In this essay, Tressie intimately discusses experiences involving sexual violence perpetrated against herself and other Black girls and women. She covers high profile cases like R. Kelley and Mike Tyson, and examines how the Black community reacted. She discusses statistics that state Black women experience violence at higher rates, and explores the difficulty of experiencing violence from Black men (especially in ones own home) while also having to protect their reputations to the world at the same time. She asks the important question of “what would it take for Black girls to be victims?”

We've created a free study guide based off the book, check it our here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs

“Fabulousness…[is] about making a spectacle of oneself in a world that seeks to suppress and undervalue fabulous people.”- madison moore

In this essay, Tressie discusses the ways people who have been devalued socially- the poor, the black, the brown, the woman and femme, the uneducated, the queer and all others who dare be anything other than white, male, heterosexual and wealthy- assert their right to exist by being unabashedly fabulous. Fabulousness, like most things in a white-supremacist capitalist-patriarchal society, comes at a great price, which is asserting one’s humanity through consumerism. This price is one that poor people pay in hopes of gaining access to care, compassion and human decency.

We've created a free study guide based off the book, check it our here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs

In this essay Tressie discusses the relationships between African Americans, and Black ethnics, or Black people who were not born in the US, she refers to them as “Special Blacks”. She focuses on the perception of “Special Blacks” in university settings, and how schools capitalize off this perception while the rest of american culture will “not ask if you have an accent before it shoots you.” She discusses the necessity of code switching and how her privilege has allowed her to step away from code switching almost entirely. She ends the essay with “the false choice between black-black and worthy black is a trap. It poses that ending blackness was the goal of anti-racist work when the real goal has always been and should always be ending whiteness.”

We've created a free study guide based off the book, check it our here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit#heading=h.gjdgxs

In this essay, Tressie details a story of attending an Obama party in North Carolina in a neighborhood where, at the time, she found it hard to believe was the choice spot . At the time of the  party, Obama hadn’t been elected yet, but the party was filled with white people that were sure that he would be. They had chosen him. In reflecting post elections and terms of both Barack Obama and Donald Trump, Tressie outlines the poles at which the paradox of American created whiteness and Blackness exists. She urges, almost as a cautionary warning to “know your whites.”

Link to the FREE Study Guide: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit?usp=sharing

Join us in discussing the third essay in Tressie McMillian Cottom's book "Thick" as we unpack personal stories of sadness and frustration due to structural racism and sexism in both "professional spaces" and the healthcare industry.  We discusses the different levels of competence, we as humans struggle to keep up with in a hyper-capitalistic world, and the seemingly never ending struggle for marginalized people. We end the episode reminiscing on the dreams we had as children and some the beautiful moments that have come to fruition from those dreams. We hope this episode inspires you to radically accept yourself as a competent human being and encourages you to hold space in places that would historically not be accepting of you.

We created a free study guide based off the book, check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit?usp=sharing

In the second essay, “In the Name of Beauty,” Tressie examines and names her experience of being deemed unattractive under the white gaze. She makes the point that beauty is about a power structure of domination and exclusion based on capitalism and the system of white supremacy.  She defines the difference between desirability and beauty, as many well-meaning people refute her self-proclamation of being unattractive. Instead she deepens her stance on naming  beauty as a power structure saying “I was not beautiful and could never-no matter what was in fashion to serve the interests of capital and power-become beautiful.”

We created a free study guide based off the book, check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit?usp=sharing

Join us as we discuss the first essay in Tressie McMillian Cottom's latest book "THICK". We walk through her experiences in addition to our own on the topics of Black girlhood, persistant with academia, and co-opting Blackness. 

We created a free study guide based off the book, check it out here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BMjZ8E79G_YTBhuGoK5vVQkxL1BxaNIDPy8r0PA3Ryo/edit?usp=sharing

We hope this helps guide you on your own journey of understanding and interacting with the current systems of oppression we must face every day. 

Listen to the last episode of the season, as we discuss resistance and capitalism in modern food landscapes. The conversation is based off the topics and information we learned while reading Chapter 10 of Black Food Matters.

We've created a free study guide based off the book, check it our here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vStTBWyr80mqtH7y7kQIr3LvOwFnGMBUf2gNdeipwGlevbSXa6AwkAKekGR6EWryQ/pub

We hope this helps guide you on your own journey of unlearning colonial food systems.

Listen to today's discussion on the racist history of the US Department of Agricultural. The conversation is based off the topics and information we learned while reading Chapter 9 of Black Food Matters. 

We created a free study guide based off the book, check it our here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vStTBWyr80mqtH7y7kQIr3LvOwFnGMBUf2gNdeipwGlevbSXa6AwkAKekGR6EWryQ/pub

We hope this helps guide you on your own journey of unlearning colonial food systems.