Education

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Not content to live with tokenism

Tokenism is being the one black student in a classroom full of white students. It’s being the only Hispanic employee in a predominantly white organization, and it’s when that historically white school or organization says it’s diverse because of that one black or Hispanic student or employee. For me, it’s meant being one of two black students in my class at my Connecticut private elementary school, St. Thomas’s Day School. It’s meant being the only black person in most of…

Greatest Regret of All

[caption width="281" id="attachment_894" align="alignleft"] Photo: Me and "Michael Jackson" in Los Angeles in 2007. / [/caption]When I lived in Los Angeles, one of my favorite places to visit was Mr. Chow, a Chinese restaurant. I liked the dark lighting, the walls lined with mirrors, and the fact that I could bump into Lindsay Lohan on the way to the ladies’ room and “Carlton Banks” at the bar. The food was pretty good too. The first time I visited the restaurant, the waiter came…

AfterBirth

When you go see the movie “Birth of a Nation” and then return home to “your” city that’s 8 percent black; where your upstairs neighbor, a white male, continually tries to convince your black dad why he and other black people should vote for Trump, a misogynistic man with a history of racial discrimination lawsuits; where another neighbor who’s a white cop, has only spoken to you once in the 3 years you’ve lived next door to him - that…

Great Expectations

[caption id="attachment_757" align="aligncenter" width="3264"] Me and some of the girls from Spelman College's Early College Program in 1999[/caption] I had my life planned out at nine-years-old. One Thursday night, while I was at my grandmother’s house for our weekly Cosby Show date, we discussed where I would go to college and graduate school. I knew Hillman College would prepare me to become a lawyer, an author, and a cashier. Cliff and Claire Huxtable went there. He was a doctor, and…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 5

[caption id="attachment_270" align="alignnone" width="2629"] Picture from My 21st Birthday Celebration![/caption] I was sitting in the waiting room at Bad Boy Records. Someone from the finance department was supposed to meet me for an interview for a summer internship. My palms were sweating. I was thinking about all of the interviewing techniques I was taught at FAMU’s School of Business and Industry. “State a few facts about the company, then ask your question.” That’s what I kept trying to repeat to myself,…

Getting Over My First Love – Part 4

“I would have done the same thing,” my friend said. She tried to make me feel better about having an abortion. She was the one who drove me to Planned Parenthood. She told me not to look when we passed the group of protesters holding up signs of gruesomely disfigured babies. When it was all over, she was the one who drove me to her house, helped me lay down on her futon, and fed me fish sticks and French…