Abiola Abrams' TUMBLR | Author of Dare, TV Big Mouth, Passionista | Lifestyle Expert As seen on MTV's "MADE"
will.i.am of the black eyed peas, president obama and friends…
Hey Loves— There is a time change. I am speaking at 6:30pm at the Kimmel Center, giving a short keynote speech for African American Heritage Month or Black History Month, like we used to call it when I was a kid. Sorry for the mix-up. ;-)
“Three words. Vice President Oprah!” Yeah!!! ;-)
It’s the 10th anniversary of V-Day and The Vagina Monologues and Super Goddess Eve Ensler is transforming the New Orleans Super Dome into a dome of love. Contact vday.org to help.
if i hear another person say that bill clinton was america’s first black president i am going to scream. bill i love you, but this is a ridiculous statement. sorry ms. toni morrison, my absolute idol, but i disagree with you on this statement. either that or it was taken out of context. anyway, check this out. hilarious!!! it’s a riff from mad tv on rhianna’s umbrella video with my two favorite candidates getting busy! good answer, mr. obama, at the debate to the bill as first black prez question. ;-D
HEY! 
i am in non- stop pro- duction on my up- coming daily online talk show planetAbiola and yesterday i shot some great 
segments with my sister damali abrams in her funky harlem hive. we
discussed the beauty myth, gentrification, nutrition, the prison industrial complex and other important issues including celebs like don imus, isaiah washington, michael richards and mel gibson coming WAY out of their faces with hate speech. damali is an artist, activist and poet, and i loved working with her. check us out here, and check out my hot crochet wardrobe provided by doublestichwear— lime green fela kuti t-shirt from harriet’s alter ego in brooklyn. by the way, my lifetime “matched in manhattan” wardrobe, including doorknocker earrings were also provided by harriet’s. my director was hot new woman on the scene sasha morris, and of course patrick reis, my co-executive producer was awesome!
how HAUTE is the crochet wear?
happy mlk day. i listened to this speech and it was so poignant and powerful. i remember memorizing it in school actually, and this time i was struck by the concept of living in exile in your own country. many of us are living in exile in our own skin. let’s think about how we can live a more present existence. dr. martin luther king junior is one of my favorite outlaws, and when i think of him, it makes me bone up on my own courage. he was not the placid puppet that the media would have us believe. he was also on the verge of leading a radical campaign against poverty. well behaved folks rarely make change, or history. get radical, y’all. stop bitching and start a revolution— or join one. rock on, dr. king! xo, a.
1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Boogie Down Bronx is widely acknowledged as the birthplace of hip hop. Now, apparently gentrification is taking hold & may take this affordable housing building “for the people” into a commercial property…. From being of the people to being of the pocket? Sounds just like what happened with the music. Is there anything you can do today t help someone less fortunate? Sending light.
“we cannot fully create effective movements for social change if individuals struggling for that change are not also self-actualized.” — bell hooks
From Lisa Loeb’s “short skirt” to Abiola Abrams’ “nappy hair…”
THE PROJECT IS HERE. It was so much fun to be a part of this:
Iconic feminist magazine, Ms. Magazine, has recognized Facing Feminism: Feminists I Know, and will be mentioning the project, currently hosted through Empowerment4Women, in an upcoming issue! Keep an eye out for the feature, which is slated to appear in their calendar section!
This is a project in which, through portrait art and words, the many different faces of feminism are visually demonstrated. The project is designed to make a statement in contradiction to the stereotype, the one dimensional portrayal, of feminists, usually as stridently against makeup, fashion; graceful pursuits, that is dominant in the media. In addition to putting a more varied and representative face” to feminism, and thus being a tool for education and advocacy, this project aims to enlarge the current dialogue about what it means to be a feminist and also to help feminists conceptualize a philosophy of feminism that works for them. It will help to de-demonize the concept of feminism. “Some feminists love wearing heels and perfume. Some don’t. Some have alternative lifestyles while some are stay at home mothers.” stated Annette M. Hyder, curator of the project. “Concomitant with the many things that distinguish feminists individually, there are the things that unite them: their strength and intelligence and their belief that they are entitled to equal opportunity in all spheres of life which is what the project is all about”.
Contact Annette Marie Hyder here.
Nooo, I was not sporting an ankle bracelet, Hollyrock’s hautest accessory!
Recently, I was looking fabulous in jail visiting a family member.
Though this was not my first relative in jail, this was my first time visiting a prison. Like my mother I had vowed that I would never visit anyone in jail, but I never expected to find this person in prison. Things fall apart.
