Fall: The Season of Transition and Preparation
#FallTransitions
#JourneysB2B
June is Caribbean American Heritage Month
For folks that know me, celebrating my Caribbean heritage is an important aspect of my ethnic and personal identity that I am proud to talk about and display at every opportunity. Whether it is blasting the latest soca and calypso song through my car’s speakers, cooking Caribbean meals for my family and friends, writing about […]
The Nostalgia of School Daze
If you are an aficionado of Black “coming of age” comedies and commentaries that embed Black culture of the late 1980s and early 1990s, then you can appreciate my reference to Spike Lee’s 1988 film School Daze and NBC’s TV sitcom A Different World (1987-1993). Both were firsts (on the small and big screens) to […]
Musings on Black Love as Self-Love
In celebration of April as National Poetry Month, I went through the exercise of identifying and framing, for my desk, three quotes from up and coming African descended women poets: Alexandra Elle, Upile Chisala and Cleo Wade. Claim it. All of it. Release what no longer serves you. Journey forward. Be unanswered. Be unapologetic. Love […]
Hair, Hair, oh,Glorious Hair is NOT Innocuous
Hair, hair, hair, hair… Grow it, show it… Long as I can grow it… My hair.. I want it long, straight, curly, fuzzy, snaggy, shaggyRatty, matty, oily, greasy, fleecy, shining, gleamingStreaming, flaxen, waxen, knotted, polka dottedTwisted, beaded, braided, powdered, flowered and confettiedBangled, tangled, spangled and spaghettied… “Hair” by the Cowsills (1968). Songwriters: Galt Mac Dermot […]
Sisterhood is Family
Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher. Oprah Winfrey We often set aside the month of March to celebrate and acknowledge the accomplishments of women, both the sung and unsung sheroes in history, culture and innovation. I particularly enjoy taking the time to pay homage to the women of color […]
If you think Blackface is cool, then you support white supremacy–and we can’t be friends…
Full stop. Wearing bronzer and foundation 7+ more shades darker than your natural skin tone, exaggerating and bastardizing certain physical features, dress, music, vernacular in a Sambo-like fashion, whether it’s for Halloween, your yearbook page, for an office party, or a “fun” prank—is Intolerable. Full stop. I, too, am including you if you are a […]
Black History Month 2019: A Reflective Essay
[Americans must] seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history. President Gerald R. Ford (1976) Since 1976, the month of February has been designated as Black History Month, a time in which the U.S. (and now the U.K, Canada and the Netherlands) annually […]
The Journey Begins…
I once read somewhere that writers who don’t accept they’re on a journey into the unknown will never produce works that last in the hearts and minds of their audience. My journey as a writer or storyteller is one that demonstrates how I, as a reader myself, am drawn to enduring stories that seek to […]