French citizenship: New Dresscode - no veils allowed

France’s veil ruling is a triumph of style over substance.

As usual, distract the howling masses with bread and circus and if you can’t afford that, a bit of xenophobic hatred is free and just as welcome.

France is a country that prides itself on liberty, fraternity and equality, but only within a narrow definition of Frenchness. That definition has now been restricted further to exclude those who practice ‘radical’ forms of Islam. France has now refused citizenship over the wearing the full veil, in accordance with its recent policy of denying citizen ship to those pursuing a ‘radical’ practice of Islam. It has been deemed incompatible with a desire for integration - an essential requirement for citizenship.

The veil is a polarising issue. I wouldn’t wear it but respect the right of other women to wear it. Life as a modern woman running hither and thither in a mini skirt and high heels is not the happily-ever-after that some feminists like to think. The great thing about western society though is choice and diversity. Many women choose to wear the veil, for a variety of reasons. Should it be an issue for security checks or particular jobs? – Possibly. Should it be an issue for citizenship, I don’t believe so. Surely there are bigger fish to fry.

This is another example of France’s renowned intolerance when it comes to immigrants captured in films like the 1995 movie, La Haine and more recently ‘Entre les Murs’ - The Class 2008.

France’s response to its periodic race riots within its black and Arab communities has always been to tighten the screws rather than oil them. Having worked in France in 2000 and again in 2008, nothing much seems to have changed in terms of opportunities for visibly ethnic minorities. Where I worked, previously in an French investment bank (Societe Generale) and then again in a major news organisation (Reuters) (Interestingly both jobs were obtained from Britain through email and phone interviews), the lack of black people in senior roles in Paris was much more obvious to me than in Britain. Living in Paris like walking back into London in the 60s. Black people are more often the menial staff and even lucky to get those jobs in a country with 10 percent unemployment. French politics is has less representation for its ethnic minorities than Britain although it actually has a higher percentage of minorities. France’s first and only Muslim woman of North African origin, Rachida Dati, was hounded out of office by a jealous white elite.

Paris has become a veritable tale of two cities with poor whites and immigrants forced out into the ghettos of Clichy and Saint-Denis. The centre feels more like the surreality of a film set a Paris than a real multicultural metropolis.

Banning veils will not make France a safer or better place to live. It is just as vulnerable to terrorism as any other country. France needs to focus on rebuilding bridges between its communities, increasing tolerance and improving the conditions of its immigrant communities and the job prospects for its visibly ethnic communities. This is what people actually want, liberty, fraternity and equality - for everyone.

The Century of Self - Caveat Emptor

'The devil is in the cake mix'

Imagine, if a single man had been smothered at birth, the holocaust could have been avoided, the modern age of materialism might never have happened. Michael Jackson might not have carved up his face to look white, kids wouldn't be having kids and 13 year old black boys would'nt be running around shooting each other in inner cities.

Okay - maybe Michael Jackson would still have wanted to be white - but the truth is that if the genius Sigmund Freud had never reached adolescence, a lot of the social problems in the world today could have been averted.

I've been watching The Century of Self

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151&hl=en#

- which I believe is as much recommended watching as say the autobiography of Malcolm X, The Souls of Black Folk, the Mis-education of the Negro and so on and so forth are recommended reading for black folk. This is the lacuna that lies between our PTSS (post-traumatic slavery syndrome) and the modern day malaise at the heart of our community.

The Century of Self which began with Freud's theories of the unconscious mind and his psycho-analytical school of psychology have now become the War on Terror, black on black crime, teenage pregnancy, credit card debt and even Christian Louboutin stilettos.

Take the recent slogan for the latest edition of these outrageously priced heels. 'The alpha female is back with a 12 inch weapon'.

Freud sowed the seed and his various relations and intellectual peers fertilised and cross fertilised the ideas creating the society we have today.

It is ironic that after being inspired by Freud's ideas, Hitler burned his books. I guess having understood the potential behind ideas of crowd control, subconscious desire, mass culture, brain washing he didn't want anyone else getting their hands on them.

