Christine Stoddard

Black—the whispered word in educated, politically correct, upper middle class society.

Indigenous people throughout the world already face so many challenges; they don’t need non-Indigenous people appropriating their cultures and championing family lore as fact. The genocide of Indigenous people is an ongoing travesty throughout the world

In art school, conversations about the merits of polyamory thrived, but hearing anyone express a genuine desire to get married almost never happened. It was almost taboo. The implication was, how could you want something so traditional? So suburban and unimaginative?

Looking back at childhood photos now is bittersweet. In the moment the camera caught, I'm always smiling, but I wasn't always a happy child. I was fat-shamed almost daily.

The moon sauntered out from a curtain of clouds, whispering, “All things must end.”

I cringe when Kim Kardashian opens her pouty lips because I know the onslaught of vocal fry

[CN: mention of intimate partner violence] Patsy Cline sang with such a beautiful range of emotion because she had experienced so many ups and downs in her own life.

Fielding off-putting questions and comments is a regular part of the mixed-race experience around the world. Yet this social phenomenon is especially common in places with a legacy of institutionalized and cultural racism. That includes the South.

I eventually began to accept that truly being a feminist means embracing the idea of “my body, my choice” in all its incarnations. If I truly believe that women have the right to accessible birth control, the right to safe abortions, the right to consent to sex, and the right to make any decision regarding their own body, it also means I should believe women have the right to decide to never, ever have sex. There are two things that made it hard for me to come to that realization: virgin-shaming and purity culture.

When you’re married to the only white man in your apartment building—and one of the very few in the neighborhood—you, as a woman, make a habit of observing him, especially if you’re a woman of color or a mixed race woman. “Will he use his social privilege for good or evil?” is the simple question, but evaluating him in those terms is not so simple.