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BLACK STAR MAGAZINE 1

Editor’s Letter Only the Black Woman can say “when and where I enter in the quiet undisputed dignity of my womanhood without violence and without suing or special patronage then and there the whole Negro race enters with me.”

-Anna Julia Cooper First, I want to thank every Black woman on this campus. We lead, we create spaces, we become. I would quite literally not be here, taking up space in the ways that I have been able to, without the friends, faculty, and staff who look at me as a reflection of themselves. We carry multitudes.

When I see a Black woman on campus, crafting storms and conquering -- I see an extension of myself.

This is what I wish we can foster and invest in. A community that thrives off of collective wins, and grows continually. We all have so much to give, that sometimes we don’t know where to start.

This issue came from nothing.

We were all spent. But Black women showed up, popped out, and we made this for you.

Christell Victoria Roach

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Black Star Magazine’s Staff Editor in Chief: Christell Victoria Roach Managing Print Editor: Mariah Dozé Treasurer: Linda Akinnawonu Creative Director: Mawuko Kpodo Staff Writers: Adama Kamara Imani Brooks Jessica Isibor Amara Evering Danielle McKee Minyon Jenkins Daquon Wilson Chad Tucker Aaron Campbell Staff Photographers:

Aiyanna Sanders Aaron Campbell Diyaaldeen Whitaker Michael Ocran Staff Designer: Allison Nobles Kira Tucker

Krystal Eimunjeze

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Table of Contents We Don’t Give Female Rappers Enough Love

by Adama Kamara To be Black, Female, and in College

by Amara Evering mejorar la raza Emily Gardin to the daughter i do not yet have:

by Mawuko Kpodo Coniferous Amara Evering Sometimes We’re Insecure

By Jessica Etinosa My Anger Should Not Be Your Fascination

By Imani Brooks Black Girl, Interrupted

By Danielle McKee Native Skin Christell Victoria Roach 4

We Don’t Give Female Rappers Enough Love

by Adama Kamara

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riginating in the 1970s, hip-hop has long been the musical expression of the black experience in the US. It has since transcended music and developed into not only a culture but a lifestyle. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find an aspect of our popular culture that isn’t impacted by hip-hop in one way or another. Beyond its manifestation as an art form, hip-hop has succeeded in chronicling the stories of marginalized people everywhere. Despite the seemingly inclusive nature of hip-hop, it is evident that female voices within the industry have not garnered the praise, success, and opportunity that they deserve despite being just as legitimate. afford us the opportunity to set our own standards and define ourselves. If you follow any form of hip hop at all, spend a moment to reflect on the content of your consumption. Which rappers do you listen to the most? Whose songs dominate your playlists? Which of these rappers have you noticed frequently headline major music festivals?

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Now think honestly, how many of these rappers are female? It wouldn’t be unusual if a household name like Nicki Minaj came to mind, or maybe you even thought about jazzier tracks from Chicago native Noname’s debut album Telephone. Perhaps if you’re all about the throwbacks, rap to you means the sing-rapping verses from The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. But, I’m willing to bet that from the list of rappers you automatically associate with hip-hop music, only a small fraction of them, if any, are women. The reality is that there is a world of talented female rappers beyond Nicki, Lauryn, and Noname and they’re simply not getting the recognition that they deserve. It’d be easy to cite the commercial success of women like these as proof that females in hip-hop are generally doing well, but that would entirely disregard the unfair advantages that men in the industry have that continue to keep them at the forefront of the genre. For every Lauryn Hill there have been dozens of male rappers enjoying just as much if not more success.

There is no logical reason why there wouldn’t be just as many highly successful female rappers as there are men. Women are just as capable of dropping bars about race, money, sex, and politics while also contributing the dynamic of their womanhood to their art.

Hip-hop is about storytelling so it’d only make sense that everyone would be sufficiently provided with the space to tell their stories. Gender disparities in the industry are not due to a shortage of female rappers and are certainly not because of a lack of range.

