They prefer seeing Black women in positions of servitude rather than in power. — Many people are clutching their pearls at the portrayal of a Black queen in Queen Charlotte in A Bridgerton Story, a fictional story created by Shonda Rhimes inspired by the history of Great Britain's Queen Sophia Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz who married King George III. …

When it comes to confrontations with the police, Black people are asked to do something strange — Fight or flight is an “automatic physiological reaction” to a stressful or fearful situation. You will start to breathe faster, and your blood pressure and heart rate will rise, preparing your body for a possible fight. According to Professor Karin Roelofs, people and animals have various defensive modes that trigger…

We’ve all been there. Here’s how to get to the other side — “Hello, hello, is anyone there?” We’ve all been there — you work hard on a draft of something, post it, and then…no one seems to be reading your work. But don’t take it personally — you are not necessarily being ignored. Readers don’t know your writing from a can of…

To communicate effectively, you have to control your tone. Here’s how to do that. — A couple of months ago, I read a story about blackface. Initially, I felt relieved that someone was bringing attention to this issue. Then, sentence after sentence, I realized my initial assumptions, based on the title, fell short. To my surprise, this article supported blackface. As a Black writer, I…

Backlash over a mythological creature is utterly ridiculous — Last year, when Disney announced they cast Halle Bailey, a Black singer and actress, to play Ariel, a mermaid-turned-princess in their live-action musical rendition of The Little Mermaid, the Black community started bracing for impact. The backlash over the Wonder Years remake featuring a Black family, Black cast members in…

An essay about the murder of 14-year-old Cyrus Carmack-Belton — Anti-Black racism is an undercurrent in American society, a pervaisive ideology flowing in the opposite direction of the values our nation purports to hold near and dear, like equality, liberty, and progress. All too often, pervaisive stereotypes about Black criminality contribute to a shoot-first-ask-questions-later type of environment that endangers Black…

An essay about how racist language perpetuates violence — The language we use is powerful because it helps to shape the world we live in, how people treat one another, and what type of behavior is a socially acceptable, or shunned. Racial slurs and stereotypes are more than crude insults; they aim to dehumanize a racial minority group and…

Some struggle to accept a day honoring Black liberation — Juneteenth is a holiday celebrating Black Americans’ freedom. However, there are some White people who must have missed the memo because they’ve opted to center themselves rather than taking a moment to honor enslaved people and their descendants. For instance, in Greenville, South Carolina, a Juneteenth flier advertising a local…

Police brutality continues to rise because the racial reckoning did not facilitate criminal justice reform — The pursuit of criminal justice reform has grown cold on the steps of Congress, and as a result, Black Americans continue to be disproportionately victims of police brutality. This phenomenon begs the question, what is a Black life worth in America? Three years ago, a group of police officers killed…