Denarii Monroe

Bio

Denarii (rhymes with “canary”) is an aspiring screenwriter, freelance writer, and a weirdo. She's a Rutgers University alum and a two-year Pace University dropout; she studied English and Adolescent Education, respectively. She's written for BlogHer, Black Girl Dangerous, and Everyday Feminism. Follow her on Facebook, find her on Twitter and Instagram ([at]writersdelite). Mad selfies, pictures of her dog named Dog, raving about Matthew Gray Gubler, and ranting (or retweeting) about the writing process and racist, ableist, classist, fat-antagonistic heteropatriachary. She loves Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as well as soul food, red wine, cooking and baking, and the blues. Hanson is her favorite band ever (yes, that Hanson).

Denarii Monroe Articles

Brian Littrell is still one of the top boy band crushes of all time. Image Credit: Flickr/Joella Marano

I'm Almost 30, But My Celebrity Crushes Are Realer Than Ever

Does becoming an adult mean you have to give up "childish" things like paralyzing crushes on celebrities? Denarii Monroe thinks not.

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Image Credit: Tanner Vines via Unsplash

I'm Not Giving Up On My Dreams, And Neither Should You

I did not leave that theater the same way I arrived. It was then, as I walked back to my building and looked up at the night sky, that I knew. I thought to myself, “I want to make movies.”

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I take this journey of self-love and discovery one day at a time. Image: Thinkstock.

On Navigating My Attraction To Whiteness As A Black Woman

Honoring my feelings and being true to myself are just as important to me as being critical of the ways that a multiply-oppressive society manifests itself in the way I date, love, and desire.

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"We’re painfully aware of the fact that we’re “the only one” in the room, or one of very few. Don’t make it worse." Image: Author

3 Ways To Avoid Tokenizing People (Because I'm Sick Of It)

It’s like being a deer in the headlights. You’re in imminent danger. You know it. But you can’t move. You can’t speak. No reaction whatsoever. You just stand or sit there, frozen in time, waiting for the crash.

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"I spent quite a few of my preteen and early teen years enjoying taking pictures. But because of the combination of racism, fat antagonism, and lookism, I wasn’t always comfortable getting in front of the camera." Image: Thinkstock

The Right To Be Ugly: How Lookism Affects My Ability To Be Carefree

[W]hy must the acknowledgment of my beauty be predicated on how well and how often I contort to attempt to fit into some kind of ideal? Why can’t I be all the iterations of me and still be beautiful?

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image credit: Thinkstock

Alternative Activism: 3 Ways To Get Involved That Aren't A Rally

Activism can seem intimidating, all the more so for those with accessibility issues of various kinds. There are myriad numbers of disabilities which can affect how we can (or can’t) engage in activism.

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Over the years... I’ve realized that my father’s sentiments echo those of the judge, the father, and the rapist. Image: Thinkstock.

The Stanford Rape Case, My Father, And Collective Forgiveness

Much has already been said about the way the Stanford swimmer's privilege has insulated him from consequence, about the ever-pervasive victim blaming in public discourse, and about the inadequacy of the criminal justice system. But in so many of these conversations, in our rage against the rape culture machine, we forget the survivors — the most important people in the fight against sexual violence.

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 There’s a certain irony to it, in my experience, since this means we are constantly bombarded with “how to get over” that ex, but aren’t really guided — by family, social circles and other institutions, or media — on how to deal with “getting over” a friendship.

Friend Breakups Can Hurt As Much As Romantic Breakups

In a culture focused on the importance and superiority of romantic attraction and relationships — a culture aromantics might call alloromantic-centric — platonic friendships (another form of relationship) are consistently undervalued.

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With almost a decade of various kinds of activism under my belt, I am more than familiar with the important work that Planned Parenthood does.

I Visited Planned Parenthood For The First Time At Age 29

It had never occurred to me to visit [a Planned Parenthood].... And yet, in a culture where the rights and healthcare needs of people assigned female at birth are constantly under attack, it’s easy, even for someone like me, to have warped ideas about exactly what one will experience.

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"I had to learn how to properly and safely detangle kinky-curly hair. I had to be patient in the process of discovering what my hair liked and needed — and what it didn't." Image: Thinkstock.

Having Very Curly Hair Is Challenging, But Not For The Reasons You'd Expect

I had to learn me because I was never given a chance to. People often act like this is easy or shouldn't be hard to grasp, but when you've literally spent your entire life not even knowing what your real hair feels like, it takes time to get used to that, especially when you have no one and nowhere to go to for solid advice.

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