There are artists like Cupcakke who explicitly explores her sexuality while rapping purposefully about serious social issues and Rico Nasty who is reshaping hip-hop culture with her self-described “sugar trap aesthetic.” With a more soulful sound, there are rappers like Sampa the Great whose flows evoke a more spiritual listening experience .

Unfortunately, there are many tired and problematic narratives that are holding female rappers back from reaching their full potential. One of these is the idea that there is only room for one female rapper to enjoy massive success. The ongoing beef between Cardi B and Nicki Minaj is just one testament to that. Discussions about these two artists almost always allude to an assertion of who is better than who, in line with the idea that there can only be one on top. At the same time there’s a surplus of male rappers, sometimes mediocre in comparison to their female counterparts, that are all allowed to simultaneously be great in their own right. Although rap “beef” is arguably all a part of the spirit of hip-hop, rap does not need to be a zero-sum game, but rather an institution within which everyone can flourish. People are quick to dismiss these female artists as being “petty” and “bitchy” in a way that male rappers are not, without evaluating how misogynistic systems profit off of the pitting of women against each other.

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Thanks to the groundwork laid by artists like Salt-N-Pepa in the 80s and Foxy Brown and Missy Elliot in the 90s, we know that women are just as valid in the hip-hop world as their male counterparts. There are so many qualified female rappers that deserve the support and success to match their skill. It’s not just on the music industry to create more opportunities for women, it is also on us to evaluate and be more thoughtful about the ways in which we consume hip-hop.

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To be Black, Female, and in College

by Amara Evering

I often say to my friends, I didn’t know I was a woman until college. And though I laugh at this, I know that in college, I became fully aware of my race and gender. I looked at myself and tried to find something different. Maybe my figure? Maybe my style? But it didn’t look like anything changed. The only thing that seemed to have changed were the people around me. What had changed was this: people felt fully entitled to my body as their personal sexual playground.

I had experienced sexual harassment where I grew up, but it was in college that it became more tangible, visible, and consistent. It was amplified, not only because I was on my own, but because of the culture that exists in college. I remember, confronting someone about violating my space (by groping me and telling me they “wanted to fuck”), and as a rebuttal they said “Well you just don’t know how college works.”

I realized, in that moment, how college is supposed to “work”. I realized that woman (and often others who carry femininity on their bodies) are supposed to be the sexual exploits of their peers. He articulated something that I felt I was already aware of about a hidden culture in college.

This verified for me that there is a culture of male entitlement in college that is built on the constant objectification and violation of certain bodies.

This culture is visible and tangible. It is lived.

This has become ingrained in the way I perceive my own body and how some of my friends see their bodies. It’s a feeling of detachment, that how people treat you sexually doesn’t align with your perceptions of yourself.

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Somehow, the female body has been able to be colonized and exploited. All of this has been done either for the pleasure of or the protection from men. While we accommodate a sexually violent culture, we slowly detach ourselves from our bodies. This is especially felt in Black women, whose bodies have been not only objectified but seen as disposable.

And I know this myself, because my body has been parcelled, distorted, exploited, and used- as many of the women I know in some shape or form. Not only are black women imprisoned by hypermasculinity, we are also governed by racism.

Our bodies have been objectified because of this complex intermix of racial and gender oppression which constructs ours bodies as things rather than people. Not only are we dehumanized racially (which can be done by any race, not just white men) we are also hypersexualized. Out of these two oppressions, the physical body of black women has been used as a vessel to exhibit racial and gendered authority. Reclaiming our bodies in environments that objectify us is a difficult process but Black women have been rebirthing themselves for centuries.

This abuse of the female and black female body never started or ended with particular men- or what people may call “outliers”. It starts and ends with the institutions that foster and promote this violence; whether it’s apathetic Title IX offices or the federal government that doesn’t keep politicians accountable for sexual violence. Sexual violence seems to be one of the only kinds of violence where the victim is held almost as accountable as the perpetrator. I know now, that sexual violence (at least in my life) has fostered the maintenance of gendered and racial domination. I’ll say it bluntly: sexual violence is used as a tool of maintaining social hierarchy. Our systems are reluctant to account for our bodies because if they do, it is to undermine their own authority.