Freud's ideas came to America and the UK as books in the suitcases of intellectual Jews fleeing the holocaust. Initially treated as the ivory tower theories of intellectual nutjobs, Freudian theories were recognised by industries for their commercial potential. PR, Marketing, Ad-men - these whole professions came into being and grew rich thanks to Theories of the Unconscious mind.

Of course Freud this wasn't Freud's masterplan. He died long before others took his ideas and ran with them. Many psychologists believed these revolutionary theories would actually make people much happier. So how, can something as innocuous as an ad-campaign be responsible for Broken Britain, which has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe or violence or an America which incarcerates 1 in 5 black men?

It all started with cake mix. Betty Crocker actually. Next time you sink your teeth into some devils food frosting, think about how Betty Crocker was the guinea pig campaign that is the reason why some 13 year old kid is lying in the gutter bleeding out from two to the head.

Its not Betty Crocker's fault - she just wanted to take the suffering out of making a cake for housewives and ad-men helped her do it. You see the 50's housewife didn't want a ready made cake. They were from a generation that believed in hard work, the virtue in labour. They were suspicious of getting something for nothing - a cake from a ready made mix. Advertisers had to trick housewives into thinking they were doing serious work by instructing them to add an egg.

Appealing to their subconscious desires - taking the suffering out - but making us think we've

earned it - , because I'm worth it!!! -its fed down through to the point where we think we deserve everything. Conditioned to believe in instant gratification, to mock discipline and hard work as the province of the mug.

When you suffer/are denied something you really want or need, you learn something about life. But the governement and soppy liberal culture is conditioning our children and tomorrow's children to consume, to believe in easy money, to avoid suffering and learning. They aren't really encouraging our children to read. They can't burn the books, like

Hitler did but they don't want too many geniuses around, doing the maths on expenses, asking questions about fake dossiers, being solvent and thus free. So they train them to be useless and empty headed. That way they be used, controlled and expendable.

"These special pants will help you bag a baller. - buy now!"

I urge you to watch The Century of Self. But beware, you might learn an uncomfortable truth about yourself.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8953172273825999151&hl=en#

