Black in the America
Black in America? Ms G, along with countless other black folk & American’s of all other hues sat glued to my television waiting for Soledad to show me some groundbreaking $hit about being Black in America. Well while the series was well put together and contained some interesting drama – Ms G just couldn’t relate!!! It didn’t address people like me!!! Or like my family. Believe it or not America, some of us Nigras have been living happily and doing quite well since before Massa unlocked the plantation gates. Not all of us had to scratch, claw and dodge bullets to rise – like the Phoenix – from the ghetto ashes of despair. For some of us, the biggest calamity may simply be – Being Black at the Nail Salon!!!
Before you start yelling and sending nasty emails that I’m trivializing the series, trust me that is not my intent. I just felt that it didn’t include a large segment of the black community. Those of us from middle & upper class parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents deserve a voice too. Don’t we? Hell when I go into Nail City, City Nails, Rich’s Nails…blah blah blah, I don’t won’t Tina and/or Kim (Trung Fe Ling & Dung Dai Shin – you know the names on their license NEVER match the names they tell you to call them) scratching up my feet and expecting me to be grateful for this type of treatment since I had to dodge 10 gang bangers, 4 crackheads and 2 rappers just to get to their shop.
To me this type of reporting perpetuates the stereotypes of all blacks being from the “hood” and soothes the conscience of liberal YT (you know the ones who ALWAYS have a black friend) that their social programs and affirmative action (although we desperately need it- it still ain’t right & needs to be reworked) REALLY make a difference. But guess what? As long as images like those in the broadcast are continually pushed across airwaves, Yung K. Kim will continue to feel she doesn’t have to sterilize the pedicure bowl after each client cause black folk ain’t used to clean $hit no how!!!
To give you a prime example of how stereotypes & television images create misconceptions, I’ll tell you about my experience at City Nails at the Cap Cntr at the Blvd, with Jim (one of two Jims) at the nail shop a couple of weeks ago. Ms G. had several important social events – yall know the pink & green pretty girls were in town, plus some other ish- to attend with friends. Hemingway, me & Lil G go to this establishment for pedicures and are told to sit in chair etc etc. Before sitting I ask Jim if the bowls have been cleaned. He shakes his head vigorously and holds up a spray bottle of Lysol Kitchen cleaner while repeating “BLEACH. BLEACH” like I’m flucking deaf & $hit. I sit down and cross my fingers- don’t wanna end up on the Tyra show with foot amoeba eating away my flesh.
Jim Lee starts cleaning my feet without benefit of soap or scrub salts. When I stop him to ask about some bubble bath or something, he grabs a suspect container and squeezes two drops in my water and smiles a condescending doo doo brown lunch counter grin at me. I swear these people think we just left the slave cabin. He proceeds to give me a pedicure with such speed and fury I wonder if I will have any bone let alone skin left when he’s done. After painting my toes he sends me to the ultra violet machine that isn’t working. He then plops a fan in front of my toes, smiles the doo doo brown, and says “YOU DRY. YOU DRY” with sign language attached to this volume assault on my ears. Lord ham’ mercy on the cross four times.
By this time my nerves are truly plucked, so I dry & take my black @ss home. The next day at work as I was leaning down to plug my MP3 player into my pc (yall know yall download music too) I noticed my big toe had all kinds of wrinkles & dimples and $hit in the polish and that white was around all my cuticles. Not to mention BBQ King had mentioned my feet were scratching him the night before while I was trying to cuddle. That is a big NO NO!!! So I called the nail salon, expressed my displeasure and was told by Kim to come in for a do over.
When I arrived Jim was working on another customer. He sullenly came over to me looked at my toes & said he would re-color. I expressed my desire for a whole new pedicure to him and that I was told over the phone it would not be a problem. He put his hands on his hips and gave me a serious “Biach please” look while asking to see my feet. This MFR roughly grabbed my foot twisting & turning it with his nose turned up like he was smelling some 6 day old turnip greens.
“I aaask U if U won razaaar. U say NO” he says to me. Which leads me to give him an N-word please look. He tells me to wait five minutes and he will scrape with razor.
“Scrape what?” I ask “I know damn well you don’t think you’re going to put a razor on my dry @ss feet so I can walk around looking like Miss Jane Pittman at the end of slavery!”
At this point he starts screaming and fussing at the other workers in the shop in their native tongue – throwing a major Queen fit (if you think black queens are funny you have got to see an aging Asian Queen go there – pure comedy). He comes back to the pedicure bowl, turns on the water and tells me very nastily to sit down while waving a dismissive hand in my face. Now people yall know that MFR almost got the country @ss whipping of his life by doing that. I told him so too. I gave him a lecture on good customer service and let him know he would not being doing anything to my feet! At this statement he rushes towards me like he thought he was in a Shang Hai hood bar bout to cut the next biach.
“What? Are you ready to die today?” I calmly query “Cause you two seconds from your death bed! Matter of fact, give me money back so I can get the hell out of here!!”
“TWENTY DOLLAA!! TWENTY DOLLAAA!!!” he yells while reaching into his pocket. “YOU TAAAAAKE AND GEEET OUUUUTTT!! NO CUM BAACK NO MORE!!!! I NO WAAAANT YOU BACCK NO MORE!!!” he screams.
“I no wanaaannnnt youuuuu baaaack no more” I repeat in a mocking voice.
This really got his blood boiling. Honey that short nail chopping sweet thing went off in a Vietnamese dialect like he had been studying with Rosetta Stone all his life. At this point all I could do was laugh. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to bust a vessel!! He went on and on between English & what eva, complaining about how black people always want something free. I had to explain to that MFR that I made 75 plus gees a year and didn’t need a got-damn thing for free!!! I finally realized how silly it was to argue with such a character, laughed at that queen and told him to have a good day.
