I can remember back in the day when homework consisted  of a few pages out of a workbook. I would get so excited when one of those assignments was a word search. How delightfully simple! I could find the words super quickly and be done with plenty of time to run outside and play. Well the feeling came back just a little bit tonight when the interwebz alerted me to a one Jennifer McMillen and her opposition to a hip hop club called Prime6 in her family-oriented Brooklyn neighborhood.
I won’t …

I recently shared this Marie Claire (UK) article about women waiting longer to give birth and it sparked a few questions that got me to thinking even more.
‘The rising numbers of women conceiving for the first time in their 30s or 40s follows a trend we have seen over the past decade, although the number conceiving over 40 is still relatively small,’ says Elizabeth Duff, a senior policy adviser at the National Childbirth Trust.
ONS [Office of National Statistics] figures show that in 1990, 229,400 pregnancies occurred in women over 30, with …

I wasn’t compelled to write anything about the No Wedding, No Womb shenanigans but I’ve seen two posts today about marriage, children and Black folks that made me want to share my own point of view. One piece from Clutch Mag focuses on the “single mother syndrome” in the Black community. You can read the piece for yourself but a few assertions therein stuck out for me: (1) More black children are born to unwed mothers because of poverty and lack of access to competitive job market; (2) If women …

The way my mind works, one thought will quickly lead to another and another until I get to a point that is almost unrelated to the original thought. That’s what happened last weekend when the mere mention of C&C Music Factory led to reminiscing about Snap!, Crystal Waters, and Ce Ce Peniston, which set me off thinking about the 90s, the great dance music we jammed to, and the images of sexy, in-charge women.
I was young then – just a 4th grader in 1990 – so when I think of that …

I’m not going to talk about whether justice was done in the Oscar Grant case or go on about the larger issue of Black men, law enforcement and violence in America. There are plenty of folks online providing that kind of commentary and probably better than I could. Rather, I’m going to quickly touch upon a few points of law without contributing analysis of the case or speculating upon the outcome. I wouldn’t do that without having been in the courtroom or having read the transcripts. No promises, but maybe …

I’ve always been a supporter of the NAACP, sort of. I’ve never been a paid member of the organization, nor have I ever joined a campus or local chapter. I haven’t participated in NAACP functions or actions. I mean, I’m a pretty functioning Negro doing my part every day to advance colored people so I think I’ve done something. I’m a supporter in theory because I’ve always believed in the mission of the NAACP and I have great respect for the organization’s historical impact. I’ve even come to the defense of …

It’s an 80+ degree day in New York City. Today I am wearing a dress. The dress is blue and white, reminiscent of that nautical theme that’s been popular lately; it’s got a bubble hem, is sleeveless, and has a cowl-neck. The dress is not tight but not voluminous either and the hem reaches about 3 inches above my knee (I literally just measured it). On most other people in my office, this dress would be simply “cute.” On myself, however, I wonder whether it’s pushing the boundaries of office …

I have a lot of questions for this world: I want to know why we are here on Earth. How many stars are in the sky? Is Blanket really Michael’s child? How do you stop the largest environmental disaster in US history? What I do not need to know is whether Black and Hispanic people can swim and why? Alas, researchers from the University of Memphis, commissioned by USA Swimming, have “discovered” that “nearly 70% of African American children and 58% of Hispanic children have low or no swim ability, …

Dominican salons have been staples in our communities for quite some time but somebody told the Wall Street Journal about it and now it’s news. Why is the WSJ concerned about Dominican salons? Apparently Black* salons are seeing red in their bottom lines because Dominican salons are cutting into business. There’s probably a little bit of that curiosity the media has for Black women’s lives lately kicking in.

I left a comment on a Clutch Mag post about Dominican Salons v. Black Salons but long and I realized I had started …