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Amara Evering 12

mejorar la raza you told me to marry up and by up you meant white by white you meant beautiful as if improvement is synonymous with whiteness as if Black isn’t divine finer than wine you told me to fix my hair and by fix you meant straighten by straighten you meant to live up to the eurocentric beauty standards i’m learning to dismiss because i don’t have to be white to be cultivated you told me to check my attitude and by check you meant lose by lose you meant suppress as if i’m not entitled to be angry as if i shouldn’t be outraged because of the way my Black brothers and sisters are treated te olvidas que ya estamos mejorando la raza rechazando tus ideales occidentalizados de belleza

Emily Gardin 13

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to the daughter i do not yet have:

by Mawuko Kpodo

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if you couldn’t know the person whose body was your first home, then who could you ever know?”

—from the “The Mothers” by Brit Bennett

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you exist in a dream, an imagination, a conjuring. i write to you in preparation: for myself and for you. i do not think my own mother was ready for a woman like me. she did not write to me the way i am writing to you. i think that when she imagined a little girl, my image did not cross her mind. she did not prepare herself for the fire that was brimming in her bones. she did not prepare herself for the brash, overly contemplative, coarse, and uncouth woman i would grow to be. the only thing she could give me was a temporary place of residence inside of her being. if only giving birth were the only requirement for motherhood. i think she is disappointed that i am not more quiet. i think it breaks her heart that my footfalls echo loudly as i confidently walk away from her. i think it enrages her that i require more than an incidence of birth to claim her as my own.

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so i want to prepare for a daughter who resembles me. i want to be ready for the kind of woman my mother feared in me. and i want to prepare you for the world a woman like you will have to reckon with. i want to give you more than an incidence of birth. i want to be more than the one who carried you inside of me. i want to be the one who carries you always.

1. when i was a little girl i was quiet. there was so much i would have liked to say, but i was not convinced that anybody was listening. i moved from the only home i knew to someone else’s. and everyone around me spent so much time trying to convince me that this was “home home” as opposed to, i guess, the temporary one i had just come from. when you’re 6, you ask a lot of the really important questions, the ones that evolve, but never go away with age. and because you’re 6, nobody really has answers. it isn’t until you’re older that you understand that the reason nobody gave you answers wasn’t to protect you, but because they never had the answers at all. nobody could explain to me what made a home. and why the place i’d been born and spent the first 5 years of my life couldn’t be home anymore. and so i was quiet. i crept around corners and i barely spoke above a whisper. and this persisted. i grew into quietness. i grew into timidity. i learned how to fall into myself. i learned how to shrink. and in some ways, this was a gift. i am intimately aware of what i am made of. i know my moving parts. i’d been inside myself so long i knew where everything was, where everything belonged, what it all felt like. i learned myself. but descartes was wrong. it is not enough to think. to be, to exist takes far more than the mind. invisibility is a half life. and in my silence i hid myself from being fully alive. i don’t want that for you. i want you to learn yourself, yes, but i so desperately want you to do it out loud. say every single thought that comes into that mind of yours. even if it offends. even if it is in the realm of the absurd or the eccentric. even if people stare. even if you are convinced that nobody is listening. i am no longer half alive. your mother figured it out. i’ve mastered the art of speech. in more ways than one. and i hope you take after me in that way.