Needless to say, if I had been ‘White in America’ this would not have gone down that way. But alas being ‘Black in America’ some people always believes what they see on T.V. and the nightly news. They never understand that there are multiple ways to be BLACK IN AMERICA!!!
Before you start yelling and sending nasty emails that I’m trivializing the series, trust me that is not my intent. I just felt that it didn’t include a large segment of the black community. Those of us from middle & upper class parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents deserve a voice too. Don’t we? Hell when I go into Nail City, City Nails, Rich’s Nails…blah blah blah, I don’t won’t Tina and/or Kim (Trung Fe Ling & Dung Dai Shin – you know the names on their license NEVER match the names they tell you to call them) scratching up my feet and expecting me to be grateful for this type of treatment since I had to dodge 10 gang bangers, 4 crackheads and 2 rappers just to get to their shop.
To me this type of reporting perpetuates the stereotypes of all blacks being from the “hood” and soothes the conscience of liberal YT (you know the ones who ALWAYS have a black friend) that their social programs and affirmative action (although we desperately need it- it still ain’t right & needs to be reworked) REALLY make a difference. But guess what? As long as images like those in the broadcast are continually pushed across airwaves, Yung K. Kim will continue to feel she doesn’t have to sterilize the pedicure bowl after each client cause black folk ain’t used to clean $hit no how!!!
To give you a prime example of how stereotypes & television images create misconceptions, I’ll tell you about my experience at City Nails at the Cap Cntr at the Blvd, with Jim (one of two Jims) at the nail shop a couple of weeks ago. Ms G. had several important social events – yall know the pink & green pretty girls were in town, plus some other ish- to attend with friends. Hemingway, me & Lil G go to this establishment for pedicures and are told to sit in chair etc etc. Before sitting I ask Jim if the bowls have been cleaned. He shakes his head vigorously and holds up a spray bottle of Lysol Kitchen cleaner while repeating “BLEACH. BLEACH” like I’m flucking deaf & $hit. I sit down and cross my fingers- don’t wanna end up on the Tyra show with foot amoeba eating away my flesh.
Jim Lee starts cleaning my feet without benefit of soap or scrub salts. When I stop him to ask about some bubble bath or something, he grabs a suspect container and squeezes two drops in my water and smiles a condescending doo doo brown lunch counter grin at me. I swear these people think we just left the slave cabin. He proceeds to give me a pedicure with such speed and fury I wonder if I will have any bone let alone skin left when he’s done. After painting my toes he sends me to the ultra violet machine that isn’t working. He then plops a fan in front of my toes, smiles the doo doo brown, and says “YOU DRY. YOU DRY” with sign language attached to this volume assault on my ears. Lord ham’ mercy on the cross four times.
By this time my nerves are truly plucked, so I dry & take my black @ss home. The next day at work as I was leaning down to plug my MP3 player into my pc (yall know yall download music too) I noticed my big toe had all kinds of wrinkles & dimples and $hit in the polish and that white was around all my cuticles. Not to mention BBQ King had mentioned my feet were scratching him the night before while I was trying to cuddle. That is a big NO NO!!! So I called the nail salon, expressed my displeasure and was told by Kim to come in for a do over.
When I arrived Jim was working on another customer. He sullenly came over to me looked at my toes & said he would re-color. I expressed my desire for a whole new pedicure to him and that I was told over the phone it would not be a problem. He put his hands on his hips and gave me a serious “Biach please” look while asking to see my feet. This MFR roughly grabbed my foot twisting & turning it with his nose turned up like he was smelling some 6 day old turnip greens.
“I aaask U if U won razaaar. U say NO” he says to me. Which leads me to give him an N-word please look. He tells me to wait five minutes and he will scrape with razor.
“Scrape what?” I ask “I know damn well you don’t think you’re going to put a razor on my dry @ss feet so I can walk around looking like Miss Jane Pittman at the end of slavery!”
At this point he starts screaming and fussing at the other workers in the shop in their native tongue – throwing a major Queen fit (if you think black queens are funny you have got to see an aging Asian Queen go there – pure comedy). He comes back to the pedicure bowl, turns on the water and tells me very nastily to sit down while waving a dismissive hand in my face. Now people yall know that MFR almost got the country @ss whipping of his life by doing that. I told him so too. I gave him a lecture on good customer service and let him know he would not being doing anything to my feet! At this statement he rushes towards me like he thought he was in a Shang Hai hood bar bout to cut the next biach.
“What? Are you ready to die today?” I calmly query “Cause you two seconds from your death bed! Matter of fact, give me money back so I can get the hell out of here!!”
“TWENTY DOLLAA!! TWENTY DOLLAAA!!!” he yells while reaching into his pocket. “YOU TAAAAAKE AND GEEET OUUUUTTT!! NO CUM BAACK NO MORE!!!! I NO WAAAANT YOU BACCK NO MORE!!!” he screams.
“I no wanaaannnnt youuuuu baaaack no more” I repeat in a mocking voice.
This really got his blood boiling. Honey that short nail chopping sweet thing went off in a Vietnamese dialect like he had been studying with Rosetta Stone all his life. At this point all I could do was laugh. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to bust a vessel!! He went on and on between English & what eva, complaining about how black people always want something free. I had to explain to that MFR that I made 75 plus gees a year and didn’t need a got-damn thing for free!!! I finally realized how silly it was to argue with such a character, laughed at that queen and told him to have a good day.
Needless to say, if I had been ‘White in America’ this would not have gone down that way. But alas being ‘Black in America’ some people always believes what they see on T.V. and the nightly news. They never understand that there are multiple ways to be BLACK IN AMERICA!!!
posted by Ms G @ 5:03 AM
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