I have worked, on and off, since I was fifteen years old. My summer office job at the beste Norske online casino financed the name brand school clothes my mother couldn’t afford and grounded me in the work ethic I learned from watching the women in my family go to work from sun up to […]
New Series: Voices From Inside – Breaking The Silence: The Cost of Cramps
This week the Crunk Feminist Collective is honored to bring you two pieces from women incarcerated in California prisons and jails. This is the second in the series. You can read the first, and get more background, here. These stories are here for us to read because of the incredible advocacy work of Justice NOW, an […]
New Series: Voices From Inside – Locked Away for a Lifetime: Barred from Becoming a Parent
This week the Crunk Feminist Collective is honored to bring you two pieces from women incarcerated in California prisons and jails. Their stories are here for us to read because of the incredible advocacy work of Justice NOW, an organization that works with incarcerated women by providing legal services, supporting prisoner organizing efforts, working with […]
On Why We are Not Out Here Going Hard for Brothers over that Hollaback Video
Three years ago, at the height of the SlutWalk movement, we told y’all about the movement being led by women of color to fight the street harassment women and girls of color face on their way to work and school. Folks weren’t even checking for Girl for Gender Equity’s video. I mean is everyone only […]
Words to Live By
I’m ready to say “don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lorde split ya” to the month of October. Is it me or was this past month just extra ridiculous? From the ongoing shenanigans in Ferguson, to the exploits of so-called white allies in the anti-street harassment movement, to the tomfoolery of Thug […]
Clair Huxtable is Dead: On Slaying the Cosbys and Making Space for Liv, Analise, and Mary Jane
That Bill Cosby drugged and raped women for sport for many years is not new news. Apparently, the story has floated for years, and several months ago I read the testimony of two new women who had come forward, after the statute of limitations had run out, simply because they wanted to tell their story. […]
Reflections on Respectability
Trigger Warning: Discussions of violence Whitepeople believed that whatever the manners, under every dark skin was a jungle. Swift unnavigable waters, swinging screaming baboons, sleeping snakes, red gums ready for their sweet white blood. In a way, he thought, they were right. The more coloredpeople spent their strength trying to convince them how gentle they […]
Abolish the Box: Moving Beyond Criminality in Addressing Sexual Violence
Guest post by the Incarceration to Education Coalition We, the Incarceration to Education Coalition, are a group of activists working to eradicate barriers to higher education for currently and formerly incarcerated people. Our primary goal is to abolish the Box, the question on college applications that forces applicants to disclose their “criminal” records. Our vision […]
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 […]
Black Autumn: On Black Anger, Tiredness, and the Limits of Self-Care
The turning of autumn is one of my favorite times of year. Having been on an academic calendar my entire life, fall is the season of new beginnings, a time to turn up the intensity of scholarly production, teaching, meetings, school. But that intensity is also greeted with the changing of fall leaves and hopefully […]