I’ve finally come out of the closet, as it were, with my cannabis usage. Yes, it is legal, both adult use and medicinal recommendations in Cali where I live, but I’ve somehow become addled with the stigma of a spacy stoner, a lazy pothead, in my own mind.

My shrink reminds me that this is not the case. I am successful in my field, with 20+ years of tech research under my belt and on my resume. I own my home. I have a dog and a relationship that is working, so the fact that I smoke a lot of weed, on the daily, well, it just is what it is. I’ve learned to accept this about myself.

As I introduced this blog to some classmates at Oaksterdam University last month, one of them asked about the name, SistaSmoke, because, she said, “well, it’s a very urban name, and you know, I am used to it, it’s been done forever, what we make cool, someone else comes along and makes it their own.” She was referring to the “we” as herself and other people of color. I am white, and she could see that on my zoom camera.

I was quick to admit, “Well thank you for bringing that up,” I proceeded carefully, smiling and with my hands in a prayer position. “I thought this might be an issue with people of color, it is why it has taken me so long to put my face on this blog. And I never consulted a person of color about it, but I will give you the history of it, for sure, right after saying Thank You for letting me appropriate it!”

I liked using big, academic words like that in this zoom breakout room of fellow classmates taking the Business of Cannabis January 2022 semester. I went on to say, “My brother is the one who registered it and coined it, because, I dunno, kinda like that Budweiser commercial from 1999, whenever we talk on the phone, (he lives in DC, I am here in the East Bay,) we greet with the same refrain: ‘Brother-my-Brother, and he always answers back, ‘Sista’.”

Another classmate piped up and said, “In the Muslim community, we refer to each other, to anyone, really, as brotha and sista, a Sista in need, a sista from anotha mista…”

At which point I added, “That too, it is very International, and my brother and I have lived outside the country more than we have lived inside this country! He married a Korean, and she only calls me Sista! It is a term of respect bestowed upon me, and when I wrote the creative brief for the blog, I wanted the persona of Sistasmoke to be any race, any age, but definitely female. So that’s the history of it. And I guess I gotta own up to just taking ownership of that urban-ness, huh?”

The team seemed to allow it, but this classmate is no longer in class, she dropped out of this semester, having connectivity issues. I can’t help but wonder if she just didn’t want to be connected to me, such a whitey.