On more than one occasion, I’ve had conversations with folks who say that Black women put up walls to keep people out and keep emotions in. Silly humans. We don’t put up walls. We build entire whole damn houses up around us. Mansions. People, thoughts, emotions, events and things all have a place. There’s a fancy word for it—compartmentalizing, but we just call necessity. Because you can’t survive racismsexismclassismcapitalismpatriarchy and think about it every minute of every day. So[...]
I was watching the Love and Hip Hop reunion last week and something occurred to me. Somewhere between Olivia Pope and Amina Pankey by way of Mary Jane Paul and K Michelle, Black women are having, and talking about, abortions on TV. Round about last fall, near the intersection of reality tv and Shondaland, we saw a Black woman get on a table, have an abortion and then go back to her job and life without seeming to miss a beat (Olivia Pope). We saw a Black woman reveal the abortion she had kept[...]
Rewind. In 1976, Ronald Reagan did what many politicians do when giving anecdotal support of his/her platform—he made stuff up. She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran's benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She's got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000. Enter the social constru[...]