Stephanie Burton

Dear Black Mama, I’m writing this letter to you as an invitation to hold your grief—and do nothing else with it. I’m not asking you to think about how you can use your grief for change. Society has expected us to shift from grief to go since Emmett Till. Since our third- and fourth-great-grandmothers birthed babies, only to have them sold away one day, and were expected to contain their grief enough to have their souls further beaten by the hot Southern sun into the grief-stricken ground...

Recently, I watched (most of) one of the latest viral videos in which a former member of a Divine 9 (D9) sorority is a guest on the “We Need to Talk” podcast. The episode is entitled, “Exposing the True Horrors of Sororities and Fraternities.” In this video, like in many of the other viral denouncing videos, she is publicly discussing her denunciation of involvement in D9 organizations, and is making statements based on her belief that certain symbolic practices, including lighting...

During a recent conversation with a dear friend, she told me, “You know, people will choose not to like you because they believe you are unworthy of things.” She explained that their dislike is rarely based on evidence of your unworthiness. Instead, it often reflects their own fears about worthiness. This becomes especially complex when we talk about desirability. When a woman with a larger body, darker skin, or kinkier hair experiences social success or life milestones before someone who...