• I love and admire my grandma.  She is very classy.  And not only is she a very independent lady who is also classy, she is almost 87 years old and still going!  That deserves a plaque right there.  Thank God, she isn’t in some home, she has use of all of her limbs, and she isn’t senile!  She also is a mean cook and of course, is cooking it up this thanksgiving 2007!  I guess everyone loves their grandma and grandparents, so obviously I’m no exception – however I’d say she’s the best granny in the world to me!

• My dad.  OK, I’m a daddy’s girl.  He was definitely a connoisseur of knowledge and collected all sorts of materials throughout his life.  Therefore I started an organization, The Alvin T. Smith Foundation ™ so showcase NOT just his information and knowledge, but to showcase hard to find knowledge on all types of subjects.  And this month’s event is in honor of him and this organization I started.  So I hope you can join us.  If not in person, then virtually!

• I love my mom’s creativity and even though she always argued, she was very independent minded.  Therefore, I am dedicating The Circle’s Edge, Inc.™ to her.  After all, the reason I even started this organization was because of an argument I had about bullying and acceptance throughout school with my mom.  And she said, if you hated school so much and feel that such a groups need to exist, then why don’t you start one.  And thusly I did. 

• Aunt Phyllis for doing everything all on her own and still raising my cousin in the ghetto to be valedictorian throughout private high school and college.

Aunt Gladys for being a perfect example of a myth dispelled.  Chee is a older Japanese lady who married this Jewish American.  She is a wonderful example of a house wife and mother, but she can easily be fiest with a heathy since of humor and wit.  Perfect compliments for her smart butt messianic Jew husband.   Her daughter, who is 100% American, born and raised here, is of course half Asian.  However, she exhibits more of the traditional Asian stereotypes of the mousie, submissive wife.  She is very blessed with a very supportative husband and many children and she is home schooling them.    However, if one wanted to follow some stereotype, she – the American one – would fit the submissive Asian woman better than her own mother – who was born and raised in Japan.

The thing is that my aunt, who also is 100% American, and very much a black/African American, not only dispelled America’s typical diverse rate, for she and my own parents stayed married and didn’t get any divorce unlike the all to popular American tradition.  But my aunt also reminds me more of this Japanese/Jewish woman, and the stereotypical submissive Asian wife more than several Asian women I know.  I would love for America – white America who pushed the model minority Asian wife stereotype to a whole new level bringing along blacks and even some Italians/Mediterranean and Latinos.  Men who traditionally wouldn’t date or marry Asians unless they are from NY, Canada, UK, Trinidad, or somewhere else outside of America.  my aunt is very sweet, quiet, obedient and submissive in a positively good way, faithful, and a all around excellent woman in general.  To me, nothing like the typical, modern, America, black/white/etc. woman.  My aunt worked full time until she retired.  Was responcible and helped my uncle/her husband/ take care of the house.  And was definitely not some crazy emotional wreck or greedy gold digger. 

When I say responsible  and/or obedient in a good way, I am NOT talking about laying around while your man beats you, steals your money, lies and cheats on you, then sleeps with you giving you every disease know to God and man.   There is a LONG continuum between subornate, sucker and obnoxious, angry black/white/etc. woman.  There is a long continuum and seems like most women fit either one end of the spectrum or the extreme other end.  Of course, just like everything else in America!   laying there as their man beats the hell out of them, steals their money, and cheats on them.  Or they lie at the other end being some evil, obnoxious, bitch.  There is a median.