WOW: Mehndi

For centuries, mehndi - the art of henna painting on the body - has been practiced in India, Africa, and the Middle East, where the henna plant is believed to bring love and good fortune, and to protect against evil. Mehndi is traditionally practiced for wedding ceremonies, during important rites of passage, and in times of joyous celebration. A paste made from the crushed leaves of the henna plant is applied to the skin, and when removed several hours later, leaves beautiful markings on the skin that fade naturally over 1 to 3 weeks.

Besides being the key ingredient in mehndi, henna has also been used to dye the manes and hooves of horses, and to color wool, silk, and animal skins, as well as men's beards. Studies of mummies dating back to 1200 BC show that henna was used on the hair and nails of the pharaohs.

Until the art of mehndi became hot news in 1996, henna was mostly used in the United States as a hair dye. Widely recognized now as a wonderful way to dye the skin and to achieve the look of a tattoo, traditional henna uses and application processes have gone contemporary. Although some will always prepare their own henna paste, mehndi kits of varying quality, with foolproof instructions and convenient stencils, can be purchased in many retail and online outlets.  [Source: EarthHenna]

Read more »

The One Brown Girl Challenge

Diversify!

Give yourself permission to try something new and mix it up a bit! Try wearing red instead of black; eat a Granny Smith apple as opposed to a Delicious.  Be sure your financial portfolio isn't leaning hard in just one direction.  Change the color of your lipstick for a few days.  Take another route to the store.  Eat breakfast for dinner and lunch for breakfast.  Visit a different church.  Turn off the television and play a family game.  Diversify.  Try to think of some new ways keep life interesting and get away from the mundane.  After all, variety is the spice of life!

Read more »

The Brown Girl World: Helene's Story

Helene Cooper is "Congo," a descendant of two Liberian dynasties - traced back to the first ship of freemen that set sail from New York in 1820 to found Monrovia.  Helene grew up at Sugar Beach, a twenty-two-room mansion by the sea.  Her childhood was filled with servants, flashy cars, a villa in Spain, and a farmhouse up-country.  It was also an African childhood, filled with knock foot games and hot pepper soup, heartmen and neegee.  When Helene was eight, the Coopers took in a foster child - a common custom among the Liberian elite.  Eunice, a Bassa girl, suddenly became know as "Mrs. Cooper's daughter."

For years the Cooper daughters - Helene, her sister Marlene, and Eunice - blissfully enjoyed the trappings of wealth and advantage.  But Liberia was like an unwatched pot of water left boiling on the stove.  And on April 12, 1980, a group of soliders staged a coup d'etat, assassinating President William Tolbert and executing his cabinet.  The Coopers and the entire Congo class were now the hunted, being imprisoned, shot, tortured, and raped.  After a brutal daylight attack by a ragtag crew of soldiers, Helene, Marlene, and their mother fled Sugar Beach, and then Liberia, for America.  They left Eunice behind.

A world away, Helene tried to assimilate as an American teenager.  At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill she found her passion in journalism, eventually becoming a reporter for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.  She reported from every part of the globe - except Africa - as Liberia descended into war-torn, third-world hell.

In 2003, a near-death experience in Iraq convinced Helene that Liberia - and Eunice - could wait no longer.

At once a deeply personal memoir and an examination of a violent and stratified country, The House at Sugar Beach: In Search of a Lost African Childhood tells of tragedy, forgiveness, and transcendence with unflinching honesty and a survivor's gentle humor.  And at it's heart, it is a story of Helene Cooper's long voyage home.

Read more »

Spotlight on One Brown Girl

Spotlight on Julia Lira7 year old Brazilian Carnival Queen

Read more »

Happy Fat Tuesday!

It's Mardi Gras Time!

Read more »

WOW: Carnival

[Pictured above: Carnival revelers posing in Venice, Italy]

Carnival - whether in Brazil, New Orleans, India, Greece, Trinidad & Tobago, Venice and other parts of Europe and the U.S. - is an annual worldwide festive celebration chock full of parades, public street parties, fireworks, masquerade balls, costumes and pageants that all typically take place during the month of February leading up to Lent.  The origins of the word carnival are disputed, from the Italian carne levare meaning to remove meat, to the Late Latin expression carne vale which means farewell to meat, to the term Carrus Navalis (ship cart), the name of the roman festival of Isis, where Isis' image was carried to the sea-shore to bless the start of the sailing season.  But no matter the actual origins of the word, Carnival customs can be traced back to antiquity in Greece. They are related to the celebrations in honor of the pagan god Dionysus, where enthusiasm, gaiety and banter prevailed. When Christianity became the dominant religion, elements of ancient Greek worship were incorporated into the customs and traditions pertaining to the period before Lent. [Source: gnto.gr]  Likewise, Carnival has been celebrated as early as 1268 in Venice, Italy and as early as the 17th century when early French settlers brought the party to Louisiana.  Have you ever been to Carnival? 

