#BlackChurchSex, Best Of, Love Single Life and Marriage, Pleasure, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex, Womanism
In 2015, I had a farewell dinner with a friend a few nights before I left Louisville. As we sat inside a dark restaurant filled with families but better suited for couples, awaiting our order of Indo-Chinese fusion dishes we had never heard of, my friend asked,...
Best Of, Beyonce, Feminism, Pop Culture
For more than a year now, I’ve been trying to figure out how much of a capitalist I am. Am I doing what I must to navigate the capitalist system I live in, or have I become convinced this system that so brutalized my ancestors and that continues to make people and...
Best Of, Black Diaspora, Feminism, Gender, History, Pleasure, Rape culture, Research and Scholarship, Respectability, Sex, Travel, Trigger warning, Yes Means Yes
Originally published August 2, 2014 I spent a portion of my last day at 33 dancing and thinking about the messages in the dance. On July 30, our study abroad group had a wonderful lecture on traditional dances of Trinidad and Tobago. Because there are so many people...
Best Of, Black Love, Feminism, History, In the News, Pleasure, Race, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex, Social Justice, Tyranny, Writing Intimacy
For two weeks after the election, I wrote nothing. I was enrolled in two writing workshops for my MFA, and I wrote nothing. I submitted a poem I had written over the summer and didn’t bother to revise for my poetry workshop that week. The following week, I skipped my...
Best Of, Feminism, In the News, Pleasure, Rape culture, Trigger warning, Yes Means Yes
In a recent interview on All Things Considered, Vanessa Grigoriadis, author of Blurred Lines: Rethinking Sex, Power, and Consent on Campus, talked with NPR about Betsy DeVos’s recent decision to roll back the Obama Administration’s Title IX guidelines on how colleges...
Best Of, Black Love, In the News, Pleasure, Race, Sex, Tyranny
Like many people, I spent most of Saturday at my computer and on my phone reading and re-tweeting updates about the white supremacists who had descended upon Charlottesville, Virginia. My emotions ranged from anger to sadness to disgust. And try as I do to promote...
Best Of, Black Love, Feminism, Pleasure, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Sex
I attended a conference session called, “Defusing the Power of Toxic Religion for Sexual Advocacy,” because I’m writing a memoir about intersections of faith, family, and feminism in my life and of my experience with black female sexuality within the context of the...
Best Of, Feminism, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Reproductive Justice, Social Justice
At a table on the quiet side of the room, five black women are talking. Sex. Helping a friend buy her first vibrator. Midwifery. Crunk Feminist Collective. Sexual health education. A sexual health education session in an AME church. The girls asked the sex...
Best Of, Education, Race
Originally published May 15, 2017 I sent this letter via email to senior high school students I teach in Camden, NJ, earlier this month. If it suits you, consider it Monday Motivation. What can you conquer today? Dear Students, I took one AP exam when I was in...
Best Of, In the News, Pop Culture, Rape culture, Trigger warning
*Trigger warning* The week of August of 15, my news feed was filled with damning articles and opinions about Nate Parker and support of his acclaimed film Birth of a Nation, now that news has resurfaced of a rape he was acquitted of 15 years ago. As I interrogated my...
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