A couple of folks were asking for a crunk response to Ashley Judd’s memoir passages and the resulting controversy. Judd is being called to task for singling out rap music as the “contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.” You can read her words here. There are lots of responses that you can check out but I want […]
I’d like to see YOU jump without a safety net: Why the Republicans’ Budget Proposal is Morally Bankrupt
Darling CF’s, Today, I bring you your regularly scheduled crunk policy analysis. I am a bit of a policy nerd, admittedly. Not because I enjoy inaccessible wonkery, but because I think it informs my activism to know as much as I can about the intricacies of policy proposals and political agendas. That said, I must […]
We Are One: Remembering King by Getting Active!
Today is April 4th, forty-three years since the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. In 2000, National Jobs with Justice and the United States Student Association began the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) Day of Action to recognize Dr. King’s important work supporting the Memphis Sanitation Workers Strike in 1968. Men […]
How Chris Brown is Effing Up My Sex Life: A B-Side to Dating While Feminist
For the last month or so, I have been entertaining a new Friend. This brother is cute, sensitive, ambitious, educated, knowledgeable, adventurous and funny. For these reasons and others, he could most definitely get it. Sounds great, right? Yes. And then Chris Brown happened. The day after the recent shamtabulousness occurred, I told Friend of […]
Inconceivable: Black Infertility
“Fish dreams signal pregnancy in my family. The premonition, which was mostly my grandmother’s or another maternal figure, has been consistent and accurate for as long as I can remember. All girl children were implicated by any dream that featured fish. . .” said CF Rboylorn, Fish Dreams and Fantasies: Contemplating Motherhood. There have been […]
Art and War: Libya and Making Sense of it All
Yesterday night, after a long day at the office working on women’s health and reproductive justice. I settled in front of the computer with some tea and a determination to catch up on what’s happening in Libya, and what the arguments both for and against military intervention. I found a couple of very nuanced assessments […]
I Will Follow – A Movie Review
My bestie Yolo and I decided to see the movie I Will Follow after hearing rave reviews from friends. We were a bit taken aback because the movie was well… good! There were queer characters not caricatures, complex family dynamics, and emotional tenderness. We liked it so much we made a video blog documenting our […]
My Sister’s Keeper: A “B” Side for Cleveland, TX
Trigger Alert: The following is a meditation on sexual violence. This piece is in response to my previous post, “Won’t You Celebrate With Me?”, in which I discussed my experiences as a survivor of child abuse. Last year, I wrote a piece in which I declared myself a survivor of child abuse. That fact is […]
How To Say No: The “B” side to Self-Care
(This post is in response to Life Is Not A Fairytale: Black Women and Depression, one of our earlier and most popular posts.) It took me years to unlearn the habit of saying yes automatically when someone asked me for (or to do) something. So often had that single syllable fallen from my tongue that I […]
Single, Saved, and Sewn-In: The Gospel of Getting Your Hair Done
Like most conservative, fundamentalist, literalist Christian folks, I grew up believing that getting your hair done was a sin—the only sin, in fact, that ever made God tell an angel to go to hell. For years, my grooming experiences were laden with guilt. I routinely went years at a time without getting my hair professionally […]