I have a lot of thoughts about the book Patsy. I have been on a streak reading about mothers lately, but I notice that I have always seemed to gravitate toward books about mothers (or maybe people just use fiction to process their relationships with their mothers). I think I am noticing themes about mothers… Continue reading Patsy and reflections on motherhood
You were never broken You were always whole You may not feel at home in your body But you have every right to feel loved You are like Samson, drawing strength from your hair Changing its shape, like clouds in the sky Changing its color, like leaves in autumn Changing its length, texture, style… Continue reading A Home Body
Trauma. This word is buzzing around my head after I finished Monday’s Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson. So many iterations and layers of trauma. So many ways it can show up in the body of a black girl and a black woman. The trauma of a best friend who disappeared. Of lost children. Of… Continue reading Somebody sing a Black girl’s song
I love well-meaning white folks. Like the ones who tell me I’m articulate or who remind me quite often at how not racist they are. The ones who use that infamous quote from The Help. “You is kind. You is smart. And you is important.” I love a good story where black people’s main role… Continue reading Well-Meaning White Folks
I’ve written before about how growing up, I was not happy with being black. When I look back on how I thought of myself and the messages I internalized, I am sad and ashamed. Occasionally, I may revert to those awful thoughts, but it’s gotten a lot better. It’s funny (it’s actually not funny). As… Continue reading Coffee Will Make You Black and Womanish
My favorite black holiday movie is The Preacher’s Wife. I’m not sure why I enjoyed that movie so much growing up. Maybe because I wanted to have a Denzel Washington angel to become my new dad. Something about how he burned his mouth on that pizza in that one scene and washed it down with… Continue reading Make Your Relationships Count
You know what was a global tragedy that people barely talked about? The kidnapping of the Chibok schoolgirls in Nigeria. How did we let hundreds of children be taken from school and held captive for years and doing nothing to return them to their families safe? How did many people in the world not even… Continue reading Bring back our girls
Representation matters so much. Seeing art, success, and passion come from other black women makes me feel like I can do and create anything. I don’t feel so inadequate and insignificant when I see those who come before me doing great things (but it’s also just as important to see people who look like me… Continue reading Normal Black Girls Rock Too
Let me impress you with one of my high school summer reading list selections: The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison. This wasn’t actually required for me to read in high school. Who wants to read a book about the real suffering of a little black girl anyway? There aren’t any lessons to be learned and… Continue reading “Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.”
