Kelly Williams-Bolar, a single mother of two daughters, ages 16 and 12, is serving day 9 of a 10-day suspended sentence in an Akron, OH jail for –wait for it – “records falsification” after modifying documents so that her  daughters could attend school in a better school district than the ones near the subsidized housing […]

I was recently asked to give a presentation about women in the workforce to a group of Latina undergraduate students. After the panic about speaking in public wore off, I started asking myself, what could I possibly teach them? I started thinking about my experiences (as a student and professional) and how they have been […]

Yesterday, I met my sister on Facebook. My mother’s only child, I have always wanted an older sister, someone wiser and cooler who could hip me to the ways of the world. I had replied to a cousin’s status update,  an action that has become as commonplace as eating my morning bowl of cereal. When […]

So it’s January and the weight loss advertisements are literally flooding in.  Like two days into the new year Bobby Flay was in a warm up suit talking healthy eating when October-December he and all his foodie buddies on the Food Network and the new Cooking channel were all about indulgence. But the ad that […]

In a communication course last year my students and I reached an impasse when they insisted that words have no power.  When I challenged their overuse of popular, yet problematic, slang that is potentially offensive and harmful (i.e., saying something is “gay” or “retarded”) they claimed that words don’t mean anything, they are “just words.”  […]

I own the movie Phat Girlz and I’m not ashamed. Starring a pre-Oscar Mo’Nique, Phat Girlz is part Cinderella-story, part conventional rom-com about a big girl searching for some love. It’s not remarkable in terms of budget, plot, or acting. In fact, a fair bit of it is cringe-worthy. (What immediately springs to mind is […]

Happy New Year! If you are over 30, highly accomplished and yet still single, perhaps you are breathing a sigh of relief at having survived another holiday season of prying questions, inappropriate remarks, and even, loneliness. This year, all of my aunties informed me at Christmas that they needed to know if I had a […]

  We can hardly believe the year is over! We’ve been thinking about the blogs, books, films, and so on that have sustained us throughout 2010. So, what we’ve come up with is the inaugural “Crunk List”! CF Crunktastic Sesame Street, “I Love My Hair”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enpFde5rgmw– This song is a celebration of the beauty of Black girls’ […]

  Someday at Christmas men won’t be boys Playing with bombs like kids play with toys One warm December our hearts will see A world where men are free Someday at Christmas there’ll be no wars When we have learned what Christmas is for When we have found what life’s really worth There’ll be peace […]