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 […]
Category: Relationships
In Search of Black Love
Summer 17 has been a hotbed of a hot ass mess. Between the atrocity that is the current presidential administration pushing backward retrograde policies intended to further marginalize and disenfranchise women and communities of color (especially those who are poor, undocumented, and LGBTQ) and the continued looming threat of the domestic terrorism of white supremacy, […]
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 […]
On Becky, M.I.A.,and the Problem of that “Good Hair”
It’s a ‘do you remember where you were when…?” kind of event. Years from now, I’ll say, “I was at a friends birthday party where some of us gathered around the TV, shushing the others, to watch Lemonade premiere.” It was a warm, April evening in Houston and I got to the party with about […]
Lemonade, Sweet Tea, and Dirty Laundry on the Clothesline
Homemade lemonade was relief from the humid heat of North Carolina summers. Sweet and sour lemon water always tasted better after it had been sitting for a few days, bathed in the sun so the sugar syrup could fully absorb the lemon pieces floating at the top of a see through pitcher, like a see […]
Serial and the Power of Storytelling
Like so many others, I spent the last few months of 2014 listening – first avidly, then with trepidation and ultimately with disdain – to the hit podcast Serial. The podcast follows a single story, week by week. The story centers on Adnan Syed, a Pakistani American high school student who was accused and convicted […]
On the Glorification of the Side Chick
So, the question has been asked, is 2014 the year of the side chick? When thinking about this there are a few things to consider. Is this a declaration, a compliment, or a fear? According to popular media, side chicks, or women (usually women of color) who are knowingly in a relationship with a man […]
The Blame Game: Black Women, Shame, and Victim Blaming
(Trigger Warning) I will never forget listening to the raging voice of a man I didn’t know on the other end of a phone line alongside my homegirl in Florida. We sat in a room with the door closed while she told me what had happened the night before to preface the voice mail I […]
Scandalous!
Some spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned. Watching Scandal is a weekly ritual for me. I love to sit back on my couch, phone in hand (cause I gotta get my tweet on), and revel in the ridiculousness of this frothy primetime soap. Shoot, sometimes I bust out red wine and popcorn too. After my tweets […]
Black Queer Trouble in Literature, Life, and the Age of OBama: Part II
Originally Delivered by Cheryl Clarke as the Kessler Lecture on Dec. 6, 2013 at the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center Scenes of black queer and feminist resistance; or “forced confinement and forced mobility” Recently I said the following at a “Symposium: Black Women’s Studies and the Transformation of […]