... And now, back to your regularly scheduled psychobabble

As the six of you who regularly read my little column may have noticed, I struggle with depression. I was officially diagnosed in 2011, although I probably should have been outed somewhere around 2005.

Anyway, fighting depression is about having the mental discipline to feed your mind only positive information, the physical discipline to exercise your body enough to keep yourself in a constant state of endorphin induced euphoria, and the spiritual humility to beg for mercy and guidance when all else fails.

It’s like being on Paleo while doing a crossfit 30 day challenge.

Except my cheat days generally end with me crying in the shower.

So I apologize if you were totally unprepared for my last post, I was too.

I have been pretty dissatisfied with my life lately and finally decided to stop whining about it and actually do something about it.

I’m thirty one. I know what I think I should be doing right now. Kicking ass at business. Taking names on the dating scene. Changing the world with wry prose and witty peri-apocalyptic romance novels.

Instead, I find myself sitting in the basement, holding a pity party of one, frantically refreshing my Etsy inbox, hoping for a sale.

Well I refuse to squander my gifts any longer, and I refuse to live my life in any kind of box-- not even one of my own making.

An old friend helped me come to this realization on Independence day.

I know what you’re thinking.

And yes, as a matter of fact, we did  go to middle school together.

CK, my gorgeous, crazy, amazingly intelligent and funny Blendian friend has the kind of hair black girls dream about. It’s dense yet fine, soft, with lots of body and fluffy ringlets when air dried.

#hairenvy

No heat damage, thanks 2 GGC

So of course, she loves it when I straighten it.

I’ve gotten a lot better at taming her mane over the past ‘sixteen years. Still, she was in my ‘studio’ long enough for me to decide that I was definitely going to finish growing my hair out, that I had amazing products that truly worked miracles, and that I had to be more aggressive about going after the things I wanted-- in all aspects of life.

So I joined Bumble, made a seven page life plan, strapped on my big girl panties and waded into the murky, questionably toxic bay that is life.

I’m determined to be open. And I actually kind of love Bumble (I already have a date!).

I am taking advantage of the beautiful Cleveland summer by getting out there and participating in as many vending events as possible (I have ten shows this month so far).

Unfortunately, so much time spent living life outside the box gives me considerably less time to write about it, so necessity dictates that either the quality, frequency, or length of my posts will suffer.

I’m choosing length.

I refuse to give up on my writing or squander any of my numerous talents. So while I’m no Polonius, I’m going to give that brevity-is-the-soul-of-wit thing a try.

You’ll get shorter posts, more often.

I’ll get to have a life worth writing about and less shower sob-fests.

It’s a win-win.

Social Media Does Not Cure Depression

The funny thing about social media is how it allows you to be both completely transparent and remarkably full of shit simultaneously.

I blog about life (in general) and my life (occasionally and specifically). I write the things I cannot stand to hold in any longer without hope that someone else will read them or understand them. I don’t care if you agree them. I don’t even particularly care if you understand.

But I need you to read them. And I need you to try and understand.

If you knew what a hot mess I really am, you would leave me. Hate me. Leave this page, and pity me, shame me.

I feel ashamed now, even thinking me.

If you knew how hard it was for me to get out of bed every morning, you would consider me a miracle.

If you knew how abysmal my finances were, you would tell me to get a job.

If you had to wear my skin, keep my secrets, bear my burdens, you would jump.

Most days the ledge is long, the horizon is far, and the shoreline within sight.

But today I am sinking, eyes half filled with tears I have forgotten how to spill. The lies I tell myself to keep going are harder to hear today.

I would unburden myself with these small truths, but, the truth is, they are not mine to tell.

My lie is constructed and interconnected with others like a house of cards built atop a jenga game. One false step and we will all come crashing down.

My secrets are not 1600 Pennsylvania avenue secure, they are 1655 Cumberland insecurities. I could tell you, but then I would have to kill myself.

I can tell you this:

Sometimes when you see me and I have bags under my eyes, it’s because I spent the night crying. I have two periods a month and they suck ass.

I have severe anxiety issues that make it hard for me to eat.

I know a lot of people, but don’t have a lot of friends.

I live below the poverty level.

Where does depression hurt? Every-fucking-where.

