There have been several public “events” privileging race, gender, and class during the past weeks in New York City that featured prominent Black feminists. After the film screening of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975, the conference about Anita Hill 20 Years Later: Sex, Power and Speaking the Truth, and the Occupy Wall Street movement based […]
Category: Activism
From Margin to Center: Health for Brown Bois
As a graduate student, I elect to receive health care through my school (because they pay for it). Student Health Services has its pros and cons and my experiences have been, to put it nicely, mixed. My experiences with health care providers are what motivated me to think about the hierarchical relationship between doctors and […]
Author Martha Southgate on Why the Film “The Help” is a Symptom of a Larger Issue: My Thoughts.
Author note: Post written last week. In Entertainment Weekly, one of my favorite authors, Martha Southgate (@mesouthgate) discusses the film “The Help” stating that, There have been thousands of words written about Stockett’s skills, her portrayal of the black women versus the white women, her right to tell this story at all. I won’t rehash […]
Putting My House in Order: Some Thoughts on Self-Care
Toni Cade Bambara’s “On the Issue of Roles” is one of my all-time favorite essays and a particular passage has been on my mind a lot lately. Bambara writes: Running off to mimeograph a fuck-whitey leaflet, leaving your mate to brood, is not revolutionary. Hopping on a plane to rap to someone else’s “community” while your […]
Hateration, Holleration
I’m not trying to be the grammar police, but I really think some words just need to be retired. Take, for instance, “swagger,” or simply “swag.” I mean, once a word becomes connected to a scent that your grandfather used back in the day, it might be best to let that go. (Sorry, PawPaw). “Hater” […]
Did you say lesbians? I love lesbians!
So I’m sitting in a coffee shop talking with a brother about a trip he took to Africa to work in a village. I was a little annoyed by his comments that more black kids should be taken to Africa so they can see how good they have it in America, but I decided not […]
We Need Each Other to Survive: On Recovery and Reclamation
Last Wednesday, I literally felt like I raced time leaving the city of Tuscaloosa, AL about 45 minutes before the deadly tornado that ripped my neighborhood to shreds, destroying lives, and schools, and property along the way. I was on my way to the Birmingham airport to catch a flight out to the Black Women’s […]
We Are One: Remembering King by Getting Active!
Today is April 4th, forty-three years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2000, National Jobs with Justice and the United States Student Association began the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) Day of Action to recognize Dr. King’s important work supporting the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike in 1968. Men […]
My Sister’s Keeper: A “B” Side for Cleveland, TX
Trigger Alert: The following is a meditation on sexual violence. This piece is in response to my previous post, “Won’t You Celebrate With Me?”, in which I discussed my experiences as a survivor of child abuse. Last year, I wrote a piece in which I declared myself a survivor of child abuse. That fact is […]
On Watoto From The Nile- Letter to Lil Wayne
This musical open letter to Lil’ Wayne is getting lots of love! I want to join the chorus and give a big ol’ YAY to black girls creating media and saying what’s on their minds! Speaking back to Wayne’s misogyny is super important! That said, I wonder about the limits of such a message. Steve […]