EC=according to the Planned Parenthood EC is” birth control one uses up to 120 hours (5 days) after sex.” EC stops the egg and the sperm from fertilizing. It will not prompt the body to abort a zygote or fetus if there is one present in the body already. It is not an abortion pill.

The science clearly shows that EC is safe for women over 18 and for girls. Unfortunately, having science on your side doesn’t always quell a political frenzy. You see female bodies are considered public property from the day of birth until death. Property of parent(s), the government, religion, the media, partner/lover, and etc. There is always someone trying to police, legislate, and occupy female bodies. If that body happens to belong to a woman of color, then it is that more fervently policed.

Many conservative liberals and Republicans alike have a problem with young girls being able to access EC without the consent of a parent.  I understand the trepidation and the cause for concern, but the fact is young people are having sex. The GuttMacher Institute reports that 13% of teens will have been sexually active by the age of 15.  Among young women ages 18-24 who’ve had sex before the age 20 they report that it was nonvoluntary and there partner was older.  This means these young girls are being preyed upon. Teen pregnancy rates in the United States has been declining dramatically, but the United States still has the highest rate of teen pregnancy, teen STD’s, and abortions of any other westernized country. Teen pregnancy isn’t just a heterosexual teen girl issue. Lesbian and bisexual teens are twice as likely to become pregnant than there straight peers. There are lots of reasons for this. Lesbian and bisexual teen girls may in fact be in the questioning process of their sexuality, and are actively engaging in unprotected sex with both a males and females. Internalized homophobia can be another reason. These young people may feel the need to act as if they’re straight to avoid harassment. Non-consensual sex may be a factor, or they can be simply bisexual. There is no one-size-fits all answer when it comes to sexuality and teens.

The truth remains is that pre-teens and teenagers are having sex and they’re not getting the proper information that they need. Young girls are taught to be ashamed of their bodies, fear their bodies, and fear what their bodies can do when it unites sexually with a male body. For young men/boys they’re taught that sex is natural and pleasurable. Condoms are everywhere. One can get away with being a healthy sexually active adult and never buy male condoms. They give out male condoms at free clinics, community centers, college campuses, and other places. Male condoms are available at every major box chain store like Wal-Mart, Target, CVS, or Walgreens. You can buy your condoms from Amazon and if times ever get tough, you can go to the corner store in the hood, and buy a solo condom for a dollar.

The point is men never have to interface with a doctor, pharmacist, lawmaker, or the FDA to enjoy themselves sexually. However, for us women there is always a gatekeeper that we must interface with in order for us to access our sexual agency. Female condoms aren’t given out freely as male condoms, they aren’t sold everywhere, and they cost more than male condoms. I am happy that EC is available to us all. I don’t think that EC takes the place of regular condom use, regular birth control usage, or an in-depth conversation with a healthcare professional about healthy sexual practice. It is time that parents, lawmakers, and the government starts dispensing accurate sexual information to both girls and boys. Both girls and boys need uniform sexual information and uniform access.

Will there ever be a day in which women will be able to see each other beyond race, class, and culture? There is a question I want to ask today.

I’m asking this question in the spirit of thinking outside of the box in order to open doors to new possibilities. These possibilities may be realistic or unrealistic. I also want to make it clear that there is no finger pointing here. I pose this question with the hope that it opens a discussion about how we can build a community for women based upon us all taking a deeper interest in one another. An interest where skin color, culture, and social class does not create barriers in sharing the commonality of being… women. With love and respect to all parties involved, my question is this…if we ask our white sisters, who tend to be the guardians of the covers of mainstream magazines, to consider women of color to grace these covers, should we not offer the same consideration to white women to grace our covers?

Jada on the surface appears to be asking a very simple and even noble question. However, I think Jada is missing a serious and critical point. Jada is missing the fact that Black little girls, Asian little girls, Indigenous little girls, and Latina little girls who may grow up to identify as women of color, are told from a very early age that they are not enough! Jada herself has had to defend her own little Black girl from the vile attacks that little colored girls who dare to just be illicit. The majority of the time when WOC do see themselves reflected back to themselves in media, its usually only in the form of stereotypes or when they’re being fetishized within the white gaze. In 2011 ,Psychology Today published a “report” that pretty much reinstated the racist notion that Black women are the least attractive women on the planet. Therefore, unless there is going to be a strong well numbered collective that is going to strategically dismantle patriarchal hetero white supremacy, within our society we can tweet, blog, tumble, write elaborate facebook posts, hope, wish, pray, fast, and twerk till thy kingdom come and nothing will ever be resolved.

