The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

There is an African proverb that says "when an elder passes on, a library closes its doors." This is tremendously true and is something my family just experienced, again. My father's elder sister passed away this week and the news has reverberated across the country as family members were calling, messaging, texting, and facebooking on what this loss means to our generations. Like many black families with traces of heritage in the United States, my father's family origins include the American South. They were in Tennessee and in Arkansas. It was in Arkansas where my father and his siblings were born, it was also in Forrest City, Arkansas where they met discrimination and escaped for opportunity. The Great Migration is my Brent Family story. Flora, being the third oldest sister, made her way from Arkansas up to Michigan.  Like many of the early 1940s, she followed the opportunity. Arkansas was agregarian, so it was a natural fit to find a way to another agreg...

I have many confessions as an independent woman, boutique business owner. First, my intellectual capital costs something, it has a value, otherwise, folks would not be asking for my input, my presence, my work. Second, my position as a solopreneur, mompreneur, entrepreneur, whatever, consultant, writer, educator, communicator, does not mean that I can just wait to be valued. Third, my work is not free. Period. Like paying the attorney before you sit down or the doctor before you visit, consultants, freelancers, etc., we must be paid, we have bills, too. Fourth, excuses, excuses, excuses about why we are not being paid the full amount (one client paid in something non-cash and weeks after-the-fact) or then acting like we did not agree clearly on a set of deliverables and an expected compensation. Fifth, assuming that because we are not banging down your door with a tin can that we can afford to wait months to be compensated for our work. Sixth, being ignored when we do make ...