There is a Balm in Wakanda or Why Black Joy Matters

I’ve been to Wakanda twice now. And with nonstop, direct flights leaving from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport, the next time I go I ain’t coming back. You’ve probably read and/or avoided reading 1.5 million think pieces about Black Panther. And, yes, this is another. But, quite frankly, I’m not going down the rabbit hole of whether […]

Biological Clocks and Balldrops: A New Year’s Reflection on Black Women’s Time

I spent New Year’s Day re-reading A Wrinkle A Time, a book I first encountered in middle school. I have been invested in re-reading the book both because I’m eagerly anticipating Ava DuVernay’s forthcoming rendition of the movie, with a mixed Black girl as protagonist. But I also wanted to read it because I have […]

Moonlight Musings & Motherhood: On Paula, Teresa and the Complicated Role of (Bad) Black Mamas in Film

I attended a campus screening of the film Moonlight on Monday night at the University of Alabama (shout out to Lamar Wilson, Jennifer Jones and Steve Mobley, Jr. for hosting).  Moonlight is a coming of age film about black boyhood, masculinity, sexual identity, friendship, love, and chosen family.  The film was written and directed by Barry […]

Black Girl Is a Verb: A New American Grammar Book

In her famous essay, “Interstices: A Small Drama of Words,” the venerable literary critic Hortense Spillers wrote, “Black women are the beached whales of the sexual universe, unvoiced, misseen, not doing, awaiting their verb.” At the time, Spillers was talking about the lack of texts about Black women’s sexuality and the lack of a collectively-honed […]