Let me preface this by reminding you that I am not a planner. This isn’t necessarily a good thing given that proper adulting requires some manner of planning but it gives me wicked anxiety. It is entirely possible that my anxiety could be quelled if I planned ahead more, but that’s another conversation for another post. At any rate, I approached my trip to Paris with more of a laissez-faire attitude and left the planning to my best friend. While I also received a lot of input from people who visit Paris regularly and/or who are from there, there were a few things I absolutely needed to do and some things that quite frankly I didn’t care much about. So this isn’t an official guide to Paris. It’s merely a recap of what I did and what I loved about this life-changing travel experience. There are videos of some of the places mentioned below over on my Instagram if you’re interested.
Okay friends, it’s almost that time. Time for us to judge A-list celebrities for their wardrobe choices at an event most of us will never attend. That’s right, it’s almost time for the Met Gala, which takes place May 6, 2019. Every year on the first Monday in May, this grand event takes place in New York City and most of the people judging from their couches and cubicles have zero idea what the Met Gala even is. So, here’s your crash course from a girl who hopes to one day be invited to cover the red carpet and then be seated next to Michael B. Jordan at a black designer’s table.
“My therapist was saying,” is a phrase that just rolls off of my tongue nowadays. It used to feel like taking a tampon out of your purse at the dinner table before excusing yourself to the restroom. Everyone knows it’s a thing you may need at some point, but people don’t really want to know when or why you need it. The response to my openness as a southern black woman who regularly sees a therapist was once met with rapid blinks of surprise, and sips from drinks as the person looked away. However, as of late people in my circle are more interested in my experience seeing a therapist, because they want to see one themselves, but don’t know what to expect.
From the time that you snap into the consciousness that you are a girl, by virtue of your genitals alone, you are immediately taught to hide them. We are taught that it’s not “ladylike” to ever have your legs open at any time for any reason whatsoever until you are married. You’re basically expected to walk around with a nickel between your knees from age five until the few times you have mediocre sex with your husband to produce however many children you have. Which is obviously some bull shit. Now I have no issue with some level of modesty. I do; however, have an issue with the fact that boys are not taught at the same age that they are not entitled to what we were hiding. The sole responsibility for protecting the thing we are told to cherish the most in the world rests solely on us. For example, I always found it troubling that we had to wear prayer cloths over our laps in the church to discourage men from looking up our skirts, yet they had to do nothing in the way of just not looking up our skirts. My point is we’ve been taught a certain level of shame about our biology since we became aware that we were girls, so when it comes time to do things like visiting the gynecologist, we never, ever, ever scoot down far enough in the exam chair. But the mother of all vaginal intimacy, for which no one can prepare you, is getting waxed, and I find that process fucking fascinating.
“Representation matters,” is a phrase that rolls off the lips and fingertips so easily at the site of any marginalized person being centered in film and television. And much like every other phrase permeating the zeitgeist, I have to wonder if we know why it matters. We have become so easily placated with just one or two black and brown faces that we forget there’s more to our experiences, than what can be explored via one character. Yet, we still expect that lone character to capture the totality of the black experience through one arc. Representation, rather equal representation, is so much more than seeing one black or brown face in a place where they otherwise wouldn’t typically be. For all of our strides toward inclusive media, we still only get to see diverse intersectionality on shows that are uniquely intended for audiences of color. Dear White People is one such show with its majority black cast. Viewers were moved by the diversity reflected in the show’s premier season. There were multiple black people with multiple intersections of identities, creating space for nuanced, and relatable storytelling, which is the true benefit of equal representation. Season 2 of Dear White People doubled down on the show’s inclusivity, by centering their brown girls, and their gay characters. Two categories of people that are often overlooked, even on shows that center people of color.
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