My younger relative was arrested for a crime he didn’t commit, but his anti-snitching code of ethics tells him to man up and keep his mouth shut. There you have it. Thank you, Killa Cam’ron.
There was a smidge of culture shock for me and my sister as we waited amongst the other Marias and Keshas to visit the Orlandos and Kwakus that made up their fathers, brothers, sons, baby daddys, play cousins and nephews. There were no men on this line, nor were there any white people. Most visitors held sneaker boxes of Reeboks, the sneaker of choice in the facility as mandated strangely by the institution itself. I wonder if Reebok is an investor in the prison barge of non-singing caged birds.
My sister and I looked as though we were dressed for tea on the pier while everyone else looked like they were dressed to scale the wall. I thought of Ras Baraka’s immortal words when his beautiful and inspirational sister Shani was murdered in a vicious hate crime against her sexuality. This is not a direct quote, but he said something like, all of our education, clout and poetry could not save our sister.
Luckily the only thing dead in my family’s instance in this moment was a dream, so my sister and I took turns sitting, and tried not to look as terrified as we were. It turned out that the watchman also watched BET J and was rather annoyed that the J no longer stood for Jazz. However, all that any imagined clout could get me was the promise that security would hide our contraband cell phones. This meant that we wouldn’t have to dig a hole in the moist Bronx soil like the other women to bury them in.
I had accidentally / on purpose worn my Chi Guevara (not a misprint) t-shirt gifted from Tamboi/ Crème Magazine. I imagined that the powers that be would feel my silent protest. But no one blinked or made contact except to runs their fingers through my hair for bobby pins that could be fashioned into a shank. Or shiv—sorry. I forget which.The books we brought were searched for illegal knowledge. A hard cover of Native Son was rejected—the guard declared it to resemble a weapon. I bit my lip, wanting to tell him that this was the point.
Isn’t it funny how when someone you love dies, gets sick or has some other sort of emergency, we might have been too busy for them 2 minutes before but we suddenly now have all the time in the world?
After a day long ordeal I sat there looking at my younger relative, who looked like he’d aged 10 years in 2 weeks. I was trying to man up myself and not cry – well not cry as much. He looked at me, I imagine for answers, but mostly he was just embarrassed. As much as I usually can’t shut up, I was semi- speechless. What could I say? What advice could I offer that I would believe?
After asking him what he had learned, and noticing that he kept glancing around at the other prisoners, maybe making sure that they didn’t hear him having annoying philosophical conversations, I said, “Be grateful.” I was thinking about the Toni Morison character in Beloved named Stamp Paid. I love this character so much that he makes an appearance in my new novel DARE as well. The character’s name Stamp Paid means that every one of us has somehow already had our passage paid for. We are free in our skin. If you are free, stamp paid and be grateful.
Now this may seem a strange pep talk for someone behind bars, telling him be grateful for being free and all, but I tried to explain to this beautiful boy that the only bars around him were in his mind. We are still free to make choices. We are still free. We sat and whether he was down with it or not, we counted his blessings. Yes, I wanted to lecture, but I had already realized that this was futile. Count your blessings is not just a saying, it is a way of life.
Only when we can find gratitude for where we are and what we have can we acquire all of the blessings and good stuff in escrow for us. If you have no shoes, be grateful that you have feet. How wealthy you are in this minute to have the luxury to sit and the read random musings of some goddess chick in an online playspace. Give thanks, my gorgeous friend, give thanks.Count your blessings, dream bigger and say yes to the possibility that you are already smart enough, talented enough, beautiful enough to have everything that you envision. You are already there!
Stamp paid because you are free. Free to fly. Free to fail, Free to get back up and do something different.
So here’s our homework for this Thanksgiving moment. Yes, I am aware that the Indians cashed a bum check, but any day, commercial holiday or no, that asks us to be grateful is a good thing.
So our homework is pick 5 things in your life that you are grateful for—every night, but let’s start right here and now. Not the easy, shiny, blingy awesome stuff but the things that you have to remind yourself that you are grateful for.
After all, life is fun if we let it be. What makes you sing this very minute?
“When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.” Wayne Dyer
What’s on your gratitude list?
