AN OPEN LETTER TO ADRIANNE CURRY

Since I started this blog, my inbox has been flooded with messages full of things people think will get under my skin. It is as if they are daring me to unleash the wrath of the heavens through my fingertips onto this digital page. Sometimes, I suspect they do it just to watch my head explode all over the keyboard for their personal amusement. Other times, I believe it is because they genuinely want someone to speak the truths they cannot always voice for themselves.

It reminds me of when I was younger and my friends would tap into my deep frustration with law enforcement. Where we lived, they were pigs. In certain schools or neighborhoods, they were Officer Friendly. Either way, my friends knew how much I hated watching people in power abuse those who had none. So they would make sure I noticed every cop who was taking himself too seriously or bothering someone who could not fight back. I did not have much power either, but I damn sure was not going to back down. And they knew that.

One day, I will tell you the story about how my liberal, fight the power, white English teacher set Officer Friendly up to get his head verbally torn off by me in the seventh grade. She orchestrated it like it was a stage play, all for her own quiet entertainment. PEOPLE, I REALLY REALLY TRIED NOT TO, BUT THEY KEPT PUSHING ME.

Anyway, as I was saying, it feels like some of my friends actually enjoy the cosmic literary smackdowns that they know are likely to follow the contents of their emails. And I cannot lie, there is something beautiful about being someone others trust to speak up. I appreciate that people believe I can be a voice for their frustrations. I love that they care about the blog enough to feed it with inspiration. I just hope that if I ever get locked up over an anti Bush rant, they will show up to bail my Black ass out.

So there I was, checking my inbox again, and I saw a message titled “Think you’d like this for your blog.” From the sender alone, I already knew this was not going to be some peaceful image of children laughing in a park or a black and white photo of two lovers basking in that Black love I am always writing about. I braced myself to be pissed off.

I opened the message and found a link to a MySpace blog entry by Adrianne Curry. Yes, that chick who married a Brady. The blog was a steaming pile of racist ignorance wrapped in a condescending tone and delivered with the arrogance of someone too blind to realize they are drowning in their own privilege. It was her little rant about why she was boycotting BET. I am not necessarily mad at that part. But she went further and proudly declared she was also boycotting Black History Month.

Goal. My friend had accomplished his mission. Piss me the fuck off.

I started writing a response. I walked away. I came back. The words were not hitting the way I needed them to. The tone was off. It was not sharp enough to pierce through the nonsense or soft enough to cradle the weight of why this kind of thing hurts. I wanted to rewrite it. I planned to. But then something unexpected happened.

While catching up on my daily ritual of reading the blogs I love, I stumbled upon Humanity Critic’s latest post. The title stopped me cold. “An Open Letter to Adrianne Curry.” In just those six words, I knew someone had already written the letter I had been trying to find my way to.

I read it slowly. Every sentence echoed what I had been thinking and feeling. It gave voice to what I could not quite say the way I wanted. And in that moment, I knew the job had been done. Not by me. But through me.

So here it is. Our open letter to "Ms. Curry."

Please click here to read, and then pass it on.

GVG
~we're the warriors they write epics about~