We’re Not Mad, We’re Sad
A white friend’s comment at breakfast turned into an hour on American history, and the reason Black women feel sadness before anger.
Who Gets to Be Black Depends on Who’s Looking
In Gambia, I’m American. Cross a border and Blackness changes names, and sometimes it changes the rules.
Why Nobody Gets Invited Over Anymore
I host about a quarter as much as I did five years ago. Here’s why, and what I do now.
The Good China Is Not for Company
My mother’s china, her best friend’s silver, and a cabinet of crystal live in my house. None of it sits behind glass.
Auntie Is a Rank You Earn, Not a Title You’re Given
Blood gets you in the door. It doesn’t get you the name.
I Built My Aunt in an App and Gave Her My Voice
A sixty-hour week is treated as normal in this country. This is what I am doing about my share of it.
The Cookout: An Anthropological Study of Who Gets Invited and Why
A field guide to the most exclusive invitation in Black America, and the etiquette that comes with it.
The Bravery I Faked Until It Was Real
Up until high school, I was terrified of people. Not shy in the cute way adults call a kid “shy.” Terrified. If an adult I didn’t know spoke to me, I couldn’t answer without tears. Didn’t matter if the situation was good or bad. My body decided I was in danger and it acted like […]
Bootstraps We Were Never Handed
The phrase started as a joke about something physically impossible. Then it became a weapon aimed almost exclusively at us.
“The Man,” The Trap, and Why I Can’t Find a Good Black Husband
The government’s fingerprints on a dating pool that shrank on purpose, from crack in the eighties to a welfare rule that punished a man for staying.