by Chaka V. Reid

“Broken little girls become wounded women,” said Iyanla Vanzant on her hit show “Iyanla Fix My Life” on the OWN network. No truer statement can be said, and it can be applied to boys and men as well. I find Iyanla Vanzant’s show one of the most healing and real hours of television and thank God she’s back! In so many ways Iyanla is helping black women face some ugly truths in our community that we have stubbornly denied and ignored.

Today we can all be thankful that Marissa Alexander was released from jail on bond last night at around 10:30 PM. Alexander, whose bond was set for $200,000, was granted a pre-trial release where she must adhere to special conditions. 

The HPV vaccines Gardasil and Cervarix are less likely to benefit Black women according to a new study published last month by the Duke University School of Medicine. The vaccine has been credited with cutting the risk of cervical cancer in teen girls in half; however, Black women are more often infected with the strains of HPV that the vaccine does not cure.

HPV causes nearly all cases of cervical cancer, and there are nearly 100 different strains. The study revealed that Black women are less likely to be infected with the strains treated by the popular vaccines leaving us without the protection we need. Black women have higher rates of cervical cancer than the general population.

At 16, my mother gifted me my own car. My steel grey colored Nissan Sentra drove me into the freedom I'd always desired. I cruised the streets of my Oklahoma suburb feeling independent and grown. On each of my daily excursions, to and from school mostly, I dreamed of the day I'd be able to enjoy the feeling beyond the time I spent behind the wheel. Kanye West's Late Registration provided the soundtrack.

When women, especially young women, stand up for themselves or a cause we believe in, and that cause does not align with the immediate interests of men who wish to set the agenda, we are vilified. Women who dare speak out are characterized as selfish and self-serving simply because they drew hard lines. That is a consequence of a patriarchy in which said women are expected to bend and submit to the wills of men who wish to dominate under all circumstances. While men are principled, women are just bitches.

by Lyndsey Ellis

by Kriste Peoples

My friend Ron has the tiniest dimple. It’s just down and off to the right of her smile. Her smile is radiant, like flicking on the brights at night. She’s got full wide lips and big strong teeth that speak of vitamins and good home training; her gap speaks of a solid constitution. Ron’s got a space between her two front teeth that I would have happily traded my lunch money a thousand times over for. It’s stunning. It’s famous. When they say Mind the gap, they mean check out my friend’s smile. Were you aware of this?

(The Collegian) Two Fresno State University students, Nadia Lewis and Jamila Ahmed, were the first African-American women to win first-and second-place speakers in the 42 years of the Henry Clay Invitational Debates held at the University of Kentucky.

The competition was established in 1971 and is one of the oldest and largest U.S. policy, varsity debate tournaments in America. This year, the Fresno State debate team competed against 286 speakers from 30 schools.

by Tiya Miles

(Huffington Post)  With Thanksgiving just around the corner, I cannot help but dwell on who might be coming to dinner. Last holiday season gave me plenty of food for thought on this all too familiar and often uncomfortable racially-tinged question. One of my male relatives brought home a date for Thanksgiving who could have been Barbie's twin sister. She was blonde, thin, big-bosomed, and even had a Germanic name. She was probably very nice; but I cannot say for sure. She was shy and didn't talk much in what was likely an unfamiliar and perhaps overwhelming African American social setting. Another of my male relatives brought home a woman for Christmas who seemed like a modern-day, socially progressive southern belle. She was blonde, full figured, outgoing, and outspoken with a saucy southern accent and friendly, expressive manner. Two of my younger male relatives have recently been engaged to white women, and one tied the knot last summer. This is a pattern that I have observed in my professional life for years: successful black men pairing up with white women, but now that the practice has come home to roost, so to speak, I cannot help but admit to feeling a bit demoralized.

by Sikivu Hutchinson

When reality TV fixture Omarosa Manigault claimed on the Bethenny Frankel show that white women could “walk around” being mediocre and still get rewarded with opportunities—while Black women had to be exceptional—the predominantly white female studio audience gasped, outraged by her “heresy”. Omarosa’s baggage as a tabloid lightening rod notwithstanding, her charge resonated deeply with many Black women. As a Black female Ph.D., much of my professional life has involved navigating and pushing back against a very specific, insidious brand of white female racism and paternalism. In the workplace and academia, this brand has consisted of the delicate nuances of power masquerading as benevolence, the kind that grins in one's face, understanding, sympathetic, worshipping at the cult of the legendarily “strong” Negress; appropriating blackness and using it as a weapon when real world decisions about hiring, promotion, and visibility are at stake.

by Tyler Young