dear dark skinned girl
thoughts from one black girl to another
AAVE Is More Than Just Your Internet Slang
If you aren’t familiar with the acronym, AAVE stands for African American Vernacular English. As a Black child growing up in a suburban neighborhood, I was often told I was articulate because it surprised people that I spoke “proper english.” At the time, I didn’t register how insinuating that Black people didn’t speak proper English […]
More
Black Students at Predominantly White Private Schools are Fed Up
In many ways, independent schools in America’s northeast are pinnacles of privilege. Similar to elite colleges, there are students with long generations of alumni whose last names are on buildings. Private schools like these send students to top universities each year. I was the first person in my family to attend an independent high school […]
MoreJuneteenth and the Black History We Aren’t Taught
As children, we learn that the day the Emancipation Proclamation was signed in 1863, all enslaved people were freed. I remember imagining everyone packing up and leaving their plantations, walking towards a future of new opportunities. In my naïve mind, I believed that if slavery had been declared over, everyone must have just followed the […]
More
