I......

I am not: to be disturbed when I get a great idea, that I must write about at that particular time
I hear: The way my mother used to say my name.
I regret: Not finishing college the first time around. Did it though.
I care: About the people my daughters will become
I always: will be the same no matter what’s going on in my life, my personality remains the same.
I long to: be content with my life’s decisions.
I feel alone: when I get the notion to want to hang out or have dinner and movie with girlfriends.
I hide: my feelings, concerns and disapointments when things are not going well in my personal life.
I drive: the speed limit most of the time.
I sing: most of the time when I drive with the music blasting.
I dance: hardly anymore although it used to be one of my favorite things to do.
I write: to relieve my mind.
I breathe: By the grace of God.
I play: with the idea of being wiser when I am older
I miss: having friends in the same state.
I search: for meaningful relationships.
I say: Not enough, I think a lot but say little.
I feel: that I have not realized my true calling.
I succeed: by recognizing my flaws.
I fail(ed): at doing a better job at being the sister that I feel my sister and brother needed when we lost our mother.
I dream: of getting my Masters, making memories with friends and family and having a job I would do for free.
I sleep: with my hair wrapped, what fabulous chic doesnt?
I wonder: what the world will be like when my girls are adults.
I want: black women to recognize their worth.
I worry: about losing loved ones.
I have: ISSUES.
I give: no attention to pettiness.
I fight: with my inner voice about decisions.
I am: a masterpiece of perfect imperfection.
I can’t: do any car repairs or put furniture together, I could go on forever.
I stay: in Austin, TX.
I can: be impatient at times, maybe a lot of times.
I would: really like a two-week beach vacation with the family.
I might: pass out if I have listen to these non talent rappers and singers getting paid for not making any kind of sense any longer.
I like: EATING & SLEEPING!!
I love: GOOD music, reading, reality shows
I smile: After learning a lesson from life’s book of reality.
I frown: when the alarm clock goes off.
I read: a lot of blogs.
I work: at a state agency in Texas that regulates gaming and Bingo.
I will: strive to do my best even during the midst of adversity.

Enjoy,



MochaMom

Psst... Hey

I got the greatest idea today. Not going to post it yet because I really want to get more details and confirmation that this is the right thing to do. I'll let you know what it is once I have more info to share. If all goes well, I think it could be a great thing.


MochaMom

Music thats in my Head

Love Heather Headley,,,,

Man, there are some sick people in this world

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/4/29/worldupdates/2008-04-28T213054Z_01_NOOTR_RTRMDNC_0_-332711-4&sec=Worldupdates

Man, keeps daughter in the basement for 24 years, fathering 7 children by her ranging from ages, 5-19. Now if this is not sick, I don't know what is.....


MochaMom

???????Why

Didnt anyone tell me that "The Game" has moved to Sunday night. I have been missing my show for weeks thinking it was off the air. Dang, now have to watch about 6 episodes on line now.
.............Dang.

MochaMom

Ummm No Ma'am, Ms Jada Pinkett Smith

Sitcoms or Reality?????

What shows are you watching? I have to admit I am a reality show queen. I am just drawn to reality. Believe it not, even my husband says I dont watch regular tv anymore. Lets go through the week:

Monday-The Hills ( Believe it not, I like the spoiled rich girls kids, they're world is filled with unrealistic issues) Gotta love Lauren, Heidi, Spencer ( cant stand Spencer really)

Tuesday- The Real Housewives of NYC ( I love NYC, and what better way to see it than through the eyes of spoiled, rich social butterflies)

Deion and Pilar ( I did not know that Deion "Prime Time" Sanders was so funny )love peaking in his life, and his wife and kids are beautiful.

Wedesday-Real World baby, gotta love the Real World, where do they find these people? Hilarious

Thursday- Do I have one for Thursday, nope come to think of it I dont.

Friday-Nope, none

Saturday-Usually watching all the shows, I've recorded throughout the week or watching rented movies.

Sunday-Keeping up with the Kardashians- The family is crazy. I never knew who they were for the longest time until Kim started popping up everywhere. Who knew her dad was the lawyer that went against OJ Simpson in his high profile case.

FabLane-Love, Love, Kimora Lee Simmons, that girl is crazy but oh so stylish. Love her style.


Let me know, what are you watching.......

Does the Way I Wear My Hair Determine My Integrity!!!

