Success by Design: Enticement starts with your own willingness to seek

I am just back from an AMAZING experience. A life changing experience. Attending TED2009-The Great Unveiling in Long Beach, Ca. I was selected as one of 40 fellows to attend this invitation-only conference of ideas worth spreading. I met Bill Gates and hung with Quincy Jones and many more. As the lyrics from John Lennon's song Imagine say "You may say I'm a dreamer" but at TED I got that "I'm not the only one."

Out of watching the TED Talks online for over 2 years I got I LOVE design. TED stands for Technology/Entertainment/Design but it's so much more. So this fab pic of the construction that has begun in Saudi Arabia on the King Abdulaziz Centre for Knowledge and Culture by Norwegian architects Snøhetta is but one example. Isn't it a sight!! Check out the TED Talk on Romance.

Design also applies to the way we view people of the opposite sex. We often have designs that do not create connectedness with the opposite sex. Like we are wired for distance. I just had a wonderful exchange with a sister who is coming to the new launching of SWTOS in Brooklyn next week (the fourth Friday of each month--Feb 27th at my place). She created an opening for Success with the Opposite Sex before she even came to the event.

I came up with a great idea for forward the gender parity I so love to create at each event. The regular fee is $10/person. Bonus: $15 for a pair of the opposite sex (and you need not be interested in each other).

I got an email from let's call her dreadsistren. Here is our exchange created like a Twitter feed:

@kyraocity Thanks for the info. The special rate sounds great but the only male I know that might want to come is a romantic involvement and I saw that you'd prefer we don't bring anyone in that situation.

@dreadsistern Hey! There are 6.7 billion people on the planet and half are males. Consider that you need to expand your circle of male friends. If I may, you might ask you male friend if he has any partners who might be interested in coming. Also you are welcome, if you are comfortable with it, bring your romantic interest. It's totally up to you. We have had couples join us. Your choice. But consider asking men you think are looking or lonely from work/ school/ or family too. You made me laught with you only know one man. LOL

@kyraocity lol. No, I said the only man I know who might want to come. I should have added also the only man who I think would concentrate on the conversations at hand and not just attend the event to try to get some booty. I know quite a few men but they wouldn't be interested in/or think it's necessary to try to expand their knowledge. As you know, many of these men out here already know everything. lol

@dreadsistren Got it. Maybe we women in their lives will be the catalyst for creating an environment where our arrogance doesn't blind us. Where the truth can be told. Both sexes need a change or two (it's a two way game and if we're not winning neither are they). Dating is one thing. Satisfaction and fulfillment--that's what SWTOS is about! So consider you might be holding them like they can't learn new tricks or you may be determining the answer to whether they are interested FOR them. Give 'em the choice and bring a few No's back as evidence. LOL

@kyraocity Point taken. I'm going to forward the info to some of them and see what happens. [Few minutes later...]

@kyraocity What I did was highlighted the info from the meetup page, deleted your phone number and only left the borough (no need for them to know unless they're interested in coming). I left the statement you have about the type of group it is and I added this:

I told the organizer I only know 1 male who might be interested in this but she told me to (rightfully so) leave the decision making up to the individual. So here's an FYI. This group is from meetup.com.

I sent it to males and females. I'll let you know if I get any responses.

@dreadsistren Awww! Thank you for your willingness to be related to the opposite sex! That's what I'm talking about. That was as good as watching the Obamas dance to "At Last"!! Don't it feel good too!? LOL

@kyraocity lol. I can't wait to see what folks have to say. Well, time for some dishes and my exercises. I'll get back to you later, hun. Have a great day!

@dreadsistren It's so inspiring to me and you now have a sense of what my events are about. Really making a difference in small acts and the simple pleasures of the opposite sex. I loved your honesty! I bet you'll be surprised by their responses. Even if they say no, be willing to be surprised about what you learn about yourself relative to men!

Hello 2009! It's a brand new world--Obama Time!

I am about to run off to DC. Still seems like a dream that Barack Obama, Michelle and their two daughters will be living in the White House. Who woulda thought we would be painting the White House black from inside. LOL

This pic reminds me of what I want for relationships. It's not soething you have to put into words. It's there in their embrace. And in the world watching and getting who we truly can be. More than a sitcom called The Cosby Show. More than statistics. More than the odds. Simply said. Love. Acceptance. The fulfillment of our hope. The challenge to be who we really are. Everything and the place to create from - nothing.

Returning to blogging regularly here. I can promise once a week. And invite one of you to come blog with me here. Esp. a man!! Want both sides of the equation.

