 I'm not one who shies away from talking about sex, but I can be a little prudish when it comes to reading about it. That might sound like a contradiction, but I've never been a fan of erotica. I don't like to read about sex as vulgar and loose. I like to read about characters who I've grown to love be intimate. That's my attitude outside of a book, too. I cringe when people talk about sex like it's just something to do and aren't responsible with their partners. If you read my bio, you already know I'm a safe sex activist. I enjoyed visiting my alma mater Lincoln University and speaking to several classes about safe sex, condom usage and being sure about your partners. I can speak about the topic so easily because my parents weren't ones to hesitate when I asked a question. As a matter of fact, there were times when they could've given me less information. *laughing* So I try to give people as much information as I know to help them. But I got a comment on a recent entry called "How to use a condom during oral sex, HIV and AIDS transmitted through oral sex" that basically accused me of "terrorist" tactics. This is what irritates me about talking about sex. People are so happy to just spout off the nastiest things they can think of, but when you get really real and start talking about the ramifications of not being safe, some people shut down. I've been told to my face that the reason "Change for a Twenty" tripled sales in comparison to "Round Trip" is because "people don't want to hear about HIV and AIDS." I know this. It doesn't matter to me. I'll keep talking even when you don't want to hear me. I figure if I talk long enough and am able to educate just that one person, my job is done. Sex is fun and a great experience. But HIV and AIDS are killing our community, along with many other STDs. If I have to scare the hell out of people into being safe, I'm all right with that. Nothing I'm saying is a lie, but it just might not be pretty. I welcome you to check out my safe sex entries on my Chicago Relationships Examiner page or my Associated Content page. I do have a piece of advice for you that I learned the hard way. If someone protests too much about getting tested, you might need to let that person go. If he doesn't care enough about his own body to be tested and he's sexually active (condoms are not 100%), then why would he care about yours? Close your legs. Open your mind. Find someone who likes/loves you enough to want to be safe with you. I've been accused of being one of those people who loves to argue. I don't necessarily think that's true, but I do like to make my point clear. However, when I see that I'm going to have a disagreement with someone that's going to elevate to being hostile, I'll just agree to disagree and move on before it gets heated. But sometimes I read comments on discussion boards, including my own entries, that make my skin crawl. We've got to be able to take constructive criticism and not attack each other on these boards. Folks are getting way too personal, and this Internet thugging is lame to me. So I wrote this entry on AC as tips about the folks who just love to be rude and avoid intelligent debate: "How to Lose an Online Argument, Online Bullying" I used to sigh every time my paternal grandmother would correct my grammar. I used to think, "Why is she making a big deal out of this? I'm just talking to her. I'm not in school." That didn't stop her from correcting me over and over again. Eventually it caught on. My grammar got better. I was never a bad speller or a bad writer, but there were times when I just didn't understand the rules of grammar and punctuation. In elementary school, I had a computer teacher who would also make sure my work was up to par for newspaper stories I wrote. In high school, I had plenty of English teachers who were also sticklers for writing, but by that time I was pretty good with writing rules. In college, same deal. I became a freelance copyeditor and worked with several magazines and for different authors. I thought I was a great copyeditor. And then I got to Kaplan Financial and realized how much I still needed to learn. While I was good, I needed to be great. I had to let down my pride (even cried a little because I realized how challenging it would be and how much I needed to learn) a little bit and listen. I listened to veteran copyeditors. I learned a lot from my boss, Ruth, and my co-workers Helen and Rebecca. I improved a great deal, and I really have to thank those three for taking the time to explain things to me that I just wasn't catching. So when I see tweets on Twitter that say things like, "Who gives a damn about grammatical errors. This is Twitter, not some scientific journal. The point is in the message," it irritates me. When people make excuses for making mistakes instead of trying