Celebrating Black History Month: "Blacker in My Boots"

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

"Blacker in My Boots"

This is my last blog for Black History Month of February 2017.  You have learned about my passion for wearing Black apparel in previous blogs on Fashion.  However, you probably didn’t know my passion for wearing Black footwear has nothing to do with the myth that wearing Black apparel makes one appear slimmer.  Such a pedestrian notion is far from the truth.

Black is a visibly powerful shade of confidence.  It’s bad-ass.  Period. 

A single note from head-to-toe.  Walk in my shoes, my boots, and you’ll know.  Feet and soles (soul) covered in fabric, keeping me protected, letting me strut my scared, smart, fat stuff with pride.  Letting me be Black.  Letting me be a bad-ass Black woman, winning the life game at times, losing often and awfully, yet failing to feel one bit of remorse.  Hell, I didn’t create this game called Life.  I’m just a Black woman, wearing Black boots, determined not to live a life of expectations, but of grand adventures. 

Hasn’t always been smooth for this old sista/sister girl.  Frankly, it ain’t never been too easy either.  Sure, I wish I could call Yohji Yamamoto

and tell him to send me a pair of those Fall/Winter 2016-17 black lace-up calf-high boots with the gold hooks so I could march through D.C. like a Japanese fashionista.

Or tell Donnatella Versace I could sure use a pair of her Black pointed-toed, front zipper boots to stump out a couple of electoral-college voters.  But, I can’t. No, not this year.    

With society anxious to put me in “my place,” wearing good-looking, bad-ass Black boots from morning to night (yes, Ralph Lauren has us wearing them with Black evening dresses at night) is a call for some straight up, full coverage.  I’m talking about the one and the only—Chanel.  That’s right.  Her name sake label did it again.  Chanel understands what a woman has to go through.  Marching in the streets to get her point across.  Marching in her tweed boots, full up the leg, full coverage.  Full coverage even in Black.  Looks like Chanel got my Black boots firmly in this here reality. 

So, “Yeah,” I tell myself.  Pulling on my Coach brand, side-zip, to the knee Black boots with a top buckle and tassel. “V”, keep your head focused on the goal and wear a powerful shade of confidence.  Come out like a Black Panther on Seventh Avenue.  “Yezzz.”  From head to toe, drape yourself in Black and feel even Blacker in your Boots.

No one is going to take my future away.  No one.  No one’s going to slow down my stride.  I’m standing firm in my boots.  My Black Boots.  “Yeah.”

 

*Vanessa Brantley  Style395.blogspot.com  February 20, 2017,  "Blacker in My Boots"   Volume 3, Blog 1c [vol. 3, 1-1c].

 

Paying Homage to Southwest High School

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

"Paying Homage to Southwest High School"

Each month, my goal is to write three blogs--one each about People, Places and Things--that I feel have grand style.  One of my basic rules is that I do not write about People who are deceased, mainly because I prefer to acknowledge grand people while they are alive.  Likewise, I chose not to mention grand Things that one cannot currently attain.  Yet, on the other hand, in reference to Places, this month I’m making a one-time exception in honoring a grand place that is impossible to visit.

Thus far, I have revealed my love of Paris, France and my spiritual retreat location of Annie Ruby Falls.  However, the one place that stands high in my memory of grand places is a place that can no longer be experienced, no matter how much money you have earned or how much power you have garnered.  This place is so exclusive, only a precious few have been granted entry, and even fewer people in the world given its prized diploma.  This place in the 1970s.... was Southwest High School in Atlanta, Georgia,

A place that now stands only in the memories of the mighty, mighty Wolves. 

From a fairytale army of attendance-charting students, averaging 93% daily attendance rates to Atlanta’s first cohort of Advanced Placement students, of which I was a member of the first historic 14, Southwest High School in Atlanta, Georgia can never be forgotten.  Our nationally-ranked athletic teams and our envied cheerleaders, band members, majorettes, and bannerettes set a standard of excellence no other local high school, rather public or private, could contend with the mighty Wolves.

With a well over 80% college attendance record, the mighty Wolves have today become entrepreneurs, managers, professionals, credentialed technicians, supervisors, educators, politicians, public speakers, leaders, advocates and change-agents.  We are artists, singers, writers, publishers, dancers, directors, actors, and musicians.  We are travelers and doers.  We have spouses and special loved ones.  We have children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews. 

We own houses and cars and vacation homes and dream of even more.  We are the backbone of a society that gave us the halls of ivy even while in a secondary-level of school.  We were more than a high school.  Southwest High School was more than a high school.  It was a place filled with true life stories of the fictional Cosby Show. 

