balance of power

there is a balance in this country that the established power structure will protect until their dying breath.  people seem to think that having had a black president means that we have arrived, but they fail to realize that the power elite beneath and beside him were by and large, not people of color. i’ll […]

and the winner is…

i fell in love with water aerobics.  first it was shallow water and then i ventured into the deep. i can’t swim to save my life (or yours so please wear a life jacket if we are ever on a boat together) but i strap on my buoyancy belt and hop into 7′ to 13′ […]

PIMP certification

recently an email from a senior leader was sent to several of the staff and in it i was referred to as “project management support” for a white colleague who brazenly stated that he is “not a project manager.”  Support. Me. The one with the certification. The one with 15 years of experience in the […]

gold in them hills

i am often on back-to-back calls with only the noon hour free leaving me little time to eat or gather myself before the next hour of inane chatter, accountability dodging, and rounds of stump the dummy.  last week was no exception.  on this particular day i dashed to my third conference call of the morning […]

afro twins activate!

i have bad days too. i’m not sure what vibe i give off, perhaps the smile people have come to expect me to wear leads them to believe that every day is butterflies and roses. friday was not that day. i was racing to a meeting, ill prepared, and ran into a colleague. because i […]

fire prevention

we are arsonists.  that’s a phrase i heard from an executive at a company for  which i once worked.  he was right.  we create our own issues, problems, troubles, and when the flicker becomes an inferno we call in the fire department to douse the flames. senior executives are masterful at creating such chaos. candles […]

setting the tone

“I had been the only black woman in enough drawing rooms and boardrooms to have an inkling of the chutzpah it took…”  Prologue Hidden Figures page XV. I was 37,000 feet in the air cruising over Iowa when I read that.  I smiled and quickly penned this entry.  SBF. The only. Single isn’t just “not […]

teachable moments

While at the Dallas Museum of Art tonight enjoying Arts & Letters Live with Chris Cleave and Jennifer Ryan, I was struck by the fact that yet again, I was the SBF in the line waiting to enter the auditorium.  I settled into an aisle seat near the front and glanced around the room. Nope, […]

redirecting

In 1992 a film called Single White Female was released.  The storyline: one SFW was looking for a roommate and she got a cuckoo clock instead.  The SWF who responded to the ad started out as a relatively normal roommate but as time wore on she lost her grip on reality.  Ellen (Jennifer Jason Leigh) […]

i go to work like a docta

what is about men who want to be cared for by women? who are still suckling at the teat of their mothers as though they are 8 months old? there are two young men i know who don’t work. both are of age and have chosen NOT to go to work. the one watches his […]