“Look, Doni!” the girl called to me, “I’m like a bird!” She discovering “the other,” organizing the world around her into the grammar of you/I, bird/not-bird, like/not-like.
I remember burying the seeds every time I ate an apple. They never grew into apple trees. I remember going to the airport for fun.
I remember, on Thompson Street, the moment they called the 2020 presidential race. I remember the way my childhood home smelled when it was completely empty.
The school bus halts at my stop. My cul-de-sac still out of view, I continue forward, listening to the satisfying crunch of leaves under my feet, trying to forget the day I just had.
Writing and research from Shatima Jones's interdisciplinary seminars, “(De)Tangling the Business of Black Women’s Hair” and “Black Experiences in Literature, Movies, and Television,” published in honor of Black History Month, 2021.
In the 21st century, teenagers have turned to social media platforms to develop their identities and find others like themselves, often resulting in the emergence of online subcultures.
Lady Bird (2017) taught me more about my relationship with my hometown and the people in it in ninety-five minutes than I could figure out in nineteen years.
In recounting the details of my father’s life, I discovered something simple: Through a lifetime of ceaseless work and an unmistakable belief in family, Mike has made it possible to focus on the things that make him happy.
Whenever an author lays claim to what it means to be Black, a site of disruption is created, wherein a Black audience member is expected to identify with or see as “truth” a representation of himself that cannot be.