This is my new blog site.

I'm officially moved people.

All former and future posts right here ---> Most Average Braud

This is about moving.

MAB is moving.

I'm taking my rants to Wordpress with nothing but a registered domain and shaky coding skills.

In the mean time, the new posts I've written over the past month and a half will remain in the bank until the new blog is ready to present. And because of this I apologize for not updating content since early June. I'll be handing out overdoses of truth soon - promise!

The new blog will properly debut sometime this August. To celebrate, I will have a blog warming party to be announced in the next week or so. It will consist of me freaking out on you via social media channels, AND sending a certain number of first responders a *small gift!

I'll still keep this Blogger address for update announcements, a workbench for the new headquarters, and overall nostalgia.

My goals for the new site are as follows:

This is about "The Friend Zone".

500 Days of Summer (2009) - Jen

He claims to have been friend zoned, but he's actually claiming himself to be a self-entitled misogynist. This isn't to say that his experience is invalid, it's just that his perspective happens to be very problematic.

Everyone has experienced The Friend Zone at one point or another. You attempt to show someone your wish of pursuing something more. That person then reminds you of how good a friend - a brother - a sister - you are, and just like that you find yourself flailing about The Friend Zone.

The Friend Zone is real, and so are the feelings behind them. No one likes rejection, and it’s especially painful when you believe your presence would greatly benefit the significant other. 

The problem with The Friend Zone is while it can be applied to all types of love regardless of sexuality or gender, it only seems to be valid when applied to heterosexual relationships in which the male is “friend-zoned” by the female. 

This is the aftermath to "Enlightened Brothas".

Hey people,

So a lot of craziness has gone down since we last spoke, so I apologize for being MIA for most of the month.

I've just been too busy with school, work, and cleaning up the mess that Tumblr unleashed on my last blog post.

Yup. "Enlightened Brothas" blew up almost a week after I posted it and became the third most read blog post within 24 hours.

This is for The Enlightened Brothas.

The more classes I take in which race and gender are discussed, the more I'm frustrated by the state of women of color on my campus. Why? Because I'm becoming aware of a new threat.

This threat is even more dangerous and harmful then the old ones I've become accustomed to since middle school.

"Black girls are ugly/loud/ghetto/stupid" aka undesirable

I hear a guy say this, and I already know what to expect from him.

This new threat isn't so blatant.

This is about fake allies and reading them for filth.

It's time to play one of my favorite games!
COUNT THE WAYS!
How many problems can you spot?

I have lost patience with fake allies.

Fake allies: those who step into a marginalized group's safe space, clear a spot to sit, and begin to tell the members of this marginalized group why they're here, what they're doing wrong, and what they should be doing - all while silencing members, yelling at them for disagreeing, and becoming outraged when these members finally show the infiltrators the door.

I will try to give those who don't wish to read any further the overall message of this post:

If you must approach a marginalized group's space, follow these steps:

This is about Tinder and online dating.

It's connected to Facebook so…yeah.

Yes, I downloaded the Tinder app.

I was waist deep in burger and fries around midnight with a friend.

She told me she was 100% single.

Not only did she coin the most brilliant, accurate phrase of all time ("I'm 100% single") but she showed me an interesting article written by a black woman who downloaded Tinder.

This is what true love looks like.

yinmeetsyang
 tumblr couples are the worst. *trips into feelings*

I know what true love is.

Really, I do though.

I don't know what it feels like - but I do know what it looks like.

I found out during literally a 3 minute conversation with a classmate that I ran into at the gym.

This is a letter to dark skin girls.

 Israel.Ysrayl, a Jim Crow restroom sign.
Just to put this issue in an absolute perspective.

I'm writing this after seeing a back and forth debate on Tumblr about black girls and colorism. Dark girls expressed their experiences, light girls expressed their experiences, and both experiences were weighed and measured and categorized. Some people put one problem over another while others put both problems on the same level.

I'm writing this because I believe my experiences have given me a pretty clear view of this issue.

I'll begin this, as always, with a disclaimer.

This is about relaxed vs natural hair.

found on Pinterest of all places

I have a lot of problems with this.

Obviously I have a huge bias, so I'm gonna do my best to check it at the door.

I will be as objective as humanly possible starting now:

Who the hell made this?

What was your goal here?

Did you download Photoshop just for this?

Did you purposely choose the silhouette of an oddly shaped afro?

This is about how not to celebrate Black History Month.

one more week left!

1. Do not tell that "February is the shortest month of the year" joke. Everybody knows the joke. So stop. Hell, I'd take just one week for Black History if that meant classrooms would actually teach more than just Dr. King and Rosa Parks - as if my history just began in 1964. But I guess for white America my history did begin in 1964…I digress to say that the joke - much like my public school education - is stale. Move on.

2. Do not serve fried chicken and watermelon in school cafeterias to celebrate Black History Month.