Superficial/Reality

I got up this morning thinking about extremely superficial things such as:


  • I'm excited that tonight is the Project Runway finale. Will spoiled rich New Yorker Laura win (please, God, NO!) or will it be former drug addict Jeffrey? My vote is Jeffrey. His sob story and his cute kid are the cincher. I don't think Michael Knight will win. (Sorry, brotha but everyone's too busy speculating on whether you're gay or dating Brandy or both!) and Uli's clothes are pretty but...is pretty enough?

  • I'm feeling the dancing in the Justin Timberlake video to "Let Me Talk To You/My Love" -- even if I do think Timbaland is the real genius behind the song, not JT.

  • I need to take some clothes to the drycleaners. But my schedule is packed so when is this going to happen?

And then I got in my car and drove to reality.

I drove to "South-Central" or "South LA" or whatever we're calling the ever-spreading low-income areas of Los Angeles these days.

Today I passed the all-too familiar sight of a shrine to the fallen.

The candles. The flowers. The teddy bears. All homage to someone who is no longer here because of a random act of violence.

Maybe Madonna will decide that she wants to adopt some poor Latino and Black kids from South LA...to keep them from having a shrine on the street like the one in this photo.

Somehow, I think not.

Poor kids living in foster care or in orphanages in the U.S. are never exotic enough for celebrities or the average rich family flying to China to buy a baby.

Who cares about the children here in the U.S. who supposedly have the opportunity to pull themselves up by the bootstraps? Let's see, what opportunities do they have?

  • The opportunity to be denied an excellent education. Teachers are NOT teaching these kids like they'd be teaching them if they came from a wealthy area.

  • The opportunity to be sexually abused by the sex offenders that populate low-income areas because poor parents lack the clout to get them out of the neighborhood

  • The opportunity to be recruited into gangs. Yeah, that's a great opportunity.

Ah, reality in all her harshness. Now I'm going home and I'm going to forget about reality for a little while while I watch the superficial Project Runway finale.

I'm telling you, Jeffrey's going to win.

Comments

Anonymous said…
hi again! i haven't checked in on you in a while and i was so glad to read this post re jeffrey and getting back to reality because a) i too really wanted him to win, i "got" him and never thought he was an ass and 2) i really disliked laura and her negative ways...and then i loved how you brought it all back to real life and where our hearts and minds are better off spending our real time...but still, i was so happy jeffrey won, i guess i felt like finally someone truly genuine fashionwise and human wise y'know...anyway, peace!

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