Rest in love and peace, Dr. Donda West.
 | Currently listening : Stronger By Kanye West Release date: 03 September, 2007 |
Current mood: 
calm
i gotta tell you—if you have abandonment issues, nothing makes you feel more welcome and loved than walking off a plane and seeing an anonymous driver sent by some faceless corporation holding up a sign with your name. it makes your insecurities melt for a good 90 seconds—like gee, i matter!
anyway, my driver was a kindly older african man, his nationality clear by his accent. i asked which country he was from. being that i’ve been to
nigeria
once and have a yoruba name, i often feel that this makes me an expert on such matters. he told me that he was sudanese. fascinated, i started to grill him about the situation in darfur. frankly, i asked him to explain as an insider “in the simplest terms” what has happened, what is happening, and what really can be done to help.
for those who may have missed is, while you were having the best week ever, there is a mass genocide taking place in the region and people are dying of murder, starvation and despair.
it turned out that my driver was an activist who had been outed from the country some time ago, and he painted a picture for me on how the instability and issues actually began in the 80s. he also painted a picture for me of a childhood spent in schools sitting on the hard ground with no books and very rough disciplinarians. he said that this was the first step for the lighter arabs in his country to try to subjugate the darker africans by denying them proper education. he and a couple of his mates managed to sneak into neighboring regions—just to learn and he became quite outspoken.
he got lucky as he was only asked to leave the country—most other activists were murdered or tortured. his mother still lives in the region, and he just came back from a 2 month visit. she can’t get a visa to leave because of his family’s political views, and anything he mails her will be stolen, so he has to go to hand deliver whatever he can, whenever he can to his mother and family members who still remain. the light and darker people at war had the same color difference of a couple of shades as I did with this gentleman. man’s inhumanity to man.
at this point my head was spinning and i was fast falling into a depression. i have to tell y’all a secret. just between me and you, i don’t even watch the local television news anymore because i don’t feel that it tells me anything that i need to know. i don’t want certain images in my head breaking my veil of safety and sanity. local news tells me nothing that relates to my daily life. if there’s another rapist in the bushes in central park he’s gonna be there whether i stress myself out or not.
so my repeated question to the driver was, what can we do? see, i am a person of action. sure there’s always value in talking. hell, i make my living running off at the mouth and storytelling, but then i feel that people must be willing and able to take some sort of action. watching images of starving bodies is futile if we’re not going to do anything to help.
the gentleman told me that he was surprised as an african american that i would ask, that i would care. i reminded him that many americans were doing things to help—i’ve seen them, marching, collecting food, money etc. he said yes, americans were helping, just not african americans. it was at this point that the 10 minute depression i’d been in since our convo started spun into a shame spiral.
he went on to explain how africans hold african americans in very high regard, regardless of how your hair braiding lady, church fried chicken guy, or whomever might look at you. they see our civil rights struggle here as a beacon of hope and possibilities. he said that half of the people in his activist organization were african and the other half were american. zero however were african american.
i again asked what he wanted us to do, because i’ve seen the pix and t-shirts, bumper stickers, and stuff like that to me often seems like b.s. and band-aids.
he told me that telling his story and spreading the word is a start. he explained that since there has been light shed on the situation there has been a sharp decrease in murders and starvation, and that there is the slightest glimmer of hope. he said that there was value in bumper stickers and t-shirts.
he explained that his people held african americans in such high esteem that in his opinion, if jesse
jackson
would only show up, leaders would meet and work things out. i didn’t have the heart to tell him that jesse can’t even help us get our sh*t together, with all due respect, mr. jackson. he’s trying to manage his baby mama drama like everybody else.
maybe black americans are absent from the save darfur movement because they’ve got so many problems of their own—very low self esteem, education, crime, healthcare—all the ways that poor people everywhere catch hell. school and jails stats, marriage stats, mortgage crisis impending, boys and girls dying on foreign soil for issues more complicated than they realize—it’s not all champagne and caviar.
the driver explained that yes— they do see us on tv and in posters swigging champagne and life looks like a party. wow—they are totally buying our hype. i explained that just cause you see 50 cent popping off bottles of cristal doesn’t mean we’re all ballin. my friends range from people in bk trying to scrape up the next $1000 for their rent to folks living in bel air mansions trying to scrape up another $25,000 for their mortgage. and that’s real.
it’s like when i was 11 or 12 and went to stay in
virginia
for the summer. my brother and i pimped off the sneaker money my parents gave us so that we could get ourselves adidas, and we convinced my sister that blue smurf sneakers from woolworth were a good look—for her. then we pretended to the virginia kids—cause they didn’t know any better—that we were totally down with ll cool j just because we were from nyc, had a kangol to share between us, and saw him in green acres mall once. it was a good front.
the driver said he knew this now, but people at home do not. he told me about the film darfur now, and i told him about our new betj series africana, and how they could possibly submit darfur now for broadcast on BET. he said he doubted we would care and would try some “more mainstream whiter outfits first.” he said that he often drove many of my bosses at BET and BET J but he’s forbidden to interact. it was at that point that i think he became hip to the fact that i was trying to audiotape him on my samsung blackjack which is a piece of crap, but an awesome spy phone because it takes pics, videos and makes audio recordings.