Happy Inauguration!! Love to the world.

Ludicrous Video: "Obama Thinks I'm Good, Bitch!"

farcical: broadly or extravagantly humorous; resembling farce; "the wild farcical exuberance of a clown"; "ludicrous green hair"

absurd: incongruous;inviting ridicule; "the absurd excuse that the dog ate his homework"; "that's a cockeyed idea"; "ask a nonsensical question and get a nonsensical answer"; "a contribution so small as to be laughable"; "it is ludicrous to call a cottage a mansion"; "a preposterous attempt to ...
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Idiotic or unthinkable, often to the point of being funny
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ludicrous

So many things to talk about this Monday August 4th. Let's see a year ago, I had my debut at Joe's Pub and premiered "Strapped (She Come Fifty)" about Coretta Scott King, Nina Simone and Daisy Bates in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. Got a video of the song from the Cornelia Street Café performance on Jul 22nd coming soon.

Was checking out Myspace IMPACT and ran across the MTV campaign's Big Question about HIV called LOOKING GOOD OR STAYING ALIVE. The videos posted by Lupe Fiasco, Wyclef and Ne-Yo are rife with the wrong commentary. We get so caught up in the obvious, we miss what's going on that is driving the show about HIV or Herpes or any conversations about sex in public culture. Namely, it's all about OTHER people doing the right thing. Never telling their own intimate stories about their own changes in lifestyle. Cuz' we know popular artists are ROLE MODELS for sex.

To start the week off, a quick share about some really witty commentary on the Ludacris video for Obama.

ill Doctrine has the fabulous witty social commentary videos on YouTube and this one is priceless and speaks for itself. ill Doctrine is a hip-hop video blog hosted by Jay Smooth, creator of the hip hop music blog and founder of New York's longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad.I love it when a brother tells it like it is about hip-hop utterly ludicrous misogyny with wit and humor. Illdoctine's video is true satire! Tell me what you think about the Ludacris video and this commentary.


Obama's Ludacris Issue



Check out the Ludacris video if you haven't seen it yet.

Kyra's First YouTube Video Upload: AGREE TO BE OFFENDED

Today is one of those Kuloo Kalay Frabjous Days!! I am diverging from my usual topics to share that... I POSTED MY FIRST VIDEO ON YOUTUBE TODAY! Oh Frabjous Joy!! But will the Jabberwock go galumphing back? Will I get comments? Will they like it? Will you? Let me know. It's a timely piece on race given the recent satire around Michele and Barack Obama. It's still not fully loaded yet. But stay tuned!

AGREE TO BE OFFENDED


7/16: Quality is poor but I am working out the kinks asap!

The New Yorker Cover: "Michelle" and "Obama"

Thank God for Web 2.0 and the possibility of voicing reactions and comments to media as soon as it hits the stands or appears online. The July 21, 2008 issue of the New Yorker entitled “The Politics of Fear,” features a satire of the Senator Obama and his wife. Reminder of a working definition of racism I use in my work on Agree to Be Offended™ : Curious Connections in Conversations of Race:

• The learned practices, attitudes, thoughts, expressions, suspicions (and now I must add representations) that maintain an inferior view of the dominated group.
• The stigmatizing of difference along lines of ‘racial’ or physical characteristics real or imagined.
• Making others different in order to justify an advantage/ invalidate a disadvantage.
  

Here is a description of the cover courtesy the DISH RAG by Elizabeth Snead (LA Times):

"Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's campaign is furious over a New Yorker mag cover illustration of a Muslim-garbed Obama fist-bumping his wife, Michelle, wearing an Angela Davis afro, a camo jumpsuit, and a rifle slung over her shoulder. An American flag burns in the fireplace.

Obama's camp calls it 'tasteless and offensive.' So for that matter does presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain's camp.

The New Yorker insists it's just satire."

Oddly enough, the New Yorker's website features this black-and-white pic of Barack Obama registering an older black women. A much more safe, conventional shot of photojournalism evoking a more staid interpretation of black men in politics.

CAN WE CREATE A NEW FUTURE FOR OUR RELATIONSHIPS
I've been thinking about how to invite more people onto my blog and into a conversation, a national conversation, about the impact of life in the U.S. on black relationships and how what happens in black relationships between the sexes might be significant to the nation as a whole.