2. never close your heart. it’s already being protected by so many things. in ways that are mechanical and that function without our say so. the rib cage does not ask the brain permission to guard the heart. it just does. it performs a function that has been predetermined. the heart has enough walls without us adding even more. i’m aware that what i’m asking of you seems almost unreasonable. because when the body feels threatened, it recoils, it shuts down, it preserves that which it has deemed necessary for survival. i’m asking you to act against instinct. to instead, be soft. to love as a mechanism of your being. to love without being asked. to leave your heart unguarded. to let people handle it. i know. their hands might be dirty. they

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probably will be filthy. their shoes will have mud caked on them and they won’t even have the decency to take them off because they walk all over your heart. they might leave fingerprints everywhere. they’ll probably leave a record of themselves etched someplace. they may break off some pieces. they may leave those pieces there or brazenly take them during their exit. they may be way too rough. they may be downright cruel. i do not want the fear of this to make you recoil. i do not want the fear of this to paralyze you. i want you to be soft and to expect devastation. because in all my years, i have not lived one day with a hardened heart. i have left myself unguarded, unmasked, and i have been devastated. i have had my heart mishandled. i have learned how to heal myself because the state of brokenness has been a constant friend. but i tell you this because the joys of my life have come from living a soft and open bordered life. the damages are painful, yes. and even more so when all you have to protect your heart are things you cannot control. devastation will threaten to ruin you. but the joy, oh the joy of living your life like this is unmatched. i don’t want you to be afraid of the hurt. because if you clench your fists instead of holding them out, palms facing upward, you miss all the good that comes raining down too.

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wear

whatever

the

fuck

you

want.

4. i don’t know anything about you yet, except for one thing. you’re black. and if you choose to be a daughter, to traverse this earth as woman, you will be forced to live an unnecessarily strenuous life. i hope that by the time you get here, the world we live in is a little bit more like the one that lives in my imagination. but if it is not, i want you to keep a few things in mind. never let anybody convince you that it is your job to spend any amount of time justifying your life. it is. you are. never dilute your feelings for anybody. if anger is what you feel, let it bubble out of you. if it is sadness, write it across your face. and i promise to give you space for this. i promise to never hold your feelings hostage, to demand a change of heart when you vehemently oppose. your body is your own. do with it what you will. oh my love, people will try so hard to regulate it. to pull it this way and that. to label it. to reconstruct it. to distort it. to own it. but it is yours. to care for, to love, to change 32

if that ‘s what you want, to let decay if that’s what you want. your mind is not the most important thing. all of you is the most important thing. we’ve been saying that black women are magic for so long that we forgot to let them live. i want you to live. to confuse the shit out of people every time you enter a room. to reimagine what rooms even look like. to design new things. to have confounding and mystifying dreams. to be so free that you’re a marvel. i want you to be a black woman that is both magic and alive.

5. know that you get to choose. your life, your friends, your partners, your dreams, your aspirations, your fears, me. you get to decide to choose me as your mother. people made me feel like i didn’t have a choice. that i had to take what i was given and that i was lesser if i chose wrong. but the person who gave birth to me fell short. she did not deserve to be chosen by me. i pray that i measure up. that i deserve the kind of woman you will become. i pray that i am not afraid of you. that i do not let your brilliance, your reckless abandon, your joy, threaten me or force me to arm myself against you. that i am the kind of person you would choose over and over again. because here’s the thing: even if you don’t choose me, i will always choose you. i’ll never let you fall. god i hope that this life is kinder to you than it has been to me. i’m already begging the universe for this.

Signed, the woman who looks the most like you.

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Coniferous You tell me of games in the forest, When your clothes fell in North Carolina Leaving hips exposed to browning leaves.

I thought of your back grazing forest ground And Moonlight falling on your breasts.

“Were you cold?” I asked.

You laughed And I felt strange seeing your teeth.

I see you under high trees Splayed under a sinking season At the edge of summer, Drenched in other bodies That don’t smell like home.

Gluttonous in the forest, Friends naked on summer earth I remember my disgust Then shame.

You are too free.

I cower at your stories Of carnivorous night parties.

My body would have been stepped on underfoot And I’d shake to see a man watching me The way he watched you.

I’d watch them back.

Amara Evering 34

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Sometimes We’re Insecure

By Jessica Etinosa

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I don’t know about anyone else, but I can honestly say that Insecure on HBO is one of the few things in this world that makes Sunday nights livable. You may see it as a bit of an overstatement, but I would beg to differ. Seeing Issa freestyle to herself in the mirror is just one of those things that can carry anyone through the toughest of times.