to correct the mistakes, they'll never learn. When people don't try to be the best that they possibly can be at whatever they do, they're basically settling for mediocrity. Saying something is "just ______" is an excuse to half-ass your work. When you do something incorrectly long enough, it sticks. Then you'll start making the same mistakes on other platforms. When I read e-mails and articles and even blog comments, I cringe when they look like text messages. They're difficult to read. I want to spend more time correcting them than I do reading the message. I'm not saying be an expert on everything, but at least try to learn. If someone corrects you or tries to show you how to do something correctly, it's not to make you feel dumb. It's so you'll be better at it next time. Then you'll pass that message along and help someone else. This has been on my mind the past couple days after a YouTube user was completely irate and blocked me because I told him about a punctuation issue. Instead of listening to me or even looking it up (even though I provided links to show him why his caption was an error), I was told I'm "obsessed" and "leave me the hell alone." When did we start getting mad when someone tries to make us better? What's worse was he made excuses about it, claimed he knew AP style and said he "knows when to break the rules." Click here for the full story. Some people may feel I'm overreacting, but I always feel like people should put their best foot forward. If someone cares enough to try to show you how to improve on something, don't take it as a personal attack and get defensive. Listen. You might learn something. The more you know, the more you'll grow. On the other hand, I've met quite a few people over the years who embraced suggestions, who loved to find out what they could improve on and lit up at the results of that. Plenty. Actually I meet more people who want to improve than I do those who don't. But it's the ones who don't that disappoint me because there's usually so much potential if they'd just open their ears. Most women love shoes. Some go crazy over clothes. Me? I have a small addiction to book shirts, bags and collecting bookmarks. If you've seen my slideshow on Shamontiel's Bookshelf or the photo on Contact Shamontiel, you already know I have an assortment of "book" shirts, but this one "Ask me about my book" is the perfect marketing tool. I buy my shirts from Signals.com or WhatonEarthCatalog.com. I've had quite a few people stop me and ask about my book or ask me where I got the shirt, which then lead to a discussion on my books. You want to market yourself? Rock one of these shirts and just stroll around the neighborhood. I make sure I do it when I'm about to be running around on busy streets, trains and events. Be your own commercial! I got a Twitter link to a blog defending McDonald's and discrediting vegans and vegetarians so I checked it out. A vegetarian, I am, but a vegan, I am not. I will definitely admit to the occassional McFlurry, iced coffee and french fries from the restaurant. I used to get the hash browns from there, but paying $1 for a hash brown when I can buy about 20 for under $5 just didn't add up right to me. Plus when a previous co-worker questioned why I eat potatoes that are fried in the same grease as meat grease, she really made me think twice about buying fries. I'm not big on encouraging fast food to be eaten on a daily basis and the few times I've had children over to my place, I opted for cooking as opposed to eating something from a FAT food restaurant. Obesity is a problem in the American community, but it's even worse in the African-American community. By doctor's standards, I don't weigh what I should, but I'm definitely working on it. I'm physically active. I've been a vegetarian for five years. And man, it's killing me, but I'm calming down on all the potatoes, bread and chocolate. However, I don't think you have to be paper thin to be beautiful and think as long as you're happy and healthy, that's what counts, not the number on the scale. I don't lecture people about being a vegetarian or vegan. I let them come to their own decisions. I've noticed that if you leave people alone, they tend to come around and be curious about my lifestyle. My grandfather, who said he'd drink soy milk "when I see a soy cow," surprised me months after I became a vegetarian. He had soy milk in his fridge. My response: "When did you see the soy cow?" He said he was curious why I drink the stuff and how it tasted. He actually thought it was cool. My father did the same thing. I never asked them to drink soy milk. They just bought Silk soy milk on their own. My mother, who is the epitome of a meat lover, was always open to trying vegetarian and vegan dishes. She even started making vegetable dishes with vegetable broth instead