Latest Essays

Valentine’s Day doth approacheth! *cue ominous theatrical score* Every year right around this time, an abundance of articles and think pieces appear on different corners of the Internet exploring the increasingly negative feelings people associate with Valentine’s Day. Mind of Malaka is no exception. I have been a longtime (and loud) hater where this holiday […]

The Wax “What brings you in here today?” I gazed into the green eyes of the svelte brunette, barely visible above her mask as she snapped a pair of plastic gloves on her delicate porcelain hands. Hands that were soon about to deliver a peculiar sort of pain on my own delicate flesh. I thought […]

Forgive me if this is clumsily expressed. I have been misty eyed all morning, reflecting on the life of Ms. Tyson. The first time I ever saw a Black woman give birth on screen was in the movie The Color Purple. I was 8 years old and spending the summer in the Detroit with my […]

“Mom?” Crap. I had been summoned by my child. The pitch of her voice and query-tinged timbre with which my pseudonym had been uttered meant that the next words out of her mouth were going to cost me something. What was it this time? Money? A ride to the mall AND money? Only one way […]

The child who was once small enough to fit in the palm of my hand stood towering over me, tears brimming her eyes. “Are you crying?” “No,” she said. A renegade tear plunked down her cheek. She brushed it away, but that only opened up the wellsprings to near bursting. What had brought this on? […]

“Aging is inevitable. Getting old is optional.” – Some wokeness I read somewhere online once. What is occupying your thoughts at the beginning of this year? (The raging global pandemic aside.) This is normally a time for resolution and goal setting, but in light of the how the last ten months has shown how much […]

Cast your mind back to December 2019. It seems impossible to fathom now, but it’s fair to say most people began looking forward to the new year – 2020 – with optimism and enthusiasm. 12 months later, a quick poll might reveal that the majority of us are looking forward to putting this year in […]

“When I go to the movies, I go to escape reality… not to be confronted with more of it.” – Frances Scarlett When I relocated to Atlanta in 2000, I was coming into the discovery of my Blackness. And what better place to do so than in the nation’s Black Mecca? For the opportunities afforded […]

I rolled out of bed just before midday on Saturday, driven to the bathroom by a coughing fit. Saturdays are the only days in the month I permit myself the delight of complete mental barrenness; the days where I ignore emails, watch old episodes of Gummy Bears on YouTube and eat Kit Kats for breakfast. […]

Before ‘ally fatigue’ set in, back when brands across the globe believed in earnest that the best way to demonstrate their solidarity with marginalized groups was to post a black square on Instagram, or combat racism by renaming the ‘master bedroom’ the ‘main bedroom’ (not like massa was raping anyone in his private quarters anyways), […]

Close your eyes and think about the future a hundred, maybe a thousand years ahead. What’s the worst thing you can imagine? What event would you consider utterly catastrophic? Nnedi Okorafor puts forward an unutterable possibility. This week on my best friend’s podcast, LeVar Burton Reads, LeVar Burton (who is my best friend in the […]

Happy World Food Day! I love food. I love the taste of it; the sight of it; the preparation of it, and (when I could) the smell of it. I love how thousands of years of human history  – wars, migration, accidental discoveries and stingily guarded recipes – nest themselves on a plate before what […]

I know we’ve talked about this before, but it bears repeating. Here’s some Monday Motivation for you: A friend of mine contacted me over the weekend because she really wanted to apply for a position in a field that she’s been interested in for years. She has lots of theoretical knowledge in said field, but […]

Kwame, if you’re reading, don’t think I forgot! Y’all swear “I never told you” so many things, but over the past 11 years on this blog, you’ve heard about the inner workings of my womb, mammary glands, follicles, nightmares… So what’s a story about the Big O between friends? If you didn’t hear me shouting […]

 I infrequently get asked why I started making jewelry. No actually cares why I make jewelry, and I understand why. We live in a consumer driven world and the assumption is that I (like many other people who rightfully to do so) am merely tapping into the $2.4 trillion dollars that the fashion industry generates […]

On August 29th was a frigid winter day in my corner of South Africa. The sky was overcast and the electric heater in my bedroom was on full blast. Drizzling rain misted the windowpanes and the hadedas (South Africa’s unofficial bird) had finished their dawn screeching. This was my favorite weather and time of day, […]

In the early days of the Pandemic ™ and the massive loss of income and impact on livelihoods to follow, LLC Twitter dispensed its unique brand of sage advice: Why not just start your own business? This is the perfect time to become your own boss! What I love about the Band Commonly Known as […]

“…you engaged with that tweet while demonstrating a woeful lack of comprehension…Have a good day.” My husband looked up from his work, amused as I finished firing off a missive, shut my laptop and rubbed my temples. What now, he wanted to know. I launched into an explanation about how the online conversation about Black […]

Naana Opoku-Agyemang is the former Minister for Education, appointed in 2013 by (then) President John Mahama after the 2012 Ghanaian general election. She has lectured and led at prominent African institutions, including the University of Cape Coast and the Women’s University in Africa located in Zimbabwe. As an educationalist, she has authored and co-authored a […]

Schools opened back up in South Africa for in-person attendance around a month ago. We decided it would be safe to allow the kids to go back for myriad reasons. The total student population at our school numbers less than 100, physical classes would be offered on alternate days and the department of education had […]

The process of making sleeping arrangements separate from one’s partner is officially called a ‘sleep divorce’ by experts. Given how close I was to an actual divorce this time last year, I wish there was a less cynical term for this agreement; but I’m not The Experts, am I? I’m not sleeping well. The truth […]