
The Troll Under the Rainbow Bridge
After writing the article "Navigating Through Pride and Prejudice" about what it’s like to be black and gay during Pride, I needed to regroup. I had this pit in my stomach and started circling the black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple wagons. I had an existential moment after reading comments on the article and chatter within the “Social Thunder dome” (aka Facebook and Twitter). Most of the feedback was great, encouraging and what I kind of expected. When

When Love Hurts
I grew up in a household with a mother who was young and still trying to find herself and a dad who was worried about who he was going to screw next. My mom was 18 when she had me and my dad, who had been in the army for 5 years, was 23. When my dad entered the room, I could see my mom automatically adjust her body position and what she was doing. I wasn’t sure what this meant but I knew from an early age that something wasn’t right. When I was 3 years old, my dad moved my mo


Be appropriate...don't appropriate
I am 18; perched on a wooden stool overlooking the Plaza de Armas in Cusco. I turn back to my hot chocolate (I’m in the chocolate museum.. naturally), when I notice someone taking a photo of me out of my periphery. He wasn’t particularly subtle about it. He had a large SLR camera and possibly a tripod. I kept sipping my chocolate trying not to break the candid shot. His camera snapped the little white girl swamped by an enormous orange, red and yellow ceremonial style poncho,


Dear All Lives Matter,
©All A Gray Area 2016 All Rights Reserved. Video contains graphic content Exactly one year ago, I sat on the patio of coffee shop in Colombia. I cried. Not just because there was another unnecessary shooting of someone who could have been my brother. But because I felt broken and detached; broken by fear and detached from family and friends who would understand that fear. Then, in my new home, even with its own form of racism, I couldn't quite make people understand why two d