When I heard a documentary called Dark Girls had been produced in 2011 to share the often silenced stories and experiences of dark-skinned women and girls, I felt a wave of emotions and had a range of reactions fluctuating from curiosity and anxiety, to excitement and anticipation. I wrote an ode to dark (skinned) girls […]
What’s Up With Dudes Not Being Able to Give Compliments?
I tend to roll with a crew of badass bawse women in addition to being one myself. (It’s 2015 and time’s out for lack of self-confidence.) And because I’m grown and love myself, I no longer date asshole dudes. But I do date dudes who love badass bawse women. In theory at least. But in […]
Citizenship and Silence: Speaking the Stories Aloud
I walk to the mailbox in a small town about an hour outside New York City: Slowly, I make my way down our cracked driveway. I marvel at the blades of grass; so soft and fragile yet they’ve managed to disrupt the concrete and find their sun. I fancy myself this strong when I observe […]
Embracing “Crazy” in the “Land of the Free”
Guest post by Jillian Ford Folks have called me crazy much of my life. For the first two decades, “crazy” was a term of endearment: a way to signal my individuality and creativity. In my 20’s, “creativity” slid into “eccentricity.” Now in my third decade, “eccentricity” […]
Waiting to Exhale
(For Eric Garner, John Crawford, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice and numerous others) Wait. Over the past few days, weeks, and months there have been eloquent words spoken, passionate poems and prose written, and thoughtful commentaries and reflections offered about the righteous rage, indignant indifference, fear, sadness and ambivalence that black folk and allies have felt as […]
We Rage
We are numb. We are angry. We are incredulous. We are afraid. We are hopeful. We are hopeless. We are all the things. Let us be. Our hearts go out to Lesley McSpadden and Michael Brown, Sr. and all of Mike Brown’s loved ones. We are holding ourselves and our loved ones closer still. But […]
Working While Black: 10 Racial Microaggressions Experienced in the Workplace
I have worked, on and off, since I was fifteen years old. My summer office job at the beste Norske online casino financed the name brand school clothes my mother couldn’t afford and grounded me in the work ethic I learned from watching the women in my family go to work from sun up to […]
New Series: Voices From Inside – Breaking The Silence: The Cost of Cramps
This week the Crunk Feminist Collective is honored to bring you two pieces from women incarcerated in California prisons and jails. This is the second in the series. You can read the first, and get more background, here. These stories are here for us to read because of the incredible advocacy work of Justice NOW, an […]
New Series: Voices From Inside – Locked Away for a Lifetime: Barred from Becoming a Parent
This week the Crunk Feminist Collective is honored to bring you two pieces from women incarcerated in California prisons and jails. Their stories are here for us to read because of the incredible advocacy work of Justice NOW, an organization that works with incarcerated women by providing legal services, supporting prisoner organizing efforts, working with […]
On Why We are Not Out Here Going Hard for Brothers over that Hollaback Video
Three years ago, at the height of the SlutWalk movement, we told y’all about the movement being led by women of color to fight the street harassment women and girls of color face on their way to work and school. Folks weren’t even checking for Girl for Gender Equity’s video. I mean is everyone only […]