blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

The best way to thank the Universe is to forget about the past, don't worry about the future & give 100% to the present.

(I got this email the other day. It captures the above sentiment perfectly!) 1. The first thing you do on entering a bank/post office/pharmacy etc. is to look for the queue number machine. 2. You accept that you will have to queue to take a queue number. 3. Inside your front door is beginning to resemble a shoe shop. 4. When a stranger on the street smiles at you, you assume that: a. he is drunk; b. he is insane; c. he is American; d. he is all of the above. 5. Silence is fun. 6. It no longer seems excessive to spend 800 kr. on alcohol in a single night. 7. You know that "religious holiday" means "let's get drunk". 8. You use "Mmmm" as conversation filler. 9. The word "yes" is an intake of breath. 10. You have only two facial expressions, smiling or blank. 11. You buy your own drink at the bar even when you are with a group of people. 12. Traditional dinners may not necessarily mean a cooked meal. 13. You forget how to open cann...

The Calabash International Literary Festival is on my list of things "to do", much like Yari Yari ( Jayne Cortez directed a documentary: Black Women Writers Dissecting Globalization about this). The Calabash Literary Festival has a lot of things going for it. First of all, it's in Jamaica. And as anyone else who has been to Jamaica, will tell you, Jamaica is a special place. I'm not just talking blue water and white sand beaches either. Although I've never been to an African country, Jamaica is the only place I've ever been to where I felt close to this continent. There is something in the air, something in the spirit of the people I met with that testifies to the endurance of the human spirit. It's music is a great example of this spirit--it's devouring of Western music, only to be regurgitated, back out into the world for all the Universe's sons and daughters to vibe to. From Jackie Mittoo and other Studio One recordings to dub and dancehal...

Dispatch to Brooklyn: Things are surreal here in Copenhagen. 8am, I arrive at the U.S. Embassy's Post Election Breakfast. Expected heaps of food and formal setting. Instead I find Denmark's Prime Minister and other prominent Ministers to what amounts as a sort of informal goodbye to our Bush-appointed incumbent. There is Pia Kjaersgaard--the forewoman for the Danish People's Party, Denmark's right-wing, anti-immigrant party (I would have really enjoyed speaking to her to hear her thoughts on the results) and a multiple cast of other Americans. I am, as usual, the only Black there. Walking down the street was strange today. Felt a little George Jefferson pep-in-my-step. Felt all eyes on me. Paranoia? Ghosts of my well-meaning middle-class wannabes ancestors taunt: Don't act too proud, you'll make white folks feel bad and hate you. But we could not have gotten to where we were today without the white vote. Is racism dead? The court has only now adjourned. CNN sugg...

When I was a little girl, and my siblings teased me for being a "Yankee Girl", there was something within me that wouldn't give, that wouldn't allow it to bother me. It had something to do with the African Americans I had found myself around in Brooklyn. It had something to do with the pride they had in their history, in themselves, the strength in the day-to-day struggle and refusal to let anyone bring them down. It had something to do with the picture of Martin Luther King Jr. my father had in our living room. It had something to do with how my classmates, even in the first grade would place arms akimbo and say, "When I grow up, I want to be President" and how we would all say, "I'm Black and I'm Proud!" It has something to do with the fact that I was born in Brooklyn and also identified as African American, and the warmth in which I was received by this community. And when I traveled to Trinidad, and saw Black heads of states, and read a...