February 5, 2018, would have been Trayvon Martin's 23rd birthday.
Category: Negression
An Interview with Maya Jensen, Filmmaker behind ‘Solidarity in Saya: An Afro-Bolivian Music Movement’
Bolivians of African descent introduced Jensen to Saya music, an old artform which was a universal language in the Spanish-speaking land of their political and labor oppressors. Jensen’s film documents Saya music of today.
What Billie and Phyllis Sang About
Read my story "What Billie and Phyllis Sang About", about an abandoned black woman left to survive alone in Harlem, in the new issue of Atticus Review. My favorite Billie Holiday and Phyllis Hyman music is on the story's companion soundtrack Here. #BillieandPhyllis
Are You a Joyce Vincent?
In this National Blog Posting Month, I decided to pick my favorite work so far on my blog Negression. My eulogy of a total stranger, Joyce Vincent, remains the most personal piece of writing I have ever done publicly for the sheer emotional response I had to her story's resonance in my life at the point when I wrote it. I think this chilling black female version of a "Sex in the City" tale will always stick out to me and beg attention. It is something I wish I had never had to write, because that means it would have never happened. But since I did have to write it, it was a privilege to learn about myself and my life and what I need to do for myself and for others through the pain of another who was unable to.
Real Talk: On The Loss of Olympian Kamara James and Black Women’s Mental Health
How did Kamara James, at 29, wind up mysteriously deceased in her U.S. apartment...with her last years on Earth clouded by mental illness, presumed schizophrenia, poverty and homelessness?
On the Channon Christian and Chris Newsom losses of life, and Vanessa Coleman’s impending parole*
*Since the time of this writing, Tennessee courts have upheld the decision to keep all offenders involved in this tragedy behind bars, including the female accomplice who was up for parole this December. Vanessa Coleman's parole was DENIED. Among the reasons for denial were a "depreciation" of the seriousness of what took place in a … Continue reading On the Channon Christian and Chris Newsom losses of life, and Vanessa Coleman’s impending parole*
Are You a Joyce Vincent?
I A definitive 21st Century Western biography concerns a Black female Londonder who passed away in her government-subsidized bedsit/SRO flat in 2003, at a time she was wrapping Christmas presents and writing Christmas cards—and she remained in there, seated on her couch, putrefying and finally skeletizing, for the next three years. In 2006, a government agency kicked in … Continue reading Are You a Joyce Vincent?
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