Latest Essays

My husband does the lion’s share of the cooking in our house. I can cook, but he’s the better culinary artist. He grows and uses his own herbs in his dishes. Our family has developed a palette that demands more than salt and pepper to satiate our food lusts as a result. I consider this […]

Black Panther has been in theaters for three days. I have held my tongue and waited for you all to get apprised for long enough. It’s time to discuss the film as a family.   Black Panther boasts a lineup of some of the most celebrated and talented stars in Hollywood, including Angela Bassett (aka the […]

There isn’t much to me said for the caliber of Ghana’s media landscape or its professionals. With a handful of bright exceptions, journalism in Ghana is a profession overridden by undisciplined individuals who plague the landscape with their amateurish attempts at broadcasting and storytelling. For this persistent and enduring failing, the country has been the […]

January 2nd, 2018 10:01 am   A woman’s squealing voice shatters the silence. “David, darling!” A man yawns. It is the yawn of a man content with his life and all that he surveys. “Yes, darling?” Footsteps pound down the stairs, announcing the arrival of the woman into his man lair. “The invitations to the […]

 Conservative men were virtually jizzing themselves in the Comments Section all over the innanets yesterday ahead of the State of the Union Address, each heaping their fawning adoration on a subject who could neither hear their euphoric vociferation nor care if he did. America’s Orange Fuhrer lives only for his self-gratification, and these tiki-lighting, khaki-wearing […]

“Are you boycotting Netflix?” “What?” “Netflix. Mo’Nique said we should all boycott Netflix.” It was now 5am CAT and I could only stare at my phone and wonder what had happened 8 hours prior EST to illicit this text from my sister. I know her well enough to know that her query was dripping with […]

I’m a (not so) secret super fan of the FOKN Bois, the oddly paired rap duo from Ghana. It’s often tempting to invoke parallels between the members of this group and the now-defunct Outkast, but it’s even wiser to refrain from that temptation. Just like Andre and Big Boi, M3nsa and Wanlov are – and […]

“If it isn’t intentional, then it isn’t racism.” Those are the words of a woman who would most likely describe herself as ‘color blind’, if not an ally to people marginalized, stigmatized and often downright oppressed in majority white societies. Those words incited shock, disbelief and resignation in circles of people of color all over […]

It must be overwhelming to live as a heterosexual male in Ghana. Imagine being told – explicitly or not – that no matter how difficult your life may be, no matter how many disappointments you may suffer, at least you are not a woman. Women are not “co-equals” to men. Women have been cursed since […]

“If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as a Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job […]

“We always had a problem with him and pools. The people who own the pool upstairs said they caught him walking around it when I already told him not to. I gave him a hiding. He said he wouldn’t do it again. And then just 5 days later, he came back to report to me […]

Do you make New Year resolutions? I don’t. Not any more. I don’t even make goals. Murphy’s Law operates in my life with the efficiency of a bicycle and the ferocity of Eddy Merckx on the pedals. Whether horrific or splendid, every event in my life is a surprise. It’s all very New Age – […]

The year is drawing to a close and we are in the homestretch! 2018 is peering back at us over the horizon. 2017 has been a bizarre year, much of it in a good way. After the horrors that 2016 wrought upon us, it was good to catch some semblance of a breather over these […]

 Watching holiday movies was never a big part of my family’s Christmas rituals, growing up. We watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman and those early claymation flicks featuring Rudolph and Jack Frost, but that was it. Big blockbuster ‘must watch’ holiday classics like A Christmas Story, Miracle on 34th Street and It’s A […]

Is your little man tired of receiving khakis, hoodies and socks for Christmas? Has exhaustion from exerting yourself all year depleted your creative capacity? Do you want him – like his father- to just be grateful for the gift of refined cotton?? If the title of this post caused your pulse to quicken, knowing that […]

Ok guys. I KNOW it seems like this is the year where I’ve deliberately fallen into stuff (i.e. on my back being dry humped in a DC club by a random stranger or becoming the sole provider of reusable grocery totes for a local deli for a time), but I swear to you that these […]

‘Bullying’ isn’t just a 21st century buzzword that is strewn about like bunting at a state fair – it’s a real social scourge that affects millions of children worldwide, every day. Bullying has measurable and serious consequences, including diminished self-esteem, depression and suicide. It’s not something any one of us should take lightly, either as […]

Everyone thinks self-publishing – or any independent creative work – is sexy. There’s this aura of grittiness, the allure of the idea of that you can grind your way to the top, the crowning achievement being that indelible interview on Ellen or Access Hollywood. It’s not just spectators who harbor this delusion; we artists and […]

Mo nighean donn (Gaelic). Translation: My brown haired lass You’d have to be a fan of the series ‘Outlander’ to truly appreciate what I’ve done with the title of this post. And the answer to your unasked question is, yes. Yes, I’m right proud of myself. It’s a braw thing I’ve done there. So! Prince […]

I suppose I should’ve been ready for it. It was a Monday afternoon, after all. These sorts of things only happen during queer times. Like when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday, when the moon is full during its lunar cycle, and – of course – Mondays. I was so relieved that […]

Do you remember your early middle school crushes? Did you ever play that game when you wrote your name and substituted your surname for that of the class prefect you only dared to admire from afar, fantasizing about the day you would be wed? I did. And it was fun…until it actually mattered. For 27 […]