"You ain't got nothing and you ain't got nowhere to go."

"You ain't got nothing and you ain't got nowhere to go."

Yeah! I know it sounds like a line from a movie where Halle Berry is supposed to be ugly and a crack head. Or maybe even a preview for the upcoming Oprah-Tyler Perry movie, where Monique plays the violently abusive mother to an overweight teen named “Precious.”

"You ain't got nothing and you ain't got nowhere to go."

There’re words that even hurt to type, let alone hear. It was harder to hear them from someone you want so much to love and support you the way you try to love and support them. I’m sure someone is already thinking, “Girl leave that man if he’s talking to you like that!”

No, this is no case of domestic violence, at least not in the male-to-female, spouse-to-spouse, “partner-to- partner” since of the word. It was domestic violence in the since that the words were uttered in a home. Not my home. The house where I now live.

Not my home. My sister’s house.

Like many other American’s now, I had to do a short sale to avoid foreclosure. I realized I hated my job and it was time to move on to something better. I had to make tough choices. I had to pack up my entire life. I had to sell a lot of my stuff. I had to give away even more. I had to sleep on some friends and family members couch for a few nights. I had to learn some tough lessons. I had to make some even tougher decisions.

As soon as I realized I was going to lose my house, I realized how I handled the coming situations would define me as a person for the rest of my life. It would not only define how people looked at and judged me and my situation, it would define how I felt about myself. I decided to hold my head high, do what I had to do, keep a positive attitude and make it through this situation like I had made it through the other major phases of my life. I had no idea how the situation would turn out, just that I was smart, creative, funny, and cute enough that everything would be alright. I knew I had in me all that my family, friends, mentors, and teachers, and GOD had instilled in me. I have character, compassion, and an unwavering since of self. I knew then, like I know now, everything will work out alright.

I realized back then that I had a lot. I have me.

As the year of 2008 meandered along, I found my faith. I’m not saying I found God. I already knew him. We had a slightly checkered past, and I had strayed from our relationship several times when I did not get what I wanted in the time and manner that I wanted. I had often lost or put down my faith, especially in His ability to deliver a husband. I know God existed; I just did not have faith in his abilities. And anyone who knows me knows I had no problem, telling God, or them how I felt about my lack of a mate for life.

My faith was constantly fortified and made stronger as in God’s time things in my life came into place, often with little to no effort on my part. Not only did they all but fall into place, often blessing just fell into my lap. I was able to stay in my home a VERY long time while I got other things in order. I was able to comfortablely move out of the house before they came to put me out. I found the perfect house to move into, with the perfect landlord. God let me see past others advise that this would not be a good idea, to see just how wonderful it really would be. AND IT TRULY WAS!! When moving time came, I had the right helpers at the right time. (Everybody remembers, “Use the help you have, while you got it!” and my 7 and 12 year old packers that I paid with cheesecake! Thank you Canisha and CJ!) My cousin that I rarely talked to or saw was the one that showed up at exactly the moment I had done all I could do and was literally passing out from exhaustion after 5 days of nonstop packing and moving. She has truly a God-sent helper. She stepped in and orchestrated my entire move as I lay on the floor of my empty dining room barely conscious. I was able to move in, unpack, prepare for house guest and have a major cookout within a week! Seemlessly! I remember just being amazed at how well it all turned out. I also remember sitting down one day in my basement and realizing it was all GOD. All God!

God got me through two basement floods, reoccurrence of the insane married ex-boyfriend, dealing with the stepford wives of the Junior League, and all the insanity of my job. He didn’t make it just disappear; He gave me the courage and fortitude to deal with all of it with a calm mind and a courageous spirit.

And as 2009 began, my faith had been restored. I understood that he could make a way out of no way. Maybe not your way, but most definitely A WAY! I was able to enjoy the inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States of America with my family. I actually had someone tell me they loved me and that I was sexy for the first time in over a decade. I needed to hear it even if it didn’t last long. And above all, I was able to care for my parents and just be there for them.

So when I realized that my time at my job had ended, I knew before they told me. I was ready. I was okay. I jumped right into my faith mode of action. I did not worry about where will I go and what will I do.

I realized that I could always go to God. When all things in this world failed, I had somewhere to go! I could go to GOD! No matter where I lived, worked, was or was doing, I could go to my GOD! He would sustain me! He would keep me! He would protect me! He would see me to the next step or phase. All I need is a little faith. You know that faith the size of a grain of a mustard seed! I had literally climbed inside that mustard seed for my faith and I was okay!

