So I told you guys in my last food review, I'm on a mission to an overall healthy diet. Last week, I decided to fast from meat, remove dairy, and gluten from my diet for a month as a test run for a potential vegetarian or vegan lifestyle in the future. Right on time, I checked out a raw vegan food restaurant in Hyde Park called B'Gabs Goodies.

I've been meaning to blog about this topic for a minute and I'm so glad I finally have a reason to do so. I was just minding my Kendro business on Twitter this morning and came across a screenshot with a paragraph over a photo of Russell Wilson and Ciara. The two just recently announced their engagement last week while on a romantic, tropical ass vacation in Seychelles. The tweeter asked "What Y'all Think About This?" I began to read the paragraph and the spirit of bitterness and friendzoned realness began to arise in the midst as I perused every pressed line.

Since the pair have dated, many comments similar to the one above have been made by people online, (seemingly the majority of them made by men) insinuating that Ciara, who is a single mom, is deceitful, an opportunist, and has "gold diggerish" ulterior motives. First off, to some very small extent I understand what the writer is stating. I do notice that some people choose to date  so called "bad apples" in their teens and early twenties and then settle down with a "good one" in their late twenties, early thirties, or whenever they decide they're done "having fun". Some people go through their young lives wrecking havoc on loving individuals only to think they deserve the best of the best once they're ready to settle down. Could this cycle of "bad boy" to "good guy" be the case with Ciara and Russell Wilson? Possibly, but we don't know them personally, we don't think the details of their individual dating backgrounds, or their relationship except what we see on social media.

The problem with this "good guy" narrative exampled in this post written by Mr. Dynast, is that it comes off as entitled, juvenile, ignorant, and often smothered in misogynist undertones. According to this post and many posts I've read similar to this whinny ass woe is me, stereotypical nerd/geek sob story, women like Ciara who have children and have dated men who have bad reps, like Future, are not worthy of being with well to do men, like Russell Wilson. 

I feel like this post was motivated by past, personal hurt, which I notice with many males who were social outcasts in high school. Many grow up to continuously make statements that women, especially Black women, do not like "good men" (pertaining to them of course) and that we love to entertain and procreate with rough necks. Typically in high school, the girls these guys were checking for paid them no mind and lollygagged on to a more popular fellow who may have been the player time. According to most of the good guys, these guys their crushes dated were thugs, hoodlums, drug dealers, everything but a child of God and totally undeserving of the girls that they wanted. This rationale, what I like to call "high school hurt", becomes so bottled up over the years that it becomes a norm to think this narrowly and create posts such as this one we are discussing.

What some of the "good guys" fail to comprehend or even bring up is the possibility of girls genuinely being interested in the "bad boys" they chose to date. The possibility that they weren't their type and that it was never meant to be with this person in the first place. But of course when we're dealing with an obvious ego and the essence of entitlement, no logic formed against thee shall prosper. Instead of coping with the latter possibilities, an excuse why that particular girl didn't date the "good guy" has to be created and it's usually placing blame on the girl. The premise of the good guy's agenda seems to conclude that: "I'm smart, so I deserve whichever girl I desire."

Besides, what does being "smart" have to do with being a good mate? Who told you being smart automatically meant you were going to snag a bae? Now I'm not ruling out that some girls truly aren't checking for "good guys", "smart guys", whatever you wish to call them (and to be honest, they're not entitled to either), but how does getting straight A's qualify you to being a good boyfriend? Of course it's an excellent addition to a dating resume, conveys your educational dedication, and is impressive to parents, but how does that tie in to successful relationships? Because with entitled, sexist rhetoric stating a woman has been "ran through" and is "leftovers" immensely shows one's lack of respect for women.

There also seems to be a double standard in this conversation of relationship worthiness. While rapper Jay-Z has no children prior to his relationship with Beyonce (although this has been rumored for many years, but not confirmed), before the two were a couple, according to the lifestyle he has praised in his music and even a mention from Karrine Steffans, he was active in engaging in sexual activity with multiple women. I'll do you all one better: many rappers in the hip-hop/rap industry have been in this situation before getting married. When Jigga married Beyonce, no multitudes of people made comments online warning her of his past with other women. No one reduced him to his sexual past. While these two scenarios are not entirely alike, they are similar and exhibit the internalized sexism many of us have absorbed through societal norms.

Rewinding back to some of our teenage years, or younger years in general, I'm sure many of us have dated people we would never dream of dating now that we're older. To hold past relationships over someone's head in order to justify why they're not worthy of a good mate is insanely immature. Plus, who is to say that a so called "thot" or "hood n*gga", basically anyone the opposite of this "good guy" narrative, doesn't deserve love? Only the "good guys" are worthy of love? Of course there are levels to that question, answer, and conversation, but the idea is a bit extreme, if you ask me.

Look, I know many of us have been indoctrinated by ratchet television and stereotypes in media, especially stereotypes of Black people, but the point is that just because a woman has a rocky dating past and/or has a child/children by a man deemed to be one of the "bad guys", does not mean she is should be minimized to "spoiled goods" and is not worthy of love and respect. This is an ignorant, one dimensional and binary theory that ignores the complexity of an individual person. It's purely placing people in boxes and viewing them through manufactured stereotypes and it's unfair and foolish like Ashanti. You don't get to determine who gets to be loved and enjoys marriage because you're "smart". Russell and other men don't have to abide by these "good guy" rules, because there's nothing remotely good about them. Stop trying to place Ciara and other women in your small minded, stereotypical world of Black single mothers.

