Oftentimes women complain that they hate going to the gynecologist because they don’t like the procedures. Sometimes it is likened to going to the dentist but more uncomfortable and personal. I can’t say that my reasons are related to the procedures. In fact, what makes me most uncomfortable about the speculum is the historical […]
Author: sheridf
We Are One: Remembering King by Getting Active!
Today is April 4th, forty-three years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2000, National Jobs with Justice and the United States Student Association began the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) Day of Action to recognize Dr. King’s important work supporting the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike in 1968. Men […]
God’s Plan Ain’t Black Mother’s Dying Young
Yesterday I attended a funeral for a distant cousin, and I was angry throughout the entire service and for the rest of the day. I am still angry because we buried a 47 year black mother, and no one could tell me why. The family had to get an autopsy done to determine the cause […]
A Love Poem for Single Mothers
Hey girl, I’m calling Cause I got your text Seems you might need a hug And a minute to vent So you spent one more night Trying to find the words To explain that joint parenting Means joint work That what he can’t pay for Can be supplemented with time Especially since you’re working […]
Feeling Good Means Healing Good
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 […]
Sisterfriendz in the Kitchen: Dialoguing with Our Foremothers
It is the end of the Fall semester and I have been reminded of the power of Black Feminist pedagogy after experiencing my graduate and undergraduate students archival project presentations. Quick background, the course was an Africana Women’s Studies Intro to Women’s Studies class with a total of six black female students. For their final […]
Tyler Perry almost walked off wid alla my stuff
An open letter to my students, my close friend, and my mother: When I left the movie theater after watching Tyler Perry Presents For Colored Girls I felt like Tyler Perry took something from me. I went to see the film with a close friend and I was ready to feel some of the complexity […]
More Dispatches from NWSA
Sheri on the Classroom: a theater, dance studio, a closed door private space, a garden, an offering and opportunity, a place for tensions, burning, eruptions, cooling, change. Speaking of the classroom we have been going to school in various pedagogical sessions and in the hallways. SolHot rocked some embodied scholarship when Chamaura and Dominique danced […]
A (Hetero)Black Feminist F(ordin)airytale
My husband and I have been together for ten years, married for five. I have been reflecting on our relationship particularly because there are very few positive narratives about black male and female relationships in general. But I have been thinking about the fact that I haven’t come across many positive narratives about self-identified black […]
For Elsie Lacks
Does anybody see the black women Bound and gagged In dirtied white gowns Hair disheveled and feet bare Climbing over one another Trying to get your attention Does anybody hear the black women Moaning muffled cries Kicking and wiggling Banging their heads against the floor Trying to get your attention I see them. I hear […]