of meat broth. I've gone on dates with guys who insisted on going to vegan restaurants or places where they serve vegetarian dishes. I will absolutely date an omnivore. You don't have to share my lifestyle in order for me to date you. (If we're in different political parties, you can forget it though!) They tried it. Some liked it. Some didn't. But every last guy I've dated or been in a relationship with in the past five years (I'm estimating about six off the top of my head) has been open to trying tofu, soy foods, etc. I didn't ask them. They just did it. Sure, one guy used to sneak and eat meat sandwiches before he got to my apartment, but that was his choice. I shrunk away from him when he tried to kiss me with Italian sausage breath though. But anyway, my point is this. From the blog I read on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, the blogger did no research on how McDonald's affects children and obesity, animal agriculture, and even went so far as to say no vegan has ever won a Nobel Peace Prize. Wrong! Isaac Bashevis Singer did. Bloggers, if you're going to blog about a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle, at least do the research to back it up. If you're going to let someone talk you into eating fast food or meat, know what you're consuming. I'm not telling you not to eat it, only to know just what you're putting in your mouth before you do. I watched police officers be blatantly disrespectful for four years straight while I was in high school. There was a police station on the next block. Truth be told, that was a lot of my ammunition for the crooked cop in "Change for a Twenty." I'm not thrilled with the legal system and want to converse with police as little as I possibly can. (I'm sure I'm setting myself up for putting this on a blog, but hell, it's the truth. *shrug*) Even when I have to call to ask questions for a story I'm writing, I don't want to get too friendly. I want my question answered so I can leave the station or get off the phone. I have repeatedly run into police officers who want to be "friends" and say things like "as long as you're not married." I'll pass. Just the facts, sir. No friendship necessary. Let's keep it professional. I heard the news about Oscar Grant. Involuntary manslaughter should not have been the verdict. I watched the video. There was absolutely no reason to pull out a taser gun in the first place when the young man was already laying down, hands behind him, head lowered. We can't talk about gangbangers being too trigger happy and dispute gun laws when the police are just as trigger happy. My head is still spinning over the Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima and Rodney King trials, but going back to Oscar Grant, what bothers me is not the verdict. What bothers me is that I'm not at all surprised by it. It disturbs me more that I expect this type of reaction. Quite frankly, I'm surprised the cop didn't walk free altogether. The five videos of Oscar Grant being killed may have helped, but imagine if there were no videos. A bunch of lies would've been told to cover up the situation and no officer would be punished. No matter how many civil or criminal cases that happen, nothing is going to bring back Oscar Grant, and that's very, very unfortunate. I don't even think BART will learn anything from it and will probably be physically abusing some innocent person when a verbal interaction would be more appropriate. But another issue I have is with the rioting. Destroying things in your own community means you now have a more jacked-up community. But who are you really hurting? You're hurting the businesses in your neighborhood that you'll want to shop in the next day. You're hurting non-police cars owned by people who had nothing to do with the shooting. Physical violence leads to more physical violence and nothing gets resolved. I don't support rioting...ever. Peaceful protests, I respect. Rioting is counterproductive and leaves the community in a worse situation. Think first. React second. Productivity up. R.I.P. to Oscar Grant, the people who lost years and decades of their lives with crooked cops like Jon Burge and anybody else who got played by the boys in blue. P.S. Yes, I do realize there are some good cops out there. Unfortunately I run into too many of the bad ones. Talk to the ones who claim to be "good cops" long enough, and you'll slowly start hearing some of the most racist, narrow-minded comments that continue to make the sytem us vs. them. Then you wonder why nobody speaks up when there's an issue in the neighborhood. If you can't trust criminals and you can't trust cops, who do you trust? After one of the guys I follow on Twitter recommended this blogging site he likes to visit, I checked it out. But the very first blog I read was the most idiotic entry