Yesterday a friend posted on Facebook from April Fiet about not praying for her children’s future spouses. After some comments back & forth on the Facebook post we realized we had some similar thinking about this which is not to give our children the idea that they aren’t whole people if they never marry. Yet, I vehemently disagree that we shouldn’t pray for our children’s future spouses if they are to marry. Here’s how I responded on FB: I like... Read more
This morning I saw my dear blogging friend, Osheta’s post about writing every day in October on the same subject. I wondered, could I do that? Mmmm… Yesterday I read Hollywood Housewife’s beautiful post about her 7 yr. marriage. It stuck with me. Probably in particular, because I’m going through the exact opposite. But there was something about it, especially it’s brevity that made me think & think & think & think. (I love when a blog post does that... Read more
At the first stop, a white man produces a roll of duct tape. Not even kidding. A white man, mysteriously armed with duct tape. He passes it around and helps us tape up every single vent on the back end of the bus. We joke about how our antics will suddenly produce a new message on the Megabus website: “New policy: no guns, knives or duct tape on board the Megabus!” We create a scenario in which the Megabus executives... Read more
When Whites Just Don’t Get It by Nicholas Kristof Come up Higher by Lisha Epperson 7 Highly Effective Ways to Raise Lazy & Entitled Children for Balancing Beauty & Bedlam Three Troubling Things Exposed by the Ferguson Police Shooting of Michael Brown for the Washington Post. Teen who Got into ALL 8 Ivy League Schools Makes His Choice for CBS News. He’s a black male & with all of the negativity surrounding the media exposure of black & brown men,... Read more
For awhile my boys felt like they were out of my reach. Last Fall, when I wrote this heartbreaking post, I’d been feeling this intolerable fear that I wasn’t what my boys needed me to be. After the post, My friend Jodi texted me, “are you okay? What is going on??” I tried to explain why the heaviness wouldn’t pass. She urged me not to believe the lies. The lies. When I gave birth to my babies, it literally never... Read more
You can watch me read & sob my way through reading my piece, Letting the Stupid Little Nigger Go at Blogher ’14. “For me, growing up black in America meant carrying that sentence was EASY. I was less than, and what was proven over and over and over and over and over again is that our lives had little to no value at all.” &nbs Read more
In late July, I parlayed all over the San Jose Conference Center, soaking up every doggone minute of the Blogher ’14 conference which was EVERYTHING. I’d been chosen as A Voice of the Year & asked to read my self-nominated piece, Letting The Stupid Little Nigger Go. (You can watch my read-through here). //// Picture me on the main stage in front of my blogging peers and some of the most powerful voices on the planet: Arianna Huffington. Guy Kawasaki. ... Read more
A few days ago, I took my boys to our favorite haven on Lake Michigan. Last summer, the three of us made the 45 minute trek to Lake Michigan just about every Saturday. But this year, I’ve had an indoor/outdoor apartment pool which has significantly slowed our beach going ways. It hit me last week, that there’s only 3ish weeks left of summer – WHAT THE FLIP?! So. Of course. I took them twice in two days. Usually the boys... Read more
The three weeks before I left for the Blogher Conference were the heaviest. Everrrrrrrrr. I’m talkin’ heavy, heavy cinch sack. For the 1st time in my life -not just my adult life, but my entire life- I literally spent a whole night crying. One evening, at 10pm, I was “served” papers that I’m fairly certain will define and delineate a large portion of my previous and forthcoming decade. Life is now: The Time Before I Got Those Papers & Life... Read more
This is MY & OUR story. My story is that I like to write. That may be the STUPIDEST understatement of the year because I can’t NOT write: even when I don’t want to, my brain writes Facebook status, tweets, blog posts, books, chapters, arguments and ALL MANNER of thing, in ALL MANNER of inconvenient times. My story is that I’ve rarely -not ever- but rarely cared what the majority of people think of me at any random time. My... Read more
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