Adiba Nelson

[CN: mention of suicide] How did we get through love before Lemonade? We examined our lives through Mary’s shamelessly honest storytelling on My Life.

Soy Adiba Nelson, y soy Latina también!

That, my dear, is self-care 101: You must take care of yourself if you want to take care of others.

Black women were branded as sexually promiscuous and immoral, which in turn was used as justification for sexual trauma/rape.

My job is to make you feel — whether it’s lust, pride, anger, guilt, joy, sadness — whatever it is you feel, I want you to feel it.

Being a body positive/body acceptance activist means that regardless of WHAT shape my body takes at any given point and time in my life, I love it. I am kind to it. I remember that it has the right to love and adoration, first from myself, and then from my man. I remember that all bodies, those bigger than and those smaller than mine, are entitled to the same, and they are no better or worse than my own.

"I will peer relentlessly into every cop car I pass with a young black man in it, stretching my neck to make sure that it’s not my son who’s been arrested for driving while black, walking while black, or breathing while black. I will hold my breath while listening to every news report of another black man that has been arrested, beaten, killed, and made an example of."

"...do you know what happens in lightly buzzed stupors? You get brave. Really brave. So, I signed up for it. In my lightly buzzed stupor I signed up for the burlesque mentorship program.

Nicely done, MAC. Nicely done.

"I now had my seat of power, my throne, if you will. That’s why I customized my chair to look like a throne. And that’s why I liked it in my act: because I was truly in love with it and all that it represented for me. It was no longer a trap or a cage. It was freedom. It was power. It was sexy. And it was mine."