When I was working on my Ph.D., I swore that I would not be one of those people who tripped every time someone didn’t greet them with the proper title… As a first generation college student I was not aware, during my undergraduate years, that most of my professors had a Ph.D. (or even what […]
Author: rboylorn
Getting to Happy, or The Myth of Happily Ever After
Happy Endings? “Is this going to have a happy ending?” This question rose from an otherwise quiet classroom from a student who was getting worried since the documentary we were watching seemed to be going awry. The documentary, Home, follows the experience of a working-class single black mother of six children on her journey to […]
Be/Loved Community: It Ain’t Just For February
“The Beloved Community. . . is a global vision, in which all people can share in the wealth of the earth. . .poverty, hunger and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive […]
101 Things That Are Not True About The Most Famous Black Women Alive: Alexis Pauline Gumbs on Black Women, Black Feminism, and The Capacity to Love
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 […]
“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 […]
A Crunk Love Offering
In the spirit of what started as Crunksgiving, CFs Robin and Raeone come to you with the final installment of our 2012 Giving Campaign vlogs. They discuss the influence of the blog in their lives and classrooms, and urge you to match the CF’s labor/s of love with an offering of love. RandRGetCrunk from UA, […]
Remember Their Names: In Memory of Kasandra, Cherica & Others
I am sure that by now many of you know the name Jovan Belcher. If you didn’t know his name (as I didn’t) before this weekend, you know it now. He is the Kansas City Chiefs player who shot and killed his girlfriend before taking his own life on Saturday. Headlines and news stories have […]
Chasing Time: A Reflection of Thanks(giving)
Time flies whether you are having fun or not. My childhood seemed to linger like thick molasses while my twenties flew by like short school days. Before I knew it I was post-30, highly educated, minimally motivated, hundreds of miles away from home but finally at home with myself. When I turned thirty I had […]
Overcoming A-stigma-tism: (An Affirmation) For Blackgirls Who Have Considered Suicide When Closed Eyes Are Enuf
astigmatism: the inability to see clearly stigma: a mark of disgrace or infamy -ism: a suffix added to terms to reflect a symptom or ideology “Sometimes you can’t see yourself clearly until you see yourself through the eyes of others.” I see you. You are beautiful and you don’t even know it. I mean it. […]
Throwback Thursday Remix: How to Say No…And When to Say Yes!
(This entry combines a previous entry, dated March 14, 2011, with a new reflection). Saying No It took me years to unlearn the habit of saying yes automatically when someone asked me for (or to do) something. So often had that single syllable fallen from my tongue that I would often agree to things before […]