There are two types of black people in the world: 1.) those that can walk right into a church on Easter Sunday, “sit” the highest five seats, and take a look at the ushers to just accept that those seats are taken; or 2.) me.

I’m the kind of person, and I represent the kind of black people, who hate being asked to sit down anywhere. I almost never feel anxious in public and I’m rarely nervous or concerned about who’s around me. But after I am in a public place and someone who just isn’t there and is not going to be there for some time asks me to sit down, I get anxious. I sweat. I stress. I fade quickly after which hand over. I don’t like to sit down for other people and I don’t ask people to sit down for me. I don’t prefer to put my burdens on the riverbank of the one who was on time.

But unfortunately, in the black community, “holding seats” is a thing—a sport, even. I’ve seen (and I mean this with dead seriousness; “without a hat,” as the children would say) an elderly black woman tell an usher in church that she was holding seats, and get mad on the ushers who suggested she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t consider they thought she couldn’t hold a row of seats, and so they couldn’t consider she couldn’t consider she couldn’t do it. Oh, what a tangled web we weave. My wife is one of those individuals who will hold all of the requested seats and risk a public demonstration of “Who’s going to break first, loudly?” over said seats. She’ll even be very mad at me after I can’t do it. Marriage, right?

If I’ll, I would really like to share with you all a recent experience I had attempting to get a seat that not only threw me out of the constructing, but threw me into an overcrowded room where I could now not see anything on account of the stress of attempting to get a seat for somebody. Also, as you may see, I failed this task with flying colours.

Just a few weeks ago, a famous friend of mine was giving a speak about books at a famous Washington landmark. I had been to that bookstore before—persistently—and had attended many of that friend’s talks. A math problem was about to pop into my head; there was absolutely no way that store could accommodate the number of individuals who would show up for that talk. Spoiler alert: I used to be right.

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Since I consider myself a forward-thinking person, I anticipated this math problem and got to the shop early enough to get a seat, but late enough to get one of, for example, three remaining seats. Many people should have been pondering the identical thing I used to be occupied with math, not math, given the space constraints of the shop. Anyway, I went in and sat down on a stool, then watched the parade of people, mostly black, who got here in after me, attempting to determine where to sit down. As an increasing number of people, especially older blacks, entered, I prepared to present up my seat and use my younger legs to face for your entire show.

And then I got a text from a friend asking me to avoid wasting a spot for her. Now that friend cannot stand for long, I had to avoid wasting her a spot (which I used to be already willing to present up) or we’d have to depart together; that wasn’t an option; we were there to see our friend be amazing and do her own thing.

But here’s the issue: My friend who asked for a seat was a minimum of quarter-hour away, and the stream of people coming in was growing. On top of that, my seat was in the aisle where people were coming in, which meant that everybody, including women who looked like my grandmother, could see that I used to be NOT giving up my seat. I looked like a young kid on a subway automotive not giving up her seat to seniors or pregnant women. The thing is, I knew why I wasn’t getting up, but they didn’t, and I couldn’t look my grandmother in the face and say, “Hey, I would give up my seat for you, but I would save it for a woman younger than you but older than me who potentially has a leg problem and wouldn’t care if you didn’t get it.” No one asked, they simply watched.

I used to be sweating an increasing number of with every passing minute and an increasing number of people were observing me. I do not know if that truly happened or not but that is the way it felt and I felt uncomfortable and judged. I used to be texting my mate with my ETA and he kept saying “I’ll be there in 5 minutes” for over 5 minutes. I let her know I didn’t think I could sit any longer because I used to be beginning to seem like I hadn’t been raised properly.

Then the book event organizer took the microphone and identified that there have been issues with the seating and that those of us who could should hand over our seats to those that were older than us or might need to sit down down, and I felt like she was talking on to me when she said that. She mentioned the overflow situation outside on the back patio instead for all of us who either needed a seat or had to present up our seats. At this point, my stress and anxiety were at their peak; my heart was beating fast and my palms were sweaty. I could not take it anymore. I stood up from my seat and without anyone, said, “The seat is free,” and quickly ran to the overflow spot while texting my friend that I could not hold on to my seat any longer.

It’s been weeks since that night and I still remember how I felt attempting to keep the place going. I felt really uncomfortable and I knew my wife could be high quality. Oh, and concerning the overbooking situation – it was awful. The place had no idea what they were doing and arrange a projector TV during sunset so nobody could see what was happening. Cool idea, terrible execution, but a minimum of I wasn’t stressed anymore. I used to be briefly annoyed that the place hadn’t thought to order a bigger space for the lecture considering who that they had brought, but that is in the past now.

Now it’s OK; thanks for asking. But one thing is obviously, and two things are obviously: next time I’m going right into a place that I do know can be crowded, I’ll just skip the entire sitting thing and prepare to face in the front, back, or side. Sure, my back might hurt and my legs might ache, but a minimum of I won’t feel stressed or judged.