The fabulous life of Vanessa Walters

Somethings you never knew about Vanessa Walters.
Some people think because of the way I speak and because I have had a good education that I’ve had some sort of silver spoon life. I also find that because I dress girly and because I’m fairly shy and polite in public, that some write me off as a Paris-Hilton type airhead. Sometimes it works for me, to be underestimated – other times I find it irritating – especially when these comments are coming from malicious underachievers who don’t really know anything about me.
They’ve seen me in a club or with other friends and just make lazy assumptions about the kind of person I must be. I’m someone who always tries to celebrate the achievements of others. I also aim to be sweet and friendly to be people I meet but find my kindness is very much taken for weakness.
E.G There’s this guy – malicious underachiever – he’s the kind of jesus sandal, bead-wearing, dashiki know-it-all who walks around like the poster child for black empowerment. I come across this type of person often and the encounter is usually disheartening. This particular guy believes that if you don’t have afro hair and you don’t walk around in loose-fitting overalls that you are not intelligent.
I once offered to help him with a mentoring drive he was running (bearing in mind I am a twice published author with several plays staged, a law and French law degree and a job working for the Financial Times). He looked me up and down and said in front of other people rudely, ‘Maybe you could hand out flyers’.
He is a philosopher poet of sorts and his poetry is good – I just don’t get what qualifies him to look down on others because of the way they look. He hasn’t won any awards. His poetry hasn’t made him rich or won him a battalion of fans. He’s just an average Joe trying his luck like anyone else.
When I was 16 I wrote my first novel Rude Girls,which was published a year and a half later. This made me well known as a writer and slightly famous at the time but did not change my life. But that’s when the ‘silver spoon’ comments began creeping in.
I’ve found this very surprising as I don’t set out to speak ‘posh’ although I’m privately educated. I think I speak ‘London’. – maybe a bit newsreader but I wouldn’t call that posh actually. I guess its my own fault then that I’m assumed to have had the life of Riley.
Ha! If only!!!!
I had a pretty shit childhood. I enjoyed it, don’t get me wrong. But I came from your typical single mom, social housing household. We never had any money – never had a TV (oh people love to hate me for this – they think that was soooo middle class and intellectual of my mum. Actually we were just broke!). We never had a car or a shower or central heating or even carpet! We had lino throughout the house lol! It was bright red. We didn’t have a hoover (the lack of carpet thing). My mum was never there.
She used to leave me alone at nights to go to her evening classes and once got into trouble with the police over it after a paedophile got my phone number and started harassing me.
Santa Clause never visited me. Neither did the tooth fairy. My mum kept an axe behind ‘our’ bed just in case someone broke in and a special belt in the wardrobe with which she used to beat me when I got out of hand – which I did a lot. I was rude and very inquisitive. Actuaylly, I’m proud of her for disciplining me. The thought of the belt kept me out of trouble when she wasn’t around, which was pretty often.
I was very loved – by her and my grandparents. My father couldn’t and still to this day doesn’t really give a shit whether I’m dead or alive, hoeing myself on a street corner somewhere or starving to death. He certainly never calls to check. When I was 21 he called me to say we shouldn’t bother with a relationship but should say hi if we see each other on the street then keep going. That just about sums up our relationship. When my mum asked him for financial help – he told her to get on her hands at knees at Kings Cross station – that she would have a better chance of getting some money there. I don’t know why he was such a bastard. Certainly I don’t remember him ever being nice. Just cold, distant and weird. We haven’t spoken since 2003 when I tried to commit suicide (I just couldn’t take my wonderful life of Riley anymore) and am very ambivalent about speaking to him again. It was bad for my health.
My mum always dressed me in Tomboy clothes. They were the cheapest – she got them second hand from charity shops – ha! I used to get so excited when we went trawling through those charity shops on a Saturday morning .
Those photos are on Facebook now. Some of my school friends put them up. That’s bitter sweet. I mean, its my childhood, right. I loved being a kid. But there’s something aftertasty about seeing yourself dressed as a boy when you’re pretty sure you were a girl. That’s why I’m extra girly now. I love pinks and skirts and heels and hair extensions and lipgloss. Some people write that off as airheady. I guess they have no way to tell but I’m just living a childhood dream that I could be beautiful. Sorry if that steps on your toes – not!
What else – oh yeah. My mum, she always used to leave me places and turn up real late to pick me up. She was a single mum, she was always chasing her own tail. In the school playground, watching the world go by from 3.30 till 5, 6, 7. One day I was there must be till 8pm and my class teacher took me home. Jimmy was there. Oh that’s a whole nother story – the ageing boyfriend my mum never ever admitted to. He was wearing nothing except a towel around his waist. My teacher asked me if I wanted to go home with her or stay with Jimmy unitl my mum got back. I went home with my teacher. It was everything I dreamed a home could be. There was carpet and everything was clean and nice. I went to my ‘own’ bed with lovely clean sheets and I had a lovely sleep until the next morning when I went back to school and realised my mum had been in a lot of trouble.
I moved school to Moss Hall. Loved Moss Hall. They had an afterschool club and so instead of watching the world go by, I’d watch TV until 5,6, 7 o’clcok when my mum remembered she had a daughter. (Okay, she was at work – but still!) I learned about jam and peanut butter sandwiches here and fell in love with a beautiful boy called Daniel. Of course he never looked twice at me – unless it was to play football. I was dressed as a boy, remember?