Seeing Molly balance her abundantly successful career with her not-so-successful love life gives us the reality check we sometimes need. And it would be a crime to forget Lawrence. Seeing Lawrence, in all 6’ 2” of his turtlenecked glory, serves as an eerily familiar reminder that comfort can be a trickster.

Most importantly, Insecure is much more than just our Sunday night entertainment; it is revolutionary. At this point, I may be losing some of you, but this point is valid. The series is revolutionary, not because of anything exceptional; rather, it is revolutionary in its simplicity. It is revolutionary, because it depicts ordinary Black folks doing ordinary Black things. It shows Black people struggling through the pressures of romance, professional life, friendship, mental health, and just about anything else one could face as a young adult in America. Believe it or not, these day to day mundanities are what make a show like Insecure everything but regular; it is revolutionary, simply because it is not trying to be.

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Throughout the ages, we have been fed an idea of what is normal, what is ‘regular’, and unfortunately most of these images fail to represent the realities of approximately 12 to 14% of the U.S. population. Because of such misrepresentation (or lack of representation), we have taken it upon ourselves to tell our own stories, reinvent the norm, and produce narratives that force people to see past our invisibility. Black folks tell stories of valor and triumph, stories of fear and failure.

“You know, vampires have no reflections in a mirror? There’s this idea that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. And what I’ve always thought isn’t that monsters don’t have reflections in a mirror. It’s that if you want to make a human being into a monster, deny them, at the cultural level, any reflection of themselves...and part of what inspired me, was this deep desire that before I died, I would make a couple of mirrors. That I would make some mirrors so that kids like me might see themselves reflected back and might not feel so monstrous for it.”

-Issa Rae The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl

Black folks tell stories of vibrancy and excitement, stories of blandness and monotony.

Yes we are strong and resilient, creative and innovative. But sometimes, we’re insecure; sometimes, we’re awkward, and that is okay. Sometimes we wear creme-colored turtlenecks and shed a tear over our failed relationships. Sometimes we have trouble negotiating the conflict between our needs and our passions. Through all of this, and in all of our magical normalcy, Black folks push the boundaries of invisibility, and despite its confines, find freedom.

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My Anger Should Not Be Your Fascination

By Imani Brooks

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“I ran into this girl, I said, ‘I’m tired of explaining’ Man, this shit is draining But I’m not really allowed to be mad” --Solange, “Mad”

If you need space to feel, anger or otherwise, take that space. Misconceptions about emotions have teared down the Black woman, have teared down this Black woman. I find it to be a natural human desire to want assurance in recognizing and addressing feelings, especially negative feelings. For many years, I was trapped by the small-town mindset of elders to be “like the little white girls who controlled themselves” or the assumption that all of my blessings in my life negate my ability to feel anger. As I was growing up, it was “ugly” and “impolite” to make a big deal of things or voice unhappiness. If I did exhibit a burst of anger, it was followed with a quick “Sorry about that.”

I was unconsciously avoiding the angry Black woman stereotype. I continued to do so until I went to a new high school.

At my new high school, my identity of being a Black American was more evident than it had ever been for me as I was the only Black student in my graduating class. When I was elected to the Honor Council, the highest position at my school, I was very aware 38

that I would be one of the token student of color voices on the council. The other one was my best friend who was Hispanic. In such a leadership role at a very small school, I felt this weird obligation to have it all figured out so that the other 10 Black girls had a role model to help them navigate their high school experience. That dictated my senior year. At first, I was uncomfortable with the “responsibility” as it took a lot of the enjoyment out of my senior year. What I came to realize in January was that holding in my feelings was draining me. I was experiencing a diverse set of emotions, from amazement that we finally had TWO teachers of color or surprise at parents of color’s honest questions at open houses or annoyance and offense that teachers and students were “concerned” about the table of all Black girls in the cafeteria and pure anger that students of color who faced the Honor Council were receiving stricter punishments that other students who committed the same offenses. I was living in a discriminatory system and the wave of emotions were exhausting me and confusing me.

