Kique's Ghost - The 3rd Story in the Chica Lit Halloween Blog Tour

KIQUE'S GHOST

By Sof�a Quintero


Even through the veil of my hat, I see all eyes are on me as I sachet down the aisle toward Kique's casket. Good. That's the main reason why I squeezed my big ass into the red spandex dress. The same dress I wore on our first date when I was two sizes smaller.

Just as I reach the casket, a teary-eyed girl barely out of her teens carries away a toddler on her hip. Don't ask, Lili. Just let it go. I take a deep breath and look into the casket. Damn it if Kique don't look good! The bochinche was that the last woman he burned had shot him right between the eyes. Guess not. I glance at his crotch. Well, if she aimed there, the damage is not obvious.

'Chacho, the undertaker really did an amazing job. Kique's soul patch is sharply trimmed. Those perfect lips, rose and soft, are shaped into his signature smirk. Kique looks exactly the same way he did the day I realized I had fallen for him. That memory gives me the courage to do what I vowed I would to all my disbelieving girlfriends when this day came.

I look to my left then check to my right. Everyone is too busy mourning - or glaring at the llorona en la esquina who's making a performance of it - to watch me. I lean over Kique's body, lift my veil and spit on him.

�Burn in hell, asqueroso!�

Then I spin on the heels of my Via Spiga stilettos and march out of the funeral. Through the veil of my hat, I watch the others as they stare at me, their eyes so swollen and red. Look at them crying for Kique. Wearing black. Falling over themselves to praise him now that the son of a bitch is dead.

Di que Kique was so funny 'Member the time he did eso y lo otro?

Or when he was working, Kique was so generous.

And my personal favorite. Kique loved his children. All five of them. If he knew about 'em, he loved the hell out of them kids of his.

�Hipocritas! All of them, if they truly knew him. Where's the bitch who shot him? That's who I want to see. Shake her hand. Buy her a drink. Ask if his eyes were open when she did it. Why she did it? I don't need to ask her that.

Just as I push open the door that leads from the parlor into the lobby, I hear glass crash against the tiled floor. A black wave rushes by me as mourners run past me toward the commotion. When I reach the scene, Kique's brother and best friend pull apart two women who still claw for each other. Water, glass, and carnations are all over the lobby floor.

��Saca a esa pedenja, Junior!� yells the petite negrita with the box braids. �She didn't give a shit about Kique, and everybody knows it!�

The voluptuous chinita screams back, �You've always been jealous of me, bitch, because I'm the mother of his only son.�

Someone behinds me sucks her teeth. �That ain't true,� she mumbles �Doesn't Kique have a son in Santo Domingo?�

Another woman say, �And a daughter in Haina.� The revelation inspires several gasps. Don't these people know by now that scuttlebutt regarding Kique's �reproductivity� should be believed until proven otherwise?

I'm so over all this. As the catfight ensues, I ease my way through the crowd to the exit. By the door is an easel with a poster of Kique from his three-month stint as a real estate agent. It reads Enrique �Kique� Gilberto Mendoza, April 29, 1967 - October 29, 2007. As I walk by the easel, I snarl at Kique's picture and point to the crowd. �Damn it, Kique . . . even in death!�

Once outside the funeral home, I hand the parking attendant my ticket. As I wait for him to bring my car, I break out a cigarette. Fuckin' Kique Mendoza's dead.

I had just turned twenty when we met. Before Kique I was too busy being the dutiful daughter to date. Going to college, working my way through school, practically becoming the matriarch of the family as my mother cared for my father. . . What little time I had for a social life, I didn't want to waste on the boys around me because they were just that. Boys who just wanted one thing and yet were incapable or unwilling to offer much in return.

Then Kique came along and swept me off my feet, giving me all the romance I had been missing. Craving really. Then he ruined me for all men.

That's not a compliment.

Suddenly, a chill dances up my spine, and I shiver. What gives? It was almost seventy degrees when I left my apartment! The temperature must have dropped drastically in the few minutes I had been inside the funeral home. That's October in New York for you.

I wrap my arms myself while I wait for the valet to bring my car. He takes his time, stealing long glances at my dress. Or more like my ass busting out of it. That's why you're cold, Lili! I flick away my cigarette and drag the valet out of the driver seat so I can hop in. The car's pretty damn cold, too, so I blast on the heat as I drive off.

