[ February 18, 2016]

“I feel like I was robbed of my happiness.”

Many of us are familiar with Kalief Browder’s story: a young man was walking home, apprehended by police for allegedly stealing a bookbag, and remained in a combination of prison and solitary confinement at Rikers Island for 1,110 days.

Say it. One thousand, one hundred and ten days.

Without a trial.

After his release, he indicated to an interviewer that life on the outside was much more difficult than he imagined, particularly because of the paranoia he felt at every turn. This could be the day he was jumped. The people eyeing him could be talking about him behind his back. He would never reach the heights his friends reached, so they didn’t really care about him.

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[December 4, 2015]

When I was live texting about The Wiz with my friend last night (I have Twitter — I just don’t know how to use it. Don’t judge.), every flash of my childhood came streaming back to me. You couldn’t stop my singing, dancing, and precipitation in my eyeball region for the solid performance by some amazing talent.

But then I remembered that, earlier in the day, some folks were tweeting about the lack of “diversity” in an all-Black cast and noted a riot would ensue if an all-White version of The Wiz came out.

You mean — like — The Wizard of Oz? Like, the production that The Wiz was based on that first aired in 1939 (the same year, ironically, Hattie McDaniel would play “Mammy” in Gone with the Wind *pops bubblegum*)?

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[November 24, 2015]

Last year, during a NYC protest affirming Black Lives, a Santa cut in front of my group. Santacon, which is a festivity where people dress up in their holiday best and go from bar to bar, just so happened to coincide with the march borne out of the frustrations of shootings of Black people and non-indictments of cops and/or vigilantes.

It made for some good laughs. That was, until, Santa cut in front of my group. (Not pictured)

He didn’t want to just get across the street, he wanted to remind us that it wasn’t our street and angrily barked, “Go home”. I saw red — and not just his suit. It sounded like, “Go back to Africa” or “Go home nigger” when it was processing in my mind, and the next thing I knew, I yelled back, “YOU go home!” and started walking towards him. Thankfully, my homegirl yanked me back and we kept marching (peacefully and purposefully), but in that moment, I felt a need to respond to the perceived threat.

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[ November 20, 2015]

While reading an article about a Black Mississippi man who was reversed over in a parking lot by a group of White teens (for sport) in 2011, I noticed a line from the judge in the case that really stuck with me. The judge, while attending the University of Virginia law school in 1993, recalled that he saw a fraternity party flier that said, “No Jews, No Wops, and No Nigga Babes”.

Fast forward: a Yale fraternity indicates that no Black women will be allowed in a Halloween party some 22 years later. It seems as if our history is really just being microwaved, although some people think these “individual” phenomena are not related to each other.

And then there’s the timeline of resistance to these events.

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[ November 13, 2015]

“All lives matter but all lives aren’t being taken.” — Dr. Nakia Hamlett (2015, personal communication)

When an attempt was made to co-opt the #BlackLivesMatter movement by the #AllLivesMatter defectors, there was great pushback by the BLMers. While “society” has attempted to aver the belief that “we” are post-racial, those who acknowledge and experience racial stress are left to scratch our heads, often questioning whether we are making too big a deal out of our experiences.

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[November 9, 2015]

If you’re a Jeezy fan like me, you read that title and naturally went “boom, boom, clap”.

Despite Jeezy coming to Philadelphia to perform next week (blatantly just for me), this post is not about him.

Today marked a fairly historic moment for college activism. As someone who participated in her fair share of marches and protests at the University of Michigan (cue embarrassing nostalgic photo here),

I can say without a doubt that I am BEYOND thrilled for the University of Missouri students, faculty, and staff for getting their needs met. Ousting a sitting college President is a pretty big deal. Getting a grad student to go on a hunger strike is beyond my understanding (food is pretty important in my life…something like God, food, Jeezy — and in that order). And getting the football team to join you? Man — we failed multiple times to pull in our Michigan athletes, but again, a huge congrats to Mizzou for doing such! So the prez is gone, Jonathan Butler can eat a chalupa (or whatever the kids are eating these days), and the football players can compete against BYU this weekend.

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[October 1, 2015]

In 1787, at a place likely not too far in Philadelphia from where I’m typing these words, lawmakers came together to propose that slaves in the US would be considered 3/5 of a person. Black people would not be considered “whole” until 1865.

In 2015, in the US and abroad, we are using language to assert that Black Lives Matter.

The 150 year struggle from “wholeness” to “existence” is troubling. Indeed, that there is a cry for existential properties for any person or group of people is fascinating, particularly when juxtaposed with an outcry for the same type of rights for — you guessed it — Cecil the lion.

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