James Baldwin said, “To be a Negro In this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.” And goddam am I in a rage today! Not unlike the rage of the last 4 years under a genocidal, pathological liar, racist, white supremacist, forever impeached piece of shit…
Hugging My Blackness and Holding it Tight
Since doing my DNA I’ve been considering what I’ve learned about myself that I didn’t already think I knew, if and how my identity has changed, and what that means about how I choose to live my life. I’m not sure I have fully developed answers to any of that. I didn’t really learn anything…
This Side of Raising Children
I genuinely like the humans I created. I’m not sure that’s a goal of most parents when they have their first kid. If most people experience what I did, that was the furthest thing from the forefront of my mind. I was terrified of the commitment to this little human being, the length of time…
The Line In the Sand and Self Love
I’ve just made a decision, supporting or voting for 45 is now a deal breaker. I don’t want to have people or family who support white supremacy or racism in my life. I got no time for it and I refuse to justify my right to safety in my body and community to anyone, least…
The Sum of 25 Years
As I prepare to move from my home for the last 25 years and two months, I am deeply reflective about what I sacrificed and gained by staying in this little rural bubble for so long. While I’ve been here, I’ve lost numerous people who I loved deeply, I’ve missed grieving these losses with family…
A Partial List of Resources About Race, Racism, Critical Race Theory, and Other Things: Films, Books, Articles, Websites, Museums, Music, and Other Resources
Film/Television I am Not Your Negro (Prime and Netflix) The Hate U Give (Prime) The Uncomfortable Truth (Prime) Birth of a Movement (prime) Sis, You Okay? (Prime) The FBI’s War on Black America (Prime) The Aryans: The Madness of Racism (Prime) Two Black Men A Week (Prime) The Wire (HBO) Kill the Messenger (Netflix) Our…
Family Secrets and Life Choices
Sometimes life breaks us apart into pieces we spend the rest of our lives trying to find and piece back together. We may stumble upon a piece of ourselves as we are just going about living our lives and sometimes we conduct an exploration to find some of the pieces of ourselves lying about the…
I’m Exhausted
Maybe it’s because my last kid has left the house and is in college. Or maybe it’s because I’m almost to the point of rounding the final bend to 50. Maybe I’m experiencing a mid-life crisis. Or maybe it’s because I find myself at a crossroads. Regardless of the reason, I’m realizing how deeply exhausted…
It’s a Mind Fuck Being Biracial
So imagine being near 50 years old and being struck by your own racial identity in all of the complexity, beauty, and complication wrapped around that. It’s both glorious and infuriating. At least for me it is. I’ve had a couple of things happen over the last few years that have made me consider my…
2019: My New Hope
A colleague asked me the other day what my work-related hope was and it got me thinking. I want to think larger than work. I know things are beyond horrible for so so many people and there seems to be some new horror daily, if not hourly. But I think maybe there are few glimmers…
Grief and Suicide
Originally published July 3, 2012 Emile Durkheim, one of the seminal founders of sociology as a discipline, studied suicide at the end of the 19th century. His findings underscored many ideas that modern society still recognizes. One of his findings, in particular, has stuck with me, 15 years after my sociology coursework. The finding? That suicide in modern…
My DNA Results
I received my DNA results from Ancestry.com on June 29. I was so excited to learn more about my heritage that I stopped what I was doing and opened the results. Turns out that what I thought I knew about my white half was pretty accurate. Few surprises there (well one but I’ll get to…
Grouchy in Paradise 