This article was originally published on Residential School Magazine under its original title "Let Me Tell You About Inter-Generational Trauma" and is republished with permission. **Content note: this article contains discussions of physical, emotional, and sexual abuse and violence as well as suicide.** My grandmother was placed in residential school at the age of 6. For … [Read more...]
Asian and Asexual: How I Came to Own My Asexuality While Fighting Cultural Stereotypes
As an Asian American woman who exists on the asexual spectrum, I navigate a tricky space when it comes to sexuality. On one hand, I experience hypersexualization and fetishization based on Orientalist assumptions about Asian women. On the other, I come from a culture of sexual conservatism, where families don’t speak about sex but the expectation of abstinence is always … [Read more...]
Filling our Cups: 4 Ways People of Color can Foster Mental Health and Practice Restorative Healing
This article was originally published on Threads of Solidarity: WOC Against Racism and is republished with permission. As strong, as brilliant, as loving, and as powerful as we may be, we weren’t built to be superheroes — we were built to be human. — Threads of Solidarity, “Giving from an empty cup/How not to die” The strong, Black woman. The Asian “model minority.” “¡No … [Read more...]
Leaving Christianity and Seeking the Goddess: How Reshaping Religion Transformed My Self-Love
When I was about seven, I remember going to a revival service with my grandmother. The preacher at one point launched into a sermon on women and makeup. He said, “Makeup isn’t bad, but remember, ladies: you paint the barn, not decorate it.” Those words haunted me throughout much of my life. Even now I can remember them and the way everyone laughed. But it underlined the … [Read more...]
How Do I Understand Being Jewish While Also Holding White Privilege?
[Image description: The photograph shows the author, a light-skinned woman with graying brown shoulder-length hair and glasses. She is wearing a navy-blue hooded sweatshirt, and her right hand is resting against the side of her face. She is looking into the camera and smiling. Behind her is a curtain in a mandala design.] I recently decided to purchase a genetics test from … [Read more...]
The Secret Cult of Loneliness
This article was originally published for PowellsBooks.org and is reprinted by permission from the writer. I have the distinct feeling I am not supposed to write this. As if by virtue of my melanin I have been contractually bound to an unspoken creed, the first two rules of Black Woman Fight Club: Rule #1: We do not talk about being lonely. Rule #2: We DO NOT talk about … [Read more...]
3 Black Feminists Who Lived Radical Self Love
I am a writer, and as such I am also a lover of words. The way some people might admire a pair of shoes, a car, or a work of art, I appreciate the masterful manipulation of language — especially when the message is both beautiful and intelligent. I regularly find inspiration between two quotation marks. My literary heroes are those who can use words like paint on a … [Read more...]
Who is the Body Positivity Movement Leaving Behind?
Over the past few weeks, Ashley Graham and Tess Holliday have been featured in many headlines. Ashley Graham is the first plus-sized model to be featured in an ad in Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition. Tess Holliday, who is known for her viral #effyourbeautystandards campaign, is the first plus-sized model of her size to be signed to a major modeling agency. While both … [Read more...]
7 Ways Social Justice Language Can Become Abusive in Intimate Relationships
This article originally appeared in EverydayFeminism.com and is reprinted by permission. It’s that bone gnawed moment when you realize ‘The Community’ will do nothing to stop him from showing up at your backdoor in the middle of the night with the rifle he bought for the revolution” —Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha, “so what the fuck does consciousness mean … [Read more...]
“You Are Not Alone:” Uncovering the Dark Secret of Black Women and Sexual Abuse
Rape was not explained to me. No one sat me down and told me what it was. When I was a young girl, I heard a news story about a rape in Central Park—the park my school took us to for physical education and recess, so I paid attention. The victim’s face was slashed during the attack—cut with a broken bottle, I think. So for the longest time, I used to think that being raped … [Read more...]
Ain’t We Femme?
This post is dedicated to all of the femmes! When I was a child, Easter was my favorite time of year. Every year, my mom always got me an Easter basket full of goodies. At church, we got to recite our Easter speeches in front of the whole congregation. And after the sermon, they would host an Easter egg hunt for the young folks. They even had a golden egg with money … [Read more...]
Living Inside the Contradictions: My Father’s Love and My Father’s Abuse
[Image description: Against a black background appear a number of words in blue, orange, and black. These words include, “Paradoxes, paradox, statements, contradiction, statement, used, saying group, necessarily, ambiguities, circularity, claim, question, describe, instance, leads, known, reference, veridical, science, situations, obviously, absurdities, self, puzzling, must, … [Read more...]
Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People
This is a follow-up to my previous piece entitled Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Social Justice Educators. The latter was written for folks who consider equity work as their core life purpose. I wrote Ten Counterproductive Behaviors of Well-Intentioned People for the folks who consider themselves good people invested in social justice and conversations around … [Read more...]
Black Women Save America, But Who Rallies For Black Women?: Why It’s Radical To Reclaim Self Love In a Country Trying To Kill You
In the aftermath of the Alabama Senate election at the head of 2018, Black women have had to remind folks that our primary objective is not in ‘saving the country from itself.” Saving ourselves from this country is also high on our list of priorities and has been so for a very long time. Superficial social media praise juxtaposed against the harsh realities that Black women … [Read more...]
