#TrustBlackWomen Often Means #UseBlackWomen

Trusting Black Women is more than a catchy hashtag. It is more than a talking point on the campaign trail. Trusting Black Women is more than inviting a Black woman to the table without any leadership or decision-making authority. Do not invite me to the table if I am expected to sit pretty and poised with no power. Making a hashtag does absolutely nothing without clear motives and actions behind it.

Beyoncé  Is That B*+ch! PERIODT!

Let’s just get right into it – Beyoncé is THAT BITCH! PERIODTTTT!! ALL THE T’s!!  There is no greater living entertainer on the planet. Period. Before I take it back, I will add more to it.  Argue with your aunties and grandmas don’t argue with me.Beyoncé  came to Coachella to snatch all the vanilla, #FFFFFF, flower crowns and snatch them she did!

A Black Woman Proverb: Here’s What’s Not Gonna Happen Today

What y’all don’t understand is before we even leave the house we have already decided what’s gonna happen that day. We have already decided just how much bullshit we are going to deal with. We shower, get dressed and put on our “I wish a muthfucka would” lipstick, “Ain’t no one Fenty bother me” foundation, spray a little bit of “I don’t give a damn” perfume on our wrists, slip on our “Try me if you want to” stilettoes and grab our, “I will turn into Annalise Keating up in here,” handbag and head out the door, singing Take Me To The King the entire drive to work.

Stop Running For Second Place!

This week Stacey Abrams appeared on The View and was asked about the rumors that she was being tapped to run alongside (behind) Joe Biden as the 2020 Vice President candidate. With no hesitation, Abrams stated, “I think you don’t run for second place.”In one sentence, Abrams spoke an entire sermon, and it resonated deeply with me. While Abrams was talking about the primary, I took her comments as a lesson for my life to stop running for second place. Who stands at the starting line of a race and says, “I want to be second?” Your mentality should always be, “I want to be first!” The goal should always be to run to win!

Us Movie Should Leave You Afraid Of Your Reflection…It Didn’t.

My daughter told me, “You should have left Us feeling afraid to look at your reflection in the mirror.”  I didn’t. As I walked into the bathroom after the movie, I looked at my reflection in the mirror and washed my hands. I was not afraid. I was not spooked. I didn’t have that feeling that my reflection would turn its back on me or reach out and grab me.  There was no lingering fear like I felt watching Nightmare on Elm Street of Halloween years ago.  I left the theater thinking, “Perhaps I missed the message. Perhaps I missed the fear.”

Dear Alyssa, When It Comes to Being An Ally, Two Coats of Paint Are Better Than One

In her quick rise in social justice circles, her continuous missteps show me that Alyssa has no foundation on which to stand when it comes to being an ally. Her activism is a house of cards built on sand. It is easy to commandeer someone else’s movement as your own. It is easy to go online when you have a vast platform and post something that “sounds” progressive and get thousands of likes and retweets. It is easy to comb through poems and pick a line or two that may help undergird your tweets. It’s easy to dress up in a handmaid’s costume and not see how your real life actions are not indicative of supporting all women. It’s convenient to post a Martin Luther King quote that makes you feel good. It is easy to do all of those things without doing any of the real work. Moreover, the real work doesn’t start on Twitter. It doesn’t start with a pink pussy cat hat. It doesn’t start with some catchy sign held up at a protest. I dare say it doesn’t even start with a hashtag. The real work begins when you first look inside yourself and challenge yourself to be better and to do better.