trying to discredit Lyfe Jennings' song "Statistics." I like the song. Then again, I have a lot of respect for Lyfe Jennings for making songs like "S.E.X." and "It's Real," especially considering I'm so passionate about people practicing safe sex. It's just not cool to be walking around spreading your legs with everybody. There are some people who treat sex like it's a sport, like everybody can just do it without any protection. What bothers me is not only that the blogger who wrote it was salty about Lyfe calling men out who aren't worth a damn but instead of actually acknowledging that there really are men who are in denial of being gay, absentee fathers, unstable, etc., he immediately attacked Lyfe Jennings' past. True, Lyfe Jennings is no angel, but doesn't that give him even more credibility? It'd be different if it was some random guy who is completely out of touch with what's going on in our environment, but Lyfe took one brave move to even call dudes out for not stepping up from boys to men. I read one comment stating that the "S.E.X." song was stupid, and THAT was when I really got pissed. It bothers me when guys will immediately protest a song telling the truth about certain men who really are scrubs but suddenly turn deaf and dumb when it comes to all of the songs that call women "bitches" and "hoes" every single chance they get. Why is one okay but the other is immediately attacked? Sure, we have a few conscious rappers out there, but the playing field is still completely uneven. The only thing that blows me more is women who encourage this nonsense, calling themselves "the baddest bitch" like that's a compliment. Are you kidding me? Being called a bitch is never a compliment. Neither is "nigga," but that's another blog. I've been on a tirade on Twitter all day linking posts about safe sex, saving your virginity until you're ready, getting tested for HIV and AIDS, condoms for people who are allergic to latex, etc. If you're interested in reading any of these entries, feel free to visit my Chicago Relationships Examiner page. If it's not in Shamontiel's Topics, it's under Shamontiel's Favorite links. I update that list every time I write something on AC about sex or relationships, which isn't much nowadays after writing for Examiner. Quite honestly, Lyfe Jennings shouldn't have to be the one to educate young, naive girls who think because some boy likes your booty and your beauty he likes your brain. Wrong! There are entirely too many misguided girls in the world, and if they don't have male father figures in their lives to give them the same advice Lyfe is, I'm just fine with Lyfe doing it. I read a comment saying instead of Lyfe complaining about these guys, how about doing something for them. So in the meantime what about all the young girls who will continue to get pregnant, be abused, be tricked or be mistreated? They should just hang around waiting on the dudes in the song to wise up. Why would you ever not like a song telling a woman to be celibate and make a man work for sex? Why would you even want to be with a woman who's passing her body out like it's nachos? I actually humored the idea of conversing with some guy who called himself Bitter Black Dude, but then it hit me, you're trying to rationalize with someone who openly calls himself bitter. Why would you do that, Shamontiel? Going to law school doesn't mean you actually passed the bar. I can't see anybody winning a debate by saying "i just think its a dumb song." Oooh, what a way with words. Not! Brotha, if you protest too much, you more than likely fit the description. That's not Lyfe's fault. It's yours. Be safe, y'all. And I literally mean that. Use condoms every time. Don't open your legs to everybody who bats their eyes at you. Joe Budden said it best, "treat the p**sy like it's worth something. Don't just go throwing it at me." When I look at the statistics on black women getting HIV/AIDS and herpes and then I hear people protest songs like Lyfe's "S.E.X." and "Statistics," that's something that really pisses me off. I can handle differing opinions. But I can't handle stupidity. Celebrating Black Music Month 06/08/2010
