I was salty that I’d gotten the audiobook 2 days ago and couldn’t use it as my ticket for today’s 6pm event with Mahogany books listed here today. I wish her family comfort. The book is a wonderful legacy, full of personal anecdotes and a wealth of historical references. As it happens, she’s shared with us her own “Ms…

Rest well and a glorious journey to the ancestral realm, Ms. Tyson. Thank you so very much. You’ve done much for this lil dark-skinned woman who craved witnessing the beauty and power of performers & truth-tellers like you who celebrate (& advocate for) us. To feel so sad about your departure (at 96) speaks to how…

Thank you. While mental health problems need to be destigmatized, I’m disturbed by the pattern of rationalizations whenever someone does something like this. I’ve said it before: I’ve struggled with depression most of my life. Neither I nor others I know have unleashed evil against convenient victims. For it to be…

It seems to me that some of the pushback I’m seeing from folks around “washing” chicken is about taking issue with terminology. You’re West Indian, I’m West African. I know African-Americans & Black South Americans who do the same thing and call it that. We call it washing. Sounds like some have a need to prove a…

Good for you for calling out the mess. I’m sorry you suffered that -the painful growing up, the pretense of “normalcy” before family as a tool for gaslighting, the manipulation. You deserved (and deserve) better. I’m glad you were able to extricate yourself from her hateful grasp. It’s extremely difficult because such…

Jim Reeves! You just took me back to my early African childhood. Skeeter Davis, too, though she was a folk singer, not country. Africans didn’t play about Dolly Parton or Kenny Rogers, either. The lyrics and melody were enjoyed. We didn’t know they were racialized categories. In a way, this is unfair to the…

100% cosign. This rewriting and glossing over of both historical and contemporary hatefulness is extremely harmful. We’re seeing right now with the refusal to call the attempted coup exactly that. The coup I lived through in W. Africa was more honest(?) The few military participants declared themselves; there were no…

Slightly modified: “Him shoulda learn a trade and go to school. And nuh turn himself in a fool. But now him gaan a Rikers Island. Him never want go a Rikers Island. Him used to walk and screw up him face. But now him spending nuff time upstate.” This would be so satisfying to see.

Ugh!!! My only reference was as nostalgia from part of my childhood in Africa. Till it popped up in commercials a few years ago, I’d thought it was an African company.

Makes perfect sense. Though I visit, as a former tomboy, I’ve rarely commented here because I didn’t know if it qualified as my lane.

You’re reading my mind again. I came to say “real” is a euphemism for “gritty” when White folks describe those of our stories which are harrowing. It’s synonymous with their idea of a singular, downtrodden “authentic” Black experience. I doubt pedestrian “realness” is how Hilary Clinton or Sarah Palin would’ve been…

I adore Marley and still view him with a critical eye. Obvious difference: Generally, Black women who marry interacially tend to have found love with a good man who happened to be nonBlack & don’t bash brothers. Typically, for Black guys who date/marry “out” the nonBlackness IS the point & prize. The qualities &…

Fair point. I haven’t read about his being a Trump supporter. I apologize for rushing to judgement. My perspective of this is definitely skewed because I perceive this as a war against me & mine. I’m also extremely raw around all the times I’ve seen folks who do harm (of which police have been a primary source)…

Even as someone who’s had depression most of my life, I am still aware that some wicked people have an attitude which is more about, “They’ll never get me” in place of consequences. Some criminals do this, some nazis did, too. Two people I love suicided as a result of years of suffering. They were loving &…

“I feel so seen...” ditto, sister :) I’m glad others are FINALLY naming & validating what you’ve KNOWN all this time. It’s infuriating, exhausting & often isolating. It’s hurtful to be dismissed as “too sensitive” for calling out injustice. Or “angry”. (My response is, um, Baldwin on consciousness & rage, anyone?)…

Thanks, though if you’ll permit an edit: I didn’t put it better; your solid foundation made the masonry cohere. E.g. regarding tropes, by enumerating the egregious examples, you make clear it’s neither accident nor a singular event. Vogue April 2008 caption: “Shape Issue. Secrets of the Best Bodies. Gisele & LeBron +…

It’s intentional. They set their platforms up as aspirational for all. Then deliberately sabotage us so as to illustrate, “See? So & so is overrated. I don’t get the fuss.” It may sound hyperbolic, but I see it as an act of psychological warfare. They perpetually seek to force us into what they misperceive as our “plac…

This is the point in its entirety. Willful obtuseness is just that. Thanks for having integrity.

I can’t stop laughing. In these times, that’s a gift. Thank you.

Thank you! As a Philadelphian I must reference MOVE where African-American children were murdered by bombs & over 60 homes reduced to rubble...in a residential area.