Voice of Consciousness

Today, I am paying a tribute to my Queer Mother, Robin G. White (Bobbie). She is the sole reason I became a co-principal investigator of the National LGBTQ+ Women*s Community Survey ( https://www.lgbtqwomensurvey.org/ ) -- the first-ever large scale study of women who partner with women. I met Robin as a budding runaway dropping in at Vox, Atlanta's teen newspaper. She was the creative writing director then, where I would eventually find a tactile way to use my voice. As I aged through young adulthood, Robin was a constant source of the I'm-gon-come-get-you! kind of love. She fed me, gave me a job, published my first poetry chapbook, let me drive her car, and eventually would just save me over and over and over again.  In September 2015, I asked her to sit my house until I was able to figure out to do with Atlanta. She did, and in so doing, she began a process of discovery for me to identify why the corner my house held in the neighborhood was so sick. We were able to source th...

The Race and Policing Project has taken on a particular urgency after a decade of unrest. I wanted to talk about the ways TRPP is using the energy of protest to enhance peer-reviewable research. The fuel for TRPP has primarily been students. They have a hunger to make sense of the issues immediately as they do not square with the ethos of justice and equality that they are sold.  I think that many times people think that protest, politics, and peer-review are too distinct to be intertwined so tightly. However, our lived realities would beg fervently to differ. We need both to enhance both (not each other, but as-one).  Below are two examples I have lent to students to demonstrate how protest, politics, and peer-review really do go hand and hand. The ecological projects were driven by trying to provide a pithy summary to my undergraduate researchers in Sociology. I started with what, even I thought was a juxtaposition, but in the end through the social historian methods w...

Kamala Harris represents an immigrant's dream for their posterity -- that their children will realize the dreams that even they may not live to see. A second generation immigrant, I recognize the roots of the Black Diaspora embedded in the persistence, competitiveness, and optimism of sociopolitical mobility. In her sits the paradoxes of assimilation and systemic racism. At once, she is an insider and an outsider to her intersected ethnoracial communities of race, ethnicity, nation, and religion; a pride and warning in flying so close to the sun; and the center and bridge of complex families and social networks.  The coming years will reveal more of the nuances of her history. My favorite revelation so far is that of @archivistchris, who posted a picture of a young adult VP Kamala Harris posed with a tall box cut softened with the curls of a cultures interwoven into the scalp. In the photo, her eyes are fixed to a horizon that she gazes at with her chin raised. She is not looking i...

$750 is anarchy.  $750 is criminal. 45 paid $750 in personal taxes for 2016 and 2017. No personal taxes for the prior decade, as reported by  The New York Times . I paid more money in federal taxes as a college student working a part-time job. I even paid more money in federal taxes as a graduate student with only fellowship funding. Understand the absurdity of shelling out $1500 a year as a grad student making less than $20k, during the same exact time that the millionaire "leader of the free world" is paying $0 in personal income tax.  In a good decade, I gave $15k to the government, after deductions. Trump? No more than 10% of that. Trump paid less taxes than I did while I was in graduate school. Two months of rent covers 30 days of shelter but only 2-3 nights of stay in a Trump Hotel. He's out a short vacation. I am racking up fees because my rent is late. We have the audacity to talk about financial literacy and wealth management and to dole out achievement driven ex...

Voices in Action Concert: Artists Against Oppression Hey folks,  Today at 8:50 PM EST / 5:50 PM PST, I will be performing my poem I wrote two months after the execution of Sam Dubose on July 19, 2015 by University of Cincinnati police, Ray Tenning. Tenning was fired from the department and indicted for murder and voluntary manslaughter ; however, after two hung juries, his charges were dismissed with prejudice. "#NotAnotherHashtag" was penned connecting my own anguish to my own encounters with the police, which I detail in the poem. I detail the case that shifted my mind in a blog I wrote, "I am Rayshard Brooks" . I also detail this case through a comedic form, "Ketchup" for In Laughing Color for Queerky Folks . I hope you can tune in. Ali Voices in Action Concert is a telethon-style event that will livestream on Sunday, July 5th from 9am to 9pm PST (6am - 6pm EDT) to raise money for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund. The event c...

11 charges for murderer. 3 for partner. I didn't even know some of these charges were crimes. Rolfe (murderer): 1. felony murder, 2. aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, 3. aggravated assault, 4. violation of oath (unspecified), 5. shooting towards a bystander in a car in the parking lot, 6. criminal damage to property after a bullet hit the car, 7. oath violation for not informing Brooks of cause of arrest, 8. shooting a Taser at Brooks as he fled, 9. excessive force when shooting Brooks, 10. failing to administer medical aid to Brooks after he was shot, 11. aggravated assault for kicking Brooks after he was shot Brosnan (partner): 1. aggravated assault for standing on Brooks’ body after he was shot, 2. violation of oath for standing on Brooks’ body, 3. violation of oath for failing to give timely medical aid. Morals of the story? 1. This is not the Wild Wild West. 2. Raging out is not a part of the job. 3. Police can be criminals too. At least, this...