How he showed up for Black women is an essential part of who he was as a civil rights leader — “The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman. The most unprotected person in America is the Black woman. The most neglected person in America is the Black woman.”—Malcolm X On May 22, 1962, Malcolm X delivered a speech in Los Angeles, California, in which he spoke to and…

You can still enjoy each other’s company, even from afar — “Social Distancing” is the way of the world and we are all adjusting to a new “normal,” however temporary we want and hope for it to be. The uncertainty is anxiety-inducing, to say the least, but the longer this lasts, the more we have to alter the ways we approach…

Love has sustained us through generations of systemic oppression — There is a movement sweeping the nation that will change the course of history. Amid a perfect storm of events, including a viral pandemic and the extrajudicial killings of unarmed Black people by the police, people in the United States have been activated in the fight for social change in…

Go bags, photo documents, and saving text messages can help — When Lorena Gallo met John Wayne Bobbitt in the late 1980s, she never imagined her world would come crashing down around her. After marrying him in 1989, John went on to spend the next four years terrorizing Lorena with physical beatings, sexual assault, and emotional abuse. An immigrant born in…

Radical self-love helps us know the difference between being in love and being loved — “Love is never any better than the lover.” — Toni Morrison When writing about love, I often call on the words and concepts of those who have somehow been able to make love make sense. Even when the ideas and definitions contradict each other, some people have been able to…

Don’t allow the emotional trauma to lead you to do something you might regret — Nina Thomas became suspicious of her husband, NFL star Earl Thomas, when he told her about outdoor plans he made during a stay-at-home order. She tracked him down via Snapchat, where she saw a video of him and another woman. She figured out where he was, called two of her…

You deserve to have a partnership that satisfies you — At age seven, I was entirely too young to be singing along to Janet Jackson’s “What Have You Done for Me Lately,” but that didn’t stop me. The intro was a conversation between two friends in which one confides that her boyfriend stood her up again. As she tries to…

Songs by these Black women will take any sensual session to another level — As we spend more of our time indoors, many of us are revisiting some of our favorite musical artists and songs. We’re watching intimate concerts and discography battles on Instagram, and we’re getting amazing live DJ sets on YouTube and Twitch. …