Only when I pull onto the Bronx River Parkway do I remember I still have on this silly hat with the veil. I laugh at myself as I sit on the entrance ramp and check oncoming traffic. Just before I'm about to merge, I pull off the hat and fling it onto the passenger seat.

�Nice hat.�

I almost give myself whiplash in the direction of the voice. Kique? He wears his burial suit, my spit sliding down his tie. In fact, Kique, his suit, his body, all opaque like crepe paper. But my saliva glistens in the ray of sunlight beaming through the front car window, just as fresh as I cut it loose.

I scream so loud that only the blaring of the horns of the cars behind me snaps me out of it. And what does Kique do? He chuckles condescendingly the way he always did when faced with a woman he drove to hysteria. �Pull over, Lillian,� he says, pointing to the shoulder. He folds up the tail of his tie to blot at my spit. �We need to talk about this lingering rage of yours.�

My mind scampers, trying to remember how to handle a ghost. A wooden stake through the heart! No, that's for vampires. Besides, who the hell keeps a wooden stake in the glove compartment? Then it hits me. I do have my shiny new Club under my seat. I hit my blinker and make my way to the shoulder of the parkway.

Kique continues to rub at his tie, but the spit remains as if untouched. �Spitting on me. . . he says. �What were you thinking, Lili?�

Oh, now you want to know, asshole? The second I arrive at the shoulder, I reach down to grab the Club and swing it with all my might at Kique's head. It slices right through him, banging against the passenger window and ripping a crack through it. �Fuck!�

Only the sound of cracking glass makes Kique realize what I had tried to do. �First, you spit at me and now this?� He squints at me. �What happened to the sweet nena tranquila who would look away whenever I told her she was beautiful?�

Anger finally erupts, taking me far past fear. �Damn it, Kique, what are you doing here?� Then I remember. When you encounter a ghost, you're supposed to confront it. Ask him what he wants so you can give him what he needs to move on. They say sometimes a person just doesn't know or hasn't accepted that he's dead until a living person breaks it to him and convinces him to let go of earth. God, I hope this is not Kique's problem. The man was so full of hubris, it'll take his ghost weeks of hopelessly chasing live women before he accepts that he doesn't have �it� anymore and take his game to the netherworld. �You're dead and no longer belong here,� I say. �Que en carajo is holding you back?�

�I need you to forgive me, Lili.� He blinks at me like a child, that infamous smirk gone. �Without your forgiveness, I can't rest in peace.�

Shit. If that's true, I'm fucked. As a child, I never even had an imaginary friend but now at the age of thirty-three, I'm stuck with the ghost of the only man I ever loved? That'd be bearable if he also wasn't the worst ex-boyfriend I ever had. Like it wasn't bad enough that he lied to me about how many his-and-her kids he had, chased away my few male friends with his possessiveness, and eventually cheated on me with the most psychotic of his baby mamas. After I left him, Kique would stalk me every time he was in between women - from the �Oh, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop to say hi� drives by my apartment to the �IF YOU REALLY FUCKIN' LOVED ME YOU NEVER WOULD'VE LEFT SO EASY, YOU HEARTLESS BITCH!!!� messages on my answering machine. I finally had to file a restraining order against him.

�Of all the women you've known and screwed in your forty years on this planet, why me, Kique?� I yell. �I mean, according to the chisme, I got off easy.�

Kique cocks his head to the side. �That's true. What I did to you is nothing compared to what I did to Sherry. Or Flaca. Or La Bembe. . . � I roll my eyes at him, and he halts the roll call of his victims. Kique looks at me with those sad eyes. Not those telenovela eyes reserved for performing deception and manipulation. The sincere eyes that I rarely saw in the short but intense six months we were together. The ones filled with tears at my father's funeral. The eyes wide with fear when Kique Jr. was diagnosed with leukemia then tight with joy when the cancer went into remission. The eyes that slacked with resignation when it finally sunk in that when I said I was never going back to him, I meant it and not playing along with the usual script he enacted with his other women.

Kique says, �But it doesn't matter that I was at my worst with them. You were the one I hurt the most. That's because you were the only one who truly loved me.�

I did love the son of a bitch. It hadn't matter to me that he was a twenty-eight year old father of three children already. I didn't care that he had those children with two different women, neither of whom he married. I didn't care that he only had a G.E.D. and changed his career every month.

