“Then [Noah] sent out a raven, which kept going to and fro until the waters had dried up from the earth.” Genesis 8:7 As a child, I wanted to change my name. This desire was not particularly novel; children sometimes want to
Has it happened to you? Maybe you’re scrolling through Twitter searching… no, damn near begging for a meme of happiness… then BOOM! Under your thumb is a video of some racist cop assaulting a Black person for a reason as small as
A typical Sunday morning as a millennial five-year-old Black girl may have gone like this: She awakens. She needs to go to the bathroom, but if her mom sees her, she may be sent back immediately to get dressed for church. So
Every Friday night I come home from work, change my clothes and I flop down on the couch. In my head, I have other plans. Maybe clean the house. Maybe sit at the computer and write. Maybe finish reading the book I
The alarm pings and the piercing sound reverberates through the walls. My eyes blur to make out that it’s 6:00 am. I slam on the snooze button, praying for just five more minutes. I’ve woken up in a tangle of curls and
My journey to motherhood has at once been a step forward into uncharted territory and a step back into an almost forgotten vulnerability. I am Black, Queer, Woman. My journey to the point where I could harmoniously claim these aspects of my
My daughter is black. Skin like turned earth. Eyes the color of midnight. A black freckle on the underside of her wrist matches mine and another just to the left of her smile. This land does not make space for her so
They built a church on the land where my body was broken. Parishioners come every Sunday morning believing it to be holy ground. Yet I know this to be the ground where my soul was desecrated one Thursday evening. Prior to being