I will always have somewhere to go. I can always go to my faith! I can always go to my God!

If need be, at a homeless shelter, in another country, in the military, whereever I be, I can go to my God. I can go to him in prayer, confidnece and understanding, that this world is only temporary and learning is to be had in every situation he puts you in and God is always there with you, seen and unseen!

This post is not to retort back to the one who told me, "You ain't got nothing and you ain't got nowhere to go." God is still working on that person like he is still working on you and me. That was not of who they truly are, but the Devil trying to use them to hurt me.

This post is to tell all those out there that have heard, "You ain't got nothing and you ain't got nowhere to go."

THE DEVIL IS A LIAR!

Between God and your faith you have more than enough

and you always have somewhere to go!

Post Script: And for those that don’t know me or where I am. I am living with my sister in “GOD’s country” preparing to start Law School. And I still haven’t missed a beat in my life. Just a change in tempo!

I've said it before, I'll say it again ... and now I'm sure!

Now as for the rest of the Right, Republicans, Rush, Real Americans, Rednecks, Rebels and anything else with an R they want to call themselves!

I've been saying it in private for years. Now I'm going on record. They're all going to HELL!*
(*For those that know me very well personally, I need not explain. If you don't have a clue what I am talking about and know me personally, call me and I'll explain. It won't take but a minute and once I do explain you'll be behind me 100 %!)

The whole, "we refuse to support 'him' " thing is killing me, and killing our country literally.
This attitude of “I’m refusing to go along with him,” “I refuse to support him”; “I want him to fail” crap is insane.

Where the hell were you when that last fool you called president for 8 years sent thousands of people off to wars for lies! WE HAVE NOT FOUND OSAMA BIN LADIN, NO WMDs! Moreover, someone please tell me why are we still on the ground in Iraq (Other than to make money for cronies of Bush and Cheney?) Where the hell where you when W was allowing our economy to go to hell in a hand-basket? Where the hell were you when gas was damn near 5 dollars a gallon? --- Just for the record, if they don’t want President Obama to fix the economy, imagine what they will do if gas goes back up to some unreal rate while he’s president. Their heads will explode! …. Oh wait, that might not be a bad idea … and I can carpool!

I’ve said it before, I’ll (probably) say it again,
They’re all going to HELL!

What happened to supporting you Commander-in-Chief? What happened to being a REAL AMERICAN and having unwavering faith in your President? The above-mentioned folks didn’t seem to have any problem trusting W and the Haphazard Hunter! No matter how many completely insane, illegal, wrong, devious, or just plain stupid things they did.

I even seem to remember a particular odd couple accusing people of being un-American as they chose to avoid the then president AT ALL COST! Least they both be associated with him and all of his bad decisions. They even went as far as to tell us how they would be MAVERICKS, and not always side with their party. Look at them now… looking like Little Red

But, I have to remind myself …
They’re all going to HELL!

Why, you say? Because they have generations of experience of not being honest with themselves. Because most of the ills of American society were started as the then youngsters, now adults stood by and watched their parents and grandparents continue a long history of injustice and brutality. It really doesn’t matter if you stood at the feet of a hanging and or burning man or woman or you and your family heard about it at church. If you read about it, hear about it or even saw it with your own two eyes, men women and children being attacked by dogs, having fire hoses turned on them, shot at or brutally beaten, simply to be able to live and work with out threat of harm or and hopefully equal treatment and opportunity. You and your parents and grandparents should have been as enraged when four little girls were murdered while in Sunday school as you were when the Oklahoma City federal building was boomed, on September 11, 2001, or as many of you are about the current economic crisis. (Or was the September 2008 desolation of your 401K more important than those precious little girls lives? Cause if your are within a decade of your retirement or older, you were alive then! ) It doesn’t matter if you actually lived on the land that was stolen from disenfranchised people or you and your family living in another part of the country benefited (at the fruit, wore the clothing, sat on the furniture, etc…) from those people being disenfranchised. Now as adults, you have that oh to timely selective amnesia of real American history!

They’re all going to HELL!

Sonny, what's your backup plan?

