Advice about HATERS

Dear Kelly

I think you shouldn’t care about what people say because they just haters and they wouldn’t be hating on you if they wasn’t jealous. You shouldn’t even trip off them because they not nobody to be trying to impress anyway, so if they don’t like what you got going on - then don’t even trip. The only reason they be hating on you is because they don’t have what you have. If people hating on you, that means you obviously is doing something right. So like if somebody be like: “Yo shoes hecka ugly,” but you know yo shoes is cute, just be like: “Whatever. Don’t get mad, because you couldn’t afford them.” Or if you heard somebody was talking behind your back, you should just go up to them and confront them in front of everybody, so everybody could just see that they is hecka messy.

- La Tajh Weaver

Advice to My Cousin

Dear Cousin,

I felt like you should’ve used protection during sex. You are too young to have a baby. You’re only 15. I felt like he got you pregnant on purpose, because he put Vaseline on the condom and it broke. Now you’re going through all of this stress because your boyfriend is dead. Now you have to be a parent on your own. But as a big cousin, I’m going to help you so you won’t feel like you’re a lone.

Love,
A.M.W.

Dear Shelkeia

This was a part of an excercise introducing the girls to video blogs or "vlogs". This particular vlog is Shelkeia's advice to a scenario involving a young woman having problems with her boyfriend.


Dear Shelkeia,

My name is Monique, I'm 18 years old and I'm from Oakland, Ca. Me and my boyfriend have been together for almost two years. Right now I'm 8 months pregnant. He's a good guy, and he's been there for me when I needed someone but lately he's been acting funny. Three weeks ago, he left our apartment and said he was going to go to the store, after he didn't come back for a few hours I called him, but his phone went straight to voicemail. I called his mother, his friends, everybody, but still, I didn't hear from him. Three days later, he comes in the house, I've been worried sick, and he just strolls in and goes in the room. When I ask him what happened, he said that his car broke down and that he stayed at his moms house for a few days while it was getting fixed. I want to believe him, but the story just doesn't add up. What do you think I should do? I want us to be a family, but I don't want to put my baby through all of this drama.

Thanks,
Monique

Weak Minds, Strong Bodies

It's a new year, so we have some brand new media for you. This is the first of a series of video blogs -- or vlogs -- where the Oakland Girls speak their mind. Here's Sitkeya dropping knowledge on the idea that having a "weak mind and a strong body" allowed black people to be enslaved -- a point that was brought up in The Great Debaters -- and that she applies to pimps and hoes.

Condom Dispensers in Schools: Bad Idea

Okay, so I read this article about how in Brazil, they decided to put condom dispensers in schools to fight the spread of AIDS. Now, I just don’t think this is a good idea because people in the school can go behind the school or like in a classroom and have sex. Alternatively, they'll have oral sex. That is just trifling to me because that’s really going to want kids to do it more just because they see the condoms there. So, in my option, I think it is a bad idea. In general about condoms, I think that some people use condoms and some don’t. However, what I hear from hoes when I was locked up was that they don’t use condoms. That's nasty. I think people don’t use condoms because they say it feels good but that’s how people catch stuff.

- Shelkeia

Sex, Today and Before

I read an article that looked at the way people were having sex in the 1940s and 50s and then now, or a few years ago. I think that the article was wrong because in the article it says that between 1943 and 1999 the age of of first intercourse dropped to 15 from 19 for females, while the percentage in 1943, according to the study that appears in the most recent issue of the Review of General Psychology, went from 13 percent to 47 percent for sexually active young women. I think that is a lie because I think that young women didn't really start having sex at young ages until like the year 2000, because back in the day people really didn’t get down from what I hear -- because my mom and grandma told me the story of how it went down in the old days. In addition, I think that they are trying to put on too thick and put it as if it was happening. I also think that people were having sex in the old days because there were always young women and older women hoing back in the old days -- but that doesn't really count.

- Shelkeia

A Good Relationship

What makes a good relationship? I think the perfect couple would be when the two people are actually in love, not just they love each other. I think if you in a good relationship then even when you and the person you with get in an argument or something you could just be back cool in a couple of minutes. When you in a good relationship you should be happy to see your boyfriend or girlfriend, or be happy to be with them.

What I look for in a boyfriend is their personality, that’s the first thing because if they are cute they might be too cocky or they just probably do too much, but I would look at their looks too. We have to be able to be in a relationship too, we can’t argue and fight all the time or we can’t not talk at all or barely say things to each other. For me, at first, I did not like my boyfriend – he wasn’t good looking but his personality made me like him more and more. We talk all the time and we never argue and we both love each other, so I would say we are in a very good relationship.

One of my friends was in a bad relationship because the boy was too controlling, but he bought her everything and anything she wanted and she felt bad to break up with him because he claimed he loved her, but that’s over now. It took me a while, maybe a year to fall in love with my boyfriend. I liked him but when we started going out -- I don’t know what happened. First I liked him, but it just wasn’t happening. Then he liked me and I guess I just started liking him again and he asked me out and I said yeah.

-- Latajh