I wrote a piece on my internal conflict about seeing Nate Parker’s Birth of a Nation back in August. I decided that despite his acquittal on rape charges, I would not support his movie. After reading a transcript of a call between him and the victim, his own words convinced me that he had in fact committed rape.…
Nearly seven years ago after an unprecedented earthquake devastated Haiti, famed evangelical Christian Pat Robertson believed it was God’s retribution. Referring to the Haitian Revolution, a 13-year-long war in which Haitians successfully fought the French for their independence, Robison declared the Haitians “got together and swore a pact to the devil,” promising to serve Satan if he would…
When I was 15, my great aunt gave me a job working in her restaurant for the summer. Her older sister, Aunt Tina, helped out a couple days a week too. Aunt Tina was not technically related to me and I didn’t know her very well before we started working together. I had only met…
OK, maybe I’m not speechless, Â but I’m definitely extremely uncomfortable. And nearly speechless. I tried for ten minutes to write some coherent intro to this trailer, but couldn’t. Check it out and let me know what you think. So, this definitely horrified me, and not because of all the ghosts and supernatural shit.…
I woke up this morning to Kim Kardashian trending. That’s nothing unusual. After all, she is the wife of one of the most controversial public figures of our time and an oft crowned “fashion icon” (insert Black girl side-eye) who is infamous for her ample plastic parts and  famous for her glo up from peddling a tape…
My son and I love going to the movies. Rarely a weekend passes when we aren’t cuddled up in the back row munching popcorn. A few months ago while on one of regular movie dates, I first saw the trailer for Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. Before seeing the trailer, I had never heard of…
When I first heard about First Lady Obama’s Let’s Move campaign and subsequent efforts to push for healthier school lunches, I was certain that these were bipartisan concerns. Encouraging children to be more active and providing them balanced nutrition couldn’t possibly be a source of controversy. Well, my grandmother always said, “People will make a liar out…
Sunday night actor and activist Jesse Williams was the recipient of the Humanitarian Award at BET’s 16th annual awards show. In a speech that left the internet buzzing, Williams simultaneously uplifting the oft and maliciously neglected demographic of Black women, demanded white people do the work of dismantling the system of oppression designed and maintained for their exclusive…
“I’m going to take my talents to South Beach.” As a woman who would rather do just about anything – fold laundry, watch paint dry, even listen to an entire Iggy Azeala album – rather than watch a basketball game, even I know that infamous line. I remember that day back in the summer of…
 Last summer I enrolled my son in robotics camp. Though we live in an almost exclusively black neighborhood in a city with a predominately black population, he was one of only two black children at the camp, a fact that made me apprehensive to say the least. When I went to pick him up on…
KINFOLK KOLLECTIVE 