and attempt by various techniques to shut down what I have to say because you resemble whatever I'm talking about or what I commented on plucked a vanilla nerve.

Point is, I see the world differently from you due to my life experience growing up in 60's and 70's Louisiana and Texas, my college education, me being trans, and having to deal with bigoted and racist acts aimed at me, my family and my community for the majority of my life.

That is my reality.   I'm the result of what is created when you interact as a African descended person with a society that operates on and constantly enables 'whiteness' and white supremacy.   I'm also the result of interacting with a society that is unfair in many aspects of it where POC's are concerned for over 400 years and being cognizant of the history of that society. 

We've been paying attention to what the hell is going on even when you think we aren't and discussing it inside our internal community discourse.    So no, it shouldn't be a shock to you that 21st century African descended peeps still are reacting negatively to what was done to our ancestors and to us, or when we filter current events based on the realities of that 400 year history.  

To paraphrase Parliament-Funkadelic, don't trip about the effects and our reactions to them when you produced and enabled the causes of the stuff we are reacting to..   

You can write STFU all you want in the comment threads wherever I post, falsely label me a 'racist', or call me everything but a child of God because you hate what I have to say about various issues, but it still won't stop me from speaking my truth and tellin' it like it T-I-S is.

You haters don't like it, too bad.

My story, my chocolate flavored truth, my lived experience, and my opinions about various issues of the day in this country and around the world are just as important and vital to our national discourse on those issues as you think yours is.

Continental's Last Day

I spent 14 years working for Continental Airlines, and I like many past and present employees of the 'Proud Bird With The Golden Tail' are saddened that today is the last one that Continental will be flying around the world as an independent air carrier.

76 years of airline history goes away tomorrow as the Continental-United merger takes effect.  The merged carrier will be based in Chicago and bear the United name but keep the Continental golden globe logo and the CAL colors on its aircraft.


Tomorrow a new carrier emerges that will the largest airline in the world.  The stock gets merged tomorrow, but it will be a few years before the other physical changes like new uniforms, aircraft being painted over and signage replacement happens before the Continental name fades into aviation history for good. 

The globe logo and the colors will endure for a while as the new logo and colors of the merged airline.

But for those of us who were part of its remarkable 76 year history and who busted our behinds to turn it from worst to award winning first during the 90's and keep it there, it will be a bittersweet day.