As a man, it’s always hard to write about women. It shouldn’t be; however, you risk the chance of not knowing what to say. More than likely you will say too much or not enough. With that being the challenge, let me begin by saying men have heard the roar of an empowered sisterhood. I grew up in an unrepentant sexist world in the sixties and seventies. As a young man, I was influenced by the rights and privileges borne to me as a boy. Let’s face it, as a boy you could be calle

We judge people based on their sex, their creed, their chosen profession, or even the friendships they keep. And of course, women are more harshly judged; especially among other women. Our standards of what we believe to be beautiful, promising, or successful do not align to what men’s ideas are of being “that” woman; the ideal woman. But then again, could we even draw “that” woman? I wrote this poem thinking about what she’d look like and knowing that I can never draw her. B

Scanning television channels at my grandmother’s home, I stopped on Boyz n the Hood. My grandmother asked me to turn off the, “black violence.” A few days ago, my mom and I had a conversation about race. She probed the question, “Who kills black people?” Expecting me to reply, “Black people.” As a white woman in my mid-twenties brought up by a single mother and grandmother in a lower-middle income household, I do not know how to respond to my mother and grandmother’s assumpti