Last night was a great one for Black women at the Critics' Choice Awards. Taraji P. Henson ("Empire) and Lorraine Toussaint ("Orange is the New Black") took home acting awards, and Dee Rees' "Bessie" was awarded for best TV movie.

And of course the women looked incredible.

Tracee Ellis Ross

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Taraji P. Henson

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Queen Latifah

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Lorraine Toussaint

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Cicely Tyson

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Mel B.

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Khandi Alexander

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Erica Tazel

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Aunjanue Ellis

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If you Google the phrase, “Not just a Black movie,” the results are intriguing. In media coverage for films like Repentance to the patriotic Red Tails, or films like Think Like A Man and Dear White People, someone (whether it be an actor, filmmaker, or review writer) ensures that we, the audience, know this isn’t “just a Black film.”

by Kesiena Boom
The events unfolding in Baltimore at the moment are depressingly familiar: Police officer uses excessive force and kills an unarmed Black person. Black people take peacefully to the streets to express their despair and desire for change. The police escalate the situation. Violence erupts. The media and individuals online express their disgust at the Black protesters. Black people take to social media to report the actual facts as they happen and their personal responses and pain. Rinse and repeat. Another dead body. Another wave of misinformed and racially biased coverage. Another swell of grief. It never ends.

If you haven't been watching this season of The Voice, you've been missing out on Kimberly Nichole's powerhouse vocals. The self-proclaimed rock chick brought down the house on the latest episode with "House of the Rising Sun."

I’ve always loved black men. The way they walk, their style, the culture they represent, and the beauty reflected through their different hues of brown. I’ve always believed in them. I believe they are more intellectual and creative than society wants to portray them as. I believe their potential for success far outweighs the presumption that they are "dangerous" or "deadbeats."

Today, I fear for these men whom I’ve always loved so much.

I’ve always had a hard time connecting with the ancestry of African-Americans because I am a Nigerian girl with Nigerian parents, raised in a Nigerian household complete with Pigeon English, fufu, and Naija movies. However, being born and raised in the United States allows me to connect to the experiences that African-Americans have had in this country.

Growing up in a predominately white neighborhood afforded me the opportunity to experience racism for myself. Those older white men and women could care less about my Nigerian heritage or the fact that my ancestors and parents didn’t grow up in this country. In their eyes, my two brothers and I were just another set of black kids in their neighborhood; another set of black kids that they preferred would disappear from their well-manicured country club.

At 25, I’m married to a black man and—God willing—will have a black son of my own one day. And at 25, in 2015, I fear for my black men every day.

I’ve gotten so weary that I won’t even allow my husband to drive to work if he's left his wallet at a friend's house. I’d rather wake up with him at 6:30am and drop him off—just so I know there is no reason for a police officer to see him as anything but a compliant and upstanding citizen.

I remember the day I saw the press conference in Ferguson after the death of Michael Brown. I wept. I wept because I knew then this country did not love my black men as I do. I wept because my brothers, cousins, and husband were in danger of being stereotyped, harassed, and even killed because of the color of their skin.

And now, after meditating on the deaths of Walter Scott and Eric Harris, I have to ask myself: Who has the answer? Who are we supposed to be looking to for help? Who is going to help our black men escape an undeserving and tragic fate?

From what I’ve seen growing up in this country, the black woman has played a significant role in protecting her black man. She has fought verbally and physically for him. She has worked ungodly hours to make sure he attends the best schools. She has placed strict rules on him in order to keep him safe from gang violence, drug dealers, and everything else that threatens his ability to survive and thrive. She has prayed for him while he was away, asking God to help him make it home just one more time.

I am a black woman, wanting so badly to protect my black men from harm… but I am finding myself at a loss for solutions. What can we do? As a community, a people, and a nation—what can we do?

Police officers aren’t the only ones killing our black men. They are also killing each other. They are also killing themselves. While I recognize there is a larger problem that goes beyond law enforcement and judicial rulings, I can’t refrain from expressing a frustration with our government system.