Why can't we support and empower healthy relationships between black men and women? As I've mentioned in previous posts, stats show that each sex among black people is increasingly remaining single (not just women). I've joked recently about an online dating service I use which I suggested renaming BLACK PEOPLE DON'T MEET. What messages does this cover leave people with about the state of racism in America and its impact on intimacy, esteem, and credibility in the public sphere between the races and sexes? I can agree to be offended but I won't be silent about it.

Black Male Leadership in America and Support of Young Black Boys and Men in our Communities

Unity for Change events happened all over the U.S. yesterday. In Brooklyn we crossed the Brooklyn Bridge into Manhattan with NY State Senator Eric Adams and a well-trained crew of activists with the Obama campaign. There was about 50-70 of us from age 5 to 60 and we chanted and got folks to blow their horns on the bridge. I learned I live in Senator Adams' jurisdiction, the 20th Senate District in Brooklyn (incl. Crown Heights). I told him of my concern about the kids in the high school on my corner where a knifing took place about a month and a half ago. Helicopters circled around my block for what seemed like half the day. I was thinking this is terrorizing our community. How long can you look for someone who knifed another kid in high school from an aerial view? And just how many times do they actually find anyone this way?

Senator Adams was familiar with Paul Robeson High on the corner of Albany and Dean in Crown Heights. He mentioned the knifing. That's probably the news that distinguishes the memory of the community relative to what's happening today. Sad.

I met some great people on the hike across the bridge. Two Ethiopian born Brooklynites. We had a chat about the possibility Barack Obama is to America. I mentioned that about 12 years ago I attended a Youth GospelFest co-sponsored by Quaker Oats where a white rep from the sponsor told a house full of black children and their parents "maybe one in 25 years from now, one of you will be president". In hindsight I can see what he was trying to do, but it left the rest of the adults in the room like me in shock. Back then that wasn't even a possibility, but it landed like we'd have to wait that long according to this white men. It couldn't happen now.

Thank God we really cannot predict the future, but we sure can be the change we want to see int the world. Barack has a future he is causing and he has invited us all to do the same.

I am writing a song about the saggin' pants that stand on the corners whom I've been criticizing but forgetting who I really am. A professor, someone who could listen their dreams and perhaps assist them in making it happen. A success coach. A member of their community. The song is called WHO LET 'EM DOWN signifying on their saggin pants and who we adults have not been being for this young men.

Always watchin' them in silence
While my teeth are filled with rage
Doing the nothing is such violence

Everyday I don't deliver
Went to college but I run
from saggin pants I let down...

(Hook:) I'd like to change the world--- but I don't know what to do-o.

The myth that this style of dress comes from Riker's Island may be true but what's worse is that those of us with college and university degrees are a brain drain on our communities if we don't step up, lift these brothers up to their dreams. It's not what we want for them, but what they want for themselves or their lives. The song says "Being liberal is such nonsense."

We'll roll this puppy out in an acoustic set for voice and guitar at my gigs this summer. Next one is Sat July 5th in Rockville, MD at Caribou Cafe at 6:30pm (no cover) and then on Tue Jul 21 at Cornelis Street Cafe in Manhattan at 8:30pm ($10)

A DOSE OF REALITY 'SAGGIN PANTS" (from documentary)

Obama, Racism + Sexism, and Agreeing to be Offended

RACISM AND SEXISM LIMIT SUCCESS WITH OPPOSITE SEX
I came across Michelle Obama and the silence of the feminists on the blog THE G-SPOT while creating a subscription for the word "racism" on del.icio.us account at http://del.icio.us/subscriptions/kyraocity. . This led me to the blog Jack and Jill Politics where I found the offensive image of Michelle Obama to the right: she's being branded by the KKK. The image apparently first appeared on a democratic site (not a McCain or Bush site) that supported Hilary Clinton. Jack and Jill Politics provides insightful criticism about this event. It's a must read.

"AGREE TO BE OFFENDED"
I gave a workshop on racism on May 18th at Landmark Education's Conference for Global Transformation in San Francisco. The title of the presentation is "Agree to be Offended: Curious Connections in Conversations of Race." Stay tuned for a narrated PowerPoint presentation which will be available as a podcast on YouTube and iTunes in June.

I invite us all to consider it is what we never say but is there to be said about racism and being offended by racism or sexism that is keeping what we most despise (stereotypes, hate crimes, etc.) in place. It seems I would much rather flame about racism, gossip to the people who agree with my opinion of that it's wrong, I talk about the tip of the iceberg and end up ignore what's behind it, the mountain of racial and racist conversations from people I know and in the end I am left disempowered and waiting for the next time it happens.

