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This Season of Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta Is Opening Up Conversations About Gender and Sexual Identities
During a recent academic media presentation, a colleague argued that reality TV hurts images of blackness more than it helps. Of course, I’d be foolish to argue that the way some shows are written doesn’t present questionable representations of black people, and particularly black women, but these shows can also create some teachable moments for…
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Instagram Project Vividly Captures the Human Toll of Mass Incarceration
Last week, President Barack Obama used his pardoning power to commute the sentences of 61 additional nonviolent drug offenders in an effort to at least moderately correct the insurmountable injustices delivered through America’s war on drugs. The war on drugs (and the mass incarceration that is its result) is heavily in the news because of…
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Can We Talk About How Black Women Are Treated as Threats, Too?
Like The Root’s Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele, who recently penned the essay “Michael Brown’s Death Reopened My Eyes to My Privileges as a Black Woman,” I understand that, as a woman, I behave differently in public spaces than the black men I know and love. Actually, as an activist who has been involved in various rallies…
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A Meme to Mock? No Way. I See a Black Woman’s Audacious and All-Too-Rare Confidence
The photo of a full-figured black woman who looks to be wearing a tank top as a skirt and a visible thong and bra to complete her ensemble resurfaced last week and made its rounds on the Internet … again. In the latest version of this photo-turned-interactive meme, viewers are prompted to comment using one…
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Some Couples Are Childless and Loving It
In a piece that explores the world of childless couples at Ebony, Josie Pickens says that unlike people who have doubts but have children anyway, childless couples are happy because they are forging their own way and living life on their terms. Lisa and Evan are happily planning a life together. It’s the cutest thing ever.…
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Male-Female Friendships: A Myth?
In a piece for Ebony, Josie Pickens takes on the “relationship expert”-backed theory that we don’t truly desire and pursue platonic friendships that don’t lead to romance. I couldn’t agree more with Jamilah Lemieux’s argument against the growing number of male “relationship experts” and “romance coaches” who gear their services toward single Black women who are really,…
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The Single-Mom Struggle
Reflecting in a piece for Ebony about the case of Shelly Frey, a desperate single mother who was killed for petty shoplifting in Wal-Mart, Josie Pickens laments the extra burden that she says too many black women are forced to bear. … I sit here with two degrees, a talent I am blessed to be…
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'Queens,' 'Ladies' and the Cost of Living Up to Titles
Even the positive terms we use for women have the potential to be harmful, Josie Pickens writes at Ebony. I was raised by ‘good women’ to be a ‘good girl,’ was constantly scolded to behave ‘properly,’ and I obliged. As my body grew scandalous to the eye, and I reveled in my newfound curves, I…
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Side Chicks and Man Sharing Are Old News
Ebony‘s Josie Pickens says this “twisted representation of polyamory” existed long before Love & Hip Hop Atlanta. What VH1 attempts to play up as some sort of polyamorous coupling may not be “new,” but our attitudes towards the representation certainly may be. I wonder, as I watch and attempt not to break my television by…
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On Brian McKnight: Nothing Wrong With Being Sex Positive
“If You’re Ready to Learn” is controversial (and probably a parody), but women could certainly stand to learn how their bodies work when it comes to pleasure, Ebony‘s Josie Pickens writes. In a sex positive world where women aren’t considered Jezebels for having any sexual desire at all, instead of Brian McKnight instructing a woman…