Anyway, so much to moan about – so little time. I guess I was always quite smart. As well as second hand clothes, I got second hand books, lots of them at less than 10 p a pop. I also learned to be a fast reader in WH Smith. We’d hang out there for an hour on Saturdays. It wasn’t like Borders – they didn’t let you sit down and the security guard sometimes came over and told you to stop reading. But anyway, those were some of my best times – speed reading standing up in WH Smith. I once skim read a whole Enid Blyton Chalet School book in about an hour.
When it was time to go to secondary school my mum was determined I was going to go to a ‘nice private’ school – and chose Queen’s College on account of the fact that it seemed very exclusive and City of London on the account of the fact it seemed very popular. I got into both but she chose Queen’s which was a mistake because it wasn’t very exclusive or academic but she did her best . it was still better thant he school down the road.
People at school will probably be surprised to read this. I was adept at glossing very quickly. The girls seemed so wealthy to me (but actually just daughters of corporate lawyers, accountants and Harley Street doctors) – I just started pretending life was great.
Obviously no-one ever came to my house so I just never told them me mum and Jimmy all slept in the same bed with axe behind it – that my teeth were crooked because mum never bothered to take me to the dentist – that my feet developed terrible bunions because my shoes were second hand and ill-fitting. God – its just like Angela’s ashes isn’t it?
After Christmas, I’d make-believe the presents I’d received (I rarely got any – even from my mum). I’d bully mum into giving me money for presents for my classmates even though they didn’t give me any. I was just desperate to keep up the facade, you know. That was my struggle – keeping up with the Joneses as much as I could.
When I was 16 and awash with book money - which I quickly frittered away in an orgy of new clothes and teenage gadgets (no-one helped me manage my money) I suddenly noticed the silver spoon thing. I never invited friends home because at that time, we were all sleeping on two mattresses in one room. We had a desk in another room for me to work and half a bed frame in the living room which was a sofa. But it was taken for snottiness, coldness. I was considered silver spoon and distant.
This is especially true of my few ‘local’ friends who went to local comprehensives and also had disfunciotnal families. But no-one seemed to be living the hard knock life we were living. I don’t know how come we were so poor. My mum tried to get it together – she took the teacher training course but then found the work too stressful. She failed her ACCA four times- then didn’t have any money or confidence left to keep going. She never passed a driving test and her evening classes never seemed to amount to much. She’s a smart woman – I guess being a single mum and trying to have a career was just asking too much. She was on tranquilisers for many years. This was pre-prozac. The comedown from these was horrific - she used to throw plates at me, broken glass, shoes. Boxes. I still have tiny scars from some of these battles. She once turned me out of the house at two in the morning in my night dress for something pretty minor. That was one of the few times I called my dad for help and he called mum and talked her down.
Mum had a kid for an African dude who I really liked but never stuck around long enough to see his daughter. He never came back and never sent a photo although he did write once. His name was Orphan – appropriate enough for the child he left behind. Anyway – life’s little irony – he broke all our hearts, especially my mums. She hit the tranquilisers hard after that and I don’t think she ever recovered. She’s so bitter and weird now. It makes me really wary of men. The rest, the poverty, the trouble with social services, the working two crap jobs to put second hand clothes on our backs – that was just like life’s little adventure compared to having her heart broken. It really makes me cry for her thinking about that.
Moving on now. So Jimmy died when my sister was about 3. I loved Jimmy to death. Even though by this time he was about 70 and covered in scabs from his psoriasis and a frail blind skeleton because of his diabetes. I didn’t visit him enough. He was in an old people’s home far away and I was too busy being spending my book money and trying to have a life. He taught me a lot of things and even though people looked down on us because we were poor and black and crap at life – he educated me and gave me values and pride in myself – not for being pretty or having things but for being smart and curious about life.
Anyway, so Jimmy’s dead and its me my mum and my sister and I know what you’re thinking – when does the silver spoon bit happen? LMAO.
I do sometimes find it hard to get close to people. I always have to hold stuff back – keep things secret that I’m ashamed of, like the number of men I’ve slept with or what my life is like- and then I think I secretly resent them for having such nice lives with nice mummies and daddies and nice families and homes and nice memories - not of being run at with broken glass or turfed out of home at 2 am when you’re fifteen and having to go to school the next day and pretend you were all up playing monopoly or something.
I’ve not earned a million bucks or won major awards or had a super duper high flying career and my lack of confidence has often held me back. But I am proud of my achievements. My two published novels and recent poetry collection. My plays. I’m currently working for Reuters in Paris - I have my own apartment just off Boulevard Haussman. I’m engaged to a really nice man who treats me like a princess and really supports my work. I have a few truly great friends, who have been my friends for many years and hopefully many more and I’m really hopeful of achieving my dreams of having a proper family, security, love, warmth and contentment. Being left alone at nights has left me chronically afraid of the dark. I hope I can conquer this and some of my other fears.
Writing this has been very cathartic for me. I hope its been interesting for you too.

