“I have come to believe over and over again that what is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. That the speaking profits me, beyond any other effect. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you.” (excerpt […]
Month: August 2014
When We Are Young
When we are young, often too young to fully understand the anxiety in their voices and the fear in their eyes, many of us listen to our parents tell us how to behave when, not if, we are stopped by the police. Usually these cautions beseech us to be aware of our surroundings, comply and […]
Summer Self Care Survival Kit
Everyday I read, watch, or discover something that makes me want to throw in the towel on humanity and crawl back into bed. I don’t really—none of us really—have that luxury though. There are Nigerian schoolgirls still missing. Ebola outbreaks marked by fear and/or indifference. Kids dying in hotass cars. There is apartheid […]
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 […]