The Speaker’s Voice

This essay is 526 words long. It is 526 words because that is how many seconds are in eight minutes and forty-six seconds. Eight minutes and forty-six seconds is the time it took former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin to murder Mr. George Floyd. As if...

The last few weeks have been some of the most complicated of my Black life.  In just a two-week period, we had a front-row seat to two murders and one situation that had the potential to escalate to another one (Central Park-Amy Cooper birdwatcher incident).   As I...

As a black woman AND an empath, I’ve found myself speechless and heavy-hearted lately. The tragic killings of George Flyod, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many more- has compounded a complexity of feelings toward year 2020. If you’re like me, maybe you too are...

As news about George Floyd’s death spread on Tuesday, May 26, it appeared to grip folks in the White community more than any other story—and there are too many—of its kind. There are so many who are waking up to a reality that has been known and felt by our Black...

One of my favorite lines from the classic film Apollo 13 is “Houston, we have a problem.” Well, the sad truth facing society today is like that iconic line: “America, we have a problem.” Unlike, Apollo 13, life is unscripted…but the transgressions of our past are...

To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious, is to be in a rage almost all the time. So that the first problem is how to control that rage so that it won’t destroy you. – James Baldwin When therapists refer to “anger,” we call it a blanket...

I was six, nearly seven, years old growing up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana when novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, activist, and social critic James Baldwin died in December of 1987. It would be nearly 30 years before I first discovered his powerful works through a...