“If growing up is painful for the Southern Black girl, being aware of her displacement is the rust on the razor that threatens the throat. It is an unnecessary insult.” -Maya Angelou, I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings If you were ever blessed to be in the same room with her, you knew she […]
What Does Black Masculinity Look Like?
Over the past few weeks, in the midst of teaching a pre-summer class on black masculinity in which we have discussed, debated and dreamed about the possibility for fluidity in raced gender performance, I have listened to a black man weep and express his love for his teammates and his appreciation for the sacrifices of […]
On Jill Abramson, Race, and the Politics of Recognition
Jill Abramson’s firing from the New York Times did not surprise me. The surprise was that I couldn’t manage to care. At least not in the way I saw the feminist blogosphere erupt with anguish and rage. Righteous rage, I concur. But I couldn’t manage the energy for that kind of rage. Perhaps I remained […]
On bell, Beyonce’, and Bullshit
Out of respect for elders, I haven’t been pressed to weigh in on why the venerable bell hooks might find it reasonable to refer to Beyoncé as a terrorist. Yet, I felt compelled to respond this morning, after reading this piece from Rev. Osagyefo Sekou at Truth-Out.org, that indicts an entire generation of Black intellectuals […]
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, […]
Dark-Skinned Blackgirl Visibility: On Gabby and Lupita
As a black feminist I am always here for the celebration of blackgirls, black women, and black wommanness in general (shout out to Dr. Ruth Nicole Brown, arbiter of Solhot, a promise to young blackgirls and women—and others who are doing the work past visibility and towards self-esteem and community accountability). And as a dark-skinned […]
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. The […]
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 […]
Blackgirls Matter
but we don’t see her enough. to know she’s not stronger than steel that super-human shit is made for TV but made for real life blackgirls break we matter but we don’t hear ourselves enough. screams are muted by stereotypes and assumptions that swallow and misunderstand our words when they are not softly-spoken or […]
Scandalous!
Some spoilers ahead. You’ve been warned. Watching Scandal is a weekly ritual for me. I love to sit back on my couch, phone in hand (cause I gotta get my tweet on), and revel in the ridiculousness of this frothy primetime soap. Shoot, sometimes I bust out red wine and popcorn too. After my tweets […]