Choosing Change Part III: Thank God I’m Black in America

The title of this week's post may come as a surprise to my regular readers (all five of you). That’s because, typically, I use this space to rant about life’s injustices, racial disparity, false faith, and generally all the way that it sucks to be black in America.

But racism, like all types of suffering, is relative.

Last year I promised to choose change, to try and be a better person, and to look for the good in the world.

I’m not always up to it, but today as I was working on my business plan, setting goals for my future, it suddenly occurred to me how profoundly blessed I am to be black in a country where owning a business can be more than a pipe dream, where people who look like me have adequate buying power to be considered a market segment, and where people who don’t look like me enthusiastically purchase and promote my brand.

When you think about it, being black in America, as bad as it is, is significantly better than being black most anywhere else in the world (except maybe Canada. Canada rocks!)

Don’t believe me?

Let’s look at the facts.

We already know that 62 people make more than half of the world combined. Now let’s look at where the poor people live:

Urban population living in slums:

Slums. Not ghettos...

Slums.

Now look at where people live on less than $2 per day:

Now look at where people are starving:

Now look at where people don’t live very long:

Seeing a pattern yet?

But Ajah, you might ask, what about those countries that are always in the Blue or Grey? Surely it can’t suck to be black everywhere!

Hmm, ok.

Let’s take Italy for example. They have a concept of Esterofilia, or a love of all things foreign. Yet it didn’t stop them from creating this awesome(ly racist) cartoon:

[Hint...teach your children racism from the cradle. It sticks better that way!]

Esterofilia is also some small comfort to Cecile Keyenge, Italy’s first black government minister. Fellow members of government threatened her with violence and likened her to an orangutan. Citizens threw bananas at her on her way to work on building a better Italy.

This article profiles a Bolivian writer and filmmaker in Australia and the racism she experienced while living there. If a hot, smart Bolivian wasn’t feeling the love, I doubt ‘chocolate me’ would fare much better.

I won’t even discuss blacks living in Asia, where pale skin and waiflike physiques are the standard of beauty.

Even in Brazil, where blacks are the majority of the population, discrimination is rampant, and hate crimes against black trans women are everyday occurrences.

Chew on this: Brazil is 51% black. Yet they have ONE prime time TV show with black leads.

We have Scandal, Blackish, the Carmichael show, Empire, Rosewood, The Daily Show, The Nightly Show, Little Big Shots, Truth Be Told, CHicago Med, Chicago Fire, Orange is the New Black, How to Get Away With Murder, Underground, and many, many more.

They have: Mister Brau, which is basically an evening soap about Brazil’s Jay-Z and Beyonce.

Sisters living in the UK routinely pay up to $20 for a single pack of kanekalon braiding hair.

Outside of Canada, no (developed) country seems to love and accept black beauty as much as the United States.

Don’t get me wrong, we have our problems-- the black community still doesn’t have much significant power in the States, but we do have influence, both locally and globally.

When America is at his worst and I wonder if it’s worth it to keep fighting (versus immigrating to Canada), I remember this:

Black and Brown people across the diaspora look to me and other Americans of African descent to forge a path, shoot for the stars and fail like lightning; dream; defy; demand; debate; to be beautifully, loudly, unapologetically black.

To be free.

Baby, You're the Greatest

I’ll return to the Lost Months shortly, but today I want to focus on the here and now.

We lost someone this week. The Greatest. A man who knocked down people and racial barriers with equal alacrity and used sarcastic humor as the ranch dressing that allowed whites to stomach the freshly tossed salad of bitter truth that was existing in America within a brown body.

As a child of the eighties, I confess my level of engaging with Muhammad Ali was more as a Father than a fighter. As a muscular brown girl who would never be considered ‘dainty’, Laila Ali was an icon-- an attractive woman, sexy even, who could and would knock a bitch out. She existed on her own terms, KO-ing gender stereotypes in the way her father took on racism.

She was the woman I thought I could have been with the support of a loving father.

Not a boxer, mind you, I have rubbish hand-eye coordination, but a fighter, a woman who lived life on her own terms and was secure in her skin, flaws and all. Hollywood glamorized the relationship between ‘The Greatest’ and his baby girl to an almost Disneyesque degree, and I bought in hook, line, and sinker.

I have since had the opportunity to get to know my father. As the rose colored glasses came off, I learned the reality of Father-daughter relationships: no one is perfect, your parents are not superheroes, and a Father is still a man. And men tend to be dumb.