he also told me some things in confidence that he asked that i don’t repeat because it seems that some of these nonprofits can be as gully as the mafia, so i will just say this: writing a check is not the best thing as we always don’t know where money is going, but you can sign petitions, sending clothing food supplies and the like.
so now that you know, you can’t pretend you don’t.
what should we do? because in all honesty other than writing a check, wearing a cool sloganed t-shirt, or yelling at a march, i still have no idea. and for those of you who are more knowledgeable on such matters, forgive my ignorance.
here’s what i decided. we’ve gotta clean up our own backyards.
i am thrilled with oprah’s south african school because we are all global citizens and i plan to follow in her footsteps one day, by building schools in my backyard—in harlem,
detroit
, watts etc. that may not buy me as much press or glitz or nobel prize speculation, but hungry is hungry uneducated is uneducated. imprisoned is imprisoned—
wherever you are.
if you can use whatever you do to be a light in some way to somebody, that helps. helping somewhere is cosmically helping everywhere. i guess that frankly, my earlier assertion that black folks have their hands full is a bit of a cop out because on an individual level, if we can’t help when it’s difficult to, we won’t help when it’s easy to.
i had a class once with yoko ono where we thought that she was batty because someone asked her how to stop the war and she said mend the teacups in your cupboard. i get it now.
whatever you can do—wear a t-shirt, tell this man’s story, send people to this blog post, make a film, write a poem, or maybe even add them to your prayers. drops in the bucket yeah, but the ghanians say that small drops yield a mighty ocean.
we pulled up in front of my building and our camaraderie seemed to cease. like, in that moment, with the action of him opening my door as i searched for my keys we were reminded of the roles were playing in the moment: holocaust survivor and pseudo privileged first world daughter once removed. i gave him a hug and my personal information and told him to keep in touch.
he asked if i was coming to his screening. i said that i would try. my friend’s party was the same night.
more info on helping somebody:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darfur_conflict
| Currently listening : There’s Hope By India.Arie Release date: 10 October, 2006 |
Welcome to my new world order!
Today is September 11th. How quickly the mind forgets. I am thinking of the other human tragedy taking place in Louisiana and Mississippi right now. Both events make me think of the capacity of man’s inhumanity to man.
One of the other things that the 2 days have in common, other than an exercise in human suffering is that I stayed glued to CNN every night. I think that somehow, it feel that the least I could do is to be a constant witness to the suffering. Why do you think that this is? Am I perhaps embarrassed that I have never made any kind of effort to really notice and really aid the working poor in America?
One woman told Barack Obama: “Before the hurricane I had nothing. Now I have even less.” Perhaps the reason, if one can even suppose there is such a thing, but perhaps the reason that things like this happen is to remind us of our humanity and need to embrace our fellow human beings on the planet.
Your Homework: What have you done to help the victims of hurricane Katrina? Is there anything that you can do to insure that we never forget the way that the event played out?
All my love,
Abiola
Women 4 Kerry
Here I am with Cherise, my dear sweet friend, fabulous actress Stephanie, and a friend of theirs from Yale.
OK. SO I am finally able to speak about my movie making experience in germany because I’m almost finished. Oh, Ok. Jeeeez. This was literally the most painful but exhilarating job of my life. And that includes the V.I.M. sneaker sales job that I had when I was 18 and realized that the $300 I asked my parents for every 2 weeks to get my hair braided was alot of money. OH. Ugh. I don’t even know where to begin and still can’t talk about the whole thing. Instead, I’ll do my own movie review.
No, I’m not happy, but I am satisfied. The film is really cute, quirky and funny. One of the frustrations was not enough time for anything. However, that’s one of the parts of our little experiment here. The most amazing thing is getting to work with an international cast and crew. I’ve had convos with a Ukrainian, Jamaican, Serb and Croatian all on the same day.
Thursday night we premiere, and that I’m very nervous about. Will my humor translate? My life has definitely come more into focus while I’m here. And I am more resolute than ever in my purpose. My only regret, and it ways HEAVILY on the soul, was not creating a safe work environment for my cast and crew, and allowing them to be abused by a total asshole AD. Ugh. I’m gonna need therapy after this.
I just did not know how to respond (more later) when my first assistant director told me that she did not want me to touch her. Wow. They’re out there with it here, like that!?
I keep playing the shoot over in my head, where I curse the %#$$%^ out and fire her on the spot.
but alas, i didn’t.
:-(