Is Obama Ludacris?

Is Obama being Ludacris in denouncing hip hop?

God, with friends like these – Obama must be desperate for some enemies. First embarrassed by his favourite preacher, Jeremiah Wright, now Obama’s had to publicly distance himself from his ‘favourite rapper’ Ludacris. It just goes to show, you can’t have lunch with anyone these days without getting a stomach ache.
According to the BBC and other media, A new song by rapper Ludacris (lyrics below) criticising Barack Obama's opponents has been called "outrageously offensive" by his campaign. The Obama supporting song called “Politics As Usual” refers to George Bush as mentally handicapped, Hilary Clinton as a bitch who was ‘hating on him’ and says McCain should only have a chair if he’s paralysed. It contains the refrain ‘Obama is here’.
While mild compared to other rap releases (I’m immediately thinking the newly platinum “Lollipop” by Lil Wayne), the language nevertheless has drawn condemnation from the Obama camp. Obama recently stated that he deplored the degraded state of hip hop so presumably had nowhere else to go on these lyrics. But hip hop is a music of conflict as is the rapper Ludacris, who I met in London when he came to promote his first mainstream single ‘Fantasy’. He was a gentleman who took me to lunch in Pizza Hut and then rapped acapella to me in Kensington Palace Gardens. His lyrics are anything but – ‘Fantasy’glorifies the easy lay and the man’s right to objectify - as does he’s second major hit -‘She’s a ho’.
Obama’s public statements seem insincere after apparently praising Ludacris in private. ‘Said I handled my biz and I’m one of his favourite rappers’. Has he listened to the Ludacris back catelogue? Oh and suddenly because he used the word ‘bitch’ he’s outraged? Come on, I don’t buy it.
Obama’s gotta do what he’s gotta do which, which at the moment seems to be praise in private, pillory in public. But going forward, he’s got to tackle some of the conflicts about being black and excluded and having a different perspective to other ethnicities about. He can’t just dismiss them. There are serious issues to be address, not just on misogyny – which is huge and a black male parenting ethic that is not so much laissez-faire as laissez-tomber. The black man remains very much a misunderstood myth. How amazing would it be if he were to articulate on one hand the conflicts in hip hop and the conflicts that exist for black men in particular. For example, on one hand the persecution and on the other hand the persecution complex. Bring the experiences and perspectives of Wright and others under the spotlight and lets have a proper debate. Wright a racist? That’s way too simplistic. He’s a product of his environment, in the same way a Palestinian freedom fighter or Jewish settler might be. This is something Obama once endeavoured to do when the media first questioned his relationship with this preacher, but when the heat became too much he quickly washed his hands like Pontius Pilate.
He’s attempting to do the same with Ludacris but this one’s going to run and run as more controversial figures step up to endorse Obama.


Here are the lyrics of Ludacris' Obama Song
I'm back on it like I just signed my record dealYeah the best is here, the Bentley Coup paint is dripping wet, it got sex appealNever should have hatedYou never should've doubted himWith a slot in the president's iPod Obama shattered 'em
Said I handled his biz and I'm one of his favorite rappersWell give Luda a special pardon if I'm ever in the slammerBetter yet put him in office, make me your vice presidentHillary hated on you, so that bitch is irrelevant
Jesse talking slick and apologizing for what?If you said it then you meant it how you want it have a gut!And all you other politicians trying to hate on my man,watch us win a majority vote in every state on my man
You can't stop what's bout to happen, we bout to make historyThe first black president is destined and it's meant to beThe threats ain't fazing us, the nooses or the jokesSo get off your ass, black people, it's time to get out and vote!
Paint the White House black and I'm sure that's got 'em terrifiedMcCain don't belong in any chair unless he's paralyzedYeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicappedBall up all of his speeches and I throw 'em like candy wrap'cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevantand you the worst of all 43 presidents
Get out and vote or the end will be nearThe world is ready for change because Obama is here!'cause Obama is hereThe world is ready for change because Obama is here!

Lil Wayne - what is he really for?

Lil Wayne – the 30 year old rapper.