To the Governor of Georgia, Sonny Purdue,

It's okay for your personal business to take out a $21 million dollar loan, but you want to turn down unemployment benefits for Georgians! How dare you! Just as your personal business will plan to pay the money, back if the loan will save you now, SO CAN OUR STATE!

This mess you call governing may be okay with some folks but you and your party are turning our state into a 3rd world state! People do see that you plan on taking the stimulus package money and funding the property tax role back. That will not help all Georgians, just the large property holders. Your friends, and you, Sonny Perdue will benefit. Even the owners of the cesspool of a peanut processing plant will get a tax cut, while thousands of Georgians who have lost their homes and need this money more will not.

While you're making trips to Reynolds Plantation to meet golf legends, you need to get out talk to some real everyday Georgians. Talk to the families that are loosing their homes. Families are trying to do for their children with less money as jobs cut salaries to keep employees. People are going out and getting second and third jobs to keep up and they have a back up plan. All this is going on while the cost of living keeps increasing. Real small business owners are cutting back to keep their business going, or going to their churches for groceries. What's Georgia's, what’s YOUR, backup plan if you don't take this money from the Federal Government?

I may not agree with everything in the stimulus package, but it is truly a detriment to the people of Georgia to turn down any assistance at this time. As old folks would say that’s the same as cutting off your nose to spite your face and that just leaves you looking ugly!

My January 13, 2009

January 13, 2009

Today is a very special day for me personally. This day is special to me for to separate and yet completely intertwined reasons.
Today, January 13, I along with over 200,000 other members of my wonderful sorority celebrate Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Incorporated’s 96th anniversary. On this day in 1913, 22 Howard University college women chose to commit their lives to sisterhood, scholarship, and public service.

Less than two months after the sorority's founding, the first public service act of Delta Sigma Theta took place during the 1913 Women's Suffrage March on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. Delta Sigma Theta's twenty-two founders marched with honorary member Mary Church Terrell under the Delta Sigma Theta Sorority banner on the day prior to Woodrow Wilson's inauguration. They felt that black women needed the right to vote to protect themselves against sexual exploitation, promote quality education, assist in the work force, and racial empowerment.

Yet, the twenty-two founders and other Black female marchers were subjected to racism, not only by people who were opposed to the enfranchisement of women, but by march organizers reluctant to advocate suffrage for Blacks. For example, Mary Church Terrell recalled how she and Delta Sigma Theta's founders had to assemble in an area specifically allocated for Black women.

Although the young twenty-two founders were criticized, none regretted their participation in the march. Florence Toms commented, "we marched that day in order that women might come into their own, because we believed that women not only needed an education, but they needed a broader horizon in which they may use that education. And the right to vote would give them that privilege."

Also on today, I am witnessing history. As a congressional aide, I am witnessing first hand the distribution of tickets for the inauguration of the first African-American President of the United States of America, Barak Obama.

All I can think about is how 96 years ago, our founding sisters saw a need and moved forward to do and be the unthinkable, then and even in some cases still now. They saw themselves as full and equal partners in the yet to be fully realized democratic process. They knew they were just as capable as their white counterparts to see their own futures as bright and hopeful! Those ladies marched on the eve of the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson. (During his two terms as President, Wilson allowed federal offices, facilities, US Post Office Department offices, and Washington, DC streetcars to become segregated. Wilson failed to veto a law making miscegenation (inter-racial marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, or having children together) a felony in the District of Columbia.

Now I prepare to go back to this same city, that 96 years ago, our founders walked down the same streets, and in some cases, passed by the same buildings that now stand in our nation’s capital. They marched and lived so that I might have the right and privilege to live a better life, vote for, and live to see an African-American sworn in as our nation’s leader and our 44th President.

96 years ago, 22 women walked out on the fate that their actions as a group of Black College Educated Women working together for community service would not only improve their lives, but the lives of many other people for generations to come. Others said they should continue doing the same thing the same way. Those 22 women knew that they were destined lead in great change! They were wise and brave enough to make that change together. As a result of not just women, but all people of the this nation coming together to vote on or before November 4, 2008, we now stand poised to make history again as a nation. Just like those 22 saw the change and probably said “yes we can!” our nation has said “yes we can!”

As I organize me, trip to the inauguration with my sister, brother-in-law, a friend from California and my cousin and her husband, I can’t help but reflect on where I stand today on this January 13, 2009. CHANGE is good!