yeah. 7:31 in the morning. on a sunday. crazy. should be in bed sleep. yeah. well, haven’t got much sleep since the break-in. i still sleep with the light on, with a weapon and the phone in my bed. when sister isn’t here, i sleep with most of the house’s lights on. but these things are neither here nor there…

got up early because someone’s been stealing my sunday paper, which i PAY for, so damn it, i went outside to get it. scanned the paper real quick (an article about the academic book i helped to write–with a pic–should be in the paper soon), and came upon a q&a column in the LIFE section.

a 12th grader wrote to the columnist, asking if he knew of any black colleges because she planned to apply to black colleges “since she’s black.” even this early in the morning, with unflattering crust in my eyes, i paused, tilted my head and thought, “doesn’t this child know she can go to ANY school she wants (for the most part–money and grades DO amount for something)?” i don’t know why her statement “crinked” something in my gut, but it did. i’m all for historically black colleges, but to apply just because you’re black is like white people listening to, say, Pat Boone, just because he’s white and they’re white, too.

i don’t know if this child had other reasons for going to a black college, but this is the sole reason she stated in the column. the columnist, bless his heart, writes about Howard University, a prestigious university PERIOD. if i were he, i would have responded with, “baby, child, it’s 2005; surely you know you’re not kept from going ANYwhere you want.”

overall motto for today: get OUT of the box. you might like what you see.