Guest Post by Black Artemis Today is the first St. Valentine’s Day in three years in which I write a new blog about what this day means to me. In 2009 I wrote one wherein I recount why St. Valentine was a historical figure worthy of recognition especially in these times and reiterate my support for […]
Category: Self-Care
Love Overflow: A Red Reflection (and a Trigger Warning… SMH)
It’s early on Valentine’s Day, an invented holiday by U.S. greeting card companies (for real, look it up!). I just learned about Too Short’s “Fatherly Advice” to young boys about how to “turn girls out” in a video for XXL. While this is not shocking for Too Short, it also speaks to the culture we […]
The World Can Wait
Cis and trans* women of color do a lot of work that they don’t get paid for. Work at home, work at work, work in our communities, everywhere really. And a lot of it is done out of love. Love for our communities, love for our lovers, and things/people we believe in.There’s a saying, “do […]
The Immediate Need For Emotional Justice
The Immediate Need For Emotional Justice Guest Post by Yolo Akili “Emotional Justice” is a term widely recognized as coined by journalist and Radio Host Esther Armah. Oppression is trauma. Every form of inequity has a traumatic impact on the psychology, emotionality and spirituality of the oppressed. The impact of oppressive trauma creates cultural […]
Sexy, Self-Conscious, Sanctified, Sassy & Single: Why I Married My Ph.D.
2011 has garnered a lot of conversations centering on the undesirability (hence un-marryability) of (professional) black women. Black women have been fed unsolicited and unnecessary information about how to correct and prepare ourselves for our soulmate without giving us the credit due grown ass women who routinely (and effectively) handle our ish, look good doing […]
Lessons Learned
“Mas sabe el Diablo por viejo que por Diablo.” “The devil knows more from being old than from being the devil.” This is my birthday month and I have now lived on this planet for 3 whole decades. I’ve been thinking a lot about the lessons I have learned and thought I would share them […]
20 Things I Want To Say To My Twentysomething Self
I recently re-discovered a journal I kept after I graduated from college in 2000. I was unemployed, seemingly unemployable, broken-hearted, on the brink of adulthood but still so incredibly naïve (something I only recognize now, because I have distance, experience and context). I was twenty-one years old, feeling grown and wise… and like a failure. […]
From Margin to Center: Health for Brown Bois
As a graduate student, I elect to receive health care through my school (because they pay for it). Student Health Services has its pros and cons and my experiences have been, to put it nicely, mixed. My experiences with health care providers are what motivated me to think about the hierarchical relationship between doctors and […]
Rituals , Spells, and Intuition
I come from a world where you don’t mess with your ancestors, dreams have meaning, seashells give advice, upside down coffee cups tell stories, and practicing black magic has severe consequences. As a child, I would sit between my mother and aunties’ legs witnessing women tipping stained coffee cups to the side, preaching of ills […]
Irene, Erykah and the Stuff after Storms
When Irene whistled, I listened to Erykah. Curled on a daybed in the dark, I rummaged for ways to salvage stuff in the midst of a hurricane when Badu pleaded to the self-proclaimed bag lady on a drained battery to let it go. This summer, I returned to my Virginia hometown to weather a different […]