Adiba Nelson

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

He opened his mouth and time stood still. My pulse quickened. My heart raced. My eyes filled with tears. And I. WAS. PROUD.

So, by your reasoning, it’s safe to say that we should go into areas where one group of people are thought to be terrorizing another group of people, round up the terrorizers, and get them off the streets. OK, cool. I see your proposal, and I raise you “history."

This book is real, folks. As well it should be –– it was written by one of the realest women on the planet.

In my mind, I was Beyoncé, and she was Becky. She was the one he needed to run back to. She was the one who could have his ass, because I was leaving and I wasn’t sorry about it.
Then Lemonade came out and the light bulb came on.

[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.

It’s insane the number of ways people want to pigeonhole, categorize, and ultimately TEAR DOWN women. What’s even worse is that we, as women, buy into it. We run around in T-shirts that say “Real Women Do XYZ” or “Real Women ARE XYZ.” We post these memes and quotes and think they’re funny, but what are we really doing?

Then we had that talk that made my eye twitch: the budget talk.

"When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned."

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.