Read more »

It's the Year of the Tiger!

Read more »

Happy St. Valentine's Day!

Love you.

Read more »

The Legend of Chinese Valentine's Day

[T]here once lived an orphaned poor boy called Niu Lang [who lived] with his brother and sister-in-law. The handsome boy owned an old ox that he worked on the field everyday. The ox is said to be an immortal from Paradise who was punished for mistakes in heaven and sent on earth as an ox. The ox liked the cowherd and one day he said to Niu Lang, "You are a nice person. If you want to get married, go to the river and your wish will come true."

When the Cowherd went to the stream, he saw all the seven beautiful daughters of the Emperor who had come down from Heaven to take a bath. Niu Lang was captivated with the beauty of the youngest daughter Zhi Nu and secretly took away her fairy clothes. Without her fairy clothes the youngest daughter could not fly back to the heaven along with her sisters. The cowherd told the fairy that he would return her clothes if she promised to marry him. The girl coyly agreed to marry the cowherd. They lived a happily married for several years and had two children.

One day, the ox felt that his last day was near. He told the cowherd that he should keep his hide for [any] urgent situation after he dies. Meanwhile, the Emperor began to miss his seventh daughter. He sent Zhi Nu's grandmother to bring her back from the earth. The grandmother succeeded in bringing Zhi Nu back to heaven. While the 7th Princess was being taken away to the heaven, the cowboy wore the ox hide and carried his two children in the two bamboo baskets with his wife's old fairy clothes and chased his wife in the sky. To keep the lovers separated forever, the grandmother created a Milky Way between them. The seventh princess was moved to the star Vega in the Lyra (Harp) constellation, while the cowherd with his two children stayed in the star Altair (Flying one) in the Aquila (Eagle) constellation. The star Vega is therefore popularly known by the name of the Weaving Maid Star whereas the star Altair as the Cowherd Star in China. The mother took pity and the two were allowed to meet only once a year on the 7th day of 7th lunar month. It is believed that on this specific day magpies form a bridge with their wings for Zhi Nu to cross to meet her husband. [Source: StValentinesDay.org]

Read more »

We are the World (Remake) - for Haiti

Read more »

Shoes for Haiti

These friends of OBG took

The One Brown Girl Challenge!

It's not too late to donate...

OBG Advocate David King's daughters Raia and Trinity donating shoes to Haiti.

Terilyn Love donated over 70 pairs of shoes on behalf of her recently deceased mother.

Ericka Holloway took the challenge and is donating shoessss!

OBG Advocate Marilyn Jacobs enlisted her son Micah (above left) and co-worker Babs Iroko (above right) to donate gently worn shoes.  "Together we donated a total of 4 bags of shoes for women, men and toddlers." 

Ayesha Muhammad donated shoes to Haiti! Woo hoo!

 

Lisa Curry's daughter Mariah donating shoesssssssssss...

OBG Creator Tracey Friley donating shoes from a community shoe drive for the victims of the Haiti earthquake.

Read more »

7 Year Old Brazilian Samba Queen

Little Julia Lira isn't old enough to stay home alone or stay up late, but a Brazilian court has ruled that a seven-year-old girl can dance the samba in front of a crowd of thousands as a Rio Carnival drum corps queen. [Source: TelegraphUK] Keeping in mind the culture of Brazil, was it appropriate for people to be up in arms about Little Julia's role as samba queen?  Read the full story here.

Read more »

The Most Famous Party on the Planet: Brazilian Carnaval!

Just for fun...

Brazilian Carnaval is one of the most famous parties on the planet (!) and takes place every year forty days before Easter.  This YouTube video is a little taste of the Carnaval samba parade in Rio de Janeiro. It covers one out of the 14 parades [that] happen[s] during two days and provides flashes of some of the other 13 parades.  Enjoy!

Read more »

Brown Girl Laura Chinchilla is Costa Rica's New Prez!