�Look, Enrique, I really do want to forgive you. I mean, it's been thirteen years.� I say. Can you lie to a ghost? Probably not. So I level with him. �But I just can't. I've gone for months, even years not giving you a second thought, but when a certain song comes on the radio or I drive by a place you took me to, all the dirt you did comes rushing back right along with all the hurt and anger, and it feels like it just happened yesterday.� And here the feelings come again, and this time with an additional dose of despair. I start to cry. �I want to let go of all that shit. I've tried really hard to focus on all the good times we had. But I just can't.� Now I start to sob. �The fact that you're dead now doesn't change it.�

Kique shakes his head, and that smirk of his reappears. Bastard. This is what he wanted all along. Rest in peace my ass, he came to haunt me. Like the realization that I will never be free of these ugly feelings toward him wasn't horrible enough. I'd try again to crash in his skull if I knew it'd do any damage. Maybe I should do it anyway, it night make me feel better even if just for a moment. No, Lili, you can't afford to break that window any worse.

�So you can't forgive me,� says Kique. �Do you know what that means?�

I wipe my runny nose against my sleeve. �What?�

�You haven't forgiven yourself yet.�

I suck my teeth at him. �Forgive myself for what?�

Kique sucks his teeth back at me. He knows I hate when he mimics me, pendejo. �For putting up with the shit I did and never giving me the hell I deserved for it.�

I think about that. I was so young. Back then I thought that if you were truly committed, you loved unconditionally and that meant relaxing my standards beyond recognition. All through high school and college, I told myself You're pretty, intelligent. . . You come from a good family. You're getting an education and planning a career. Why is it so hard for you to find a boyfriend? Then Kique came along and heaped on the romance, and grateful for attention, the validation, I did overtime to rationalize all the flags. So he didn't go to college. Don't be such an elitist, Lillian. And so what Kique has three kids but has never been married? Nena, if you prefer a Latino man and rule out single fathers, you drain an already shallow pool! OK, so he didn't tell you about them until you were head over heels. He was falling for you and was afraid of losing you. How can you not forgive him for that?

For the first three months when things were idyllic, it was easy. Kique always has a job, sometimes two. Kique not only supports his kids, he actually makes time for them. He didn't pressure you into sex, was gentle when you were ready, and is always attentive to your pleasure. I used all the good things about Kique as excuses for putting up with the mind games he played during the last three months. Only when he stood me up one night after going to his ex's apartment to visit his son did I draw the line. He said that had just pulled a double shift but didn't want to disappoint Kique, Jr. and ended up falling asleep on his ex's couch.

While he was �sleeping on the ex's couch,� I was crying my eyes out on mine. But the possibility that Kique had been cheating on me was the farthest notion from my mind. In my lovestruck naivete, I truly thought that something terrible had happened to Kique. (He did allude to a thuggish youth.) I had called his job, his friends, and even his mother. She actually sighed and said, �Nena, there's nothing wrong with that boy for you to be so worried about him. Nothing you can fix anyway, and you shouldn't have to if you could because you're a good girl, Lili. Por favor don't give Kique another thought.�

I couldn't understand how his own mother could say such a thing. Eventually, Kique arrived at my door with a half-dozen roses. I rushed into his arms, sobbing with relief that Kique was with me in one piece.

My genuine concern floored Kique to the point that he couldn't tell me his story with a straight face. He expected me to be furious. To interrogate him while knowing all along what he had been up to, curse him out, maybe even hurl something at his head. Then Kique was supposed to seduce me, I was supposed to forgive him, and then we were supposed to have a fuckfest, all the while knowing that we were entering into an unspoken agreement that this scenario would repeat itself for as long as we were together.

The problem was I had really loved and trusted Kique with all my heart. Unlike his other women, I didn't need to be with him. I wanted to be with him. Looking past all our differences, I chose Kique, and that made his betrayal all the more egregious. As young and inexperienced as I might have been, I wasn't going to tolerate his constant betrayal of my love and trust. When Kique pulled me away from, looked me in the eye and insisted that nothing had happened between his ex and himself, the guilt in his eyes told me that I needed to stop lying to myself. He was not the man for me.

Damn it, Kique, er, his ghost or whoever, he's right. It's been thirteen years since I've been with the man, and I still haven't forgiven him for what he had done to me. But that's because I still blame myself for allowing him to do it.

I look at Kique who's checking himself out in the rear view mirror. Some things never change. �Kique. . .� I say to get his attention. He taps his finger on his tongue then wipes it across his eyebrow before looking at me. I snicker at the paradox of his old vanity and his newfound depth. �When did you get so damn insightful?� I ask.

