microaggressions
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There Are Plenty of Black Women TV Writers, Hollywood. Y'all Just Don't Want to See It
It was 2017, and I was sitting in a packed theater in Salt Lake City, Utah watching horror-themed short films directed by women for Sundance’s midnight showcase. After the films faded to black and the lights went up, one particular white male producer went on a spiel during the panel about not being able to…
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White Female Candidate Gets Triggered, Claims Black Opponent Isn’t ‘Intelligent’
It really doesn’t take much to trigger a Donald Trump supporter. Mention Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Russia or George Soros and they’re off, screaming about “pizzagate” and wiretapped microwaves. Sometimes it doesn’t even take that much; sometimes all you have to do is be black on a sunny day to trigger a deplorable’s “T-Gene” (similar…
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Running While Black: Melanin and Movement Does Not a ‘Thug’ Make
Rule 1: If your skin comes within two dozen shades of looking blue in the moonlight, don’t run at night. Rule 2: If your schedule demands it, be careful. If Marine veteran-cum-lawyer David Lee Phillips wasn’t familiar with those rules before an officer stopped him while he was running at night back in 2010, he…
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When Will We Learn?
You have to be twice as good as them to get half of what they have! “Twice as good” is the standard set for generations of black and brown children across America (and beyond), a warning consistently administered in stern but loving tones from parental figures as dissimilar as the fictional Rowan Pope and first…
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They’re Called ‘Microaggressions’ but There’s Nothing Small About Them
For 11 months I regretted that I had not glared at my white therapist and said, “You are dead to me. You are not the person I thought you were. You never knew me. You only saw the stereotype.” For 18 years he had been my favorite doctor, yet I stayed away. Previously, I would…