When I heard a documentary called Dark Girls had been produced in 2011 to share the often silenced stories and experiences of dark-skinned women and girls, I felt a wave of emotions and had a range of reactions fluctuating from curiosity and anxiety, to excitement and anticipation. I wrote an ode to dark (skinned) girls […]
Category: Feminism
Embracing “Crazy” in the “Land of the Free”
Guest post by Jillian Ford Folks have called me crazy much of my life. For the first two decades, “crazy” was a term of endearment: a way to signal my individuality and creativity. In my 20’s, “creativity” slid into “eccentricity.” Now in my third decade, “eccentricity” […]
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 […]
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 […]
Detroit Goddamn
Growing up in the 80s and 90s, I mistakenly thought that environmentalism was something simply to do with saving the rainforest and the ozone layer. “Environment” was a fancy word for places far away from the working class former factory town where I lived. Certainly, “saving the environment” was important for all of us, but […]
Dear Octavia
Dear Octavia, Yesterday, it was your birthday. Happy birthday, dear! I’ve been missing you a lot and thinking about you a lot lately, especially since there’s a newly discovered crop of your short stories. I feel like that was a gift for all of us. Your work has continually been a gift to me […]
Time for the Supremes: Hobby Lobby and Your Boss in Your Bedroom
Sometime between now and July 4th, the Supreme Court is set to rule on two cases that will affect our access to birth control, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Sebelius. In both these cases for-profit companies are using the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to challenge the Affordable Care […]
A Crunk Feminist Response to Solange, Jay, & Bey
Earlier this week, TMZ released the now infamous elevator video of Solange going HAM on Jay Z. The responses have been swift and the memes have been hilarious. I’m a let y’all finish but, there are a few things missing from the conversation. First of all, Solange was dead wrong. Now don’t get me wrong, […]
An Ontology of CRUNK: Theorizing (the) Turn Up
For your #TurnUp Tuesday pleasure, I thought I’d do a little Crunk theorizing today. As y’all already know, CRUNK is a generative term, a percussive term that centrally points to the kind of energy generated by putting disparate elements together like hip hop and feminism or black nationalism and feminism or crunk and feminism. […]
Sex, Scandal, and Shower Rods
May 5th can’t come soon enough. No, I’m not super excited for Cinco de Mayo, because Lord knows I’m all set with appropriated holidays and am up for drinking margaritas any day of the year. What I can’t wait for is the return of Love and Hip Hop Atlanta!!!!!! Season 3!!!!!!!!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd0IscvKi1E&noredirect=1 That supertrailer was […]