If you’ve gotten a friend who cannot hold seats, please don’t force them to. It’s an excessive amount of.

Thank you for coming to my talk in Panama.

In a now-viral Reddit post, a woman shared why she called the police on her mother after she shaved her biracial daughter’s curly hair.

This fastingWritten on the r/AITAH forum by user OrneryExchange8001, it has since been faraway from the platform’s moderator list, but received over 17,000 votes after being posted on September 8.

A Reddit user wrote about her 3-year-old mixed-race daughter, Zoe.

“Zoe is biracial – I am white and my husband Tyler is black,” she said. he wrotein response to the New York Post. “Zoe has the most stunning curly hair, and I’ve always taken great care of it. She absolutely loves her curls, and we’ve made it a fun, bonding activity to style her hair together.”

Unlike Zoe’s parents, the little girl’s grandmother was not a fan of the 3-year-old’s hair and made disparaging comments about it, similar to, “It looks so wild,” “That’s just too much hair for a little girl,” and “Wouldn’t it be easier if it was straight?”

Zoe’s mother said she all the time ignored the comments as “harmless” until a childcare incident involving Zoe’s grandmother led to disaster.

Zoe’s mother said she left the 3-year-old girl in her mother’s care for a couple of hours a couple of weeks ago as a consequence of a piece emergency.

“When I arrived to pick up Zoe, I was horrified – Zoe’s beautiful curls were completely gone,” Zoe’s mother wrote. “My mum cut my daughter’s hair without my consent – ​​she did it halfway through.”

Zoe’s head was “shaved bald.” When her mother asked her grandmother what had happened, her grandmother “just shrugged and said, ‘I did her a favor. Now she looks neat and tidy. And her hair will grow back straight.'”

The child’s mother said she was “angry” and near tears, adding that she felt her mother had “violated my daughter’s self-esteem” and “did not respect my boundaries as a parent.”

The incident prompted Zoe’s mother to call police and report the hair cutting as an assault.

“They came and gave statements to both me and my mum and she was later brought in for questioning. Then my dad, who I have always loved and respected, called me and was furious,” Zoe’s mother wrote. “He said I had gone too far, that my mum was just trying to help and that calling the police was a huge overreaction.”

Thousands of Reddit users sided with the child’s mother, expressing similar contempt and disgust on the grandmother’s behavior, noting the racist connotations surrounding the incident.

“This is terrifying,” one other commenter added. “There is a long, racist history against black women wearing their hair natural, I can’t help but feel like this is somehow stemming from that. Not to mention her ignorance that her hair will ‘grow back straight.’”

“NTA your mom attacked your child because he’s black. That’s a hate crime,” one person added.

“Her comments and inflicting physical harm on a minor are more reminiscent of a hate crime than a haircut,” one other comment echoed.

After every week, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Garcelle Beauvais is speaking out on behalf of the Haitian community. This weekend, Beauvais spoke out in Instagram to answer unfounded rumors circulating about Haitian immigrants.

“Silence in the face of racism and hatred is something I refuse to do,” she said in video“This past week, the lies that were told about the Haitian community — about my community — were disgusting, deeply hurtful and dangerous.”

More recently, former President Donald Trump and his 2024 vice presidential candidate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have been spreading rumors about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating dogs and other pets. The Republican vice presidential candidate first stirred up the rumors on Sept. 9 ahead of the presidential debates. The next day, during a presidential debate with Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump underscored the claims, saying that immigrants “eat dogs, eat people who come in, eat cats.”

Despite ABC News debate moderators and Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine saying there was “no evidence of that,” the unfounded rumor sparked threats against Ohio’s Haitian community and on social media.

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“This isn’t about politics now. This is about humanity. We have to condemn this kind of hate, this kind of racism, against anyone,” Beauvais continued in her video. “And I will not sit back and let people talk about my community the way they want to for their own benefit.”

While most individuals know her as a Beverly Hills housewife, Beauvais reminded her fans that she has at all times been a “proud Haitian immigrant.” Before making her Hollywood debut within the 1988 film “Coming to America,” Beauvais moved to the United States from Saint-Marc, Haiti. From her memoir “Love Me As I Am: My Journey from Haiti to Hollywood to Happiness” to her brand partnerships, the Haitian-born actress has at all times been pleased with her roots.

In response to those latest conspiracy theories, Beauvais encouraged everyone to get out and vote.

“The power that we have is the power to vote, to register and vote and stop this madness, this chaos,” she said, also emphasizing the identical message in Haitian Creole. “I’m not going to sit idly by. It’s just not right to treat people this way. We need to support each other, from our leaders to our neighbors. This has to stop and we have to do something about it.”