This Is Us

Over the winter, I got the urge to travel to my hometown, Pittsburgh. If you’re familiar with my writing, you know I have a love-hate relationship with that place. Two things bring me back home: holidays and funerals. But this time, neither was the reason for my trip. Before shutdown began, I was battling what I thought was depression.

I was preoccupied with the passing of my parents, who I could still pick up a phone and call. I began to obsess over the pain of their passing, almost to the extent that I could already feel it. I would…

Why advocacy in the Western world often puts us on the wrong side of history.

If you Google the definition of the word, doula, your search yields an American explanation, which is the only one most Americans care to hear. But it’s the hidden history behind the word that caught my concern a couple of days ago when a friend interrupted me as I casually blurted it mid-sentence.

“I think that word is offensive, doula.” She clarified. “I think it’s offensive.”

“Are you sure?!” I asked.

I quickly whipped out my iPhone to investigate. My friend just nodded her head…

If it’s excuses we’re after for failing to evolve as individuals, the Bible is the perfect book for that.

I was born and raised into the religion of Christianity; taught at a young age to fear and defend a God I didn’t quite understand. As my youth pastor put it, a fair and just God, but one whose jealousy and rage roared from the eve of Exodus to Revelations’ rapture. You didn’t ask questions; faith guided our footsteps, not sight. The Word was God, and God was the Word; what more did we need to know? Occasionally I’d get a…

And the app-based abuse of Black women

Is it me, or is there something wrong with the Clubhouse app, something sinister about it that I can’t quite put my finger on? By now, most of you have heard about Clubhouse. The invitation-only audio-chat iPhone app caused a feeding frenzy as 2020 neared an end, becoming quite the conversation starter as interest created an underground market for the coveted Clubhouse invitation. Like a real glutton for digital punishment, I took the bait, jumping headfirst into the world of random audio exchange. …

What if our community’s state is just as much about our skin as it is our psyche?

I accidentally dated a narcissist once — a malignant narcissist at that, a top-tier terror. If you’ve never dated a narcissist, I pray for your sake that it stays that way. It is, in fact, as debilitating as they say. These days, we’re all discussing narcissism, but through a limited lens. Social media has normalized the impact of narcissistic abuse while failing to focus adequately on where the disorder begins. I didn’t see my narcissist coming because I was looking in the wrong…

And Black Women are Working Overtime

I learned about misogyny from my mother. I was seven years old at the time. One day after church, I overheard her and three of the other church mothers discussing my big sister, Temi, how she’d snuck out the other night to attend a high school party and gotten caught up in some “mess” by “mess” they meant sexual assault. Initially, I thought, nothing to hear here, rebellion was a recurring theme for teenaged Temi. …

When loving a woman makes you less of a man.

What is the sin in simping? This is a question I’ve been dying to ask ever since Russell Wilson’s February GQ interview turned the internet into one big He-Man Woman Hater’s hangout. During the Q&A, Wilson expressed that his greatest fear was losing his wife, R&B singer Ciara, and for some reason, some bizarre reason, this sentiment upset a lot of Black men. To be fair, the outrage is expected when it comes to the Wilson family of five. Black men have been lobbing insults at the Seahawks quarterback ever…