Adventures of Nefertiti

All my life, I’ve been categorized as a minority and many times I’ve been asked to speak up on the behalf of all other minorities. Growing up, I was one of three Black girls at St. Mary’s Catholic School, where in the fourth grade the teacher singled me out when Michael Jackson’s hair caught on fire, to ask me to explain to the kids in the class, why Black people put grease in their hair. In high school, I remember accepting a ride from a co-worker, who before she dropped me off at home one evening after work, had fifty million and one questions regarding why Blacks do this and why Blacks do that, and if we get tanned by the sun or blush when embarrassed (to my dismay, my medium brown cheeks turn red all the time when I encounter a guy that I find attractive, more so now in my late thirties than ever before). In my current office environment, my office mate has bombarded me over and over with questions regarding the N-word and the hypocrisy of it. In addition, during our first year wor...

Keela, Chinyere, Anaya, Deja, and Dezi Last week after a lengthy conversion on the phone with my mother, my mother asked me if I could say something to my niece Chinyere, because she had something to tell me. So I said ok and waited for my six year old “look alike” to grab the phone. “Aunt Teetee,” she began sweetly. “Yes, Chinyere.” I answered. “Aunt Teetee, I was talking to ValChosen and he said you a boy.” ValChosen is my three and a half year old nephew, and also Chinyere’s younger brother. “Really!” I said with surprise, “And what did you say?” “I said, that first of all, you’re Human, and second of all, you’re a girl.” She sounded so proud of herself. “Well, thank you Chinyere, that was really nice of you.” I was really tickled here. A little later Chinyere handed the phone back to my Mom. After I hung up from my Mother, I could not stop thinking about the brief conversation I had with my niece and how much she reminded me of me. About five years ago, I remember reading about the...

I sat in the driveway looking up at my Mom standing on the front porch. Leaning against the backseat door of the driver’s side of my parents’ car, I quickly took off my shoes and shook them furiously. I had to get all the sand out. Dad had said; “Let’s go for a ride.” And my father, my younger brother and I ended up at Lakeview Park, making sand castles. Mom didn’t want us to track sand through the house, so we went through a vigorous shaking and brushing off routine for our passport in. Years before that, I was along on a ride with my mother, really late one night taking the back roads home from Elyria to Lorain. It had been peaceful that night in the car, and really dark. Because of the still of the night, I was suddenly filled with a curious spirit, and I jumped up and asked my Mom… “How do you spell God?” “Capital G-O-D”, she kindly replied, before telling me to get back in my seat. “Why capital G?” I asked. I was maybe five at the time. “Because he is The Lord, and that’s how we ...

So I really like the radio version of Jay-Z’s D.O.A., Death of Auto-Tune. And his and Alicia Keys' performance of Empire State of Mind at the VMA’s blew me away. I’m thinking of purchasing The Blueprint 3 CD. But what’s giving me pause is that when I listen to the album on his MySpace page, I just can’t get past all of his references to the N-word. I mean I thought we were finally growing past this destructive behavior. A few weeks ago I saw Jay-Z on Real Time with Bill Maher. A great interview there. I remember Jay-Z explained the difference in his music today versus his earlier recordings. His “experiences are broader”, and because of that he says his music has a “wider appeal”. He’s grown tremendously and it reflects that in his lyrics. Great for him. But I don’t understand why his music continues to be laced with the N-word. He says he’s the N-word and so is everyone else. I believe he is a lyrical genius, so I’m sure Jay-Z could get a little more creative when describing someo...

Part 3 Nefertiti’s Ghost Stories The Night after the Funeral I awoke with a start and immediately my head started pounding to the sound of the screen door banging open and close on the front porch. I tried to shut it out and convince myself to sleep it off. I wasn’t ready to get up. But my head was throbbing and why was that screen door making so much noise? I had fallen asleep on my Mom’s love seat to the sound of laughter as my brothers and sisters revisited crazy memories of our beloved Granddad. December 5th, he passed. One day before my 31st birthday. My Mom and her brothers had to make the emotional decision to let him go and to take him off life support. He just wasn’t coming back from that heart attack. The funeral was sad, just really sad. So many people depended on my Granddad for their well being, especially my mother. She could count on Granddad for everything. I remember when I was a junior in high school, I had to drop two of my sisters off at the elementary scho...

Part 2 Nefertiti’s Ghost Stories After college, I was a news producer for a television station in Chattanooga,Tennessee. Although I worked in Chattanooga, I actually lived across state lines in the small town of Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia. When I initially took this entry-level position, I had perhaps two weeks to find a place to live. After scanning newspaper ads for apartment listings, I settled on a one bedroom unit at the Lakeshore Apartments. The units were small and rustic but nice and quiet. I kept to myself and my neighbors left me alone. My hours were weird at the television station. After less than a year as a weekend news producer, I was promoted to morning show producer. Meaning, since we hit the air at five in the morning, my shift in the newsroom began around midnight. I needed plenty of time to organize the show, as well as pull stories and rewrite copy from the AP Wire. I hated leaving my apartment in the middle of the night. Often times the night ...

Nefertiti’s Ghost Stories Part 1 I graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1997 with a Bachelor of Arts in Advertising. My college years were full with friendship, campus parties, and late night cram sessions. Although I graduated from the University of Kentucky, I actually started my college years at the University of Louisville. Toward the end of my freshman year at U of L, I fell in love with a guy from back home. On the weekends I would hop on I-64 to rush back to Lexington to be with my new boyfriend. Often times we would spend the weekend together at his sister’s apartment. She would let us have the entire place to our selves. One morning, as he and I lay in each other's arms, I awoke to find a huge rattlesnake hissing and gliding over me. I immediately jumped up and started yelling. “Brent, Brent, get up, there’s a snake in the bed!” I screamed. “What,” he asked half dazed as his eyes adjusted to the early morning brightness. “A snake, a snake in the bed, you have to ge...