Confessions of a Single Parent (Actress)

I was watching This Is Us and one of the characters who is in jail said, “I didn’t have any choices.” This stark line served to put the other character in check but it also reminded me that many of us have been only surviving and not living, which means we have been reacting and not choosing. For Black and Brown people this is a reality that is supported by racism and the inherent systems birthed from it. Now some may read this and point to all of the exceptions to the rule, and I call bullshit on you. How can you live when you are only taught to react? How can you thrive and love when you only see pain and ugliness? Where is beauty when you are often told that you are the opposite of beautiful? I say this: when the world is filled with chaos and ugly and hurt, you must look within and you must seek the joy that is often hidden. Because you deserve it and we deserve to share it with each other. In history, we often read of the importance of healing within the act of liberation. One...

So now we have no SRC. No more state control. This is a major win for Philadelphia. But now it’s time for another leg of this journey. Who and what will decide what the new governing model should look like? City Council? The mayor? The community? Educators and Families? The answer should be all the above. There was a recent interview featuring Bill Green and Donna Cooper. One represents the SRC and the other is the Excutive Director of PCCY. Neither represent the organizations that fought to make the SRC no longer be a reality and that is very telling. The one parent who was an active voice from Parents United had a sound byte. If there are going to be interviews or conversations about what should happen next, it should include the actual stakeholders. We discovered in this interview that the city charter includes term limits for mayor, so unlike Chicago, the same person will not be in charge of the school district forever. So that’s good. I guess. Second, the push for mayoral cont...

On Thursday, November 16th, the School Reform Commission voted to dissolve. And it was met with screams and tears of joy. For 16 years, Philadelphia public schools have been under state control. During that time the quality and breadth of education has continued to go downhill and the number of school closings continues to increase. Not to mention the financial starvation of public schools. Now we have an opportunity. Our City Our Schools campaign started over a year ago along with many other grassroots organizations to get the SRC eradicated. Now Mayor Kenney has been quoted lauding the benefits of mayoral control. There is a proposal on the table for a People’s School Board, one that will be a voice of the community, put an end to back room deals, and fight for equitable funding. The question is will this be a fully elected process like the more than 400 other districts in PA. Will this be a popularity contest? Will we finally have representatives that truly have the best interests...

#blackgirlmagic is a social media sensation. The problem is I am not a girl and have not been for awhile. I want my daughter and her friends to be #blackgirlmagic. I want them to embody the beauty, passion and possibility that comes with the power of a hashtag. But I want my fellow women to embrace #blackwomanmagic or even better #blackphenomenalwoman. You know why? Because many of us have fought and bled our way to our own individual and collective womanhood. We have experienced childhood and puberty and now we are here. We have arrived. And we are more than just a hashtag, we are a goddamn reckoning. I do not want to be a girl because that means that I can still be silenced, ignored and even worse rendered invisible. Black women have fit into those boxes for far too long. We are also not the ones to carry the burdens of our people. The S on our chest is out to lunch and we are reclaiming what is ours. Our time, our bodies, our love, and our righteous minds. #blackphenomenalwoman We...