Despite my love of hair, I do believe that one's hair does not determine a person's intellegience or character. Or maybe it does a little bit, we as African Americans are often misunderstood, judged and often criticized for the way we wear our hair. And often times by our own race. We've all met the person that believes that the African American woman that relaxes her hair is not being true to her natural self. I have to say, that I am one that embraces all hair textures, colors and styles. As long as you like it, I love it, hey do you. That's what makes us truly unique, plus we have some of the flyest hair styles out there.

What are you rocking???



Just random thoughts,
MochaMom

Ashanti's stepping up her game!!

Love this song!!!

MochaMom

3rd thing I want to write about

So the third thing I want to write about tonight (or shall I say this morning, its 12:30 am yall) is something that's going on in the world called, the Present moment. Have you guys been following Oprah's book club pick this month, its called A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. Oprah is doing this big thing where they hold classes every Monday with the author whereby they discuss the book and questions are answered. Now I must admit, I do not have the book nor am I participating in the classes. I plan to read the book, its on my list. Let me give you some background on the subject of this book,

In A New Earth, Tolle expands on these powerful ideas to show how transcending our ego-based state of consciousness is not only essential to personal happiness, but also the key to ending conflict and suffering throughout the world. Tolle describes how our attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness, and shows readers how to awaken to a new state of consciousness and follow the path to a truly fulfilling existence.

What does the mean? That was my reaction to the book when I first heard about it and just didn't want to buy into the hype of making someone else rich just because Oprah supported them. This week,I've been listening to a lot of talk radio, its only so much "crank that" you can listen to. So with this said, on XM's Oprah and friends they have been giving accounts and experiences from people around the world who are reading the book and I was just blown away.

Then today, after watching recorded episodes of Oprah, the entire show was dedicated to the book. I was quite delighted by the stories and the reaction to these ideas.

My interpretation was, if you spend every waking moment living in the "present moment", your consciousness truly enjoys every experience whether good or bad. In doing this you determine your priorities and priorities equate to life purpose.

Everyone is always looking for their purpose, what is it that I am suppose to be doing in this lifetime. Am I doing it and don't know it? Many Many questions, but living in the now is the power of simply "being". These answers will come but your mind has to be free come chaos and clutter. You have to truly enjoy whats going on at that moment. I did this at dinner tonight, was truly "present" in the conversation with my daughters. And the one thing that really stuck out in my mind as my 4 year old was talking was, "man I don't ever want to forget that face". My attention was truly focused on them and it seemed like I could really hear every laugh, every emotion. My mind didn't race to what I have to do tomorrow, the bills that are due, the work I have to complete on Monday, but "man I don't ever want to forget that face". That was my "Aha" moment.


Living in the present,
MochaMom

2nd thing I want to write about

Ok, so the 2nd thing I wanted to write about, is........I got the job I applied for. I am not going to harp and spend too much time on this one but I wanted to mention it, because a year or two from now I want to come back and look at this post and be able to post the good and the bad about it. So yes, I got the job....now lets see if I can do the work.
First of all, the position is in the Information Resources division and after our first staff meeting, the things that they do goes way over my little head. I consider myself a pretty techie person, I keep up with the latest gidgets and gadgets and certainly know my way around a computer but the behind the scenes stuff is a different animal. So that's going to be a challenge, but after the first budget meeting a felt a lot better. Numbers and spreadsheets, I know. I am more comfortable around those things so we'll see. Will this be my dream job, don't know, but I do know that its going to open up opportunities that I did not have access to in the past.

So wish me luck,

MochaMom

My Week in Review

I know its been a while and I plan to get around to writing most of what happened in my life this week but I want to start with a movie that I just finished that I thought was one that is one of the best movies. This movie is Rendition, staring Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon. Jake stars as a analyst that is suddenly thrown into a situation where he must determine if someone the CIA believes has terrorists ties, truly has these ties. Reese plays the wife of the Egyptian man that the CIA believes has these ties, and she is persistent in proving that he does not. The story unfolds really to tell a number of short stories and all the little stories really connect to one big picture. Sort of like in real life, we've all heard of "two degrees of separation". We're really all connected in some way whether we realize it or not. My favorite thing about the movie is the raw emotion from all the characters and its look at how terrorists really believe that what they are doing is for the betterment of the world. In order to understand we must learn perspectives, we're fighting a war from two different angles and none of the parties involved are ready to stop and look at the other perspective in order to make changes. The way I see it, the beliefs and views of the two are so immensely different that it would take years and years to come to some kind of agreement. Terrorists who truly believe in Jihad have such radical views and beliefs it really hard if not impossible to ever see the their views and ours coexisting. So whats the solution, I surely don't know and after all these years neither does our Commander and Chief. More on this later....