This is probably the guy women would rather not go on a blind date with.
Unless he’s already famous. Wannabe is never a good term
Wanna be doing a degree or getting a day job is slightly more encouraging.
But there’s probably nothing less attractive than the kind of man Lil Wayne represents.
He was a great accessory on soldier by Destiny’s Child and some of his appearances on other tracks have definitely added a quirky thug element to those tunes.
But on his own debut ‘Lollipop’ the hollowness that is Lil Wayne becomes all too apparent. Barely audible amidst the bleeped out cuss words, Lil Wayne talks about how a girl begs to be licked like a lollipop or ‘yawn’ is it the other way around. We’re driving through – where? LA? Las Vegas, in a massive stretch Hummer full of pretty scantily clad girls and Lil Wayne is oh, on top of the Cadillac sucking a lollipop . I’d expect this of Lil Bow Wow, not a rapper who has been waiting in the wings to blow for the last decade.
Sigh. What do I know about music? Well, I would be the first to agree that my mental back catalogue is hardly exhaustive but while I might appreciate your genius references to former masters of the art or nods to current affairs (there weren’t any), your clever sampling (beats are admittedly awesome) and oh what a good rift. I’m more concerned with what is it for? The chips are stacking up but where are they going?
This is the point Fat Joe misses when he claims he is the elephant in the room of hip hop, the guy who sells all the records, gets the summer banger but no awards. Well – its cos, once the noise is turned down, what was it Fat Joe, the sum of your various parts – Lean Back, New York, I won’t tell, it was nothing. A void, a vacuum, because like one night stand sex – you leave no lasting memory.
But back to Lil Wayne. I was expecting more of you. Fiddy, might be churning empty bangers now but his first commercially successful album, however dark and anti-Christ in Spirit, brought it home. He reminded us what hip hop was supposed to be about. Not gurning on the top of Cadillac with a lollipop in your mouth – but it was supposed to be heavyset and macho and fucking - like ‘these are the days of our lives’ in epic storytelling scale. Excuse me as I recall, NWA, Nas, Easy-E, Jay Z, Biggie Smalls, Tu Pac (may he live forever), Public Enemy.
If this is your debut, can we expect the rest of your album to represent anything more than the soggy thong of the girl you slept with after your video shoot was over?
Answers on a postcard please?

Zadie Smith disses black female writers.

Shame on you Zadie

‘Being the only black women in a bestseller list doesn’t mean that you’re the only black woman who can write well.’

Anyone who gets out and about, attends open mic or networking events knows that there are a lot of talented black people out there, working hard – even if they don’t end up famous. The few who make it into the ether – usually do because some mainstream person in power has chosen to believe in them. ie – luck. Leona Lewis was a world class, hard working singer prior to winning X-factor, but it was Simon Cowell who made her a star. Likewise, while there are many beautiful, tall black women walking the streets of London, it was being ‘discovered ‘ that transformed Naomi Campbell’s life. It doesn’t mean she was the only great looker in South London at the time. Zadie Smith wrote the excellent White Teeth – but would it have been pushed to the extent that it was if she had not been backed by Salmon Rushdie?

Zadie Smith is a great writer and has received wordwide attention for her efforts. Disturbingly, her latest literary effort has been to ‘diss’ black female writing wholesale in her forward to the re-release of ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’. This epic story published in 1937 was written by the pre-eminent African American female writer of the time and Virago Press no doubt found it fitting to commission Zadie Smith – clearly the pre-eminant ‘black’ (she doesn’t like the word but will take the commission thank you very much) female writer of today.

She then spent half the foreword rubbishing her fellow female black writers in a global attack. It wasn’t specific. It didn’t distinguish between – say – How Stella Got Her Groove Back and Beloved, or African American and Black British. It didn’t emphasise the great things about black female writing. There was no balance. She took a stick and beat the past 30 years of our contributions indiscriminately.

‘Too often unerringly strong and soulful, sexually voracious and unafraid. They take the unreal forms of earth mothers, African queens, divas, sprits of history. They process grandly through novels thick with a breeding of greeting card lyricism. They have little of the complexity, the flaws, and uncertainties depth and beauty of Janie Crawford and the novel she springs from. They are pressed into service as role models to patch over our psychic wounds. They are perfect. They over compensate.’

So Miss Smith, a chance encounter has given you a platform from which to crow over the rest. Now what? Isn’t some humility expected - some tacit acknowledgement that being the only black women in a bestseller list doesn’t mean that you’re the only black woman who can write well?