I invite people to AGREE TO BE OFFENDED and STAY IN THE CONVERSATION with the very one whom you think offended you. This will happen at the person to person level first and foremost and it's likely to be your friends and family rather than the KKK whom you can intervene with. Get interested in what's behind their thoughts, actions and feelings.

A PRACTICE FOR US ALL:
From taking on this practice, I have seen people miraculously see the limitations of their own thinking without me telling them what I think. Just consider they haven't really been heard out and they keep screaming louder and louder or making images to spread their views without having to face opposition. If they were heard, perhaps they could stop their own hate. I just watched a video of Avenue Q, the musical, "Everyone is Little Bit Racist". What we have been doing isn't working to stop it. Let's try something new.

You may have lots to say about this image. But Michelle Obama continues to be graceful in the face of such harassment. She is going to be an extraordinary First Woman (and Lady). Hope feminists of all walks of life (including male feminists like Kevin Powell and Mark Anthony Neal blog about this one). The Obamas have brought something we have longed for to the country - powerful, authentic speaking and grace under fire. I am proud to be for the Obamas and am inspired to promote his campaign. I have never donated to a presidential campaign before and I've donated now 4 or 5 times. It is ok to be offended by the above image, but it's what you do, what action and talk comes after that that will make a difference. CONTRIBUTE TO and/or VOLUNTEER FOR THE CAMPAIGN OF YOUR CHOICE!! Si se puede!

Latinos for Obama Video
Love this video: had to share it with you all...Inspired by his previous work with will.i.am on the viral web video "We Are The Ones," acclaimed music producer Andres Levin has united many leading figures of the Latin music and film community in an all Spanish language video in support of Barack Obama.

Song produced by: Andres Levin
Guitar by: Alejandro Sanz
Additional music and programming: Didi Gutman, Good and Evil
Assistant engineer: Ray Aldaco at Fun Machine
Video produced by: Scott Spanjich, Pilar O'Leary
Directors: William Garcia (Miami), Karen Fischer (NYC), Christian Suau (Puerto Rico), Jesse Dylan (Los Angeles), Bob Teitel (Chicago)
Executive Producers: Andres Levin, Scott Spanjich
Associate Producer: Alex Migoya

Talent: Alejandro Sanz, Paulina Rubio, John Leguizamo, Jessica Alba, Kate del Castillo, Cucu Diamantes (Yerba Buena), Pedro Martinez (Yerba Buena), Andres Levin (Yerba Buena), George Lopez, Luis Guzman, Don Omar, Voltio, Lila Downs, Lin Manuel Miranda, Frankie Needles, Huey Dunbar, Nydia Caro,
Ivonne Caro Caro, Brazilian Girls, Carlos Marín and family, Carola Gonzalez, Viva Nativa, Jose Alberti

Super Tuesday with Obama and the NY Giants

It's Super Tuesday here in NYC. And we are still high off the Giants Superbowl win!

I got up extra early to go to my Brooklyn polling place before heading to my 9:05am class in Manhattan. There was a tall medium build brother who reminded me of Common standing outside the school with Obama material taped to his shirt, front and back. Before I left home I got the new video with Will.I.am and John Legend as well as a host of celebrities from acting to song.



When I was entering the subway at the Utica stop, an older brother was handing out little pamplets on Obama titled ANSWERING THE CALL: CALLED TO CHRIST, COMMITTED CHRISTIAN.

'If you're organizing churches,' they said, 'it might be helpful if you went to church once in a while." And I thought, "Well, I guess that makes sense....So one day I put on one of the few clean jackets I had and went over to Trinity United Church of Christ on 95th Street on the South Side of Chicago. And I heard Reverend JEremiah A. Wright deliver a sermon called 'The Audacity of Hope.' CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN.

I made up my mind to vote for Obama about 10 days ago. It was before the South Carolina primary. Before that I wasn't sure. Clinton or Obama?? Then I realized I have waited most of my adult life to support a candidate I truly believe in and a candidate that defies all the limitations I've grown up with about holding the highest office in this land. All the other black candidates paved the way for both Hilary and Barack to be viable candidates in the same race. I do remember Shirley Chisholm's bid in 1972. I was 10 years old. She paved the way for Jesse Jackson and others and yes Hilary Clinton, too.

Something is happening. There's a change of a different sort in the air. I heard Republicans from Jersey claim there were staunch partisans but if McCain won (another said if Romney won), he'd vote for Obama. I am excited about the possibility the real possibility of Dr. King's Dream becoming a reality in the office of the President of this country. Amazing!!