When you are a student at a PWI, you have to toe a thin line and usually go out of your way to have an enriching experience. As I figured out that process, I found myself venting a lot in my dorm room to close friends. We would gather to have a listening session of Drake or watch an episode of “Lost.” Then, it would turn into “Briana came up to me about how Professor Blank is treating her. Wtf.” And, someone who answers, “Yeah I’ve noticed weird interactions between them.” We were noticing microaggressions. (After a few ethics classes second semester, we would be able to name microaggressions.) Our view of our daily lives became more critical to protect our identities and eventually advocate for our identities. As venting sessions became more and more regular, senior year felt more manageable. I became more confident in expressing myself and acting on my feelings to make myself more comfortable in my own environment. My confidence accumulated to a pinnacle during my senior chapel talk where I stated: “For some reason some people are shaming the diversity on this campus. As someone who contributes to that diversity, it makes me quite uncomfortable.”

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I graduated from high school with a sneak peek into the status of being an angry Black woman as I was passionate about my personal space. Still, it was not until I got deeply involved in the Black Emory community that I heard of the folklore phrase “angry Black woman.� I believe that it is a phrase that negatively paints the emotional journey of being a Black woman on this campus and in America. Instead of investing my energy into the negativity, I draw on my angry Black woman to be a persona of strength because what I feel is what I feel. How others interpret it is usually not any of my concern. With all of the energy that I exert trying to be a good student at Emory, I still want to be an emotional being who connects to things that I love. Emotional connections do not disvalue my identity and do not warrant explanation. This essay is not explaining my emotions but rather it is reaffirming my emotional identity to inspire others to do the same. I am here to say that there is no shame in emotions. I have found more empowerment in them despite anything. With every tear, outburst, laugh, etc, I am learning more about myself. I never want to stop growing in such a manner so I am on a mission to reject the tale as old as time that I am not allowed to be mad as a Black woman.

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Black Girl, Interrupted

By Danielle McKee

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Strong girl. Pretty girl. Smart girl. I don’t know what this girl is to do. Every hat holds a burden, a look, and a meaning, but my head has grown too heavy to hold them up. I’m trying. Assignments pile up, bills add up, and soon becomes suddenly when all of your responsibilities seem to fall down on your head at once. But, I’m trying. In the minutiae of everyday life, I find that the pieces pile up and exacerbate the problems I already have. Trying is really all I could do once I realized my lack of control. Years of ingrained perfectionism and exceptionalism are stripped away by the first blows of adulthood, a new age with an evolving frame. I have the expectations of a black superwoman, yet I’m too human to even fly. As my teen years come to an end, a new plate of responsibility is served up, every hour on the hour. It seems that my flesh prison has grown painstakingly small, too small to accommodate such a large serving, yet painfully aware of what I’m being fed. My life is rapidly changing, yet I don’t know if I can keep up. My world revolves around a strenuous workload provided to me by an environment that exacerbates mental illness. While this pity party seems like a real dump, many of us go through the same growing pains.

Sleepless nights and days without communication have seem to become the norm amongst my distant friend groups. While so many people around me seem to thrive in this toxic environment, I am the slowly sinking ship. I can go days without eating, sleeping, or talking to any of my friends. At one point I wore this depravity like a badge of honor —“Look at the lengths I will go to secure this bag!” Firstly, this is messed up.

Denying myself the basic human needs is not a testament to my strength as a student, my unprecedented willpower, or any overall achievement as a person. Secondly, what the hell is this bag and why must it be secured? Seriously, at this point money can’t be the only thing that I’m working towards. There are other ways to get money, but this... ain’t it. Working towards my goals and success should not come at the cost of my health and sanity. Everyone tells a black girl to be strong, to push through, to carry us all. But damn, can I even contain myself? Strong girl needs help. I can’t remember the last time I was happy for myself, yet I am distinctly aware of every due date and demand eating at my tail. Self-care and success should not be mutually exclusive, yet it seems that this period of my life says otherwise. In creating this disconnect, I’ve built a gap between my body and my life. But how can I exist and enjoy both?