And what of this greeting card lyricism? Unlike Miss Smith (who says she feels uncomfortable reading books by black women because its somehow expected of her) – many of us do actively seek out books by black women because we’re looking for some record of our unique experiences. You can call us people of the Diaspora or you can just call us black. We want to know what happened to our great-great-great grandparents – the life they lived. We want to know about today’s black women. We want to listen to someone who understands how hard it is sometimes to face the world with our ‘nappy’ hair and our dark skin and the weight of the world’s preconceived ideas on our shoulders.

Zadie Smith clearly doesn’t feel that way and was the wrong choice for this foreword. Zora Neale Thurston understood firsthand what it meant to be a black woman. She grew up in an all-black town. She only received her high school education after lying about her age. She then got a scholarship to Howard University. After being feted during the Harlem renaissance she was tossed aside by the mainstream and died in obscurity. If Zadie Smith doesn’t get black female writing, then maybe she’s just not black enough.

The Angry Sistas taking over Facebook

I’ve known a couple of ‘wastemen’ in my time. It’s difficult not to. They tend to launch themselves at you when you’re just minding your own business on the street with chat up lines like ‘You’re the buffest ting I’ve seen since I got out of jail.’

When Darwin developed his hunter gatherer theory on evolution. He clearly forgot about the Wasteman – the man who hunts women and gathers children but doesn’t provide – the man not in the history books because he has no official name, just several aliases – one for every manor. Like Samuel L Jackson in The Long Kiss Goodnight, he's Frank and Ernest – in New York he's Frank and in Chicago he's Ernest.


My ex was a classic ‘wasteman’. I used to carry a box of eggs in the glove compartment of my car and each time I passed his gleaming black BMW (we lived close by) Kapow! Splat! Boom! Just one of those days that a girl goes through, when I’m angry in side, and I’m gonna take it out on you. What on earth did he do to deserve that – oh, only lie , cheat, slap me in the face, try to bully me into taking out a £10,000 loan for him, you know – the usual.

At least this is the usual sort of man represented on the 'women against wastemen' page. Its two thousand members upload a gallery of ‘wastemen’ from convicted rapist Mike Tyson to cheating husband Harvey. There is a name and shame section where men are unceremoniously outed for their ‘waste’ behaviour amid lots of female cackling and heckling. But laughter aside, there’s obviously a lot of pain here. Some people are nominating their dads, which as one post comments is 'some deep shit'.


When I saw this group, my heart soared. Here finally was a much needed real-time forum for sistas old and young to share their pain about men. Started by a intelligent sista studying at Manchester University. She describes her aim as empowering women to deal with ‘wasteman syndrome’. Its silly but also as deep as you want to take it with some message posts from truly traumatised women and legions of offended men (and women) who find the group very negative.

After all, as one brave brother posted (he was immediately surrounded and manhandled to the ground), 2000 sistas devoted to a positive cause could change the world, but 2000 sistas devoted to negativity will just further negativity.

Okay yeah – but no- but I think that misses the point. This isn’t a ‘cause’ –if you want a cause you can join the Mother Daughter Project Uganda or Remember Lindsay Hawker. 'Women against the Wasteman' is mass scab itching in all its bloody glory, nothing more, nothing less.
There’s got to be a place for women and especially Sistahs to do that. Its okay. Some of our experiences are so bad you have to laugh or cry and this group is utterly hilarious – no bad thing.

Besides which, the men haven’t maintained the higher moral ground for long either. Hot on the heels of Women against the Wasteman is 'Men Against Wastegash' – The Big Brother contestant renowned for her shallow ideals Charley Uchea coming in for some stick there, unsurprisingly.

Of course the more we complain, the more stories we have to tell, the more the joke is on us. Wastemen wouldn’t exist if the demand wasn’t there. There are plenty of Nicemen, but guess what – no group dedicated to them. We get so caught up with being victims – we forget our own role in ‘waste’ relationships – chasing down the bad men – raising our sons to be ‘waste’ – having kids for men who aren’t worth it. You know what they say, behind every ‘waste’ man…..