Ali Bumaye, Ali Bumaye , Ali Bumaye

I have found it. I have found the motherland in Boston and it is Mattapan. Actually according to the lady here at work it is Roxbury (I already knew that), Dorchester (where I work and I had kinda discerned that from the people I had talked to), and Mattapan! My discovery of Mattapan and its unusually high number of black and brown faces was new, and so very EXCITING!!

Last night, when I got off the T to go to an event called First Thursdays ( I guess the First Friday guys have those on lock, even in cities with no real “urban” populations) all I saw was black and brown people! NIRVANA, I felt like I had stepped on the set of Boomerang*

The chick who was throwing the First Thursday event had just moved from a 10 year stay in the H! She had come home to take care of her mother. She and her friend started throwing parties, probably because she missed how we do it down south. I mean some things were a little corny like her trying to teach a routine right in the middle of the 45 minute sweat (you know the line dance set every club DJ plays to play every line dance song made on earth. These people had never heard of the bunny hop. I really wonder what they would do if I broke out into all them Louisiana bounce dances like the Jubilee…hell I wonder if they know how to really Get Bodied - I digress).

Note to any party promoters who happen to land on my page: Any dance that doesn’t involve four corners and can’t be learned by 75% of the club crowd in 10 minutes while watching others do it, IS NOT A CLUB LINE DANCE. It is a dance routine. And if you succeed to teach it to said crowd, it does not look cool it looks like a bootleg music video. And if only you and your homegirl know the steps it is a 1990’s homegirl routine. Y’all remember how we usta to do it back in the day, House Party Style (ala AJ Moore and Tisha Campbell or Kid and Play if you’re a guy).

Anyway, all in all it was a nice time and I got to meet some like minded folks you know, bughetto like me! That’s the thing I don’t like BUPPIES who have forgotten how to keep it a little real (now not too real, cause I don’t need it going wrong like Jeremiah). You know I love being amongst my people even the ones who might be a little grimier than your average bear (or hoodrat in this case)! One day I will blog about me and my complexities of straddling the hood and board room and my belief that one should never forget his/her roots and how I don’t understand how you can divorce yourself from your hood instead of trying to enrich it. If more of us did that then there would be less of the “element” that we are trying to run from in our hoods. Ok I’m done *jumping off my soapbox and placing it back under my desk*

Then I took the bus home, because you get to see more of the city on a bus than you do dwelling underground on a subterranean train. I LOVE THAT BUSES RUN WAY INTO THE NIGHT HERE!! My bus took me down thru Mattapan which was lined with beauty supplies, recording studios (a new thang in the hood), KFC’s, Mickey D’s, and, and of course liquor stores....AHHHH YES HOME! Then we made a few turns and we were traveling right down Malcolm X Blvd. That’s what I’m talking about! I wanted to throw my black gloved fist in the air and wave it like I just didn’t care. I didn’t because I didn’t want to be checked into any mental facilities. My bus driver was NOT having it.

However on my bus ride, I did experience the down side of the black bus. It was trashed, just litter everywhere and one dude spit on the bus floor before getting off at his stop, I was taken aback. Who spits on the friggin’ bus? (like that it’s my evolution from cussing from fuck to phuck to frig. I am so proud of me!!) I know my face was horrified and all screwed up at the site and realization that he was truly indeed spitting on the bus floor! My inner Scarlet O’hara, Ms Daisy, Emily Post, Martha Stewart, Rachel & LaVern (my grandmothers), Cora Belle & Fannie (my great grandmothers) and all the other LADIES with manners who roll around in my head barking orders of decorum, (especially the southern ones) screamed in HORROR and DISGUST in unison in the STRONGEST SOUTHERN GIRL ACCENT “HOW PHUCKING RUDE”)!! Yes, I did just drop the F bomb, well the hood chick in my head named LaCronisha Watkins dropped the F bomb. She is now being chastised by one of them full of manners bytches in my head (not my grandmothers they are in NO WAY, shape, or form ever to be even thought of in that way not even jokingly, but them other ho’s who cares what they grandkids think of me calling ‘em bytches!)! I mean for real, who spits on a bus? How uncouth and common and savage can you get!?!?

My white co-worker was all “That’s what you get for riding the bus in Mattapan.” I almost thanked him for the admonishment with a “Gee thanks, that’s mighty white of you,” but I couldn’t get mad at him, because that is what I get for riding on the bus in Mattapan. That’s the thing about being black… I mean, why must it be this manic depressive ride of highs and lows? I went from YEAH I FOUND THE BLACK PEOPLE to damn I found the black people in a matter of seconds (ok it was hours but seconds sounds much much more dramatical, I got that word from Flavor Flav himself, and yes I spelled it correctly). WHY? WHY? WHY?

Anywho… I guess my LOOK** must have been louder than I thought because when I looked around my hand was placed on my chest in utter southern bell DISGUST and the guy at the front of the bus laughed. I am sure my non-verbal reaction was so strong he heard it! Anyway, I just had to share my joy and pain (sunshine and rain!!) of finding some plain ol' regular black and brown folks in Da’ Bean!! Some that seemed happy and I could actually relate to and others I wish a had a switch*** to take to their backside! They weren't as cool as my peeps in the H, but hey it’s a start,

Be EZ,
OG

* Ok I know you remember the fist time you saw Boomerang and realized EVERYONE in the movie was black and how it was like the reverse of the world. Well I do, I had no idea that this would actually happen and the world would come overwhelmingly brown but the power would somehow mysteriously shift (or stay put however you want to look at it) with the minorities, white folks.

** I know that you realize some looks actually speak. Example: You are in the store with your mother AFTER she has given you the DON”T ASK ME FOR ANYTHING WHEN WE GET IN THIS STORE speech. And you, after foolishly catching yourself on fire playing with some lighters she told you not to touch in the first place, look up to ASK your mother to douse you with water, when she looks back at you and you hear the look say Girl, you bet’ not embarrass me up in here asking me to buy a bottle of water to douse the flame that is consuming you and your highly flammable jherri curl! What did I say in the car, before we came in here?!?!?! And thus you get your Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial on, because the look has spoken.

*** A switch is a small stick or twig used to WHOOP YO’ AZZ for not having manners! Do they have those everywhere? Not sure how universally Black the switch is, maybe some non-southerner can tell me.

Comments

crys said…
the switch is UNIVERSALLY black, but i thank God for my dear sister who introduced me to the more socially accepted - and not as clearly identifiable as a weapon - RULER!!! i'll tap Konnor with that ruler and tell him how much he's grown in one swift move! LMAO! i can't wait to come to da bean.....but - like we all said before you left....'boston aint ready'
Unknown said…
That's messed up. How is old dude gonna just hack a loogie on the bus? Ugh! LMAO@your ghetto name! I need one of those!
Anonymous said…
lmao I can only IMAGINE the look on your face and your hand on your chest? hahahhahahah CLASSIC!
Sister Girl said…
OMG...You know where you are when you see Malcolm X Blvd/MLK Blvd !

How rude of that person to perform that act, but he apparently had no self respect & certainly none for anyone else. I know how twisted my mind is & I probably would have said something before I knew it because I cannot stand rudeness !

"Scarlett O'Hara"....LOL !

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