Yes, America, there was a place where African-American students were just that fabulous!

We did not have security checkpoints on campus for there wasn’t a need to bring a weapon to school.  We did not fear one another.  We didn’t need your new gold chain or fresh Air Jordan’s.  We were fine in our Nik-Nik shirts and freshly styled ‘fros.  We were Wolves.  The mighty, mighty Wolves.

And no, we were not coked-out druggies waiting for the next hit of meth.  Nor did we disengage from our families and friends, avoiding face-to-face conversations, in turn to become robotic zombies swiping screens from left-to right.  We were talkers and thinkers, and students who laughed.  We were flirters and daters and planners for our futures.  We had no time for idle jive.  We were the brothas and sistas of the future.

We were the Wolves and we walked the halls of the mighty, mighty Southwest High. Say it loud and proud!

*Vanessa Brantley  Style395.blogspot.com  February 8, 2017,  "Paying Homage to Southwest High School"   Volume 3, Blog 1b [vol. 3, 1-1c].

 

 

Bev Smith: Journalist, Truth-Finder and Truth-Teller

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY MONTH

"Bev Smith: Journalist, Truth-Finder and Truth-Teller" 

 

For African-American people and people of Black African descent, life in America has not been smooth nor easy.  Trying to maintain sanity and a sense of success takes up most of our time.  Year after year, in an effort to keep up with the rhetoric, conspiracies, strategies, and current events, I’ve had to rely on social and political summaries from political activists and commentators. 

Looking back on the 1980s to now, I had a roster of regulars, my go-to commentators to help me stay in the know.  Besides the mainstay activists like Rev. Jesse Jackson, Rev. Al Sharpton (both ran for the position of U.S. President) and the Honorable Louis Farrakhan, I listened to excellent journalists with their own television and radio shows.  In particular, outlets for journalists/activists such as Tony Brown’s Journal or Dick Gregory and his books to Bob Johnson’s original BET cast with Ed Joiner, Tavis Smiley, Bev Smith and Jacque Reid were my preferred resources for world news and Black diaspora perspectives. I felt extremely secure receiving information leading to my attained knowledge. 

Then it all changed.

When Bob Johnson sold BET, my heart sank and a big resource for nightly news focused on my community disappeared.  What was an original concept for delivering “our news,” was no longer in existence. 

I have no idea what happened to Tony, Ed or Jackie.  Dick is still engaging, but mostly through YouTube videos.  Tavis mellowed out and became a Public Broadcast news figure. And Jesse and Al are now on mainstream television and radio, but rarely do they discuss other issues besides politics. 

Naturally, I thank Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton for all they have done.  Their high level of sacrifice cannot be ignored or denied.  Their courage is God-ordained; if I am ever in trouble, do know I am going to call on Jesse and Al.

However, as a learned woman, I need more.  For years, I have traveled about and lived in many different states, ever searching for my kind of Black-owned talk radio stations and Black journalists with talk radio shows.  No, I wasn’t looking for a Herman Cain.  He’s not, nor ever will be, my kind of commentator. 

Although tired and frustrated, I never gave up.  One day, it happened.  I found her, again.  Bev Smith was on the radio.  I found her on WAOK 1380 in Atlanta, Georgia.  I’ve gathered that for decades, she has been on the radio out of Washington, D.C.  I can now listen to her night after night.  She never disappoints.

Bev Smith talks about it all.  Some nights she discusses education.  Other nights she discusses race relations.  Some nights it’s all about love and relationships.  Then other nights, yes, it’s politics. 

Settings her apart from other journalists, is her courage in finding the truth behind her topics.  Whether it’s the truth about Thanksgiving or the genetically-modified produce on our tables, she’s my go-to commentator.  She can be an out-spoken advocate for her beliefs and a watchdog over governmental actions.  She’s not afraid to be bold and in-your-face.  She calls a trump, a trump!  And I’m right there with her. 

Bev Smith, many people may not know about you or how long you have been a voice for your people.  However, for this 2017 Black History Month, I just wanted to salute you and thank you.

Bev Smith, you are a Journalist, a Truth-Finder and a Truth-Teller.  Know for a lifetime that I am listening.  

*Vanessa Brantley  Style395.blogspot.com  February 5, 2017   "Bev Smith: Journalist, Truth-Finder and Truth-Teller"   Volume 3, Blog 1a [vol. 3, 1-1c].