On March 11, 2016, an announcement was made that Republican presidential candidate and bonafide moron Donald J. Trump was scheduled to have a rally at my alma mater, the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), at the UIC Pavilion (an arena). Amidst the announcement of the rally, student organizations at UIC created a protest which attracted not only students but people of all ages, races, ethnic groups, social and political backgrounds across the Windy City. While I personally don't find protesting as effective, the protesting held on the streets and inside the arena did cause Donald Trump to cancel his shenanigans for "security concerns" and postpone the event for another day. A speaker arrived on the podium and announced the message to a crowd mixed with "boos" and cheers:

Inevitably, the announcement carried on into a few brawls and confrontations between Frump supporters and protesters. Social media also erupted with Trump supporters typing the most vile, inhumane tweets threatening Black life: 





See this? These are the type of violent, demonic folk UIC wants around their students, y'all! 

Violence between supporters and protesters at Trump rallies has been a huge problem in the past few months, including when this past week a 78-year old man decided to punch a Black man leaving a rally in Fayetteville. A vet and other obviously racist, misogynist White males even pushed a peaceful, young Black woman through a crowd at a Louisville rally. 


As a recent grad of UIC (Fall 2015), I am extremely disappointed in my alma mater. I already knew the administration doesn't give a damn about their students from personal experience, but this just confirmed it even more. If you were or are a student at UIC, you are aware of the constant praise of diversity the school celebrates, although at my graduation I couldn't help but to notice how lily white and dominantly male so much of the administration consists of. UIC has a significant demographic of Muslim, Latino, Black and immigrant students, faculty, and staff who attend and are employed at the school, many of these groups who represent those who have been the verbal targets in Trump's past doings or in his recent candidacy speeches and collection of commentary. Students work and congregate in the Student Services Building across the street from the Pavilion, have to walk up and down Harrison and Racine to get to and from the Blue Line public transportation system. There's even a school a few blocks down from the Pavilion location. The school is right by the Chicago medical district as well. Too many security precautions and opportunities for hate spewing regardless if the po-pos were on patrol.

Being brutally honest and call me a "conspiracy theorist" all you want, but 1. I wouldn't be surprised if this cancellation hullabaloo was planned to incite violence (many of these protests are filled with agent provocateurs on both sides) and 2. I have absolutely no faith in this country's presidential political system (but we can talk about that later). I see Trump's running for office equal to a Saturday Night Live skit, but nonetheless, his supporters are serious and it was disrespectful to the students, staff, and faculty at UIC to allow a man who has openly made controversial remarks about particular groups of people who attend UIC, come to this school, as well as being the Pied Piper of Bigotry and luring his hateful, Nazi-esque minions. The hypocrisy of yelling "diversity!" every five minutes, but allowing a man who has a billion dollar platform contradicts that very ideal, and it's is disgusting and insensitive. It's no secret many of Trump's supporters are proud, unapologetic, White-supremacists who are anti-Black, anti-Muslim, anti-Latino, anti-anything that is not promoting or progressive of White supremacist thought. This desperate ploy for financial gain by the university in the name of "freedom of speech" put the lives of minority students and staff, and people in general, in danger. I am extremely disappointed in UIC and I hope their enrollment decreases this fall in response to this unwise, greedy decision. They already have a crummy freshman retention rate and dry ass social scene, now this.

Anyway, I wonder what Diamond and Silk have to say about this.

In an attempt to switch over to a more natural lifestyle, I decided to try out cloth menstrual pads for "that time of the month". Yes, I know. Some are reading like: "YUCK". That's the same reaction I had when I first heard of them. In doing more research, I discovered the many benefits of reusable cloth menstrual pads, including saving money on purchasing disposable pads, environmental support, and getting away from toxins in commercial pads. While I make sure I keep myself educated on the chemicals that have flooded damn near everything in our modern society, I definitely was not aware of the many toxins and chemicals found in disposable pads. It's so serious, that the chemicals found in these pads could possibly negatively effect a woman's reproductive system. If you ask me, that's pretty ridiculous and it should never be that damn deep to bleed on a piece of cloth.

I purchased two cotton pads from the MamaBear BabyWear Etsy shop to start off my new journey of using reusable pads. MamaBear BabyWear is owned by Amy Washington based in Murray, Kentucky. Amy started her business creating cloth diapers for her children and grew into creating cloth pads, panty liners, and other cloth hygiene necessities for women, including mothers. The pads I purchased were the Single LadyWear Quick-dry cloth menstrual pads in the medium/heavy size, made of natural, undyed cotton flannel.


The pads have flaps on both sides that can snap under an undergarment in order to stay put. These pads were comfortable and felt no different from the drug store pads that I've been so accustomed to.


With many other reusable items, these pads must be washed in order to be properly used again. MamaBear BabyWear gives you a card on how to wash and maintain the pads with a few easy steps. A soaking pot of cold water has to be made for the pad(s) to soak in and after that, they can be washed in a washing machine. The pads can be hung to dry or placed in a dryer and voila, there are your reusable pads ready to be used again. I certainly like this idea and I will be purchasing more in the future.