CNN reports that Costa Rica elected its first female president, as the ruling National Liberation Party claimed a historic victory. "I want to thank the pioneering women who years ago opened the doors of politics in Costa Rica," Laura Chinchilla said Sunday to flag-waving supporters in the capital, San Jose. "My government will be open to all Costa Ricans of good faith."  Read the full CNN story here.

Read more »

Our Family Wedding

Read more »

The One Brown Girl Challenge

Respect Others.

It's Black History Month in the United States & Canada.  What better time than now to consider the diversity of Blacks in the United States and to perhaps (for some) even consider a different point of view?  Black immigration from Africa, The Caribbean & Latin America have forced Black US comunities nationwide to confront issues of intraracial diversity.  Respecting the different historical and cultural traditions that people bring to the table from other countries plays a critical role in how US Blacks view African, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin and multiracial peoples.  An Eritrean immigrant that defines herself as Eritrean and not Black should be respected; a Caribbean or Venezuelan family, the same. A multi-racial Brown Girl that defines herself as multiracial should not be forced to identify with one specific culture or be poorly looked upon because she doesn't.  Black is not an identity to many immigrants and offspring of immigrants and people in the US that define themselves as Black or African-American should not take it as a personal attack when someone does not share her/his point of view.  And while some might not always understand or agree, respecting another person's point of view, their history and cultural traditions is the first (and potentially most critical) step to coming together as a nation.  Respect others and you will earn respect too.

Read more »

The Brown Girl World: Rachel's Story

In The Girl Who Fell from the Sky, a debut novel by Heidi W. Durrow, Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy.  With her strict African American grandmother as her new guardian, Rachel moves to a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring mixed attention her way. Growing up in the 1980s, she learns to swallow her overwhelming grief and confronts her identity as a biracial young woman in a world that wants to see her as either black or white.  "When Aunt Loretta says Mama, I think of saying Mor and how I don't get to say it anymore. I am caught in before and after time. Last-time things and firsts. Last-time things make me sad like the last time I called for Mor and used Danish sounds. I feel my middle fill up with sounds that no one else understands. Then they reach my throat. What if these sounds get stuck in me?" Meanwhile, a mystery unfolds, revealing the terrible truth about Rachel's last morning on a Chicago rooftop. Interwoven are the voices of Jamie, a neighborhood boy who witnessed the events, and Laronne, a friend of Rachel's mother. Inspired by a true story of a mother's twisted love, The Girl Who Fell from the Sky reveals an unfathomable past and explores issues of identity at a time when many people are asking "Must race confine us and define us?"

Read more »

Spotlight on One Brown Girl

Spotlight on Henrietta Lacks

[Photo above courtesy of the Smithsonian via The Lacks Family]

Henrietta Lacks' cells were essential in developing the polio vaccine and were used in scientific landmarks such as cloning, gene mapping and in vitro fertilization.

"Medical researchers use laboratory-grown human cells to learn the intricacies of how cells work and test theories about the causes and treatment of diseases. The cell lines they need are 'immortal'—they can grow indefinitely, be frozen for decades, divided into different batches and shared among scientists. In 1951, a scientist at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, created the first immortal human cell line with a tissue sample taken from a young black woman with cervical cancer. Those cells, called HeLa cells, quickly became invaluable to medical research—though their donor remained a mystery for decades. In her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, journalist Rebecca Skloot tracks down the story of the source of the amazing HeLa cells, Henrietta Lacks, and documents the cell line's impact on both modern medicine and the Lacks family."  Read this Smithsonian article in its entirety here.

Read more »

It's Black History Month!

[Photo credit: LaGrange.edu]

"Black history is American history." -Actor Morgan Freeman

Black History Month remembers (!) the contributions of African-Americans to the United States and celebrates heritage and culture. In the United States and Canada, Black History Month is celebrated in the month of February and in the United Kingdom, it is celebrated in the month of October.  The remembrance originated in 1926 and was created by historian Carter G. Woodson as Negro History Week.  Later, sleeping car porters brought the idea north across the border into Canada. It was initiated in Canada by the Ontario Black History Society, which was founded in 1978.  Black History in England was first celebrated in 1987.  The month of October was selected because it coincided with the Marcus Garvey celebrations and London Jubilee.  America's Woodson chose the second week of February because it marked the birthdays of two Americans who greatly influenced the lives and social condition of African Americans: former President Abraham Lincoln and abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass.  [Source: Wikipedia & BlackHistoryCanada; DiscoverBlackHeritage]

Read more »