MochaMom

An Unprecedented Pregnancy

Now, I know we are living in some strange times. We hear strange things happening on a daily basis. We're living in a day and age where a woman and a African American man could possible be our Chief of Staff. But a man giving birth to a baby is unreal. After reading the stories, it kinda of makes sense biologically. Because, Thomas was born a biological woman but is legally and physically in some ways a man. Although, Thomas removed his breasts, he chose to keep his female productive organs. Wow, just wow. Can you imagine, a man giving birth? That's just weird. What do you think the challenges will be for this child after its born and hopefully the baby comes out normal. There will be many obstacles to face, in this child's life. I just hope that its parents are ready to defend their decision to bring a child in this world, under such abnormal circumstances.

Clutching the pearls,

MochaMom

Star News!!!

Lets see there are some interesting stories going on with our stars of 2008. Lets see:

Crazy, law excluded Naomi was arrested at the airport for "allegedly" spitting at a police officer.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/SHOWBIZ/04/03/naomi.campbell.arrested.ap/index.html

And in other news, Beyonce and Jay Z have officially applied for a wedding license. I for one love them as a couple, the Prince of Rap and the Princess of R & B. I say its about time.


MochaMom

Great Style!!

Tia Mowry

I grew up watching the twins, Tia and Tamara Mowry, wow, what great stylish and classy young ladies these two have grown to be.



MochaMom

Occupy your time!!!!

During my recovery this weekend, I got a little bored, so what did I do.......hair. I decided to play around with the little ones hair and put in the Just For Me Texture Softener in her hair.

See this product uses the oil of Sunflowers to gently loosen the curl pattern of the hair. It worked great on my daughters hair and is a great alternative to permanent relaxers.
The first photo is a picture of the hair that I have to tame on a weekly basis before the JFM Texture Softener.

Before:



After:


Notice the curls are still there, just more defined and not straight like with a relaxer.

Great product indeed..

MochaMom

Last week WrapUp!!!

Man, what a week. Lets see where shall we start. The last time I’ve blogged looks like was Wednesday, yep that’s about when the drama started. So lets see, I had a training class on Thursday. For the past two days, I noticed that I had been having some uncomfortable chest pains, but nothing to be concerned about. But for whatever reason during the training class, the pain increased; so I called my husband to let him know that I thought I should probably get this checked out. So if you can believe it, EMS had to be called for me at work. So it turned out my blood pressure just had gotten extremely too high, and I need to do a better job at taking my meds to regulate it. So other than that, I am fine, fine fine. Not much else is going on, still waiting on background for the job that I applied for. Hopefully that will be forth coming; I am excited about taking on new responsibilities. So we will see… I cant thank everyone enough that took care of me, called, texted etc. Wish me luck……

MochaMom

The Love of Money is the Root of All Evil

A sad story indeed.........
http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/03/26/iowa.city.shooting.ap/index.html



MochaMom

Huh????

Is there anything worth writing about happening in the world. Lets see, oh I did get some news, My sister was accepted into Texas Southern and the University of Mississippi. Not sure where she's going yet, but getting accepted these days is always a good thing. No news on my prospective job, busy at work as usual. I'll write more as things develop.

MochaMom

Corinne Bailey Rae Husband Found Dead

http://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/bailey-raes-husband-found-dead/
Dang, I did not even realize she was married. Unfortunetely it was from aparent drug overdose, deepest condolences go out to the friends and family.

MochaMom

Happy Easter!!!!!

So how is everyone's Easter going? What did you do. I must saying being away from all my family back home in Mississippi, our family's was quite quiet. We'e continent with that. Hopefully, had a great time, enjoyed family and friends and remembered the reason for the holiday. Continue to enjoy your day,




MochaMom

Handling a sitution with Class!!!

