To say I was a late bloomer is an understatement. I didn’t date at all in high school. I had terrible self-esteem and disordered eating, which led to self-sabotage. I dated briefly my freshman year of college, but that relationship ended when I found out he was cheating on me with my best guy friend. After this, I closed my heart and avoided connecting with men outside of … [Read more...]
7 Ways For White-Passing Jewish Folk to Engage Anti-Racism
I have a clear memory of the time when I was a kid and my classmates defaced my desk with carved swastikas and a mocking version of my very Hebrew name. As one of very few Jewish kids in a rural town that could be brutally intolerant, this was neither the first act of anti-Semitism launched in my direction, nor the last. Yet it stands out in my memory for the historical … [Read more...]
Simple But Not Easy: 25 Steps to Justice
Tired of asking, “What can I do?” or “How can I be helpful?” At times, you are asking how you can uplift marginalized voices. That is the most productive question; lead with that first. However, in most situations, the underlying request is “Tell me how to be a good person” or “Tell me how to not offend.” When people ask these questions, I typically begin a discussion — a … [Read more...]
4 Covert Ways the Workplace Can Be Hostile
Workplaces can be sites of hostility – particularly for folks with marginalized identities. The same issues that occur outside work tend to show up inside of the workplace. There’s been substantial public dialogue addressing issues like sexual harassment, racial discrimination, wage gaps and problematic hiring practices. However, it’s also important to be able to identify the … [Read more...]
Ally Etiquette 101: Never Feel Entitled to Anything
I have seen a lot of conversations recently about what the term “ally” means to social justice and radical movements. Is “ally” an identity? What role should allies play in larger discussions of oppression and resistance? Should allies have access to spaces created specifically for those who experience oppression? The goal of many of these discussions is to determine what an … [Read more...]
Yes, That’s Hair & Yes, I’m Ok: Loving ALL of Your Hair While Being Black and Femme
For black people hair is a really big deal, especially for black femmes. From an early age having beautiful hair or ‘good hair’ has always been illustrated as having straightened or permed strands. Socially, I was very much made aware that as a black child my braids, twists and puffs were inferior to a white girl’s long straight strands. At that age I had a strong desire to be … [Read more...]
Worth & Desire: 4 Emotions I Still Work Through While Practicing Non-monogamy
“Muriel and I talked about love as a voluntary commitment, while we each struggled through the steps of an old dance, not consciously learned but desperately followed … In those warm spaces of survival, love was another name for control, however openly given.” - Audre Lorde I return to this quote from Zami so often. It makes me think about the ways I have loved, do love, and … [Read more...]
Why Taking the Job Home Is Killing Us: Radical Ways to Break the Binary of “Work” & “Home”
Three years ago, I got my first job out of graduate school as a therapist working with at-risk youth and their families. Because this was my first job out of graduate school, I felt I had to give it my all. Not only that, I took a year off after school during which I hit my rock-bottom in my own drug addiction. A year coming out of my rock-bottom in drug addiction is when I got … [Read more...]
Political Parenting: 5 Lessons Resisting the Trump Administration Taught My Kids and I
1.The Face of Hate I’m walking my daughter home from the bus stop and she’s chattering about the elections. I’m glad she’s learning about it at school but I listen closely ready to pounce on any propaganda. While our town is pretty liberal, I’m not so sure about my children’s teachers. Suddenly my child asks, “Do you think my teacher is voting for Trump?” I wish I could say … [Read more...]
“You Deserve to Heal:” 4 Steps to Move Through Survivor’s Guilt
CN: sexual violence, abuse In many methods of healing from trauma, confronting shame is often central to the process. Free up shame, get out from under the blame placed on survivors, and healing is supposed to get easier. Yet when survivor’s guilt goes unaddressed, it’s easy to fall into the pattern of prioritizing other people’s needs over individual needs. Survivors … [Read more...]
Mental Illness is not a “White Person Problem”: 4 Reasons Mental Illness is Ignored in the Latinx Community, and Why That Needs to End
The “Angry Black Woman” or “feisty and fiery Latina” narrative- and Black and Brown men who fall under these tropes- stem from powerfully dangerous stereotypes, but are not examined through any further. My question lies with this: Why are Black and Brown communities deemed so angry? Moody? Even Lazy? These are traits that, if they were seen in a white body, would just … [Read more...]
Creating Community as a Queer, Black Muslim: An Interview with Kaamila Mohamed, Co-founder of Queer Muslims of Boston
A few years after I moved to New England, I decided that I was ready to start searching for queer Muslim community. This wasn’t something that I’d ever done before, but I was at a place in my life where I was feeling a desperate need for a spiritual and religious community where I could (potentially) be my whole self. I wanted to bring all parts of myself into a faith … [Read more...]
6 señales de advertencia de que tu amistad es abusiva
Las dinámicas toxicas no están reservadas solo para relaciones afectivas o sexuales. Cualquier relación que tengas con otra persona puede ser saludable: una fuente de positividad y empoderamiento mutuo. Cualquier relación con otra persona también puede por lo tanto ser no saludable: abuso emocional. Puede ser difícil reconocer el abuso emocional cuando viene de amigos … [Read more...]
7 Things Not to Say to Someone Who is Pregnant
I've found in general that projecting my own life experience onto others is a Very Bad Idea unless I know the person well enough to make a highly educated guess plus an explicit admission up front that they know what they are going through better than I do. Though this should be well known, there are certain circumstances, in which in our society apparently dictate that … [Read more...]
