The Goddess Professor Speaks

It's also why they erase the ugly parts of their own histories--like 5$ Indians. In Fall 2020 (right before THE pandemic school year started), I attended a virtual session titled The Legacy of Historical Trauma: A Discussion of the Black and Native American Existence, Identity, and Moves Forward to Healing . It was SUCH an enriching, rewarding, spiritual experience for me. I listened to the panelists (most of whom are Black and Indigenous or were raised in Black/Indigenous households OR are raising Black-Indigenous relatives) speak of the intersecting identities and the double oppressions of being both Black and Indigenous and the acknowledgment of anti-Blackness handed down from our collective oppressors and often internalized and laterally expressed in Indigenous communities, really in both communities. The anti-Blackness being weaponized and stripped from Indigenous Peoples by the dominant culture, to the point that Black-Indigenous people would need to deny their Blackness in

Although no one asked me and I'm sure no one will, I'm gonna share my 12 cents about Will Smith smacking Chris Rock. I'll be real honest... it's complicated. My thoughts and feelings are entangled. My feelings come from my multiple identity groups in these United States and on this planet with other fallible humans. As a fallible human who works hard to process her own emotions and unlearn the habit of hitting when angry, no, it's not cool that Smith hit Rock. But as an intersectional person who analyzes the shit outta everything, it ain’t so cut and dry.  As a fallible human who knows in general that one should not choose violence as a first response, but who also acknowledges that sometimes, just sometimes , choosing violence can be the answer, well, it's still complicated. As a fan of Smith and Rock, ugh, this is hella messy. (I know my fandom has nothing to do with this and honestly, it doesn't make me dislike either of them any less. It just makes shi

There is rarely a Fourth of July that goes by that I don't think of and/or read Douglass' "What to the slave is the Fourth of July?" I typically post it yearly as well. Last year, we were blessed with descendants of Douglass performing parts of his speech and reflecting on who they are and where we are today, as they relate to his speech. Today, I ask slightly different questions: what to the American descendants of slavery (ADOS) is the Fourth? What to any of us is the Fourth? In a year where we've seen the symbolic victory * of federal recognition for Juneteenth while simultaneously witnessing state legislatures across the country and nationally elected folks attempt to shut down any conversations on race, racism, slavery's role in the founding and growth of this country, and real American history instead of American mythology, what to ADOS does this day mean?  At a time when we've lost more than half a million (605,533 as of 11:25a on 7/5/21, accordi

One hundred years ago today, white Tulsa citizens stormed into the Greenwood district of Tulsa and began attacking Black citizens. Like many incidents like these throughout American history, it started when a Black man was accused of doing something to a white girl/woman. I say "something," because it's still unclear what happened on the elevator where the "something" allegedly happened. One hundred years ago today, the Tulsa Massacre began. It would end only a day later ( fortunately just one day because it could’ve been much worse had it lasted longer) once the National Guard was called in, but after hundreds of Black people had been injured, thousands of Black people made homeless due to their homes be burned and destroyed, and an untold number of Black people killed. Untold numbers. Hmm. Some estimates say as high as 300 people were killed. Some records seriously lowball that number, but it's hard to do an accurate counting of the dead when their kille

I saw an article and then watched the trailer for the upcoming film Netflix's  Concrete Cowboy , starring Lorraine Toussaint, Idris Elba, Cliff “Method Man” Smith, and Caleb McLaughlin (the sole Black kid in Netflix's  Stranger Things ). The article from The Root opens with a simple question: "When did you first learn that Black cowboys exist?" In the article, a few of the film's actors offer a few answers:  Bob Marley's " Buffalo Soldiers " (about the all Black calvary regimen of U.S. Soldiers ).  The film Posse (directed by and starring Mario Van Peebles, also related to Buffalo Soldiers ) The film Buck and the Preacher (starring the amazing and incomparable Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte) . The article also mentions the person who was my earliest memory of Black cowboys: Bass Reeves . My dad told me about Bass Reeves when I was younger. Dad loves western stuff AND actual history, and my parents always made an effort to fill in the gap of th

A year ago today, everything stopped. Freedom of movement as we knew it ended. A year ago today, I was googling Covid-19 furiously, trying to understand what was happening, so I could then discuss it in my classes in an accurate way. Students were slowly becoming aware of what Covid-19 was, and I was trying to help them sift through the noise. Because one of our topics that semester was misinformation/disinformation/malinformation, I made sure we had frank and honest discussions about how to obtain accurate info. Discussing Covid-19 would be the second in-real-time event I used as a lesson that semester. Earlier in the Spring semester, after Kobe Bryant's death (rest his soul), I used the information cycle and misinformation as a lesson on how to know which news to trust, how to assess credibility, and confirm stories and information. A year ago today, our personal life changed with a car accident (thankfully, no one was seriously harmed) as the larger world as we knew it changed a