Yes, black men are killing each other. Yes, black men are killing themselves. But if we can’t rely on the structure that has been put in place to keep our nation safe—the system that is supposed to protect us and keep our loved ones alive—then who are we supposed to turn to for safety?

The day I wake up and fear my husband may be killed by a police officer because he made a wrong turn or frightened an officer as he reached for his wallet, is the day our system has failed us. And it’s such a real fear. It’s not superficial, nor is it dramatic. The fear I have for my black men is one that cripples and burdens me at night. We can keep them out of gang-infested areas. We can keep drugs from their hands. We can even teach them to be safer as they drive.

But how do we teach them to survive the white supremacy and systemic racism built to “maintain order” in our country?

I’ve always loved black men. I’ve always believed in them. I will continue to have faith that they can be who they were created to be, despite the stereotypes and criminalization of them that the media continues to portray.

I’ve witnessed and interacted with a strong group of individuals who are seeking to make a difference in our society. They have the vigor, drive and willingness to make a change, but I’m still unsure they even know what methods to use. I know that as an individual, I can only do so much. I can only protect my black men to an extent. I have become so burdened by this fear that it has moved me out of my silence.

So again, I ask, I plead: Who has the answer? - Ifie Natasha Brandon

Photo: Shutterstock

Ifie Natasha Brandon is a 25-year-old with a passion for writing, women, and truth. Through obtaining her bachelor’s degree in non-profit administration, she discovered her love for rebuilding communities. She is a wife and a soon-to-be mommy of a baby girl.

It isn’t easy being a “big girl”. Rubbing thighs, finding properly fitted clothing without looking frumpy, and getting in and out of tight spaces are all in a day’s work. (Shall we call these #BigGirlProblems?)

I’ve gone through the battle and lived much of my life being overweight. My sister and I often joked about our two-person crew, The Big Girls Club. I was the captain. She would soon abandon me, so in college I decided to give-up the captainship. I curbed my eating and gained control over my weight. Today I am deemed a “normal” size by society’s standards, though I still struggle to mentally disassociate myself with my previously plump past life.

For a very long time, I correlated one’s weight with their worth. In my eyes the two practically went hand-in-hand, especially as a teenager. The slimmer girls in high school got the boyfriends, because they were seen as desirable and always had many, many suitors. Of course, as a teen, this was a big deal. Most girls in high school want a boyfriend and the “normal”-sized girls achieved this goal, so I understood them to be more worthy. This notion was damaging and it followed me into college—and to some extent, still lingers in my psyche.

The problem was that I didn’t see the BBW (AKA Big Beautiful Women) as a sought-after archetype that got Prince Charming. Rather, she was an understudy—or a supporting character at best. The heavy friend was “cute in the face and thick in the waist.” But very seldom was she the number one draft pick. In the mainstream media, this perception was consistent. Full-figured women weren’t deemed sexy vixens. In television, they were often comedic or maternal (if not both), fully covered or outrageously dressed. Plus-sized women were certainly not depicted to be physically aspirational; my goal wasn’t to look like any particular plus-sized woman.

Fast-forward a decade and so many things have changed, as evidenced with the new #ImNoAngel advertising campaign.

#ImNoAngel is a high-profile campaign launched by Lane Bryant last week. Its intention is to promote their Cacique line of lingerie while celebrating and encouraging body diversity of plus-size women, including plus-size women of color. (Victoria Lee and Marquita Pring, we see you!) As a woman of color, I value these models’ super-visible presence in the campaign.

I am absolutely elated to see a diverse group of full-figured women wearing lingerie on billboards and in subway car ads. My immediate response seeing these ads? You betta werk! I can relate to these women. This is how a great number women actually look, as compared to the normalized images of super-thin models we’ve gotten used to.

Lane Bryant’s models seem authentic and bold. Larger women have long been told to cover up by mainstream media. When I was plus-sized, I never wore a two-piece bathing suit. The idea terrified me. I was caught-up with the idea of exposing my thick arms, not to mention my stomach. Wearing a bikini wasn’t a viable option in my mind; in part because I didn’t see many larger women exposing themselves. The lumps and bumps were real, and I was uncomfortable. Part of this insecurity was because I was comparing myself to a totally disparate standard of beauty.

