Centering, Uplifting & Celebrating Brown Girls
My name is Assata ("she who struggles") Olugbala ( "for the people" ) Shakur ("the thankful one"), and I am a 20th century escaped slave. Because of government persecution, I was left with no other choice than to flee from the political repression, racism and violence that dominate the US government's policy towards people of …
An international symbol of the Black Liberation movement of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Angela Yvonne Davis was born in Birmingham Alabama on January 26, 1944. At the young age of 4, Davis and her family moved out of the projects of Birmingham and into a large house in a nearby neighborhood. However, Birmingham was very …
With an original movie set to premier on HBO starring Oprah, there's much ado about the immortal cells of Henrietta Lacks. A wife and mother who had her life cut short by cancer, she left a piece of herself that still exists today. HeLa, cells do not die after a certain number of divisions, given this immortality, her …
I really wanted to come in here all gloom and doom, vomiting my fear all over this page and its readers but, that felt irresponsible. It's true that I'm more alarmed than I have ever been with the state of both corporate and political powers. At the same time, when I push past my feelings, I realize …
I have written about living life in survival mode before. There is a constant churn that exists when you are doing more with less. There's rarely time to even consider my human conditions because I would have to pause to feel and grieve and pausing isn't surviving. There are so many reasons one has for living this way. In my …
It has taken me a minute to fully wrap my head around and unpack this conversation. I really wanted to talk about it but I want to make sure I'm clear about my position. In my mind, this is a teaching moment for many of us in the LatinX community...I'll explain... Recently the LA Times published …
This is my first post for Brown Girls Out Loud (BrGOL). Asia and I have been toiling away to deliver amazing, uplifting, and authentic content. The process has been cathartic. Right now, every place I turn, I'm seeing brown girls devalued and diminished. I see erasure and my sisters making themselves smaller. Why? We are …
Developing a love of truth, standing for civil rights, enjoying life itself and recording the experience, our matriarch became an inspiration. Maya Angelou’s words, spoken, on the printed page or reflected here, continue to promote self-examination, equality and friendship. Believing that “we are more alike than unalike”, Maya Angelou would be the first to say …
Brown Girls Out Loud 