A black man and his wife are inspiring people from all walks to vote today. Whomever you vote for, VOTE! Exercise your national right and duty. Trust your heart and your conscience. To thine own SELF be true!

Go Giants! Go Obama!!

Clichés about the Opposite Sex

I got this image in an email from the secretary in my department of anthropology and sociology at Baruch College. It's amazing that in one quick image we can sum up the clichés we love to use to shorthand stereotypes that we forget often short circuit our experience with the opposite sex. And it is all about circuits given that everything about our interactions is ultimately about choosing to interact, interface, intercourse, and procreate in one way or another from the bedroom to the boardroom.

I've been thinking about how my own relationship to being single and being alone has been short circuiting my heart and my willingness to break out and meet new people in new places. Today someone said you just need to choose being living alone and being single cuz' that's the way it is right now.

TO CHOOSE: to select freely without consideration or reason (Landmark Education).

He also got me to see how much I am a renegade about life and relationships. Gotta always be "this is not it" and "I know better". That leaves me trying to fix and change everyone else or invalidating everything I am.

My coach invited me to consider being a renegade FOR my promise. My promise is being "ready, willing and able to embrace and be empowered by any communication, eye to eye with the oneness of humanity." I think it can be fulfilled for the world by 2036 but it begins with me now.

I love how the men in my life, this coach, men I've been dating, and father figures, have been providing growth and development opportunities for me to get about myself. Women do it too, but it means something for a single woman to get "trained" by the men in her life whom she is and is not romantically engaged with. So I am choosing being alone and being happy in that instead of feeling like "this is not it." Nope, this IS it and life is passing me by the other route. I can be fully present to the not knowing it all but leaving my heart open to be filled with this moment and any other I choose to create including being in a committed partnership.

So what's been going on with my dating. Remember I posted an ad for dates on New Years Eve and I got a few hits and went out on some really nice dates. What I have seen for myself lately is how easily I give up on my dream, how often I force what's not working, how much I lie to myself and others about all that, and how unwilling I am to be straight that I am not fulfilled (like that means something) but staying in communication with this wonderful men I meet. I don't usually meet uninteresting people. That is rare. Some I long to be with. Some I don't. But if I am really going to cause the passionate, romantic, committed parternship that I've dreamed of, I gotta keep playing openly, wholeheartedly and bravely for what's possible not only for me but for all of us -- satisfaction, peaceful, powerful parternships that transform what has been for black men and women whether we are dating each other or every kind of people in the world. So goes black folks, so goes the world.

I started out writing about clichés. It's so easy to say the same thing over and over again and lose sight of you'll never get a different result in your experience if you view it from the same ideas. This is why I say it is essential the in the SUCCESS with the OPPOSITE SEX: GET RELATED not DATED (TM) events that there are no generalizations. Clichés are a form of generalization.

On the train yesterday, a brother was selling books of his poetry. He held up multiple copies of his self-published pamplets of poetry saying "And this one says..." and he quote a line or two of a poem and flip to the next book "And this one says..."

He got to the third book as the train slowed to stop at the Nostrand Ave stop on the A train towards Brooklyn. "And this one says 'You know how you can tell the difference between an ugly girl and a pretty one?" He pauses. You know how New Yorkers on the train listen but they won't look. He has us and just as the door to the train opens he says "The ugly ones can cook!" A young sister, I'd say an ugly one, but maybe she didn't cook, started up with him and he ran from the car of the train and hopped on to a later car. She was a little salty about it. I kept thinking what offended her? The poem itself offending all women? No. The implication on her? Probably. Whether she was pretty or not is irrelevant in the case I am trying to make. Clichés and generalizations also have predictable reactions that are in some way not at all our own. They have nothing to do with you here and now. It has Everything to do with the past which has no real bearing on what's possible. They thought we'd never go to the moon, fly (see the Wright Brothers), or maybe a closer example is black persons winning presidential elections (We'll see with Obama but even his win in South Carolina is breaking from the past).

I put a quote by Hilary Clinton in my document of quotes. How ironic it is that she said:

“The challenge now is to practice politics as the art of making what appears to be impossible, possible."

The challenge in relationships between black men and women globally speaking (in romance, business, hip-hop, education, parenting, schooling, etc.) is practicing the art of making what appears to be impossible between us possible and clichés can never get us there. But I am looking forward to creating a new cliche about black presidents and black men and women being for each other.