On early Monday morning, a member of the Plett health and wellness community published a request for bloggers to bid on a writing position he had available for his organization. The opportunity to write for a genre I’d never focused on before – drug rehabilitation – intrigued me. Unfortunately, I was thinking (and quoting) in […]
Nina Simone once said that it is “the artist’s duty to reflect the times in which we live.” Ms. Simone was many things all at once: an enigma – an undisputed musical genius whose unpredictable mood swings made her a polarizing figure. These elements were often a volatile recipe for calamity in her personal life; […]
The topic of reparations is never far from the minds of most people in America. Even if it’s not a subject dominating the conversation, it is always niggling at the subconscious of the population, and just about every one has a strong opinion on the matter: Either reparations is owed to the descendants of slaves […]
Amnon and Tamar In the course of time, Amnon son of David fell in love with Tamar, the beautiful sister of Absalom son of David. 2 Amnon became so obsessed with his sister Tamar that he made himself ill. She was a virgin, and it seemed impossible for him to do anything to her. 3 Now Amnon […]
I suffer from infrequent bouts of depression. This should come as a surprise to no one. I’m an almost 40-year-old African American woman who is living in a time of state sponsored violence against Black people, a possible Trump presidency and Super Gonorrhea for which there is no cure. So yeah, I have dark days. […]
In our Junior Secondary School (JSS) history books, we learned about names, dates and places on the African continent that were so distant that they might as well have been on the moon. We learned about the importance of Fernando Po, the Bight of Benin and our own Cape Coast castle in Ghana – all […]
This week, in yet another stunning display of utter ignorance, Tomi Lahren went on Twitter to compare the Black Lives Matter Movement to the KKK. The tweet has since been taken down, but taking down such a divisive, ignoble and quite frankly idiotic position such as this one is tantamount to setting a house on […]
“Can I ask you a personal question? It’s one I’ve been dying to ask you since you guys walked into the office that first day.” I braced myself for an inappropriate query before chirping an apprehensive “Sure! Go right ahead.” “Why did you move to South Africa…when so many people are leaving?” This is proving […]
If you happen to find yourself in Savannah, GA during the tourist season, you may also find yourself on one of the many trolley services that offer historic tours of the city. Each tour is unique, as guides pepper important facts with tidbits of information from their own lives or offer their own opinions of […]
I’ve recently begun getting into podcasts and This Afropolitan Life (TAL) has become an early favorite. TAL is “a blog that inspires Afropolitan women to live stylishly, adventurously, conscientiously, and confidently—by a woman who’s trying to do the same. “ Clarissa Bannor hosts each show (or at least each episode I’ve listened to thus far) where she […]
“If it’s what you truly want … I can wear her skin over mine. Her hair over mine. Her hands as gloves. Her teeth as confetti. Her scalp, a cap. Her sternum my bedazzled cane. We can pose for a photograph, all three of us. Immortalized … you and your perfect girl.” – Beyoncé, Anger […]
A year ago, a good friend of mine was going through a course with the aim of becoming a certified life coach. He asked me if I would be willing to be his “guinea pig” and participate in mock coaching sessions. Unfamiliar with the nuances of coaching and totally unimpressed with these “white pipo tinz”, […]
Over the weekend I was contacted by a journalist who asked me to elaborate on my reactions to a popular web series that I wrote about a year or more ago. I’ve received both praise and derision for that article, with a fellow writer going as far as refusing to acknowledge me by name in […]
As I type, it’s 3:35 am…so I don’t know how much sense this post is going to make. I’m sure I’ll look over it at noon and ask myself, “Self! Were you on crack when you wrote this?” And I’ll say, “Naw, Self! I was just tired as Usain Bolt chasing a Nima boy for […]
This morning, after performing the perfunctory duties of cleaning the kitchen and picking up my kids’ carelessly strewn clothes and toys from all over the house, I paused to reward myself a cup of hot coffee. I poured Kauai granules into my French press, prinked in some natural cane sugar and swirled a ¼ cup […]
A few weeks ago I celebrated the 38th anniversary of my uterine occupation and eventual evacuation. I opted to commemorate the day by recreating the sensation of that scenario with seven very good friends. No, silly! I didn’t invite seven other people to crawl with me back into my mother’s womb and attempt to break […]
Before my self-imposed exile from Twitter this week (inspired by threats of physical harm against my family and a story for another day), one of the last stories I read was an opinion piece written by Siyanda Mohutsiwa entitled I’m Done with African Immigrant Literature. Here she describes her frustration and angst about having to […]
There are certain givens that I have always assumed would remain givens. You know what I mean? Don’t you have those for your own life? Like, as a woman of faith, there are certain variables I have expected to remain constant for as long as I drew breath. The sun would always rise in the […]
As much of the viewing public prepares to consume another episode of #OscarsSoWhite, there are a number of people – myself included – who will be abstaining from the ocular throwback to the Jim Crow Era when Black people had to enter the premises through the back door and in their servant livery. I suppose […]
There are things that grieve me – matters of such grave concern that they rob me of sleep when I should be resting at twilight and continue to plague my thoughts during the day. I obsess over these affairs incessantly. I have questions. Questions like: “Is God pleased with my life?” “Will the price of […]
David Bowie passed away today and the tributes to his memory and his art are rushing through and flooding the Internet like a tidal wave. I still remember the first David Bowie song I ever heard. It was Let’s Dance…a song that is actually incredibly difficult to dance to (if you’re Black). While we had […]