On this Throwback Thursday I wanted to go back to one of my earliest posts. With the popularity of 50 Shades of Grey, I got to thinking about what’s up with the fantasy of having a rich white man controlling you. It’s not like many of our realities are that different. I’m just saying. In […]
take a load off family: black women, hair and the olympic stage
I am no athlete. I have not won an individual sports competition since maybe the second grade. I recall Usaining all comers in the 40-yard dash but, as Kasi Lemmons learned us, “memory is a selection of images, some elusive, others indelibly imprinted on the brain” and I might have photoshopped that one. My middle […]
For Whites Who Consider Being Allies But Find it Much too Tuff
Trigger Warning: Some language about sexual violence to follow. The following post is a crunk public service announcement for our own post most racial times. For the record, being a white ally means… Not expecting your friends/colleagues of color to do the heavy lifting around your own privilege… Not recentering the conversation back to yourself […]
Gabby the Great Gets the Gold!!!
And #thebestisyettocome. ‘Nuff Said! Postscript — Check out this awesome, tearful tributefrom Dominique “Awesome Dawesome” Dawes!
Throwback Thursday: Dear Patriarchy…
On this “Throwback Thursday,” I wanted to revisit one of Crunkista’s earlier posts–a kick-ass kiss-off letter to patriarchy. I think it’s eternal in relevance and general crunkness. Enjoy! ***************************************************************************************************************************** Dear Patriarchy, This isn’t working. We both know that it hasn’t been working for a very long time. It’s not you…no actually, it is […]
UPDATE: Gabby Douglas leads Team USA to the Gold
I purposely titled this essay to highlight Gabby Douglas’ leadership of the USA Women’s Gymnastics Olympic Team, which she led to victory yesterday, by capturing 33% or 1/3 of the total points the team received. You heard right. This kid, who commentators continue to suggest is “unable to handle the pressure,” was the only member […]
Olympics Oppression?: Gabby Douglas and Smile Politics
I tune in to the Summer Olympics every four years primarily for one sport: Women’s Gymnastics. I like basketball, women’s tennis, track and field, and men’s diving, too. But Gymnastics is my bread and butter. I had the privilege of falling in love with gymnastics in the early 1990s, the golden era of Team USA. […]
Throwback Thursday: Living Single
Today’s Throwback Thursday has me digging up a piece I didn’t claim as mine before. I don’t like to get personal on here because some of y’all don’t know how to act. Also, I’m still working out the importance of emotions and expressing them. This may be a lifelong process. I wrote living single at […]
A (Not So) Guilty Pleasure: Love & Hip Hop Atlanta
By now, many of you have experienced the delightful ratchet theater that is Love & Hip Hop Atlanta. One word: Ratchetstilksin Love and Hip Hop Atlanta is the brain-child of producer, Mona Scott-Young, who also unleashed upon the world created the first Love and Hip Hop series. LAHHA follows, as you might have guessed, the […]
Throwback Thursday: “You’re Pretty for a Dark-Skinned girl!”
Today, I am revisiting the first blog I wrote for the collective in 2010. I can’t remember why I wrote about colorism, but it feels as fitting and relevant today as it did two years ago when I first found the words. I wrote about how “You’re pretty for a dark-skinned girl” is a backwards pseudo-compliment […]