Children

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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…

Textual Healing – Week #2

[caption id="attachment_1088" align="alignright" width="300"] Textual Healing Session #2, September 15, 2018. Photo by Jess Gilliam, Ignite the Voice, Inc.[/caption] On Saturday, I led a discussion and journaling activity on the topic of Rejection in Session #2 of the 6-week series, "Textual Healing," sponsored by Ignite the Voice, Inc. The majority of the middle and high school-aged participants were able to recall scenarios where they had experienced rejection - mostly in the areas of friendship and from authority figures. As I…

Is Jesus for Poor People?

[caption id="attachment_1053" align="alignright" width="296"] Me and Celebrity Christian Donnie McClurkin. I wonder if he's rich.[/caption] This morning, I dreamt that Keegan-Michael Key, of the TV Show Key & Peele, kept clotheslining me. He kept hitting my neck in the right place to make me lose my breath. He thought it was funny, and he was trying to make the people around us laugh. I wasn't laughing. I was starting to panic in the dream because I didn’t know how to make him…

Your Baby is a Bastard

Bastard (definition): A person born of parents not married to each other. After you get married, it seems like the first question people ask you is, “When are you having kids?”  If you've had a baby, but haven’t gotten married, people ask you, “Well, when’s the wedding?” I have a 5-month-old son named Alexander. His father and I have been together for three years. We are not married. At least once a week, someone makes it their business to let…

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…

“Where’s Your Mom?”

[caption id="attachment_874" align="alignleft" width="381"] My mother and me as 4-month-old.[/caption] It’s a question I’ve been hearing for most of my life. The short answer is “I don’t know.” Although we've sent text messages to each other, the last time I saw my mother was December 25, 2015. This past Christmas, she mailed a gift. The return address listed a post office box in a city 45 minutes away from where I live. Growing up, my mom told me stories about…