The #ImNoAngel campaign is a call to action, a statement that defies convention and says that what is considered “sexy” isn’t exclusively reserved for Victoria’s Secret models. Finding perfection in the physical form is unrealistic; it ain’t happening. So why do we still hold onto the super-slim swimsuit or lingerie model depicted in magazines and on billboards as being nearly perfect?

On the contrary, #ImNoAngel encourages full-figured women to have a sense of pride in their physical appearance. This is about redefining what it means to be beautiful and sexy. It is about empowering women that don’t fit the narrow standard. This campaign is absolutely necessary and I am wholeheartedly here for it.

As expected, the high-profile campaign has stirred-up some controversy on social media. (Haters gonna hate.) What some don't seem to understand is that #ImNoAngel isn’t about tearing down thin women or aimed at making anyone feel inferior. It’s not about skinny-shaming. But the fact is, slim women, this isn’t about you. This campaign is about obliterating a long-standing and completely skewed notion of beauty. This is Lane Bryant’s way of saying that women of all sizes can be desirable and sexy, and hoping the mainstream media can evolve to reflect this bold and daring notion of beauty, too.

Decades from now, I can only hope that my 5-year-old niece grows up to be a woman that is proud of how she looks, regardless of her size. And if she is a full-figured woman, I hope she always feel worthy because the “big girl” narrative has changed.

We are now included within the standard of beauty. - Felice León

Photo: Promotional image from Lane Bryant's #ImNoAngel campaign

Felice León is a regular contributor to For Harriet.

Please stop sharing videos and photos of dead Black bodies.

It is making us sick, triggering anxiety attacks, sending us into depression, and causing us to question the point of it all.

Last week, 148 students were killed in Nairobi, Kenya. Rather than reflecting on their lives, I saw people share a triggering photo of their lifeless bodies on the floor of a courtyard at their university. I was sick, but I couldn’t escape the image.

This week, a video was released of Walter Scott being brutally shot eight times in the back (in broad daylight) as he ran away from white police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina. How do I know the particulars of this story? Because people insisted on sharing the actual video that was used to charge Slager with murder across social media. As much as I tried to turn away, Facebook’s auto-start function meant I could not control when or how the video is displayed. So on the night the video went viral, I turned off my phone and slept for 10 hours.

I had to check out because I am not a “Strong Black Woman.” I bleed. I cry. I hurt. I am reminded of the timeless words of Joan Morgan in her classic, When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost:

The original ‘STRONGBLACKWOMAN’ and her alleged ‘super strength’ was a myth created by whites to rationalize their brutality.

There is no rational explanation for police brutality. There is also no rational reason for bombarding people with images that might send them into dangerous mental spaces. I have asked friends on my social media pages to stop sharing these violent photos and videos.

Yes, we have a right to film the police. The way power is set up, the oppressed need tangible evidence of their own oppression… right? This is why we ask rape survivors to “prove” their assaults. This is why we ask the poor to “prove” their poverty. This is why we ask the undocumented to “prove” their worthiness for citizenship.

That’s the problem.

I’m waiting for the people who police my bikini photos and turn-up videos to also say something against the sharing of violent images. This is perhaps the one time the logic behind “everything doesn’t need to be posted for the world to see” is fair. The choice to post videos of brutal killings and beatings is an infringement upon my health and the health of many others.

Black women know the stakes, but people keep insisting we stick our fingers in Jesus’ wounds to be convinced he was actually crucified. Even after I tell people it makes me sick, they insist we need to keep sharing these videos. They argue that we need to remind this loosely-defined “them” of how sick it is. I keep hearing the infantilizing refrain: “If we don’t share these photos, then they won’t believe us.”

I am consistently taken on a guilt trip by the most aggressive sharers about watching things that hurt me, staying in places that are toxic, and proving that I’m “down” or “woke” enough for the movement. I can’t do that anymore.

