Parle vous francais??

NO! But I sure did take my black self to France!!!! Not on some James Baldwin, Leotyne Price, Marian Anderson stuff. I wasnt looking for artistic freedom or an escape from the racial oppression of the United States. I was going to be a tourist!! To "oooooooooooooooooooo and aaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh" my way through Gay Paris (shut up). And I saw it all.. and this will be the first of my ignant rants that I dont need anyone to check me on about how politically incorrect they may be or how close minded I am... I got it.. generalizations and stereotypes are unfair to everyone... moving on...

1. The French are fucking rude! Not in a cuss you out way that I find ignant black folks to be rude. Or the "Psssssst.. Ay Girl" way I find niggas on the street to be. Or even in the roll your eyes, suck your teeth way that make me despise my students. They are rude in the.. sure I'll say "si'l vous plais" and "merci beaucoup" "monssuier/madame" all friggin day.. But they will also damn near wanna kill you if you dont speak french...and then will scoff when you confirm you are an american.."Of course." as if every Chinese, English and Romanian tourist that comes to the friggin City of Lights comes with a fluent French tongue! ahhh But that wasn't even the worst.. Whatever.. I will point to the menu or let Joanna do the talking.. God Bless the US of A!! The worst was the bumping.. the constant bumping of people into me as I walked down the street.. Rush hour in Manhattan is no less busy than on the Champs Elysees, yet somehow my fellow Americans (for the most part) respect my desire to have total control over the movement of my body parts and refrain from pushing, shoving, tapping, touching, fondling (that happened) me in every street, avenue, restaurant, line, etc. And without even the "my bad," "excuse moi" "sorry".. its hard to not be bitter...


BUT THEN!!!!

You look up and see the Arc de Triomphe and realise you are in FRIGGIN PARIS FRANCE!! My grandparents moved to Chicago to make us a better life, well. Their parents moved to give them a better life cause it was the teens and they were just tots... but the Great Migration was truly great for our family. Growing up during the Depression, while my grandmother raised her five children, she always made sure they had tons of non-perishable goods "just in case" and so my mother has cabinets full soup, sauces, beans, pasta etc.. and so do I.. every cabinet is full in my tiny one bedroom.. because I don't ever wanna run out either. But standing under the Eiffel Tower, I am far away from the war rations and canned goods that have influenced our Copeland sensibilities. My grandmother couldnt go to college, because despite her scholarship, they didnt have money to send her down to Atlanta, but there I was on the other side of the ocean, seeing things that she had only read about or seen in books. I think I might be the American Dream. I didn't have any bootstraps to pull, but my grandmother clung to hers hard, giving my mother a wonderful upbringing, making her a first generation college graduate. I can only imagine the excitement my grandmother felt when my mother made the Copeland's college grads.. and there I was making us international... So it meant alot to me to be there, and to trailblaze because my mom took it one step, and I am taking one step further... and it just gives infinite possibility to mine...

And here's to more Frenchies bumping into me, and getting bad sleep in one of those boxes in Japan, eating new things that are really bad.. and doing big things to live my American Dream.

To Be Continued...