Everyone has race, class, and culture the problem isn’t inherently in these categories it’s how these categories are used to belittle, denigrate, and malign people whose race, class, and culture doesn’t make the cut. Race is a social construct and the concept of race is not scientifically rooted in truth. Although race is a social construct, it does have a very real impact on the lives of those who recognize they have race, or are raced by society (think slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and more recently Trayvon Martin). Class is a system of keeping people stratified by income level. Currently, white households hold 20x more wealth than Black households, and 18x more than Latin households. The government built that inequality and still continues to perpetuate it through economic policies. And as far as culture goes, I for one as a first generation Haitian-American have no desire to now or ever give that up in the hopes of some false colorblind society.

Now to address the crux of what Jada said, as a Black woman living in the United States who is an uncomfortable size 10 and wears her hair natural, I had to define beauty for myself and train my eyes to see myself as beautiful. I have been bombarded since I was little colored-girl with the idea and imagery that white is beautiful and everybody else is just fuckable. I grew up metabolizing that porcelain skin and long hair was king! As a little colored-girl I use to take my mothers slip and put on my head and pretend I had long Rapunzel hair. Truth is, I felt more like Rumpelstiltskin. I wasn’t alone. It was little colored-girls like me who inspired the birth of Ebony and Essence magazines. White women have a plethora of magazines that they can grace and showcase their  diversity or the lack thereof within white culture. WOC don’t have a bevy of magazine choices that show us on the cover or cater to us. WOC have crumbs. How can WOC be asked to share their crumbs with those binging on privilege?

When Jada Pinkett-Smith speaks of Black magazines that statement needs to be contextualized. Technically speaking, Essence magazine a publication that I’ve read since I was a little girl, and always had a subscription to up until fours year ago, is currently 49% owned by Time, Inc. The bank JP Morgan Chase has a minority ownership in Johnson Publishing company which produces Ebony, Jet, and Black Enterprise. If Chases’s minority ownership is anything like Jay-Z’s minority ownership of the Brooklyn Nets, then they may very well be minority owners in name only. It is 2013 and white models/actresses are still donning Black face and redface as if there is a shortage of beautiful WOC. White racist media is convinced that a white woman can play a more authentic WOC than a WOC!

To answer Jada’s question it’s unrealistic to ask WOC especially Black women to give up their spots on Black magazine covers and give it to a white women. Please keep in mind these white women aren’t asking for it, don’t need it, and probably wouldn’t understand nor appreciate the cultural significance of such an honor.

You may also enjoy reading:  Raising Willow

The number of Americans living in poverty is 46.2 million, and 21.5% of which are children. Currently, the number of people on food stamps is 46.6 million. The majority of people who are on food stamps are part of the working poor. For e.g. at everyone’s favorite modern day plantation Walmart, 80% of workers are on food stamps. A family of three that has income of less than $15,030 has just won an all expense paid trip to living below the poverty line. The usage of food stamps is about food insecurity, and food insecurity is precipitated by poverty. In order to qualify for food stamps one’s entire financials, or lack thereof, must be taken into account such as income, rent, mortgage costs, and bills.

Being poor and not being able to eat is not a joke, a fad, or a hipster costume that one can just put on and take off at whim. It’s not something you can do for a week, it is not a diet or a fast. Poverty is real. Those who suffer from poverty must also deal with the assigned societal pathology that comes along with it. There is an assumption that the poor don’t work, don’t value money, and use their food stamps to buy illicit drugs, and are blamed for whatever moral decays of society that people feel like attaching. The implication of poverty is pervasive and reaches depths that only one stricken with poverty can understand.

