Take one down, enjoy the nouns… — This is my 100th article on Medium. It’s also close to my third anniversary on this platform. I started writing on Medium on August 28, 2020. Writing an average of about 33 articles a year might not sound impressive to some. Still, considering I’m an out-of-practice ex-journalist with mental disorders…

He lived in power. May he rest in power. — What happened to O’Shae Sibley On the night of July 29, 2023, O’Shae Sibley and a group of friends stopped at a Mobil gas station in Brooklyn. As they fueled up their car, they started dancing — specifically vogueing, to a song from Beyoncé’s Renaissance album. It’s important to note vogueing is a particular type…

Jason Aldean might as well have grabbed a megaphone and screamed, “White people only! Everyone else get out! Or else!” — Try That In A Small Town? I’ve written before about how I was raised in a sundown town and how sundown towns still exist. There might not be signage outside modern sundown towns that read, “Whites only within city limits after dark,” but the townspeople still find ways to push anybody non-white, especially Black people, out…

Do you think you’re tough? Let’s see you do this — I was a lot of things in the small, white sundown town in which I was raised, none of which anyone else would dare to be. I was a Black girl in a small white town. I’ve had white people stare at me as if I was an exotic creature…

Politicians not only want to purge Black history, but they want to rewrite it to make slavery and White supremacy sound beautiful. — During my freshman year of college, I was required to take a history class for my journalism major. I recall that U.S. History was one of the few classes with open slots. I was not excited — I was not looking forward to memorizing dates of when old white men…

The return of strange and bitter crops — On February 28, in the year 2023, the Tennessee House Criminal Justice Committee was having a polite conversation about how to kill death row inmates. …

Please stop appropriating a movement for Black women — On February 11, two 15-year-old teenagers stabbed a 16-year-old girl named Brianna Ghey to death. Brianna was transgender, and although the U.K. police have not established a motive yet, these teenagers killed Brianna during a time when hatred against transgender people is commonplace, even encouraged. …

Indiana’s government a century ago mirrors what’s happening in the U.S. now — In 2016, an extremist political group called the alt-right played a part in successfully making Donald Trump the U.S.’s 45th president. The alt-right grew mostly by promoting their ideas on the Internet, primarily aiming at young white men. It went from being a fringe group to a recognizable assembly of…

Make sure you have a sink full of cold water ready — With my kitchen sink filled with cold water and a towel placed on the counter, I was ready. I recall staring into the black screen of my phone, gazing at my reflection. My expression seemed sterner than usual — lips slightly taunt and eyes focused on the phone screen. …