�When you run toward the light,� he smiles, �a lot of things get really clear.�

�You're supposed avoid the light, Kique, not make a mad dash toward it.�

�Only if you want to live, Lili. Not when you're ready to go.� He pauses then continues, his voice heavy with exhaustion. �'Chacha, I ran toward that light, and I got, like, hosed with more wisdom then I could handle. That's probably why I had to come back and unload some of it. You know, before I could rest.�

It never occurred to me that Kique was unhappy. When I would hear through the grapevine about his latest escapades with the woman of the hour, I would swear that he enjoyed it. That it was all sport for him. That he reveled in the drama that he created over and over again. How bad it must have been for Kique to be so ready to let go and leave his kids behind. Especially if in that rush toward the light and the accompanying torrent of wisdom, he finally got an accurate count of how many kids he actually fathered.

I try to find something nice to say. Despite all the bonding, it's kind of hard. Finally, I settle on, �You made a really pretty corpse, Kique.�

Of course, he beams at that. �Thanks, Lillian. And thanks for coming to my wake in my favorite dress.� He hands me the veiled hat. �You know, you were the best thing that ever happened to me, but I always knew you deserved better.� Kique has said that to me before, but for the first time, I actually believe he's sincere. �That's why I did everything to mess it up. Then when I did mess it up, I tried so hard to win you back. Which is why when you wouldn't take me back, I got ugly. But I never stopped loving you, Lili. I mean, as best as a guy like me could. I truly gave you my best and, I'm sorry it wasn't worth much and that I broke your heart.�

I take a deep breath and give a long exhale. �I forgive you, Enrique.�

�No, you don't.� Ever the drama king, he practically sings when he says it. �You're just saying that to get rid of me.�

�Uh, if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you?�

�Yeah, but 'member what I said. You can't forgive me until you forgive yourself. You didn't realize that was why you were stuck until I told you three minutes ago so no way you're gonna get over it. . .� Kique snaps his fingers. �� Just like that.�

I think I'm going to cry again, this time out of frustration. The ghost is more trying than the man ever was, I swear. �OK, here's the deal, Kique. In order for me to forgive myself so that I can forgive you, you gots to go, man. I mean, be reasonable here. If you haunt me, you're gonna piss me off, and that kind of defeats the purpose, don't you think?�

Kique gives it some thought. �Yeah, I can see that.�

�And have I ever lied to you.�

�No.�

�So please I'm asking you to trust me on this. If you leave and go wherever it is you belong - and stay there! - I promise you that I will work through this.� I start to cross my heart but quit when I remember that the last time I crossed myself, I heaved a wad a spit onto Kique's cold body as it lay in a casket. �In fact, I guarantee you, Kique, your leaving is going to go a looong way in helping me make peace with what happened between us. It's best for both of us if you go.�

There goes that impish smile again. I brace myself for the worst, but Kique say, �OK.� His apparition steps through the door and climbs out of my car. My car suddenly becomes so hot, I snap off the heat. Kique turns around to look at me through the cracked glass of my passenger window. �One more thing, Lili.�

Damn it. �What?�

�An incentive.�

�What, Kique, what?�

�That dude who keeps hanging around your cubicle? Stop punishing yourself by blowing him off. He's the One.�

�Huh?�

�Nena, don't play dumb, you know you're no good at it. I ain't telling you nothing you haven't already wondered. Get over yourself and go out with the man.�

Before I can say thanks and goodbye, Kique's ghost blows me a kiss, pulls away from my car and just fades away.

� Sofia Quintero 2007

It's Not Too Late to Join the Chica Lit Halloween Blog Tour

Organized by the one and only Crafty Chica Kathy Cano-Murillo, the Chica Lit Halloween Blog Tour features short ghost stories from five of your favorite authors in the chica lit genre.

It started this Saturday, October 27^th and continues right through Halloween The authors -- including Sister Outsider's Sofia Quintero -- write and post short Halloween tales on to their blogs for all their fans to see. From freaky to funny, you won't want to miss a single story. Here's the schedule. Missed a day? Don't worry, it'll still be there.

