Black Girl Guilt

Confession #3

Working and partying in New York City makes me really self conscious. Beautiful women everywhere with money, fabulous apartments and killer clothes. Then there’s me, just trying to make it.

Generation Gap

This past weekend after spending countless hours with my family an argument erupted (not really very shocking for us). The argument surrounded my father being inappropriately quoted in a blog as he voiced his opinion about my cousin’s prospects to play basketball at a certain college.

In typical Jenkins’ fashion it was the women (the few that there are) against the men. The women were upset that my father even voiced his opinion about the subject. The men thought it was ridiculous that he was quoted in the first place and the blogger had no right writing about my dad.

The argument went back and forth for 15 minutes until my mother turned to me and asked, “well what do you think?”. The room went quiet, I braced myself as I said, “I think everyone is wrong”. The reaction to this response is the equivalent to the reaction most people have when they see a horrific car crash - and no I’m not being dramatic.

My thought is this: everyone involved is at fault a.) my dad shouldn’t have been giving details about the situation to this individual, b.) the individual shouldn’t have taken my dad’s word considering they’re speaking about my cousin who was not present during that conversation, c.) once my cousin learned about the blog he should have released a statement to the various people of the organization to speak for himself.

I realized at the heart of all of this the adults weren’t upset for the most relevant thing: my dad was quoted on a blog without giving permission to the writer. Granted his name is not posted in the blog but if any person knows Google, its not that hard to figure out who the writer is referring to.

I ended my speech to everyone by saying, “what you’re all failing to realize is that you can’t trust anyone. You can be photographed without your knowledge, quoted without giving permission to the ‘reporter’, searched for, even filmed, at this point with technology anything is possible. For you to be naive to think otherwise is not keeping up with the times.”

The room fell quiet. My Dad nodded slowly and said, “you’re absolutely right” and he casted a look over all of us, which promptly ended the argument.

After this weekend, it’s really dawned on me, my parents are old and our worlds are different. They wouldn’t approve of my blogging and I’m encouraged by all my friends to continue writing. It’s just a different time for all of us.

I wonder what I’ll be out of touch with by the time I’m there age?

Just a thought….

When you have it all or rather when others think you have it all, does satisfaction ever kick in??