I remember standing on the Mall during his inauguration, surrounded by the largest crowd I’d ever seen in my life, and we were all holding our breath as he was sworn in. After the ceremony ended and the crowd started to disperse, I felt a little dizzy. I’d been so sure something bad would happen - surely there’d be an…

THIS. At 16 I was flattered by boys my own age calling me hot. My skin crawled when grown men did it. It made me incredibly self-conscious and could ruin any situation or day when it happened.

I grew up in the county next to a trailer park where all of my friends’ parents, black and white, had blankets and comforters tacked up over the windows to keep the heat or a/c in. You couldn’t really open the “curtains” to let in light, even if you wanted to. So these little trailers were all dark and cavelike.

Oh my goodness, if she’d showed up at my house I would’ve given every last piece I had to her. Just emptied the whole bowl into her little pumpkin!

I just went to Thanksgiving at my dad’s ex house. Although she’s had a stroke and is pretty frail now, she was a bad-ass journalist with all sorts of overseas adventures. She has been kind enough to share stories of my dad’s early life with me (he never talked about it much himself, and died when I was still a teen).…

I’m pretty close with my half-siblings too. They were in their late teens when I was born, and I am so thankful for them. I have wondered at times if they resented that our dad was around for my whole childhood and not theirs... but then they told me they felt guilty that they got to know him as an adult and I didn’t…

I’m a little confused by your last sentence. Someone close to me didn’t say anything when she was raped by her boss (drugged at a conference). She didn’t speak up because she needed the job. Her child had cancer, and she needed the health insurance provided by her job. She recently shared her story publicly without…

It’s not a bad thing to help women learn survival strategies, and I have definitely had multiple talks with the young women in my life to help them think through how they might avoid or get out of bad situations.

Natori is my favorite, although I like some Chantel bras too.

I agree. It took us forever to find a venue that would be comfortable for our elderly and disabled guests. We turned down some that were great deals and gorgeous, but would have been really hard for them. The whole reason we weren’t doing a tiny wedding was because we wanted to celebrate with all of our loved ones. We…

I’m close to Monique’s size and have not tried Soma’s bras because they don’t sell their larger sizes in their store near me. I think maybe they do sizes above 40DD online only? Anyhow, I am not a LB fan, for some reason they don’t work well with the shape of my boobs (and I hate how much of their options are padded).…

Yes. Also, the Michael Kors purse thing confused me... you can get them for like $30 at TJ Maxx. And someone who is trying to convince a judge of their stability in order to get their kid back, of course they would dress in their best “middle-class lady” outfit!

Love this, thank you! My sister started using the EWG Skin Deep database a few years ago, and helped me switched most of my products over to less toxic versions. It’s helped my skin allergies and asthma a lot. I’m also lucky to live near the My Organic Market grocery chain, which has an awesome cosmetics section.

The wealthy side of my family didn’t always make money in honorable ways - my sister recently dug up info about a deadly union-breaking effort led by our mom’s great-grandfather. And we have no idea if dad’s southern family were slavers, the last 4 generations were pretty poor... but we’ve met black folks with our…

Yeah, I didn’t watch it for many years even though everyone told me I should. I finally watched the remake, but only after my mom had been gone a decade and her hoard was mostly gone. It was not a pleasurable experience to watch, but served as a reminder to Never Go Back (since I constantly fight my own hoarding…

Yeah, I didn’t watch it for many years even though everyone told me I should. I finally did, but only after my mom had been gone a decade and I her hoard was mostly gone. It was not a pleasurable experience to watch, but served as a reminder to Never Go Back (since I constantly fight my own hoarding tendencies and am…

Yeah, I didn’t watch it for many years even though everyone told me I should. I finally did, but only after my mom had been gone a decade and I her hoard was mostly gone. It was not a pleasurable experience to watch, but served as a reminder to Never Go Back (since I constantly fight my own hoarding tendencies and am…

My mom was a hoarder, and it got much worse after my dad died. She was living in a rotting trailer behind a dilapidated farmhouse that she was trying to renovate herself, but mostly was just filling it with junk. 

My mom was a hoarder, and it got much worse after my dad died. She was living in a rotting trailer behind a dilapidated farmhouse that she was trying to renovate herself, but mostly was just filling it with junk.

Ooh, thought of one more pop culture example. What about Hidden Figures? A whole movie about black women doing math, and it killed at the box office!!