Sometimes, when I want to find out whether or not my students have actually read their assigned Emma pages, I mention that I’ve been compared to Miss Woodhouse.  Those who have read past the first page look absolutely horrified, and their expression is a perfect reflection of mine when I came to the sentence that gave me the first inkling the man I was convinced was my destiny was not.

In June of this year, writer Tamara Winfrey Harris released The Sisters Are Alright: Changing The Broken Narrative of Black Women in America. According to The Washington Post, Harris writes “specifically of black women, and taking care to avoid conflating the black male experience with the definition of the black experience, period.” In this pivotal cultural moment when black men’s lives are often the focal point of the Black Lives Matter movement, Harris’ work…

Lately I never leave the house without my armor. Maybe it’s because of my passion for social issues and cultural representation, or to paraphrase the clinically sharp bell hooks, the dismantling of our white supremacist society that teaches black folks to internalize racism, has become an easy target for chauvinists. Some people of the patriarchal army would believe that I actively place myself in the role of the victim. (How many times have I heard…