بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
As-Salaamu ‘Alaikum Dearly Beloved Sisters and Brothers
So, I just got back from a live episode of Frazier. 
I red in the paper about an event called “Words and Music 2015” So, you know the first thing I associate the title with is Jilly’s debut album, right? Wrong?
First thing that should’ve tipped me off to what lay in store for the afternoon was when I walked out onto the sidewalk and found myself swimming upstream in a sea of Saints fans, heading towards the Superdome.
This continued for the next three blocks (dwindling) until I made a right on Canal.
It was raining lightly and I rather enjoyed the walk.
A Brother gave me directions (practically escorting me) to the hotel where the event was being held. I’ve been here two months and am starting to feel more like a tourist than when I first arrived.
I was only a handful of Black people who were not servicing the devils.
#dtno is like walking into a nail shop wherein if you stand in the front all you see are Korean faces. But if you stand in the back all you see are Black faces.
So, I felt obligated to tip him one of four dollars I had panhandled the other day.
I was at the Greyhound station where I stop to freshen up and had decided to wait for this Brother who had gone in the bathroom to roll one.
So, I’m just there like, what? So, I was asking the sundry Black people who happened by to buy me some ice cream. No one did, so then this guy who looked like a devil hippie “Shaggy” type backtracks passing by and Allah (swt) Told me to ask him.
Now, I never ask devils for shit, but sometimes it’s hard to tell, so I submitted.
He gave a common reply that I’ve heard a lot in NOLA but never in L.A. “For what?” I thought I would try him out and said, “Um, 400 years of Slavery?” He started mumbling something incomprehensible but also started digging in his wallet and handed me $4.00. #symbolic #getit? #4
Anyway, I gave the Brother who escorted me to the hotel a dollar. I wanted to give him all of it (sometimes I give charity to my own detriment), but I kept thinking, “I break fast later” and all I had to eat were 2 apples and I want to give those to Hisaan. I thought I might want to buy something later so I kept the three (3).
So, I get to the hotel and a Sister I had just passed in a convenience store was getting in the elevator. I asked her if she was going to the Words and Music thing. She said, “No,” so I went to the hotel concierge. There was a line and one of the counterpersons asked if she could help me.
I told her where I was trying to go. She directed me me to some stairs that would take me to the mezzanine level. Now, deep down I knew that the mezz is like an in-between floors floor, but I can’t get this racism out of my head (and she was Asian!) So, I go check the elevator and cheah, you had to take the stairs. Doh! But still.
I go up the stairs and there’s this devil right there sitting on his suitcase or something, like he was waiting for something or somebody.
We eye each other warily. When I reach the top there’s a covered table with nothing on it, but a hotel memo pad and a pen.
She told me that that was where I was supposed to register, but there was nobody there. And, just the pad and a pen on the table. So, I’m like “Okay….”
Then I look left and see a room with books on tables. And, stuffy. old. devils.
You know that song, “Fly in the buttermilk, shoo fly, shoo” was written for Black people in the predicament I had just walked in.
But, the event was called, “Words and Music” and that’s me to the core, so I didn’t turn tail, which was probably what the two artsy Sisters I had passed on the way there had done.
The devils probably figured I was “new around these parts” and wasn’t scared of devils like the local so-called Negroes. They were right on both counts.
Everytime I’m talking to some Black people, well not every time, but a lot of times, when a devil appears, they run.
Well, my teacher, Allah (God) Taught me to RESIST the devil and HE would flee from me!!!
So, I glanced at the books and took note of the remnants of a meal they had served earlier. I was fasting, so I couldn’t have eaten if I had been there anyway. Not to mention the penalty for eating with Christians.
So, then I entered the main suite. Here, there were preppy college-aged devils intermingling with Frazier and his nursing home homies.
I took a seat but soon noticed that it looked like they had already wrapped. I asked Gidget “Is it over. Am I late?” She replied, “This session. But there’ll be another panel.” So, then I decided I needed an itinerary.
Frazier dug one up and I learned I had crashed some stuck-up literary society’s annual convention and awards gathering.
Nevertheless, I thumbed through the program and discovered the next symposium was entitled:
THE AESTHETICS OF LITERATURE
– The Art Of The Personal Narrative
In other words, MEMOIRS!!!!!
Perfect for my blog!
I was thinking, they can’t teach me anything I don’t already know, but didn’t have anything to do, so I stayed. But to my chagrin, one of the panelists was gay and another a feminist.
I walked out three times before I left for good. I knew everything already but I did learn a few terminologies and was able to use the phone on one of my walkouts to inquire about a place. So, I guess the afternoon wasn’t a total failure.
I might’ve stayed if I didn’t feel like the entire charade was being played out for my benefit – the lone so-called American Negro and a Muslimah! LOL GTFOH
So, on the way “home,” I stopped at Mickey D’s for the dollar menu, which apparently NOLA tourists are too entrenched in money to warrant even an offering and the Filet o’ Fish was $3.67 or some equally exorbitant figure for a McDonalds sandwich.
Zawji told me not to go in at all. #prostitution and I think the Sister at the hotel may have been one too. 😥 😥 😥
I was ready to leave New Orleans by the time I got “home” but the next day, I woke up refreshed like I had inhaled a breath of fresh hot air #FYAH!!!!!
Homemaking For The Black Muslim Woman Journal ™ 