The distance becomes deeper and darker when factoring relationships into the equation. Living within my own pain makes it difficult to build healthy friendships, even worse 42

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in the case of romantic relationships. It’s hard for someone to get to know you when you don’t even know yourself. I attempted to combat this confusion with personality cloaks, but it seems that bitter sarcasm can’t conceal the loneliness inside. I couldn’t even muster up the energy to pretend, but I searched for anything to ease the pain. Masking self hate in self deprecating humor didn’t help. Keeping myself busy only made me feel overwhelmed. Everyone around me seemed busy, and I soon realized that I have very few friends. Nobody wants to be there for someone who is truly not there. Pretty girl is pretty because she’s palatable, fun, and easygoing. When I could no longer be those things, my options for support dwindled. Pretty girl is not enough. When things get hard and listening to someone isn’t simply hanging out with the “fun” girl, we soon realize who actually cares. Unfortunately for me, it was no one.

As I trudged on through this cumbersome existence, I was left with my wits for comfort.

All my life, I have been good at something. At least one thing to make me feel like I have something to offer, the bare minimum to quantify my worth. There is always a class I excel in, there is always a place for me to be perfect. Of course college was a huge wake up call for me, as suddenly the classes I was taking proved my academic prowess to be less than what I expected. This wasn’t your usual hard class. I didn’t do the typical dance with difficulty where we struggle, but in the end my hard work prevails. I straight up failed. This wasn’t a one time thing, I felt many moments of loss. Not only was I doing poorly academically, but as a result my confidence dropped faster than my grades.

Every mistake on an exam became a mistake in me. Anything less than an A became a failure, and every time I received this disappointment I grew less surprised. It wasn’t just a bad exam, this was a bad me. The grades were carved into my skin and I could see nothing else. Smart girl had left, but failure stared back at me.

This is not the article where I tell you that everything gets better. I didn’t make the grade, find the friend, or suddenly gain the strength to just be. I suffered. I suffered painfully for months in silence. No one was able to help, but many were able to hurt, as they had no idea what I was going through. In moments, I felt so low that I simply gave up on being. Pretending and attempting to be the strong girl, pretty girl, and smart girl all at once was not going to cut it. I was simply done. That girl grew long forgotten.

I suffered through a series of cascading lows, bruising my mind, body, and spirit, till I thought there was nothing left. But in these shadows, something was left behind. At first I couldn’t make out her form. I took the chance to ask for help. I took the chance to believe in the possibility of something better. In finding this girl, I found a clean slate.

Not strong, pretty, nor smart, but she was there. And she was me, just a girl.

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Black Star’s Book Plugs compiled by Mawuko Kpodo & Christell Victoria Roach What it Means When a Man Falls Beloved – Toni Morrison from the Sky – Lesley Nneka Arimah Song of Solomon – Toni Morrison We Should all be Feminists – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Sula –Toni Morrison Tar Baby – Toni Morrison ***do you see a trend?

