My favorite biographical description of Alexis Pauline Gumbs is included in her Conscious Campus profile: “Dr. Alexis Pauline Gumbs is a queer black trouble-maker and a black feminist love evangelist. She walks in the legacy of black lady school teachers in post slavery communities who offered sacred educational space to the intergenerational newly free in […]
Month: January 2013
The story that’s taken ten years to tell: On abortion, race and the power of story
Guest Post by Shanelle Matthews “Are you in college?” The doctor could tell from my face I wasn’t at all interested in having a conversation. “You speak well. I mean, you’re articulate.” The wrinkles in my forehead deepened. I wrung my fingers tightly around the scratchy, blue exam gown and briefly thought about the woman […]
We Have Dreams: Some Thoughts on Intentional Dreaming on this MLK-Inauguration Day
On this inauguration morning and MLK day, I woke up with Anna Arnold Hedgeman on my mind. You may not know her but you should. Anna Arnold Hedgeman was the only woman to serve on the 1963 March on Washington planning committee. She was the first Black woman to serve in a New York Mayoral […]
“Grounded and Ready To Soar”: Notes From the 2013 CFC Retreat
The business of our everyday lives (jobs, mothering, aunt-ing, loving and making love, creating and tearing down (oppressions), building and holding up, going in and coming out, taking care of ourselves and others, etc.) has been strenuous over the past 23 months. The CFC has grown exponentially since our March 2010 launch. In 2012 we added […]
On Azealia Banks and White Gay Cis Male Privilege
Guest Post by Edward Ndopu Recently, the media has exploded with news of a Twitter battle between rapper Azealia Banks and gossip blogger Perez Hilton. After Hilton inserted himself in an altercation between Banks and fellow female rapper Angel Haze, taking Haze’s side, Banks denounced him as a “messy faggot”. She then went on to […]
Django Unchained and Why Context Matters
Some spoilers ahead, but mostly I’m just feeling all my feelings… Growing up, I had to deal with my mother’s love for Westerns. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen The Outlaw Josie Wales. One of the many joys of expanded basic cable (besides the Cooking Channel, of course) is that I get […]
A Theory of Violence: In Honor of Kasandra, CeCe, Victoria, Savita and Anonymous
**trigger warning** A few weeks ago, a young Indian woman went to the movies. On her way home she took a bus on which she was raped and brutally assaulted by six men. We don’t know the name of this 23-year-old student. We do know that she was tortured so badly that she lost her […]