Well, you are. #sorrynotsorry.

I love my Dad. But I don’t idolize him. Although my father is not a three time heavyweight champion, he is a bit of a Hometown Hero. He plays piano at church, coaches pee wee football (in the south), and, along with my Grandmother, feeds the homeless every Saturday. He is a good person.

Yet he is far from my fairy tale vision of a perfect father. So far in fact, that at times it is difficult for me to reconcile the man others tell me about with the man I know. It’s not that he’s secretly a monster, it’s just that I’ve never seen him as a saint.

He’s just my Dad-- the guy who doesn’t call enough, Facebook bullies my boyfriends, drinks juice from the carton. He’s the guy who after one too many Margaritas will hit on the waitress-- in front of my stepmother (see? DUMB).

So which version of himself should a father be judged by? His truth or his legacy?

Last week my pastor’s father passed away. He preached a sermon on how all barriers to unity amongst the living disappear in the face of death (which you can listen to here). The gist of it is that death has a way of clarifying things for us; there are no Muslims or Christians, blacks or whites, lesbians or straight girls. There are only dying and dead.

Death reminds us of our own mortality. It inspires us to do something worth being remembered by when we are gone. It hurts, no matter if you lose a parent or child, spouse or sibling-- the separation is permanent. And it is agony. Yet it is in these times of common suffering that we come closest to King’s beloved community. By remembering our own pain we are able to better empathize with people who have values and backgrounds that are vastly different from our own.

I called my pastor to see how he was doing. In private we spoke about his father, the man, and how from an early age it had been impressed upon him to live up to his family name. Educational attainment, social activism, and human dignity were at the core of his familial expectations. Although we were decades apart, races apart, and raised completely differently, his daddy expected the same things of  him that mine does of me.

I thought again of my own father, whose last name I don’t share. I thought of Muhammad Ali, who threw away his family name in favor of one that honored his ancestral roots. I thought of my niece, whose father is incarcerated, and my other niece whose father is embroiled in a multi-state custody battle that allows him to see her during summers only.

Perhaps that is why Ali’s fathering inspired more admiration than his fighting in my young soul. In the Black community, fathers are just one more privilege many of us are forced to go without.

Yet whether by their presence or absence, our fathers shape the people we grow up to be. Their legacies become the building blocks for our children’s expectations. And when we lose them, a little piece of us dies too.

My heart goes out to Laila Ali in this moment, knowing that even as I grieve with her, as the world grieves with her, that we are not grieving the same person she is. We lost the legend, while she lost the man.

Regardless of what Muhammad Ali’s truth was, his legacy is one that his daughter can be proud of. He called on us to boldly confront the issues of our day-- to stand and fight injustice in its strongholds- the institutions that so enslave our minds that we stumble about ‘mentally dead’, spiritually defunct, and morally bankrupt.

Instead of giving up on understanding each other, Muhammad Ali called us to dig deeper, push harder, think bigger, and be greater.

If God in Her infinite wisdom is kind enough to give me forty-three more years on this earth, I hope I use mine half as well.

#RIP

This Land is YOUR Land...

The Lost Months part I: Another Apology to Readers (I think there’s four of you now)

I have a lot of excuses for why you haven’t heard from me since February.

 I’ve been building a business.

 I was working. And then not working.

 And in the hospital.

 And  a drooling mess over Lemonade, utterly insensible and lost to the world.

 All of these things are true, but they are little more than empty excuses. MYStory is about difficult truths, so I’ll lay myself at the altar of full disclosure and give you an abridged version of everything I’ve been meaning to write about but didn’t:

 Ajah Hales, Fangirl

 Ajah Hales, Field Director

 Ajah Hales, Bootstrap Barbie

 I spent most of March planning and executing a Go Fund Me campaign. After December’s inspirational crowdfunding campaigns, I thought-- how hard can it be?

 Turns out, it’s really hard to run a successful crowdfunding campaign and I failed spectacularly. I raised $1275 of my $3000 goal and had barely enough to St. Louis and back. However, I learned a ton and will definitely share my insights in a future post. In the meanwhile, here’s a flashback to March and madness.

 Hi,

 My name is Ajah and I am the owner of Golden Goddess Cosmetics, a truly natural hair and skincare company.



