As the National Football League season is upon us, and at the start of Domestic Violence Awareness Month, I’m compelled to confront a paradox many women face. The enlightened and forgiving among us understand the game as a rite of male passage from high school through adulthood. But we struggle with the symbolism and the violence.…

Dear Serena: You are us. We are you. We have watched you grow and dominate a sport like few before you. We also wince at the descriptions you are subjected to. As you take center court this weekend at the U.S. Open, in pursuit of your outrageous 22nd grand-slam championship, you have proved yourself to…

News of overwhelming racial violence has become all too common. It seems to never stop. This week, the FBI opened investigations into suspected arson at black churches in five Southern states. Last week, President Barack Obama eulogized South Carolina state Rep. Clementa C. Pinckney and other members of the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston who…

There’s more to being a black parent than beating our kids, grieving for them or hollering at them. This may seem like an obvious point, but I’m compelled to make it after what we’ve witnessed recently in a spate of high-profile news events. Images of black moms “whooping” their kids in public or expressing anger…

Throughout our history, black women across the country have felt the enduring sting of men controlling their reproductive freedom, infringing on their right to have or not have a child and access to birth control, and using religion as a basis for that control. A long history of denial of the right of black women…