This text is a response to last week’s post, “My Truth,” in which the author, Janelle Gray, writes about her decision not to sugar coat her lived experiences as a black woman for a white audience. Make the medicine go down I am a white teacher and I sometimes get to teach about racism. I’ll be frank: I am not without insecurity. That’s because I know I have blind spots about how racism functions for black people in the US. The only reason why I have any fewer blind spots toda

If I called JillisBlack an Instagram revolutionary, she would probably roll her eyes. She’s not into labels, titles, or pigeonholes. But labels do seem to like Jill. Militant. Racist. Truth Speaker. Activist. People don’t know what to make of her. About a month ago, The Echoes Blog featured an article title "Revolutionary Honesty" based on my interview with JillisBlack. I took a journalistic approach-- impartial, un-biased, and neutral. But I promised to write another article

At 23 I have been more than lucky to have travelled as much as I have. Of course, I worked hard to save lots of dollars to fund said crazy adventures. But the point is, travelling for ‘leisure’, or ‘adventure’, or ‘backpacking’, or whatever you want to call it, is a luxury that a minute percentage of the world can enjoy. And after having been blessed with so many eye-opening experiences, I cannot pretend that this gig hasn’t been made a whole lot easier because of two things:

“Can’t I just ‘be’? No. No you can’t. You do not have the luxury to just be. You must be great.” This quote was taken from a recurring conversation between the black consciousness and the society we live in. Even with all of the social justice movements, systemic oppression, and manifestation of dreams happening in the 21st century, there are still two choices that we as black people are forced to make on a regular basis. We either assimilate or advocate. In this context, ass

Sometimes you never know the experience you’re having until you’ve had it. In South Africa, I sat on balconies in hammocks, I drank wine on rooftop patios, I stood in the high courts, and walked the Apartheid Museum. Statues and images of Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela watched over my shoulder from almost anywhere in the city. Heroes from the war against apartheid are tattooed on the walls that line the roads. I walked in wonderment taking pictures of things locals probably found