I  started my company in 2012 because I was tired of taking the good with the bad when it came to cosmetics. I wanted to use products that were not filled with chemicals, products that were natural, safe and, above all, effective.

 I had a hard time finding products that met my standards and my budget, so Golden Goddess Cosmetics was born.

 Last year, I sold over 500 made to order units via face to face and online sales.  This year, my goal is to take Golden Goddess Cosmetics to the next level by participating in St. Louis' 3rd Annual Natural Hair  and black cultural Expo on April 9, 2016.



By attending the Expo, my company will gain national exposure and (hopefully) secure 2-5 wholesale clients.

 I need your help to make this trip a success.

 I am looking to raise $3000 by April 1, 2016 to cover the cost of raw ingredients and travel expenses for myself and one intern.

 By supporting my campaign, not only will you be helping an African American business owner change her life, you will take an important step towards changing the culture of compromise in cosmetics.

 Thank you in advance for supporting my dream. Any amount you donate will be cherished as an investment in my future and a tiny step towards changing the world.

 And remember: "The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones that do."

 Sincerely,

 Ajah Diangella Nichol Hales

 Update #1:
So far, the campaign is off to a great start! Your generous donations have allowed me to order 20 lbs of local raw beeswax from Sleeping Bear Farms. http://www.sleepingbearfarms.com/shop/beeswax

 This is my favorite beeswax to work with because it smells like honey!

 Great products start with amazing ingredients, and great success stories start with the amazing people who believe in your dream!!

Video Update

 Update #2
19 days to go!!!

 I am, as always, humbled by the overwhelming support we've gotten so far. I know that my dream is not singular or unique; in fact, black women start businesses at 3x the rate of any other demographic group (including white males); which means:

 #BlackWomenLead
#BlackGirlsRock
#BlackGirlMagic
#weLIT

 Despite the overall awesomeness of my Melanin Mamacitas, the reality is that minorities receive less than 1% of (over $1 Billion USD worth of) venture capital funding.

 There are thousands of black women just like me, working hard to make a better life for not only themselves, but also their families and communities. After years of putting myself last, it sometimes feels selfish to be asking for an investment in my dreams.

 That's when I remember that it's not just about me. It's about all of us, the multi generational melanin sisterhood-- we who were born in the struggle.

 It's about women who face incredible odds having the courage and capacity to love, learn, give and grow in the skin we are in-- to strut proudly like vibrantly colored peacocks amongst a covey of quails.

 Sisters, I see you.

 I feel you.

 I am you.

 Update #3
5 Days left!!!!!!

 First, I want to say thank you for all the support I have gotten so far. Your love and generosity has allowed me to order:

 -7 lbs of beeswax
-2 lbs raw local honey
-4 lbs of Baking Soda
-38 lbs of Coconut oil
-4 oz pure cinnamon
-8 oz pure catmint
-8 oz vanilla bean paste
-8 oz lemon extract
-8 oz peppermint extract
-50 1 oz amber glass jars with fine mist sprayer
-80 1.5 oz glass jars with lids
-50 1/2 oz slide tube containers
-160 3.75 oz glass jars with lids

 and

- 20 9 oz glass jars with lids.

Right now, I have ordered the ingredients for about half my products. I still need another $500-$600 THIS WEEKEND to be able to order the rest of my supplies.

 I still need:
-6 lbs beeswax @ $55
-4 oz Geranium Absolute @ $19
-4oz Grapefruit Seed Extract @ $45
-75 oz Aloe Vera Gel @ $26
-4 oz Tea Tree Oil @ $16
-4 oz Clove Oil @ $24
-4 oz Lemon Eucalyptus @ $20
-3.3 oz Thyme @ $30
-4 oz Lavender EO @ $40
- 4 oz Raw Propolis @ $40
-150 1 oz boston rounds w/ treatment pumps @ $91
-500 lip balm tubes @ $70
-16.6 oz Jojoba Oil @ $30
-33 oz Olive Oil @ $6

 plus...
-200 craft sticks
-30 quart jars
-2 b/w and color HP ink cartridges
-4 oz dried calendula
-4 oz dried marshmallow root
-85 1/4 or 1/3 oz jars with lids
-18 4lb bags of ice

 ... and also
-hotel
-rental car
-money for food

 So basically, I still need a lot of help, and I'm #not2proud2beg. I know that we only have a few days left to make a miracle happen, but I know that when people come together, impossible is nothing!!!

