The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

In the past week, I  have written two drafts of something I thought I wanted to say about being the survivor of domestic abuse, about acknowledging myself as Janay Rice. It also seemed like I could not say what I wanted to say because my children are still alive, because, because, because the words may seem opportunistic, jumping on the reporting bandwagon of all the other articles written, or because it is a shame I still carry. My story is not unlike that of other women. Abusers of any sort - rapists, child murders, physical abusers, sexual abusers, emotional abusers, financial abusers - never come with a sign on at the first date saying that you will experience all those things dating, courting, or being married to them.  These were things that happened to me in my life. The writer, teacher, scholar in me sought a definition.  I went to the Centers for Disease Control who bring the definition more closely to what it is - intimate partner violence. It was agai...

My husband always tells me we are "broke" whenever the subject of money or one more purchase comes up.  Sometimes he makes me so angry when he says this because I know we are not "broke." But it got me to thinking this morning as I sit in this black-owned coffee roaster, enjoying my blackberry latte and looking at my bags of exquisite beans to take home, that perhaps he is right. I am privileged (and at times, if I am honest, annoyed) to be in a one-income family.  There are sacrifices made, like the five year old jeans I have on today and the "vintage upcale resale" jeans I work yesterday being regular parts of my "mom" attire, but those sacrifices pay off in the dividends of our children.  I know that as a woman, period, I am in a special place or a sexist place, depending on who is controlling the narrative. Once-upon-a-time, it was white women only who had the space of simply being "the wife" and "the mother" with al...