Tag Archives: #31writenow

MLK, Jr. Should’ve Kept His Day Job?

It is the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington. I grew up a black girl in a mostly white fundamental Baptist denomination. Only one white pastor ever let the truth leak out on their opinion of Martin Luther King, Jr. Our youth group climbed into the church van on a Friday evening for aContinue reading “MLK, Jr. Should’ve Kept His Day Job?”

For Girls Whose Mamas Dressed Them Like Boys

I never devised an appropriate way to get back at my mother for the shame of it all. I dreamed of it for years, though. We were shopping in the Post Exchange department store (called the PX by military folk). I stood still as she whipped a pair of jeans from the rack and heldContinue reading “For Girls Whose Mamas Dressed Them Like Boys”

Jealousy and Other ‘Female Traits’

“Males shouldn’t be jealous; that’s a female trait” —Jay-Z It’s not hard to tell that ‘a female trait,’ by Shawn Carter’s reckoning, is not something that a male would want to have. Simple psychology would’ve told him that men experience jealousy, too. Despite the fact that rappers (and their verses) are made of 15% truth,Continue reading “Jealousy and Other ‘Female Traits’”

Uncle Toms, Aunt Jemimas, and Other Distant Relatives

Harriet Beecher Stowe has likely rolled 500 miles in her grave by now. She wrote the second best-selling novel in the 19th century, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, only for it to be boiled down to the grime of an epithet over 200 years later: Uncle Tom. The title character she illustrated in 1852 laid down his life for escapingContinue reading “Uncle Toms, Aunt Jemimas, and Other Distant Relatives”

Turning in My Selfie Resignation

The Internet is overrun with selfies. Some alluring, some precocious, some nerdy, some pretending they don’t know that a picture is being taken when the mirror shows the camera in their hand. Look away, act surprised selfies. Duck-lipped, pouty princess, queen of all bees selfies. Other selfies are more artful, playing with light against theContinue reading “Turning in My Selfie Resignation”