If you've been following the Race to the White house, you know the situation that occurred with Barack in regards to the comments made by Rev. Wright. But look at the power of Obama's words and how he handled the situation, not with anger and resentment but with intelligence and class. How selflessness of him not to denounce religion but to politically correctly disagree with a representative of religion.
Here's the transcript:

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy.
Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least 20 more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution -- a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.
What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part -- through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk -- to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign -- to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.
I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together -- unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction -- towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.
This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.
I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas.
I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners -- an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters.
I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.
It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts -- that out of many, we are truly one.
Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity.
Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African-Americans and white Americans.
This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough."
We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.
And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.
On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action, that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap.
On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation -- that rightly offend white and black alike.
I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Rev. Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain.
Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely -- just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.
But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice.
Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America, a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.
As such, Rev. Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems -- two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.
Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Rev. Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church?
And I confess that if all that I knew of Rev. Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and YouTube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way
But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than 20 years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor.
He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine, who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth -- by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In my first book, "Dreams From My Father," I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:
"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note -- hope! -- I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones.
"Those stories -- of survival, and freedom, and hope -- became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world.
"Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish -- and with which we could start to rebuild."
That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety -- the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger.
Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear.
The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.
And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Rev. Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children.
Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions -- the good and the bad -- of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.
I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother -- a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.
These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.
Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork.
We can dismiss Rev. Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.
But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Rev. Wright made in his offending sermons about America -- to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.
The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through -- a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.
And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.
Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country.
But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.
Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.
Legalized discrimination -- where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments -- meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations.
That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.
A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families -- a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened.
And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods -- parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement -- all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.
This is the reality in which Rev. Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted.
What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.
But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it -- those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination.
That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations -- those young men and, increasingly, young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways.
For the men and women of Rev. Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years.
That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Rev. Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning.
That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change.
But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.
In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race.
Their experience is the immigrant experience -- as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.
They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense.
So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African-American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.
Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation.
Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.
Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle-class squeeze -- a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many.
And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns -- this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.
This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naive as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy -- particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.
But I have asserted a firm conviction -- a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people -- that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.
For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life.
But it also means binding our particular grievances -- for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs -- to the larger aspirations of all Americans, the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family.
And it means taking full responsibility for own lives -- by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.
Ironically, this quintessentially American -- and yes, conservative -- notion of self-help found frequent expression in Rev. Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.
The profound mistake of Rev. Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country -- a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black, Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past.
But what we know -- what we have seen -- is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope -- the audacity to hope -- for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.
In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination -- and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past -- are real and must be addressed.
Not just with words, but with deeds -- by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations.
It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.
In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand -- that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.
For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle -- as we did in the O.J. trial -- or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina -- or as fodder for the nightly news.
We can play Rev. Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words.
We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.
We can do that.
But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.
That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children.
This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st Century economy. Not this time.
This time we want to talk about how the lines in the emergency room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care, who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.
This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life.
This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.
This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag.
We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.
I would not be running for president if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected.
And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation -- the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.
There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today -- a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.
There is a young, 23-year-old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.
And Ashley said that when she was 9 years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.
She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.
She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents, too.
Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.
Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time.
And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."
"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.




We are more than what they show on BET and MTV, this speech indicates we're living in a time where our children can be anything they put their mind to and should be inspired to do so.

MochaMom

Another day!!

So Tuesday was really my Monday since I went back to work on yesterday. And boy what a day it was. First of all a project I was spearheading sputtered and died in my absence so I had to revive it as soon as I walked in the door and on top of that I was called for a interview that day...... Can you say, was not ready. Anyway not sure how I did on the interview, still working on the project all the while being hit with other things. On top of that I was so nervous for the interview, I felt ill, no literally ill. Needless to say I did not have a good night, after 4 episodes of Sex and the City at 2:00 in the morning, man I need a another week off. Anyway, that's all that's going on in my world. What about yours????

MochaMom

He Said, She Said

Do you believe this. I felt sorry for Ms. McGreevey when she appeared on Oprah. Man political wives are taking a beating this year.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/17/mcgreevey.trysts/index.html


Wow, just Wow,
MochaMom

When you'll get your tax rebates

According to CNN Money below is the schedule:


The order in which the IRS sends out payments will be based on Social Security numbers. If your return is processed by April 15, here's what you can expect.
Direct deposit payment
If last 2 digits of your SS# are: Your rebate should be sent by:
00-20 May 2
21-75 May 9
76-99 May 16

Paper check
If last 2 digits of your SS# are: Your rebate should be sent by:
00-09 May 16
10-18 May 23
19-25 May 30
26-38 June 6
39-51 June 13
52-63 June 20
64-75 June 27
76-87 July 4
88-99 July 11

We will have to wait and see I guess.

MochaMom