The Musings of a Latte Queen: Narratives of Everyday Life

This happened on the way to my life. My eleven year old daughter is quirky, bubbly, math genius, and champion fighter of all things chronic illness. She plays the cello, guitar, is a chess whiz, sings, can out-build anyone with Legos, and is my last child. She is the reason why I took a ten-year detour through my product and brand marketing career to discover so much more in the world. She has allowed my world to expand and grow by her presence and her courage. Her sister, my thirteen year old, is equally as remarkable, focused, quietly intent, socially conscious, writer, budding fashion maven, expert texter with her friends, and lover of animals. She is a student leader, honor student, violinist, someone who will need a personal assistant to hang up all her clothes, and the greatest conversationalist on world issues. She welcomed my parent challenges and strict codes, while also challenging me to trust her judgment. She is my twin. These little girls, after a houseful of boys, h...

This has definitely been the week that race made. The weekend before this was the children's march for black lives, in memory of those murdered under age 18, and led by those under age 18. That was followed by the report of the Department of Justice confirming what the activists and protesters had been saying all along - the City of Ferguson was using the police to enforce a race-based policy of extortion on black people because the white people who lived there didn't want to pay the proper taxes to run their city.  Since this report came out just before the weekend, there was a release of some racist email exchanged by city employees - they have been fired. The body count has been increasing with more and more demands for true accountability so two judges have resigned and just today, the city manager has been terminated. Progress. This past weekend, the same weekend that thousands descended upon Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50th anniversary of that 50 mile march, a...

It has been over 180 days since pretty much everything in my life changed. I have always been concerned about other people, about the world, about issues of social justice. Readers of my blogs, book reviews, tweets, and posts can attest to my ten year concern about fairness and life. I've written and spoke about the prison industrial complex, educational equity, and diversity in publishing. It was not a far leap that the events of August 9, 2014 would capture and hold my attention. The movement compelled me to use the gift of time, talent, and resources to try to elevate voice to an issue that has affected so many. At first, the issue was just about the police lynching that took place in a lower income community that I never knew existed on August 8th. Everything after August 10th has been a reminder that this truly is nothing new and that the connected issues are about more than just the police. Over the course of meetings, marches, vigils, dialogues, and community forums, i...

I had an interesting interaction the other day with someone in the movement who was expressing some thoughts about how the movement was being perceived by others. The conversation evaluated the intersection of race and class, race and gender politics, race and respectability politics, race and religion, and race and everything else.  We examined our place in the movement as well as perceptions we had of ourselves and others who stopped everything for 176 days to elevate voice to a real-time issue. Over the course of several weeks, something struck me. We are uncomfortable. Many people are included in that “we” because discussing the system of American education, housing, employment, health care, and policing all coalesce around topics that are not easy to talk about. It made me think about those small talk classes in grad school where we were admonished to talk about the weather or sports – safe topics, never to talk about race, religion, income, or gender politics. In thi...

The universe smile upon me. Unexpectedly. Wishing my oldest living son a very happy 28th birthday. I told him it was absolutely meant that he would interrupt what I thought was my life path and plan. He became the only son of his father, a third generation look-alike. He is a renaissance man, a man that writes, draws, raps, and thinks, thinks, thinks  He is a self-made man, an unconventional man who decided that while the producers came knocking at his door, he didn't want to pay their price to open it.  Instead, he produced and marketed his CD himself, the old fashioned way. My son was my rock when I was a divorced mom in Chicago with him and his little brother trying to make it in the early 90s.  When I close my mind's eye and remember how mature and grown up he was at five, I shed a tear and want to give him back his childhood. He was so protective of his mama and his little brother. They were my world, I closed out the chance to date, focused on them, finishing ...

Last evening my daughters and I went to see the movie, Selma. They chose to sit in the very front of the theatre so the opening scene sent my youngest ducking under cover of our coats. The comfy sofas of The Moolah Theatre could not let her sink as far away as she wanted, the impact felt so real to her. She and her sister were enraptured throughout the movie and kept asking me, "Was that real, did he really say that? Did that really happen like that? Why are they still doing this to people?" I purposed it in my life to raise socially conscious children as well as children who are aware of the truth of their history. I love our West Indian and West African ancestry. It is that backdrop that centers my children with a sense of self and pride in being able to point on a map where their family originated. It is in that sense of self that I also do not sugarcoat the horrific things that have happened to black people in these United States. How can I? We live in a west St. Lo...

I live and breathe in words. Yet, they escaped me. And only tears flowed. When the decision was read. In a crowded chapel we sat. And waited. And listened. As a boy was vilified. As his murderer collected millions. And the world erupted. No more came the cries from the street. No more came the cries from the offices. No more came the cries from the world. Then I found my words again. And I declared #Black Lives Matter.