I understand wanting to walk a mile in another person’s shoes, but you also want to be sensitive to your neighbor’s plight and not come off as voyeuristic. This is why I am both disgusted, and shocked than an educated man like Booker couldn’t resist resorting to a poverty bet in order to prove his point that he empathizes with the poor. A week on food stamps ain’t nothing. The national average of food stamps is $21 a month which equates to $3 a day. I’d like to see Booker try living on food stamps for a month. I’d like to see Booker at the end of the month try to negotiate real life decisions that many food insecure people, who also live in food deserts, have to face making real life decisions about how they’re going to eat. Then maybe Booker’s experiment would be worth the Twitter hoopla. Try living to live on food stamps for a month when you can’t buy toiletries, cleaning products, or even a hot sandwich from the deli. Poverty chips away at your soul and makes it hard to smile genuinely. These are nuances that will be lost on Mayor Booker. In true Booker form he will be live tweeting his appropriation of the poor with his nifty hashtag #SNAPchallenge (SNAP is the official name of food stamps which stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).

The same way appropriating someone else’s culture, religion, or spiritual artifact isn’t okay, neither is appropriating their narrative. If you want to help the poor, Mr. Booker, do so by lobbying for them and championing their cause the same way you did when you were on Meet The Press defending Bain Capital and private equity firms. The dubious honor of the negro please award goes to Cory Booker for appropriating poverty!

As a person of color, with ovaries, who was wasn’t born into 1%, and who is less than month away from graduating with an MSW degree, the election was a serious matter to me. I  put all my eggs in the Obama basket. When Rachel Maddow proclaimed President Barack Obama as being re-elected I ran around my house screaming thinking we narrowly escaped austerity of the worst kind. Although, I and half of the American population got the President we voted for and deserve, there is still much to criticize about the process and the man.

It’s been said, “there is no democracy without dissent” and therefore allow me to dissent if you will.

• Too much money was spent on the election-6 billion dollars was spent on this election. Freedom isn’t cheap, but I don’t think it costs 6 billion dollars either. Although, people power won against super PACS one can argue that we got lucky. If the GOP wasn’t so fringe and extreme in their rhetoric who knows if big money would’ve decided this campaign. Now that President Obama is still the President, he will be able to appoint new Justice(s) to the Supreme Court who I hope will undo Citizens United.
• Voting is a right and not a privilege- I am happy that the myriad of voter suppression tactics that were employed by fringe members of the GOP didn’t suppress the vote, it simply encouraged more POC and women to vote. However as democrats we can’t be quick to call this victory. Voter suppression is here to stay and so are the voter id laws. Also we’ve always suppressed the votes of ex-felons. Nineteen states disenfranchise ex-felons from ever voting and 10 states restrict persons with misdemeanors from voting. This, by design, shrinks the voting body. In many states where voting with an id is the new normal it means that transpersons will suffer. This is already a segment of our population that experiences great difficulty in acquiring id that speaks to their gender identity and presentation. The homeless also are discounted from the process.
• Uniform voting initiatives- I think as a country we need to have uniform early voting dates. As a Floridian, I can honestly say that my vote counted; however I don’t know if it was prudent or necessary for me to have to be in line for four hours. On election day the lines were monstrous. Long lines can be a deterrent for voters. Although we are society that stands line for Black Friday sales and whenever Apple releases a product, in terms of our democracy we should expect a more streamlined process.
• The language on ballots should be in plain English- Before I went to the polls to vote I did my research and researched all the amendments that was on the ballots. However, I was still blind-sided and unprepared for the bevy of other questions that was on the ballot. Now I can read and have a college education, but I still found it hard to understand what the questions were asking of me. This made me think about people who weren’t formally educated how did they manage the process? If we are serious about democracy then we must pass laws that the language on ballots be written in plain English where a person with a 5th grade education level can understand it and also we need to shorten the length of the questions on the ballot.
• The two-party system is not King-There is currently over 314 million people in the United States. All these people can’t neatly fit into two parties. Although, President Obama and Mitt Romney were vastly different from one another I am sure there are many Americans who weren’t moved by either one of these candidates. America needs to have other, more viable political parties. This means there must be major campaign finance reform in order for this to be achieved. One shouldn’t have to be a multi-millionaire to run for President. Although President Obama is not a multi-millionare and was able to parlay his experience as a community organizer to harness the power of social media, which made him a force to be reckoned with, the two-party system is not sufficient enough to fully capture the diversity of the American voting society.
• People’s civil rights shouldn’t be on ballots-Three new states have passed same sex marriage laws. These states being Maine, Maryland, and Washington state have sanctioned the rights of its gay citizens to have marriage which is awesome, but I don’t think civil rights issues should ever be left to a popular vote. If slavery and women’s suffrage were left to popular vote I doubt where I would be at this present moment in time. Gay men and women across the United States deserve uniformity as it pertains to their civil liberties. No human being’s right should ever be on a ballot.

