As a Black, queer, fat woman, I’m constantly aware of how I navigate most spaces. I’m constantly determining whether I can talk about my girlfriend. I’m constantly wondering whether I can eat what and how I want. And I’m constantly aware of how I’m speaking, from my tone to the words that I’m saying. Sometimes, these concerns come from a place of determining my safety. One … [Read more...]
White People Interested in Dismantling White Supremacy: Who Are We Beyond Our Violence?
“One of the things that most afflicts this country is that white people don’t know who they are or where they come from.” -- James Baldwin In the fall of my senior year in high school, one of my classmates hosted a Halloween party. For some reason, I thought it would be funny to get some of my other friends to join me in dressing as Klansmen. No one balked at the idea. We … [Read more...]
10 Ways the Beauty Industry Tells You Being Beautiful Means Being White
Note: This article originally appeared on EverydayFeminism and is reprinted by permission. I have to cringe when I think about my early days of putting on makeup. First, my mom wouldn’t let me touch the stuff until high school -- which I can understand, knowing what I know now about how girls can be pressured to grow up too fast. But I was lagging behind other girls who … [Read more...]
How I as A White Woman Am Unlearning Dangerous Sexual Stereotypes About Black and Brown Men
Content note: This article contains references to rape. When I pick my son up at the library, he is standing in front of a blonde girl. As I move closer, I hear them talking, laughing, flirting in that awkward early-teen way. I stop, catch my son’s eye, and give them their space. She clearly likes my son, and I can see him basking in the attention. I admit to some motherly … [Read more...]
10 Defensive Reactions to White Privilege That Make No Damn Sense – But Are Super Common
This article originally appeared in EverydayFeminism and is reprinted by permission. I know it probably makes me a weirdo to want to talk about white privilege so much, but I actually enjoy conversations on this topic – even with people who disagree with me. Sure, these conversations can get heated, uncomfortable, and downright aggravating. But they’re also necessary in order … [Read more...]
The Strain of “Model Minority”: Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
Just last year, when a person very close to me admitted she was struggling with depression, my initial internal reaction was disbelief. This can’t be true, I thought. My next thought was mortification for feeling this way. Why was it that I, a socially conscious person who believes strongly in mental health advocacy, immediately felt incredulity? I had to be honest with … [Read more...]
7 Things My Unruly, Curly Hair Taught Me About Being Unapologetically Latinx
Growing up, people would always asked me about my hair, about my skin, about my eyes, about my mother, about my grandmother. Anti-blackness would prompt these questions to become inquiries, attempting to trace back lineage beyond dialogue, and into imaginary stories that may have been true or may have not. In their eyes, my hair symbolized something foreign, something … [Read more...]
7 Cosas ridículas que no deberías decirle a personas de raza mixta
¿Qué significa ser de raza mixta? Soy de raza mixta. Hay muchas formas de ser de raza mixta, el diccionario lo define como una persona cuyos padres o ancestros son de distintas etnias, pero la definición puede variar según el contexto. En la mayoría de los casos, las personas de raza mixta tienen el derecho a definir su propia identidad y su relación con sus variados … [Read more...]
Mixed Doesn’t Always Mean Part White: Uplifting Non-White Mixed Race Identities
Growing up queer, mixed race, and Asian in the American South, my identity often felt like an absence of any identity at all. For a long time I existed in a kind of limbo state, not having a language to describe myself. Until my early twenties, I was unaware the word “mixed race” existed, much less as a term I had the option to identify with. Because I neither knew nor saw any … [Read more...]
Talking to My Asian Immigrant Family About Anti-Asian Racism
It took twenty-three years and living a continent away before I was finally able to talk to my parents directly about anti-Asian racism in the United States. It wasn’t that we had never spoken about discrimination or microaggressions before. It was just that it was mostly about non-Asian people of color — and often, the Asian community was the perpetrator. My siblings and I … [Read more...]
Black and Brown Solidarity Post-9/11: Why I Refuse to Engage in Respectability Politics
I used to engage in respectability politics. I was taught that, if I proved I was of "good character,” I would be accepted by white society. I learned that it was my job to convince overtly and covertly racist white people that I was okay. I needed to make myself less threatening to shift their conscious and unconscious racist views and thereby make my life better. I was … [Read more...]
Black in Maine: 4 Ways Black Folks Take Care of Each Other in Majority-White Communities
NOTE: This is an article about Black bodies in white spaces, but this is really a love letter to all of the beautiful, dope ass Black women – femmes and non-femmes – speaking the truth and holding it down in one of the whitest states in the country. They’re my homegirls. After the 2017 white terrorist attack in Charlottesville, VA, an article about a man flying a Confederate … [Read more...]
9 Reasons Why Acting in Solidarity for Racial Justice is Preferable to ‘Allyship’
There is almost nothing more dangerous in the lives and livelihoods of Black men and women than a well-intentioned white woman with no political framework for her interactions across race. White women’s well-being, our ‘safety,’ is constantly deployed to justify white supremacist violence, especially police violence. Our casual conversations with Black and brown people on the … [Read more...]
From My Abusive Mother to White Supremacy’s Violence: There is Danger in Premature Forgiveness
(Content note: This article contains descriptions of anti-Black white terrorism, including a racist slur.) When my mother was stalking me, she had a man assisting her in her efforts. Prior to me getting a restraining order against her, he called several times saying, “You need to forgive your mother.” My mother has never admitted any brutality or abuse against me. She has … [Read more...]