Update 7/21/2010: Hey folks. I found out last week sometime that I won the Best of AC in Music Award for this series. I couldn't be happier or surprised. AC told me I'd be getting a new badge on my page and some nice dinero for this 30-part series. How 'bout that? Here's the announcement from Darnell of AC. 6/8/2010: President George W. Bush had a lot of screw-ups during his eight-year term, but he did do a couple things right. One of them was proclaiming June as Black Music Month on May 31, 2002. June is here, and to celebrate Black Music Month, I'll be featuring one of my favorite artists each day, sharing my first or most personal memory of them, explain what their accomplishments are and why I felt they should make the Black Music Month Top 30 list. There will be some oldies, some newbies and some artists who are in between stages. I will update this blog as I add each artist. June 1 Trey Songz June 2 Marvin Gaye June 3 Rakim Allah June 4 Brandy Norwood June 5 Tina Turner June 6 MC Lyte June 7 Lyfe Jennings June 8 Bill Withers June 9 Wyclef Jean June 10 Erykah Badu June 11 Chaka Khan June 12 Missy “Misdemeanor” Elliott June 13 Ne-Yo June 14 Michael Jackson June 15 Mos Def June 16 Aaliyah June 17 Angie Stone June 18 Salt n' Pepa June 19 Nas June 20 Musiq Soulchild June 21 James Brown June 22 Heather Headley June 23 Whitney Houston June 24 Queen Latifah June 25 D'Angelo June 26 Al Green June 27 Mike-E of AfroFlow June 28 India Arie June 29 Anita Baker June 30 Talib Kweli There was a trending topic on Twitter today about #yougottaloveitwhen and I put a tweet up #yougottaloveitwhen you can buy a CD and like every single song. It's rare, but I am loyal to those artists. #blackmusicmonth @AfroFlow." I was getting ready to send an e-mail to Bob just to say "What's up?," but since I was on Twitter already, I decided to check out what AfroFlow was up to. When I went to AfroFlow's Twitter page, I saw a tweet from Mike-E stating that Bob Ellison (manager and Mike-E's father) passed away on May 24, 2010. The look on my face was just flat out astonishment. If you don't know who Bob Ellison is, he is an incredibly talented and charismatic reporter. Click here for details. While that site has him covered from a professional standpoint, I am truly humbled to have known such a superb person. When I found that link above, his reply back to me was, "Good grief. You found me." That was one of many laughs I had with him while we chatted about hip-hop, R&B, politics, AfroFlow (of course) and his son, his travels to Africa, White House reporting, etc. Out of respect for him, all of those conversations will definitely remain "off the record" and I'm not blogging about anything he said, but I shed some tears about this news. I always said I wanted to shake his hand because we'd kept in touch the past couple years. He would keep me up to date on AfroFlow's tours and performances because I wrote about them on a regular basis. But our conversations would also travel into our own professional and personal life. Hands down he was one of my favorite people to talk to via e-mail and definitely got favoritism when it came to media contacts. If Bob sent me a message, I stopped whatever I was doing (even while working) to respond to his messages. Sometimes you have the pleasure of meeting someone by chance for work and develop a friendly relationship. He was just a good dude. I will so miss his e-mails. I just talked to him not even a couple weeks ago if that. The last thing we talked about was traveling to Africa and his experiences there. I said I was going to go when I turned 30, but now I'm absolutely positively going. I want to experience what he experienced. I have a collection of e-mails I kept because he was so much fun to talk to. For those of you out there who are e-mail chatters or letter writers, always keep the ones you want to read again and again. You never know when you won't have that luxury anymore. R.I.P. Bob P.S. Click "Bob Ellison, White House Correspondent, Dies at 67" or "Veteran Black Newsman, Bob Ellison, Dies at 67" to read more about his accomplishments. Sometimes I watch WGN News, and I'm embarrassed to be from Chicago, especially with the cop who was a two-time soldier in Iraq, came back home to show off his new motorcycle, and was shot and robbed by Chicago's own. To hear that some guys were having a competition on who could rob someone first is just flat out insane to me. It also makes me ponder once again on my article "Does Taste of Chicago 2008 shooting prove the National Guard won't make a difference with violence?" What are your thoughts? I asked my parents. My father said, "Why would the National Guard want to be in danger like that?" Yes, you read that statement right. My mother said she was unsure but something needed to happen. When the weather gets nicer, people start acting like they've lost their minds. And Chicago is definitely not the most well-behaved city in the past few years. It was no angel in my teenage years, but it's gotten worse now. But I hope I'm wrong and people start acting right. It'd be nice. I heard on the news today that we're going to have 80+ degree weather from today until end of next week. My first reaction was, "I'm about to be at the beach and the lakefront so much they'll think I'm a lifeguard." And that's where I'm headed now. But in the meantime I hope Chicago kids are out there being safe. Anyway, check out that Taste of Chicago entry I wrote. Tell me what you think. Off to the lakefront! |