Saturday 10/27 – Berta Platas
Author of "Cinderella Lopez"

Sunday 10/28 - Mary Castillo
Author of "Switchcraft"

Monday 10/29 - Sofia Quintero
Author of "Divas Don't Yield"

Tuesday 10/30 - Kathy Cano-Murillo
Author of "The Crafty Chica Collection"

Wednesday 10/31 - Caridad Pineiro
Author of "The South Beach Chicas Get Their Man"

Because October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

The following monologue is an excerpt from my novel Picture Me Rollin. In this scene, the protagonist Esperanza explains to her mentor Maite how her mother ended up in a prison. If you own the novel, you will find it on page 186.

"He kept beating on her and beating on her, and they would arrest him and let him go. They told her to leave him, but he said he would kill her if she did, and she had every reason to believe him. So Mami tried to get him to move out without breaking up with him. She begged him to leave. 'It's not good for our girls to see us fighting like this all the time.' And the cabez�n. . . His name was Roland, but behind his back Dulce and I used to call him el cabez�n 'cause he had this big head in every sense of the word. Mami never even knew we called him that 'cause she wanted us to show him respect. Anyway, at first Roland fronts like he agrees with Mami, and he starts packing. And little by little, he loses it. He's ranting about all he's done for us, getting us off of welfare, and buying us good food and pretty clothes. Roland's grabbing anything and everything he thinks he bought for the house, throwing things in his boxes. He storms into the kitchen and rips the radio out of the wall. Mami's behind him. She's not trying to stop him from taking anything; she's just trying to call him down. And then he reaches into the dish rack and grabs the knife. So, you see, Mami got lucky in that fight, because it was el cabez�n who went into the kitchen and got the knife. I don't know how she got it from him, but if she hadn't she'd be dead . . . . She'd be dead, and he'd be out by now beating on somebody else. But people in my neighborhood are, like, 'Brenda got lucky. She got the knife. She got lucky.' But Mami wasn't lucky. Three years of black eyes, loose teeth, and cracked ribs. But they called my mother a murderer."


One of the reasons why I wrote Picture Me Rollin was to bring awareness to this little know consequence of domestic violence. There's an increase in the number of women incarcerated in U.S. prisons, and a significant factor in this increase is domestic violence. Although our criminal justice system continues to be weak at protecting women from abusive partners, it has been quite strident in criminalizing women who kill their abusers in self-defense. To learn more about this and other related issues, visit the following sites just to start.

Some Facts on Domestic Violence in the United States.

Think the Jennifer Lopez movie Enough is an accurate portrayal of domestic violence? Think again.

INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence

Self-Defense is Not a Crime

National Clearinghouse for the Defense of Battered Women

Join the Chica Lit Halloween Blog Tour!

Organized by the one and only Crafty Chica Kathy Cano-Murillo, the Chica Lit Halloween Blog Tour will feature short ghost stories from five of your favorite authors in the chica lit genre.

It all starts on October 27th with Berta Platas, author of Cinderella Lopez. Join us and tell your friends. My story will be posted on October 29th and poses this question: what if the worst boyfriend you ever had died a violent death and didn't have to the decency to go straight to hell where he belonged? ;) Boo!

