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...
Feminism, Gender, In the News, Pop Culture, Race, Rape culture, Trigger warning
More specifically, these are questions I thought of after talking about the Lifetime documentary series “Surviving R. Kelly,” to a Black man who thinks protecting his 3 daughters is enough to stop a system of predatory behavior against Black girls and to counter his...
Black Lives Matter, Feminism, Gender, History, In the News, Race, Reproductive Justice, Social Justice, Tyranny
Upon the news of Justice Kennedy’s retirement, I, like most other freedom-loving people I know, fell into despair. Others were quick to remind those of us falling into the abyss that Black folks have endured and survived circumstances infinitely worse than what...
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...
Feminism, Gender, Religion Faith and Spirituality, Reproductive Justice, Sex, The Bible
In my early and mid-twenties, I wrote several drafts of a screenplay in which a modern-day Virgin Mary who received word the second coming of Christ would happen through an immaculate conception in her womb essentially says, “No thanks. Find someone else.” I wrote the...
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, Feminism, History, Pop Culture, Race, Rape culture, Trigger warning
“If a woman says she was raped, I believe her, because for all she has to go through, why would she lie?” The words I heard my freshman year in college in a discussion group between black and Jewish women greet me as I unlock my bicycle. Riding my bike often helps me...
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