I truly hope that in this second-term President Obama will do something about Guantanamo, suspend drone attacks, and mention the poor with the same voracity and frequency as he does the middle class. I am looking forward to the second-term of President Obama and what it will mean for United States as a whole #FORWARD.

This 49 million people represents 16% of the population which translates into 1 out of 6 people.  These figures come from the Census. To get even more specific 35.2 million young adults ages 18-26 are living near or below the poverty line. It is also important to note that 60% of these young people were enrolled in college or earned their post-secondary degree. Talking about debt has come into the national forefront in this election. The GOP had a debt clock at their convention; never mind the fact that their “trickle down” economics, a Republican President, and two wars that were commissioned by the Republican President added tremendously to that debt. With that said, in talking about debt we also can’t forget about student loans.

So many of us sacrifice so much to get an education, no matter the level. But when it comes to the business of internships and an expectation of free labor, I rarely ever hear it being talked about, and I definitely don’t hear it talked about on a national level. I read an article on Diana Wang, a 27 year-old woman who is suing Harper’s Bazaar for not paying her during her internship. Wang, in the article written by Kayleen Schaefer titled “The Norma Rae of Fashion,”  the job descriptions and duties of Wang, didn’t read like an internship. It read like a job! She was working 40 hours a week and managing other interns. That is not an internship nor is it encouraging a person to learn the business of fashion. It sounded purely like a company trying to get by on free labor; which happens often in almost every sphere.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor it states:

If an employer uses interns as substitutes for regular workers or to augment its existing workforce during specific time periods, these interns should be paid at least the minimum wage and overtime compensation for hours worked over forty in a workweek.  If the employer would have hired additional employees or required existing staff to work additional hours had the interns not performed the work, then the interns will be viewed as employees and entitled compensation under the FLSA.  Conversely, if the employer is providing job shadowing opportunities that allow an intern to learn certain functions under the close and constant supervision of regular employees, but the intern performs no or minimal work, the activity is more likely to be viewed as a bona fide education experience.  On the other hand, if the intern receives the same level of supervision as the employer’s regular workforce, this would suggest an employment relationship, rather than training.

American exceptionalism and democracy is inextricably tied to one another, but in this new political climate I am not sure how long we American’s can taut our democracy as the most enviable system in the world. We are living in a society where democracy is being strategically and methodically eroded.  If we continue down this path we will be no different than “third-world countries.”  Cheating is the new American ideology and past time.

The housing market crash was predicated on cheating. People were allowed to do “no income verification” loans. So what you made only $18k as long as you had A1 credit you can get a 90% loan to value on your home or even purchase a rental property (this is not a hyperbole, I am an ex-banker). Athletes no longer have the prestige that they used to. With the myriad of athletes who have been stripped of medals or testified before Congress for cheating. The latest poster child for cheating is Lance Armstrong who has been stripped of all his titles. Lance is an interesting character. He hasn’t really said the words “yes I cheated,” the way in which Marion Jones has, he simply said he wasn’t going to fight the charges anymore. We will have to wait to see  if he ever utters the words.

But the most egregious example of cheating in our society is what’s going on pertaining to voter suppression. Essentially many States are trying to make voting a privilege, which means they’re placing barriers i.e. (poll taxes) to keep people from voting. Voter Suppression is essentially the Southern Strategy 2.0. The Southern Strategy, which was invoked by the Republican Party, was a fear tactic steeped in the racist ideology  that allowed Republicans to win Southern States by playing to the fears of racist white men who wanted to keep separate, but equal alive and well.

It’s 2012, therefore racist white men and women must be a little bit more reserved with their racism,  however these white men and women are doing what they’ve always done in American history which is use legislation to posit their racist ideals. If you let the GOP tell it voter fraud is rampant and needs to be stopped. The Brenan Center did an analysis on 250 cases that was seen by the Supreme court that alleged voter fraud was being committed, and found not one case proved to be legitimate. In essence the GOP is trying to prepare itself for a zombie apocalypse when there ain’t one to prepare for!

