#MondayBlogs
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Breaking From Tradition Can Be a Good Thing
Some families keep their history alive around picnic tables, their roots watered each summer by laughter, shared meals, and stories that stretch back generations. Mine did not. On my mother’s side, there were no great migrations back home for a weekend, no sea of matching shirts declaring our kinship, no annual roll call of who… Continue reading
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Community Can Be Healing
I spent the weekend before last wrapped in the embrace of family down in Shreveport and Keithville, Louisiana, and it felt like medicine. We rode horses, walked barefoot through the grass, played with dogs, danced like children to country songs (which was hilarious…them country songs a lil freaky, lol) chased chickens, and kissed the soft… Continue reading
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Mine
The way my “no” used to get scrapedoff the platelike it didn’t belong there. I used to think saying no was dangerous.That my voicewas optional.That my boundariescould be bentby someone else’s appetite. So I chewed and I swallowedsociety’s thoughts of what I should be.It lingered in the bite I didn’t want to takebut did anyway.… Continue reading
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Always There Are the Children
Something devastating is happening, a bone-chilling, frightening thing. The children are dying. In this year alone, I have learned of the deaths of four young people, three of them children under 25 years old. All of them were from people I know; they were firstborns, the first fruits of their mother’s wombs. It has made… Continue reading
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For Those Who Make a Home on Social Media
I’ve discovered the deaths of family members on social media from people who have my number. I’ve watched loved ones be more open on Facebook than they are with the people they can reach out and touch. I’ve watched passive aggression and sneak dissing become new forms of communication. I’ve watched as people open themselves… Continue reading
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How Much Time Do You Spend with Your Book Before You Self-Publish It?
Denzel Washington stopped eating pork, read the Quran, and went to Fruit of Islam lessons to get ready for his part in Spike Lee’s 1992 biopic Malcolm X. He was in character to the point where he even recognized the specific pair of glasses that Malcolm X was wearing on any given day. Being on… Continue reading
The PBS Blog 