Confessions of a Single Parent (Actress)

Dear 2021, Thank you for being OVER!  Thank you for starting out with the power of me providing a space for other artists to shine their light! A community filled with beautiful Blackness - Thank you Gumbo Lab.  Thank you for showing me after the reading of Black Bitch Cape, what an amazing show it will be in 2022.  BUT... You also have been filled with people showing their true selves over and over. You gave us all some hope and then slapped us with new variants - Delta and Omicron. States passing bills literally stopping people from having actual conversations about race, sex, gender justice, and everything in between. Masks and vaccinations were politicized. Schools were unsafe. Reproductive rights were rolled back to the stone age. And the sheer exhaustion and hilarity of the fuckery continue. So here are some lessons for 2022.  Lesson One: Wear a mask. Period.  Lesson Two: Get vaccinated and boosted. Lesson Three: Before you gather with new people or with f...

 Dear College Professors (Full-time and Adjuncts), After year one of a global pandemic that is proving that we still have a way to go as we enter year two of COVID-19, there are some valuable lessons that all educators in higher education should take with them. Some of these lessons should have been learned before you entered the field, but I find that challenging times push many of us to either change for the better or stick to oppressive practices.  Lesson One: Developing a relationship with each of your students does not weaken you. It does not make you less than. It does not make you less brilliant. It makes you human, which allows you to see the humanity in your students and peers.  Lesson Two: People have lost loved ones, friends, and family. And are still losing people. Students have lost loved ones to COVID and to gun violence. Just because they are perceived to be adults, does not make the stress of all of it any less potent. This means a rigid syllabus just make...