Voices

[W]hy must the acknowledgment of my beauty be predicated on how well and how often I contort to attempt to fit into some kind of ideal? Why can’t I be all the iterations of me and still be beautiful?

No black man, woman, or gender non-conforming person is safe from the terrorism of police brutality and racist white people’s actions against us, let alone our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

Looking back at childhood photos now is bittersweet. In the moment the camera caught, I'm always smiling, but I wasn't always a happy child. I was fat-shamed almost daily.

As much as you want to believe people are all the same, we don’t have the luxury of being seen as the “default” in the same way white, straight, cis people often are. We don’t have the luxury of dismissing our painful history and systemic issues for the sake of everyone getting along, because we’re still in the middle of them.

It is a very difficult and dangerous job, and it does require officers to have the ability to make good split second decisions. None of that should mean that it’s OK to be incompetent, or that we should all rush to justify, ignore, or excuse incompetence, racism, ableism, and the inappropriate use of force.

I tapped the razor on the side of the sink and inspected my smooth legs for any missed spots. Then I rinsed the blade, washed my hands, and put on my outfit: a long-sleeved black top, a knee-length denim skirt, tall black boots, and a silver dragon necklace for good measure.

Some human rights campaigners argue that now is an important time to scrutinize federal funding of highly-militarized police trainings in the Miami area that may contribute to surrounding police agencies’ aggressive tactics.

Having been born in 1982, I qualify as a member of the millennial generation, but just by a hair. Often, I feel like an old lady, sometimes the last to catch on to to the fads claimed by this group — and when I do, I fall hard. (I’m looking at you, leggings-as-pants.)