 Please support this campaign by donating and sharing on your social networks. Anything you can give will help get me closer to St. Louis.

 Be my Angel TODAY! Donate NOW! I can't do this alone, so please give anything you can RIGHT NOW, TODAY!!!

 Dig deep! Teamwork makes the dream work!

Update #4

 I'm extending the campaign to April 5th! The event is on April 9th, so I'm cutting it pretty close, but I know teamwork still makes the dream work and God has my back!!

 I still need $2200, which sounds scary, but really that is just 88 people making $25 donations.

 If fifteen people donate each day, I can still make it to St. Louis for the Natural hair and Black Culture expo.

 To sweeten the pot, I have added a REWARD!!! If you donate $25 or more to this campaign, you will get a coupon for $20 off your purchase of $25 or more at the Golden Goddess Store!!

 Give Love, Get FREE Rewards! Get your mom something pretty and planet friendly this Mother's day-- or use the coupon to get a gift for you!

 You deserve it, you generous wish granting Genie Goddess!

 Keep shining!

 -Ajah

I'm leaving THURSDAY! I'm still not sure how this trip will come together, but holding out for a miracle. If you haven't donated yet, THE TIME IS NOW!!!!!!

 No donation is too small (or too big ;-)... These are the last days and every penny counts!

 If you haven't donated yet, here are 5 reasons why you should stop what you're doing and DONATE right now!!

 Top 5 reasons to donate to #helpAjah

 5. Acts 20:35 says: "In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive.' " Giving is a blessing for the giver and the receiver-- by helping me, you help yourself to a double dose of God's grace and kindness, Plus, Jesus said it-- so it's true! Be my angel today and donate RIGHT NOW!

 4. Stick it to the man-- People of color receive less than 1% of all venture capital- including crowdfunding campaigns like this one. Go against the grain and show that #BlackQualityofLifeMattersToo by investing in a small business owned by a woman of color. (This woman's name is Ajah, btw).

 3. Invest in YOU! The more successful my business is, the more taxes I pay. The more taxes I pay, the better our schools, roads, and libraries get. An investment in a local business is an investment in your neighborhood. So go ahead, we deserve it!

 2. Pay it forward promise-- I haven't forgotten my promise. When I reach my goal of $3000 by midnight on Thursday, I will pay 10% of it forward by investing in someone else's dream! So your donation will go twice as far. Make TWO people's day! DONATE NOW!

 1. Be my FAVORite.... Chances are, if you are reading this, you might owe me a favor. I'd like to collect now. If you don't owe me a favor, you should donate anyway and then I will owe you one. And trust me, you want me to owe you a favor. I'm going to be a big deal one day.

 In conclusion, you should DONATE TODAY for all the aforementioned reasons. No amount is too small. No amount is too large. And there is NO WAY I can do this without your help.

 Kisses,

Ajah Diangella Nichol Hales

Next up, we'll explore what Ajah Hales, Field Director was up to during MYStory: the Lost Months

Openly Black: Is it safe to come out yet?

If you’re new to the BOTB and the sensitive type, you probably shouldn’t start with this post. Also I don’t really give warnings, so that’s pretty much the most you’ll ever get out of me going forward.

It’s February, and things are getting pretty black around here.

There are moments in life when you find yourself measuring time in increments of ‘before’ and ‘after’. February 2016 is already shaping up to be one of those moments for me. First, America  renewed my faith in democracy by saying NO to Trump. Then, Ta-Nehisi Coates criticized Bernie in such a way that over thirty new articles on reparations were written in under 15 days. Meanwhile, Cam Newton was busy being mistaken for Huey P. Newton because he had the audacity to enjoy being damn good at his job.

But the kicker, the moment that made it ‘before 2.16’ and ‘after 2.16’ in my mind was Beyonce’s live transition from consciousness in art to conscious artist as seen at super bowl fifty.

In case you have been living under a rock somewhere, here’s a quick 3SB on the whole SB50/HovNBey drama

3SB (Three Second Background)

1. On Friday the 5th, Jay Z donated $1.5 million to Black Lives Matter
2. On Saturday the 6th, Beyonce surprised the internet by dropping this lovely Ode to Blackness:
   Beyoncé - Formation (Dirty) from Michael Wells on Vimeo.
   