Selected Poems – Gwendolyn Brooks Swing Time – Zadie Smith Wind in a Box – Terrance Hayes How to be Drawn – Terrance Hayes The Land of Love & Drowning – Tiphanie Yanique Domestic Work – Natasha Trethewey Native Guard – Natasha Trethewey Thrall – Natasha Trethewey How to Escape from a Leper Colony – Tiphanie Yanique The Way to Love – Anthony De Mello Don’t Call us Dead – Danez Smith Voyage of the Sable Venus – Robin Coste Lewis Cannibal – Safiya Sinclair Negroland – Margo Jefferson The Fire Next Time - Baldwin The White Bone – Barbara Gowdy Invisible Man – Richard Wright At the Bottom of the River – Jamaica Kincaid Half Blood Blues – Esi Edugyan Sister Citizen – Melissa Harris Perry Behold the Dreamers – Imbolo Mbue Americanah – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie The White Bone – Barbara Gowdy Nervous Conditions – Tsitsi Dangarembga The Women – Hilton Als Whereas – Layli Long Soldier CoRegidora – Gayl Jones The Farming of Bones – Edwidge Danticat I am a Black Woman – Mari Evans Krik? Krak! – Edwidge Danticat Negroland – Margo Jefferson The Mothers - Brit Bennett The Twelve Tribes of Hattie – Ayana Mathis Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston Barracoon – Zora Neale Hurston Sister Citizen – Melissa Harris Perry The Third Life of Grange Copeland – Alice Walker Men We Reaped – Jesmyn Ward An American Marriage – Tayari Jones (honestly everything by jesmyn ward) Citizen – Claudia Rankine Silver Sparrow – Tayari Jones Sister Outsider – Audre Lorde What We Lose – Zinzi Clemmons Freedom is a Constant Struggle – Angela Davis Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi Women, Race, & Class – Angela Davis Fighting Words – Patricia Hill Collins ***this is not a book but just as valid Black (w)holes and The Geometry of Black Female Sexuality – Evelynn Hammonds 45

Native Skin I take my firstborn to the roof, and we peer in through the glass ceiling. Here, I tell him time spent in silence is time spent making music.

As he watches the bodies move ‘round one another, never touching: I tie my hair back & scat. He looks at me as if I have broken something.

In this way I portion English to him.

Dropping runs and arpeggios through the ceiling, he watches how each body reacts: twitching, shaking, convulsing.

Each frame fully naked and bare-breast, he hears them moan before calling out.

Each cry pierces back silence sharp as a blade. He sees the toil of blues before titling the bodies.

His head eclipsed by a beehive headdress: we are overcast above each body.

They pray to my son, bridged & blinded.

There I lay when clothes burned me.

There I lay when a boy burned me.

There I lay when I cut off all my hair.

There I lay baby, that’s me right there.

Christell Victoria Roach 46

“You can get there from here, though theres’ no going home.

Everywhere you go will be somewhere you’ve never been.”

- Natasha Trethewey

photo courtesy of Anne Watson, Emory University 47

STOP KIL Sandra Bland Nia Wilson Rekia Boyd Shantel Davis Alesia Thomas Deborah Danner Eleanor Bumpurs Miriam Carey Tanisha Anderson Yvette Smith Shelly Frey Darnisha Harris Malissa Williams Shereese Francis Aiyana Stanley-Jones Tarika Wilson Roxana Hernandez

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Kathryn Johnston Alberta Spruill Kendra James Kayla Moore Michelle Cusseaux Mya Hall Antash’a English Tydi Dansberry Keanna Mattel

LLING US Natasha McKenna Gabriella Nevarez Sharmel Edwards LaTanya Haggerty Margaret LaVerne Mitchell Eleanor Bumpurs Diamond Stephens Cathalina Christina James Keisha Wells Sasha Garden Vontashia Bell Dejanay Stanton Shantee Tucker London Moore Regina Brown

Danette Daniels Frankie Perkins Pearlie Golden Tyisha Miller Alexia Christian Sheneque Proctor Kyam Livingston Sonji Taylor Korryn Gaines Charleena Chavon Lyles Meagan Hockaday Janisha Fonville Natasha McKenna Malissa Williams Frankie Ann Perkins Celine Walker Nizah Morris Duanna Johnson Tonya Harvey Phylicia Mitchell Amia Tyrae Berryman Sasha Wall Nino Forston 49

Black*ness

Black is you, black is me, black is us, black is

free. Black is you black is me black is us black

is free. Black IS you, Black IS me, Black IS us, Black IS free black is YOU, black is ME, black is US, black is FREE Black is you black is me

black is us black is free Black is you black is me black is us black is free. Black Is. —after the Last Poets

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