Graduate school was nothing short of an emotional and physical rollercoaster. I spent the first semester depressed and homesick, years 2-4 battling a stress-induced stomach condition that caused me to lose not only 75 pounds but also a whole semester of work. I healed just in time to begin my dissertation, wherein I gained back […]
Mamie Till’s Memorial
she wanted the world to see what they had done to her baby, Emmett. so as we quickly approach the day Emmett was violently violated and killed (August 28), i want to consider again the religious ethics that prompted his mother’s — Mamie Till-Bradley — desire for the world to experience the death of her […]
Confessions of a Reality TV Junkie
What began as morbid curiosity and harmless voyeurism has turned into somewhat of an obsession. Reality Television has become a habitual part of my nightly routine and something that I am not particularly proud of. As I spent the weekend clearing out my DVR, which was full of reality tv shows I missed while being […]
Author Martha Southgate on Why the Film “The Help” is a Symptom of a Larger Issue: My Thoughts.
Author note: Post written last week. In Entertainment Weekly, one of my favorite authors, Martha Southgate (@mesouthgate) discusses the film “The Help” stating that, There have been thousands of words written about Stockett’s skills, her portrayal of the black women versus the white women, her right to tell this story at all. I won’t rehash […]
“wife” is code for “The Help”
So all the women in my life are going to or have already seen the new movie The Help, but I cannot possibly bring myself to go because 1) I really don’t feel that I need another “black women as domestic servants to white women” or “black women as nanny/mammy to white children” story in […]
(More) Love for Awkward Black Girl
I was writing a pretty depressing piece for today about why I’m not voting for Obama in 2012 but I’m still a bit skittish about comments post Kreayshawn so I need another month or two to mentally prepare for what I anticipate will be some serious backlash. Plus, I’m tired of being sad and […]
She Got A Big Ego?: Thoughts on Dating with a Doctorate
Recently, my romantic interested accused me of throwing my Ph.D. in his face. Most Black women with Ph.D.’s will know exactly how egregious an accusation that is, especially since we are hypersensitive and overly vigilant about making sure never to “throw our degrees” in the face of less-accomplished potential boos or family members. Follow these […]
Putting My House in Order: Some Thoughts on Self-Care
Toni Cade Bambara’s “On the Issue of Roles” is one of my all-time favorite essays and a particular passage has been on my mind a lot lately. Bambara writes: Running off to mimeograph a fuck-whitey leaflet, leaving your mate to brood, is not revolutionary. Hopping on a plane to rap to someone else’s “community” while your […]
“I met a woman today …”: Concern as Aesthetic Practice
The reiteration :: we already have what we need in order to form a new world, a new world forged out of the material existence of that which already surrounds us. We have love, we have laughter, we have light. We have desire, we have depth, we have darkness occasioning the possibility of secretive and […]
Confessions of a Backslider…
I’ve been backsliding y’all. I mean really backsliding. I act like I forgot how feminism saved me, way back when. The way it taught me how to listen more closely to the music that moved me. The way it stopped me from saying things like “I don’t really hang out with girls because they’re too […]