Will You Be Mine?

I originally named my blog, Wendy Jane's Black Crush, because I thought it  would reflect how much I liked black people. But then I attended Hollis Gillespie's Famous Atlanta Blogging Workshop this past summer. Hollis's co-instructor, Mike Alvear, said, “that name sounds like a white chick who is into black guys.” I knew my love was much broader than that, and while I will write about the white gal/black guy thing, I did go ahead and change the name of my blog to Wendy Jane's Soul Shake.

I also changed the launch date of WJSS. I thought I'd start on Monday, you know, beginning of the week.. it seemed like a logical and tidy thing to do. But, then I remembered Tuesday was Valentines Day, and I thought, “Perfect!” This will be my Valentine to black people to let them know how much I like them.Now I know saying “black people” is going to get me into trouble.  It's like I'm putting all the black people in the world in a generic, one-size-fits-all basket. Whether you're black or white, you might be scratching your head and thinking, she likes us just for the color of our skin?  Or, she likes them  just for the color of their skin?  You're thinking, people are individuals—you might not like some of us, some of us might be jerks, just like we may not like some of you, because some of you might be jerks. I'm sorry, but I don't have an answer yet on why I've always wanted to make connections across color lines.  Nor do I have a solution for, at times, using the generic term, black people.For today, all I want to say is, "Welcome to Wendy Jane's Soul Shake.Will You Be Mine?"