In September of last year the increasingly devastating wild fire season in northern California brought apocalyptic orange and red skies to the Bay Area. I woke up one morning and looked out on a dark red glow to the sky, disoriented about the time of day. I thought the redness would shake, but as the… Continue reading What to Black People Is Safety?
It has been roughly a month and a half since my birthday. I usually write a reflection a day or two, or a few weeks after my birth. This has been the longest time. But in a pandemic year where we've been asked to shelter in place, time has taken on new meaning. Mainly, that… Continue reading Reading Esther in the Age of Trump and Another Cycle Around the Sun
I had only taken the first two steps into my bedroom in a lush Airbnb when I saw the message from my friend Jacqueline: OMG RBG. I knew what this message meant, and I quickly googled her name to reveal the long list of articles already written about her death at age 87 from complications… Continue reading In Search of Beginnings
The week began with reports that those whose skin kiss the sun most often already knew: black folk were contracting and dying from COVID-19 at alarming rates. Yet instead of naming the man-made terrains of whiteness - food deserts, poverty, red-lining, environmental and economic racism, to name a few - they label race, not racism,… Continue reading Waiting for the Resurrection
The coronavirus had been on my mind since early January because I was scheduled to go to Thailand for vacation and work in February, and I was unsure if I should or would be able to go. I carefully watched each day as cases and deaths in China continued to rise, and held my breath… Continue reading Separation, Distance
I'm the "strong friend." The ones those online posters tell you to check on, but who you may never know what's truly going on. Not that I'm proud of that. It's because I have designated people who have been tried and trained to help me carry my loads. I like to appear lighter for others.… Continue reading Years that Bind
In my bedroom, I have a framed poster that reads "Trust Your Struggle." To me, those words are about knowing in my bones and my being the things that I know to be true. They are about caring about the process and not just the product, and all the ways that becoming is a necessary state… Continue reading Dear 30, Love 29
When I was younger, my mom would always tell me to write when I felt confused or hurt or angry. She would say that once I could start putting everything inside of me into some language that made sense to me, that in the creation, I would start to understand myself more. I often think… Continue reading Creating Myself to Freedom
If I believed that this world gave trigger warnings to black folk, I might ask for one before each time they show me you, Tamir. The way the ground comes out from under me, and my throat tightens. I sit around thinking about the lethality of existence and hope to God that there are playgrounds in… Continue reading Imagining Freedom.
For all I am For all I'm feeling I will be true and I will seek Gave away my pain And all the chains 'Cause I'm no slave Yeah For I am King For all I am My ancestors tell me so My blood it tells me so My being it tells me so -"I… Continue reading Grounding.
