So I'm white and I love Madea! I was watching Tyler Perry on 60 Minutes last night and I have a much greater appreciation for his body of work after hearing about his childhood and why he writes what he does. My favorite thing he said was in response to Spike Lee's complaint that he [Tyler Perry] is taking the world backwards by including so many racial stereotypes in his movies. Perry's response (not verbatim) was that he creates these funny characters in order to disarm the viewer so that he can talk about faith, God, abuse and other real problems. If anything, Tyler Perry is moving us forward by showing us how real these issues are, how they can be handled and how we can rise above. I say kudos to Tyler Perry for putting out movies and plays that we can all relate to, no matter what color or background we come from. Spike Lee could learn a thing or two from him!!
Some of my favorite Madea clips:
Madea's Math Problem
Madea's Version of the Bible
Monday, October 26, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Confessions of a Frustrated White Woman
So let me tell you a little bit about myself…
I consider myself to be middle class … headed slowly to lower middle class.
I have a Master’s degree, good credit and stable relationships.
I’ve never been in jail, never been arrested, never done something so bad it ended up on TV or in the newspaper. I have gotten speeding tickets though.
I pay my bills, I live within my means, I try to stick to a budget, I save, I contribute to my 401k and I have life insurance.
I’m saving up for a house, travel, and, as it seems, more taxes.
I don’t vote party lines, I vote for what I think is best for me and my family and my future.
I sound a little boring, but when I look at all of that, I wonder why it is that I am so frustrated. Well, let me tell you why.
I live in the most influential area in the world, yet I can’t afford to buy a house. Well, I can afford to buy a house in the area, but the county I can afford will end up costing me so much more in gas to drive to my job that I won’t be able to pay my mortgage. That’s okay though because they are building HOT lanes to help clear congested traffic. Too bad it’s another toll road.
I’m scared to have kids. Not so much because of all the kidnappings and sexual misconduct stories I hear about, but more because I don’t know how I will be able to afford day care or college for them. For that matter, food and clothes either!
I am a credit union member. So I don’t really understand why I have to pay to bail out a bank that I don’t even use. In the real world, when a company is run poorly by its executive team, they all get fired and the company gets re-organized. The fact that we bailed out the banks to “save the economy” is so short-sighted, in my humble opinion.
If you really want to save the economy, why aren’t we bailing out our school districts? If we don’t invest in our children’s education, it doesn’t matter whether we’ve saved an industry or two, we won’t have anyone smart enough to know how to keep running them.
The biggest frustration is how my company is using the bad economy as a great excuse to spend millions of dollars on new buildings and expensive furniture in conjunction with cutting employee’s merit increases and boosting their health insurance costs disproportionately. All while asking us to work 50-60 hours a week, overloading us with work we can’t possibly get done and wondering why we didn’t respond to their email sent to our blackberries at 10pm.
I hate going to the grocery store. If it’s so healthy for me, why can’t I afford to buy chicken anymore? The only thing I can afford is the macaroni and cheese and hotdogs that are on sale. Where’s the study that tells me those are the safest foods to eat?
Then there’s the flu vaccination drama. How is it that we run out of flu vaccinations every year? Is someone not doing a lessons learned study on the previous year? I don’t think we’ve seen a decrease in any flu variation, so I’m beyond bewildered.
Here’s the kicker for me, though. My parents are at retirement age. They should be running around Boca and travelling to see their grand babies. They shouldn’t be working, hoping they will be able to afford retirement. They shouldn’t have to worry about how much, if any, social security they will be able to get. They shouldn’t have to worry about whether they get to keep the house that holds so many family memories. They’ve put their work in, they’ve contributed to society through work and church and yet they are rewarded with the concern of more taxation and less medical care.
At this point, I don’t care whether we have Republicans, Democrats or Klingons running our government and choosing the direction of our taxpayer dollars. I’d rather have some competence, compassion, and restraint.
I don’t know about you, but I am frustrated. At what point does the voice of the citizen get heard?
I consider myself to be middle class … headed slowly to lower middle class.
I have a Master’s degree, good credit and stable relationships.
I’ve never been in jail, never been arrested, never done something so bad it ended up on TV or in the newspaper. I have gotten speeding tickets though.
I pay my bills, I live within my means, I try to stick to a budget, I save, I contribute to my 401k and I have life insurance.
I’m saving up for a house, travel, and, as it seems, more taxes.
I don’t vote party lines, I vote for what I think is best for me and my family and my future.
I sound a little boring, but when I look at all of that, I wonder why it is that I am so frustrated. Well, let me tell you why.
I live in the most influential area in the world, yet I can’t afford to buy a house. Well, I can afford to buy a house in the area, but the county I can afford will end up costing me so much more in gas to drive to my job that I won’t be able to pay my mortgage. That’s okay though because they are building HOT lanes to help clear congested traffic. Too bad it’s another toll road.
I’m scared to have kids. Not so much because of all the kidnappings and sexual misconduct stories I hear about, but more because I don’t know how I will be able to afford day care or college for them. For that matter, food and clothes either!
I am a credit union member. So I don’t really understand why I have to pay to bail out a bank that I don’t even use. In the real world, when a company is run poorly by its executive team, they all get fired and the company gets re-organized. The fact that we bailed out the banks to “save the economy” is so short-sighted, in my humble opinion.
If you really want to save the economy, why aren’t we bailing out our school districts? If we don’t invest in our children’s education, it doesn’t matter whether we’ve saved an industry or two, we won’t have anyone smart enough to know how to keep running them.
The biggest frustration is how my company is using the bad economy as a great excuse to spend millions of dollars on new buildings and expensive furniture in conjunction with cutting employee’s merit increases and boosting their health insurance costs disproportionately. All while asking us to work 50-60 hours a week, overloading us with work we can’t possibly get done and wondering why we didn’t respond to their email sent to our blackberries at 10pm.
I hate going to the grocery store. If it’s so healthy for me, why can’t I afford to buy chicken anymore? The only thing I can afford is the macaroni and cheese and hotdogs that are on sale. Where’s the study that tells me those are the safest foods to eat?
Then there’s the flu vaccination drama. How is it that we run out of flu vaccinations every year? Is someone not doing a lessons learned study on the previous year? I don’t think we’ve seen a decrease in any flu variation, so I’m beyond bewildered.
Here’s the kicker for me, though. My parents are at retirement age. They should be running around Boca and travelling to see their grand babies. They shouldn’t be working, hoping they will be able to afford retirement. They shouldn’t have to worry about how much, if any, social security they will be able to get. They shouldn’t have to worry about whether they get to keep the house that holds so many family memories. They’ve put their work in, they’ve contributed to society through work and church and yet they are rewarded with the concern of more taxation and less medical care.
At this point, I don’t care whether we have Republicans, Democrats or Klingons running our government and choosing the direction of our taxpayer dollars. I’d rather have some competence, compassion, and restraint.
I don’t know about you, but I am frustrated. At what point does the voice of the citizen get heard?
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