Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it

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A police officer who had only been in her presence for 12 seconds shot and killed her. 

He didn’t know her name. He didn’t know she was pregnant and due to have a baby girl in two months. He didn’t know she had previously been accused of petty crimes. He didn’t even know if she had actually stolen any liquor. 

In the moment he pulled his gun on Ta’Kiya Young while yelling for her to get out of her car, all he knew was she had been accused of stealing from a grocery store, and he decided that was enough to warrant aggressively pulling a gun on her and threatening her life — a life he eventually took. 

Shoplifting is not a capital offense, but Ta’Kiya Young died for it

Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?

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Before Gauff, the last three American U.S. Open champions were Black women — Venus Williams, Serena Williams and Sloane Stephens. And now, add Coco Gauff to that list.

It’s worth noting that the Williams sisters have multiple wins between them in that 20-year span.

People keep mistakenly bringing up Naomi Osaka in this discussion, and I’d like to note that while we also celebrate her Black Girl Magic as well, Naomi plays for Japan when she competes, not the United States, and in this discussion, we are referencing U.S. winners.

Black women have been holding it down for America at the U.S. Open, but when has America held them down?

Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America

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In other words, white people love to come around and whitesplain the Black experience to Black people even though they have never been Black a day in their lives, and judging from the way their fragility and thin skin erupt into irrational outbursts on the internet, I’m going to guess they have neither the mental nor the intestinal fortitude to survive even one day in a Black experience. 

White people don’t understand the inanity of having your tone policed when you are speaking up for yourselves in a situation when the power dynamic of race comes into play. They don’t understand that in situations like what Coco went through, you have to adapt to the sensitivities of the white person you are addressing even as they are trampling over yours with no regard. They can’t imagine a world where everything you do is viewed through the lens of you being Black and how that lens is clouded with the smudges of implicit bias, systemic racism and white privilege. 

In fact, it is white privilege that thrusts them into the position of thinking they can speak with authority and tell us how we are misunderstanding something that happened to us and not them. 

Stop trying to whitesplain Black women’s experience in America

Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried

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When Gauff drew this to the umpire’s attention, and in a now-viral video, we can see them going back and forth as the umpire tells Gauff that she plays “very quick” while her opponent plays “slow,” and Gauff corrects her and says she plays at a “normal, medium pace.”

Both the crowd observing the match as well as the ESPN commentators agreed with Gauff, and her statements to the umpire were met with loud applause.

As ESPN reports, the crowd began watching the clock and yelling “timer” every time Siegemund was slow to be ready for the next serve, and when she later had her own exchange with the umpire, the crowd booed her.

Coco Gauff advocated for herself in the workplace, so of course, a white woman cried

The Carlee Russell situation will not stop me from believing Black women

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If anything, we should be happy that a missing Black woman got the level of national attention that Carlee did, and we should be advocating for that to happen every time a Black woman or girl is missing. Black women and girls do not get the same level of publicity or attention that missing white girls and women do. This is a fact. 

According to the National Crime Information Center, 268,884 women went missing in the year 2020, and of those, more than 90,000 were Black women and girls. This means that while Black women represent less than 15% of the entire U.S. population, they made up more than one-third of the women and girls reported missing. And cases involving Black girls and women, on average, stay open four times longer than other cases. Unfortunately, we don’t hear their stories because they don’t get told. 

The Carlee Russell story isn’t going to make people stop believing Black women, and it isn’t going to make them stop looking for us. The simple fact is they already don’t believe us, and they already don’t look for us. 

The Carlee Russell situation will not stop me from believing Black women

Let’s talk about the way Black women are constantly targeted for ‘humbling’

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Before the whining starts, I want to be clear that I realize all women are shamed for the tiniest of things that shouldn’t even matter or be anyone else’s business, but as Black women, we are held under a microscope and have every decision, emotion, hairstyle, financial status, education level, number of previous lovers — you name it, we have had it picked apart and thrown in our faces at any given moment. 

Black women get shamed for everything

Return of the Mack

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Good morning!

As I have shared in my writing as of late, I have not been in a good place mentally over the last few weeks.

Depression is a monster, and when it takes over, even the smallest of tasks can feel insurmountable. The inability to focus long enough to get anything done is a productivity killer, and for someone like me who works primarily as a freelancer or contract worker, that means it’s an income killer as well.

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