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‘Smoke Your Weed, Baby’: Memories of My Mother’s Truth or D.A.R.E.
Today is the day my mother’s body expired because it could no longer take the demands of dialysis to manage the serial killer so many black families face—that literal motherfucker diabetes. She left this earth Feb. 7, 2018, and in every moment since, my life has been a series of disbelief, denial, and levels of…
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Sex, Explained Was a Lot of White Noise and Mansplaining
As I sat and binge-watched what I thought would be an inclusive, sex-positive, informative series, I realized that Netflix and Janelle Monáe sold me a dream of black kink and birth outside the binary. Two years ago, Netflix partnered with the news outlet Vox to create the docuseries Explained, which focused on a number of…
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Free Cyntoia: It Was Her Faith That Made It So, Long Before She Left Prison
It is most appropriate that we open on this Sunday morning—it’s Wednesday afternoon, you say? Oh. Excuse me, er, that we open on today, in the Christian tradition, with this quote from the King James Version of the Bible: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed…nothing shall be impossible unto you.” As…
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There Was but One Creative Gawd Who Smote All Others in 2019. Mr. Billy Porter Is Kuumba Personified
If there’s one thing black folk are, it’s creative. Whether through necessity or just burned into our melanin-ness, we make sumptuous meals from scraps, our bodies defy gravity when we dance; and we have reimagined fashion, hair, sport, ways of looking at the world, and even naming our children in our burnished image (even if…
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Resist! Maxine Waters Stayed True to Her Purpose of Impeaching the Orange Menace
On this fifth day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate Nia, which means purpose, and also surges in popularity as a name every time Nia Long releases a film. “Imani” is the only other principle that even comes close, according to research from the Love Jones Institute for Boyz in the Hood. My aunt Kujchagulia Ujima Jenkins…
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Ujamaa That! Annual Kwanzaa Crawl Brings $250,000 to Black Businesses in Gentrifying Harlem and Brooklyn
Even us anti-capitalists recognize that economic freedom is power in the good ole US of A. And as it relates to Kwanzaa, on this fourth day, we celebrate Ujamaa (ooh-jaa-mah), meaning cooperative economics and also, “shared wealth and work”, “economic self-reliance” and “obligation of generosity.” Last year, we feted Richelieu Dennis, and in 2017, it…
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Randall Woodfin’s #BirminghamPromise Embodies Ujima, or Collective Work and Responsibility
On today, the third day of Kwanzaa, we celebrate the principle Ujima, or collective work and responsibility. Last year, those who embodied Ujima were the founders of GirlTrek, Vanessa Garrison and Morgan Dixon; in 2017, it was Patrisse Marie Cullors. This year, the honor goes to Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin, who promised that starting in…
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Baltimore Raven QB Lamar Jackson Is the NFL’s Probable MVP, Quite Possibly a Superhero and the Personification of Self-Determination
On the second day of Kwanzaa, the black nationalists gave to me…a hard-ass word to pronounce! But in fact, Kujichagulia (pronounced: koo-gi—as in Coogi sweater—cha–goo–lee-ah—as in Aaliyah) is probably my favorite principle in the Kwanzaa pantheon. To practice Kujichagulia, or self-determination, always celebrated on Dec. 27, is to define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves,…
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Certified Genius Nikole Hannah Jones’ 1619 Project Embodied Unity in 2019
Some years, when we say an entity (person, persons of note, or not) embodies Umoja, or unity, the first principle of Kwanzaa, it is because their actions bring together the larger black community (see Tarana Burke in 2017). Other times, it’s more about a personal manifestation of unity (see the workers of KFC in 2018).…
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Kwanzaa 101 for the Uninitiated, Self-Conscious, or Confused
Y’all, Kwanzaa is LIT. Seriously. What other uniquely African-American holiday invites you to spend seven days talking about the realest shit? People get so caught up in how it’s a made-up holiday, but come on—a holiday is a group decision. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday as a federal holiday is younger than Kwanzaa. I’m not…
