I am a journalist (arts & culture, music, literary, women's issues, fashion and feminism), columnist, editor and speaker. Bylines: Village Voice, Ms. Magazine, LA Weekly, Popsugar, Cosmopolitan & more
Girls in India Aren’t Feeling the Impacts Recent Legal Victories on the Ground
In October of last year, India’s highest court ruled that sex with a child was always rape—closing a loophole in their age of consent laws that had allowed men having sex with child brides as young as 15 to evade punishment. In its ruling, the court declared that the clause was “discriminatory, capricious and arbitrary,” and “violates the bodily integrity of the girl child.”
When We Criticize Survivors, We Ignore Those Who Didn’t Survive
In a piece for the New York Times, writer Daphne Perkins criticized the #MeToo moment’s takeover of the Golden Globes—and pushed back against conversations exposing sexual harassment. Unfortunately, she also forgot in her critiques of living survivors that their actions also speak for those who can’t.
The Intersectionality of Believability
In the wake of the sexual harassment and abuse accusations against Harvey Weinstein levied by nearly 60 women, many are asking why it took so long to bring to light the systemic sexual assault of women in the entertainment and music industry—an epidemic insiders saw as “an open secret.”
Dear Men of the Music Industry: You Can Do Better
The seeds of the modern music industry were planted in the 1800s with the invention of the phonograph by Thomas Edison in 1877. Since then, white men have not only found ways to shape and dominate the music industry but also immediately began to create narratives of women's place in it.
In 1890, a journalist and music critic from Chicago named George P. Upton wrote a book titled Woman in Music, in which he insisted, “It does not seem that woman will ever originate music in its fullest and gra...
Michelle Coltrane Is Glad Her Mother Alice's Devotional Music Is Finally Getting Its Due
Interview with daughter of Alice and John Coltrane, Michelle Coltrane.
Mahogany L. Browne describes the making of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic
Interview/book review, "Mahogany L. Browne describes the making of The BreakBeat Poets Volume 2: Black Girl Magic."
The first black leader of the Jazz Institute of Chicago, Heather Ireland Robinson, talks segregation and infrastructure
My interview with Heather Ireland Robinson, the first black leader of the Jazz Institute of Chicago.
Getting ‘Graphic!’ at the Chicago Humanities Festival
I covered Clemantine Wamariya's author event at Chicago's Humanities Festival.