 3. On Sunday the 6th, Beyonce performed at the Super bowl, and her dancers wore this:

Courtesy of Twitter

Yeah, so like I said, it’s getting pretty black around here; and some white people are not taking it very well. Like, boycott Beyonce not well. Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said he thought it was rude of Beyonce to use the super bowl to “attack the police.”

Now, this is where things get interesting. Why is it that when we are discussing the words or actions of a person of color, ‘criticize’ and ‘attack’ suddenly become synonymous? Coates took heavy criticism from his peers for his ‘attack’ of Bernie Sanders, even though every one of his articles specifically stated that he agreed with Senator Sanders on several issues. Beyonce, by speaking out about the unchecked slaughter of black and brown bodies, is perceived as ‘attacking’ the police.

An old adage comes to mind: don’t bite the hand that feeds you.

White supremacy thrives on an illusion of equality maintained through a system of black exceptionalism. By this I mean if there is no hope that one can become rich enough to ‘transcend race’, no Oprahs, Obamas, and Kanyes, the natives become restless.

It’s a delicate balancing act. Statistically speaking, whites are only comfortable with 8-10% nonwhite people in a given sphere. (So basically, Booker T. was right all along.) The unwritten rule of black exceptionalism is conformity to white normative ideas of blackness. Most importantly, blacks in the public sphere must strive to never remind people that they are in fact, black.

If they are rich and still black, then integration has failed. If they do choose to remind people that they are black, they must do it in such a way that makes blacks the butt of the joke (i.e. Kanye West, Flava Flav, Dennis Rodman). This rule has held true for so long we as blacks no longer even question it.

When discussing the Coates/Johnson argument with someone way smarter than me who’s been at this way longer than I have, they remarked: “Even (Barack) Obama can’t afford to be openly pro-black in this political climate.”

The weight of this bitter truth hit me like a paintball to the boob. We have a black president, yet at his final State of the Union address, he tap danced around the slaughter of the people who elected him and said something that basically equated to ‘all lives matter’.

I understood the choice. The president has an aggressive climate agenda, and he decided to prioritize the continued  existence of the planet over the concerns of one subset of his constituency.

Before February, I had come to terms with a black President that couldn’t openly advocate for black Americans. I was alright with a Presidential hopeful that sidestepped race in favor of political expediency. I was okay with waiting. But that was before I realized that I too, like my negro nose with Jackson five nostrils.

Before I started asking unthinkable questions, like:

• If the richest 62 people could pay the deficit twice over and still have money left for an island or ten, why can’t we afford reparations?
• Why is what Beyonce did an ‘attack’, and what Ammon Bundy did a ‘protest’? Neither took hostages.
• Why are we only indicting Asian male police officers? Are Asians considered less white than I thought? Is this part of a larger agenda to divide and conquer minorities?
• Are blacks really better off than we were before Civil Rights? Economically? Socially?
• Why is George Washington a hero and Malcolm X a radical?
• Why is it okay for a man to become a woman who loves women, but not for a black person to speak openly about black issues?
• Why is it okay to be proud of being country, but ‘ghetto’ to be proud of being from the hood?
• Why are black features adored on everything but black women (and men)?
• Why do white journalists get to be individuals and black journalists have to be intellectuals/activists?
• If we’re all Africans like Meryl Streep said (which we are), why isn’t African history studied worldwide?

... and while we’re at it

• If we really care about drug epidemics, why aren’t we drone striking fields of poppies?
• Why do grocery stores throw away food when 1 in 4 American children are starving? Other countries have laws against things like that.

I don’t have all the answers. But as black and white consciousness rises, I realize with pride that I am living in times where it’s (sorta) okay to ask the questions. 2.16 isn’t even halfway over, and already America has started a real conversation about race that is 400 years past due.

Perhaps the limits of our collective conscription have finally been reached. Perhaps, after the initial shock wears off, openly black Americans will find the type of reluctant acceptance that openly gay Americans now enjoy(?).

Or maybe Beyonce will get assassinated by a rabid ‘patriot’. It really could go either way.

One things is abundantly clear though: before 2.16, race was America’s worst kept dirty little secret. Now, by strokes subtle and bold, blacks of all flavors are finally starting to come out of the closet.