At Bitch: What’s the Republican Recruitment Strategy? Racism, Plain and Simple
Trump successfully leveraged white fragility to become the Pied Piper of bigots, leading the members of the Republican Party, who are so inclined, away from the clutches of the establishment and into a brighter future, where white supremacy is secure and the dream of American exceptionalism hasn’t been tarnished by the reality of American imperialism. Since […]
There’s no struggle in love, but there’s love in struggle
I love Black people. It’s a learned love, a fought-over love, a bittersweet love, but ultimately, a fulfilling love. Blackness has been like this beautiful thing that I don’t want to cheapen by forcing myself onto it. I keenly understand that my experience is very different from that of a more visibly Black person. I […]
You Won’t Believe These 6 Bullet Points Regarding My Absence
If you told me back when I was 16 and deeply in love with writing that I’d go out of my way to avoid writing as much as possible at age 36, I’d never have believed it. But here we are, and it’s been almost a year since I wrote anything other than essays for […]
From Bitch Magazine: Sister Soldiers
Y’all, my article on Black women activists and police brutality from the Law and Order issue of Bitch Magazine has been posted online. You can read the full essay @ BitchMedia.com, and hear me reading an abridged version of the essay on Bitch’s “A Protest is Not a Riot” podcast here. Here’s a snippet of […]
On EBONY.com: I Just Had an Abortion
Last month, I had an abortion. I’ve been a strident advocate for a woman’s right to choose since I was a pre-teen, and it’s still difficult for me to say those words. So many assumptions about my life can be made on the basis of that admission, and the shame is real. For White women […]
The Revolution Will Not Be Plus-Sized
After a lot of soul-searching and introspection, I’ve come to the conclusion that being welcomed into the fashion industrial complex is not entirely the kind of progress I want to see in the fat acceptance movement. Now, I love clothes. I mean, I LOVE clothes. But I’m also personally invested in intersectionality and the idea […]
Bye, Becky: My Take on Black Girl Makeover Shows
The idea of Black women being called on to impart their essence into a white woman in order for her to become empowered is laughable, when you consider the fact that actual Black women are systematically disempowered in American society. Yet when viewed in the context of the social construction of an essential Black culture, […]
Form and Function: A Brief Introduction to Nudity and Disability in Western Culture
Representations of nudity in Western popular culture are rarely inclusive of “physically disabled” or “non-normative” bodies. If nude disabled bodies are represented at all, it’s usually in a medicalized, Othered context–case studies of the “disfigured” or collections of outrageous pictures of “freakish” bodies. Our cultural relationship with physical disability is contradictory; we’re trained to look […]
I Came Back For You
Damn, y’all. It’s been almost a year since I’ve written anything. A lot has gone down since that last post, personally. I’ve kind of come full circle, back to where I was when I first started this blog–jobless. I stopped writing because of the craptastical job I got to save me from my previous state […]
The Only Skins You Ever Hit Was the Skins on Your Right Hand
So. I’ve been spending a lot of time on Twitter lately. Before I get into this, I will go ahead and say that this rant is specifically targeted at straight cis men. Let me also say that I am all for having standards regarding who you will or won’t date and who you you will […]