Purple=voter suppression passed Gold=voter suppression pending & yellow=voter suppression reversed. ACLU.org

Many States are tying to restrict early voting. For example, Secretary of Ohio State John Husted refuses to extend early voting hours until 7pm, be it weekdays, weekends, or three days prior to the general election. These strategic hours see to it that working people who don’t have the luxury of calling off or leaving work early are not accommodated. According to USA Today, President Obama won Ohio by 51% in 2008. Therefore we can’t take it for granted how these hours are being played with.

The fact of the matter is that whenever democracy can be tampered with, we all lose. As a country we lose the spirit and purity of what democracy truly is. Politics is very much a game that more often than not gets messy, but what makes American politics differ from Venezuela is that we don’t intimidate our voters. But it appears that soon there may be no distinction between us and the rest of the openly corrupt governments of the world.

But fast forward to now Lupe is getting epic co-signs from a myriad of Black women and Black women publications that I generally respect, and I think the Black feminist voice is lacking (as usual) in the conversation.

Therefore here is my take on the song/video…

The lady trope: Lupe, who is supposed to be that dude that rises above the mediocrity and ratchetness of mainstream hip-hop, doesn’t really present anything different with this song and video “Bitch Bad.”

“Bitch bad/woman good/lady better”

Historically, lady is a word that has always been used to describe upper crust white women. Even the word woman, that we all can basically agree is a social construct rooted in societal expectations, wasn’t applied to Black women in the beginning. Black women who were bought to America in chains, whose bodies and the products of their bodies belonged to everyone except themselves, have always had to fight to affirm their personhood and woman-ness. Hence why Sojourner Truth had to ask the epic question, “Ain’t I a woman?” It’s 2012, I don’t want anything to do with being a “lady,” being a woman is hard enough thank you very much!  Lady means there are rules. Rules created by patriarchy. Rules that govern my body, how I dress, and how I engage sexually (this sexual engagement is always exclusively considered heterosexual). Lupe in my opinion comes dangerously close to telling me how to “act like lady think like a man.”

The song is respectability politics aka benevolent patriarchy on crack:  At the end of the song and video Lupe starts to chastise women for wearing clothes that will not garner them respect from men.

Momma never dressed like that/come out the house like that/ ass/titties/ breasts like that/all out to impress like that

So here we go… this why I can’t stand the  ”conscious brotha” types. In their eyes you are only a “queen” worthy of king (again assuming all women are straight) if you dress the part. Therefore this woman is automatically “lost” and should be stereotyped because she is dressing risque. The sentiment I am getting is that, “if you want my respect Black woman you have to earn it  by dressing modestly the way my momma did.” Negro please! If being a human being is not enough for me to be respected, then I don’t need your petty ass flimsy respect. It seems that for men, it is always the responsibility of the woman to stay in the good graces of males in society. What is the man’s responsibility in all of this? And news flash, not every woman dresses for male attention. I know this is hard to believe, but it’s true. DEAL!

Lastly the video and song suck: Lupe is not really dropping any knowledge both lyrically or visually. I am glad that Lupe and the director of the video watched Spike Lee’s joint Bambazooled, but I don’t see what exactly  Lupe added to the rap canon both lyrically and visually with this this project? The song is lackluster and in certain aspects of the song I feel like he is talking at the audience rather than to the audience.

Disclaimer: this rhymer Lupe is not using “bitch” as a lesson/But as a psychological weapon/To set in your mind and really mess with your conceptions

The best way that I can describe the song is by using the epic words of Jay-Z from his song “The Blueprint 2″:

Cause you don’t understand him/it don’t mean that he nice/it just means you don’t understand the bullshit that he writes

I am not saying that Lupe’s body of work is trash, but there is nothing epic about the song and the imagery that accompanied. Like I get it, you’re not Waka Flocka, you’re organic alternative in a world full of fast food. But you’re also the guy who thinks Lil B the based god’s music is powerful and meaningful! So now all of a sudden you’re the dude that we women need to take our queue from if we want to reach the pinnacle of ladyhood…I’m good thanks.