Terry McMillan Goes Off on Authors/Publishers of Sensationalist Books

A fellow author (an amazing one actually and a great person at that) was forwarded a letter writtten by Terry McMillan to Karen Hunter. In it she goes off on Karen for helping her ex Jonathan Plummer to write his novel as well as Simon & Schuster for publishing it. Below is what was forwarded to my peer so I don't think it's the entire letter. Nevertheless, these are Terry's words. In any event, I'd love to hear what you think of what she has to say.
*************************************
The three of you, along with the other publishing houses who have been kind enough to add "special" urban/ghetto imprints are all about to see a major shift in your ongoing and relentless publication of exploitative, destructive, racist, egregious, sexist, base, tacky, poorly-written, unedited, degrading books. Like a number of Black bookstores who are starting to refuse to sell this trash, I, along with other Black literary organizations, supporters, book clubs as well as writers are about to make our opinions known, to aid in making clear to the public just how demeaning these books are and what it means to our community.
It is sad that it took years of selling trashy sexually-driven as well as tell-alls before so-called black writers were ever allowed in the Big Publishing Houses's Little Rooms enough to FINALLY get our own imprints. Why hasn't Walter Mosley or Edwidge Dandicat or Barak Obama or Terry McMillan or Jamaica Kincaid among others ever offered our very own imprints, I wonder?
I've heard that Simon & Schuster has even gotten some of its authors out of jail just to go on a book tour. Karen, you should be ashamed of yourself, but like Jonathan, I can tell that you (along with your sister-in-law Wendy Williams) are all cut from the same cloth. You care nothing about pride as a Black woman or you wouldn't align yourself or even put your name on some of the ugliest words and stories possible. You are an embarrassment and for someone going around bragging about being a Pulitizer Prize winner (which I understand you are not, that you were associated with other writers at the Daily News who actually deserved it) you should be ashamed of yourself for relying on such a prestigious literary prize to co-write some of the despicable and outrageously base books that you can. I find it sad indeed when a Black woman of your so-called reputation was willing to help my ex-husband write a tell-all describing "the juicy details" about our so-called relationship. You know he is a liar and a thief and that he played me and you didn't care. As long as you got paid, and this is precisely why no one (last week I understand according to Book Scan a whopping 600 copies had sold nationwide, and only 87 on the entire west coast) is buying it. Karinne "Superhead's" book is tanking just like Balancing Act, and RJ's book is not going to fly either.
This is the beginning of a brand new trend, so be prepared for it. Years ago white folks bought us and worked us as slaves. You're doing the same exact thing. The only problem is that back then we didn't go willingly. Malcolm X and Dr. King and Rosa Parks, among others, didn't fight for us to get to This, and this is precisely why you are beginning to see a lack of support for these disgusting books.
So Karen Hunter, you can put your name on them if you want to, and you along with Louise and Carolyn have already been reading on Black Voices (among others) what they have to say about Simon & Schuster (but they're referring to all of the Houses with these ghetto imprints) among other sites, how people are getting fed up with these books, even the "reluctant readers" are bored with who's having sex with whom and degrading tell-alls that show black people in a negative and stereotypical light, have no respect for these type of books, for you Karen Hunter ("run the other way when you see her name") and you have already seen the beginning of downward spiral in your sales department, I'm sure. It's going to continue, because with all things exploitative, the reign always comes to a halt.
Jonathan's reign of terror is. And the publishing industry's exploitative role in all of this is too. And Karen, there are only so many scandals out there, and people are getting tired of reading about others' sex lives. Why don't you write about yours. Give 'em something to talk about.
Sincerely,
Terry McMillan

That White Girl

If you regularly read my blog or have heard me speak in person, you know that I can be unapologetically proprietary about the term "hip hop." As an activist, I am quite critical of the phrase "hip-hop" being used synonymously with "gangster" and "thug." While I cannot deny the occasional intersection between hip hop and street life, I loathe the wholesale equation with the two. There are very few novels that explore that connection with the complex treatment of the role that race, class and even gender play in it.

There is a new addition to the small but growing canon of bona fide hip hop fiction that steps up to the plate to tackle this important yet difficult task. And check it. It was written by a White woman.

That White Girl is the debut novel of Jennifer "JLove" Calderon (ne� McLaughlin) and is inspired by her own life. Sixteen year old Amber is growing up middle-class in multiracial Denver during the 80s and attempting to find her place. Her search for community leads her to many places including, from a graffiti crew to the local Crips and all the drama that entails. These experiences force Amber to grapple with a variety of issues, both personal and political.

In the wrong hands, That White Girl could have been all the things that hip hops of color love to hate: White girl dabbles in Black culture – or what she thinks is "authentic" Black culture, whines, "Why can't we all just get along?" and never learns a damned thing about that gangsta called Racism and his first lieutenant White Privilege.

But JLove is no poseur. She has a proven track record as an activist, demonstrating time and again that she not only loves hip hop, she adores justice. JLove is not the female equivalent of Isaac of Barbershop who believes he's Blacker than you because he's fluent in Ebonics. She's not the one to throw shade at the other White person at the hip hop summit because she believes that there's just so many "Cool White People" points to go around and wants them all for herself. She's not that the chick who thinks her love of all things hip hop makes her immune to white privilege.

As a person who knows Jennifer personally, I can testify that she's the one who is unafraid to pull the coattails of other White folks when they engage in racist behavior and does so with empathy. She's the person who truly listens to her fellow activists of color even when what they say is mad hard to hear. She's the woman who never "forgets" that she's White, is in constant struggle with what that means, and always searches for ways and opportunities to exploit her racial privilege toward the ultimate goal of a building world society where it no longer exists.

JLove's that White girl, and I hope you cop and enjoy her novel.