I demand rest. I demand humanity. Exhaustion, exasperation, and trauma are human experiences. Let me have them.

As a sister, daughter, teacher, friend, activist, student, writer, babysitter, and tutor, I have to voice that my neck is being stepped on. I simply cannot hold the pain and trauma of everyone.

When we ask you not to share these graphic videos, take us seriously. We are not asking you to stop sharing because we are weak. We are not asking you to stop sharing because we want to pretend that the world is all sunshine and rainbows. In fact, if anyone knows that life in this world is hard for Black folks, it is Black women.

It makes me wonder what the Clark Sisters were really getting at when they sang, “Is my labor in vain?” When the statistics suggest that every 28 hours a Black person is killed by state violence, I wonder about both meanings of the word “labor.”

Firstly, is our work towards the cause of justice in vain? All the conference calls, the signs, the protests, the demonstrations, the die-ins, the late night organizing, the sleepless nights, the stress, the requests for extensions, the meetings—are these all in vain? Is the work for nothing?

I refuse to believe so.

But as Black women, there’s a larger question about “labor”: Is our childbirth in vain? Is our bringing children into this world in vain? Is it for nothing? I don’t have children, so I don’t pretend to understand the pain Black mothers experience. I will say that my experience in justice work has made me seriously reconsider my once solid plans of bringing children into this world. Is the labor for nothing?

I refuse to believe so. It can’t be.

The trauma will hit all of us in different ways, I understand. But your sisters need you to stop sharing videos and photos in which lifeless Black bodies are displayed without concern for how we might be seeing them. Because there are some of us who just cannot bear to ask the question any more:

Is my living in vain? - Candace Simpson

Photo: Shutterstock

Candace Simpson is a Brooklyn native and a seminary student. You can follow her tweets at @CandyCornball.

I can no longer witness the senseless murder of people of color by the police without breaking down in tears. The recently released video that captured 50-year-old Walter Scott being shot in his back eight times as he attempted to run away from white police officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina leaves me on the verge of constant emotional breakdown. My stomach tightens with the thought that this man was gunned down in broad daylight and left to die face-down, hands handcuffed behind his back. My jaw clenches in anger at the thought of the thousands of people who will rush to defend the officer who committed this heinous offense, many of whom will raise money to support his “cause”.

As I sit writing this piece in a public space, others look on inquisitively as my tears stream down my face and land on my keyboard. The emotional toll America’s racial inequality and discrimination have taken on me is undeniable. At times, I feel more than just depressed; I feel hopeless. Sadly, that hopelessness cannot be defeated with intellectual persuasion. As a 25-year-old Black woman, both my experiences and studies have taught me that my position in American society may never truly be elevated. Black people will forever remain second-class citizens in the United States of America, denied our basic human and civil rights—like the right to survive encounters with the police.

I often fear that I may not have the emotional or mental fortitude to challenge that assertion.

My family immigrated to this country when I was four years old. By the time I became of age to enter the school system, I was quickly indoctrinated into an ideology that preached equality for all. America was the land of the free. I was taught that despite the history of genocide, slavery and legalized institutional racism under Jim Crow, the inalienable "rights" touted in the Constitution would extend to me, because my Black ancestors fought hard and gave their lives for my freedom. This “logic” was supported by the fact that people who look like me were no longer slaves and our ability to freely enter spaces that were no longer divided between "White" and "Black" without fear of retribution or repercussion. This freedom was further seemingly upheld during my daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance, which promised a land "indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

However, my own experiences in this country have revealed a different truth.

"Mom, why am I the only Black kid in my AP biology class?" I questioned my mother one night over dinner. I wanted her to explain to me why all of my friends (who happened to be Black or Latino) were in classes labeled “remedial,” while I sat amongst mostly white peers in higher level or honors classes. She shook her head and sucked her teeth—a gesture of support—but didn't offer a word of insight.

It wasn’t that she was trying to avoid ruminating on how our educational system was built to fail people who look like me. In fact, my mother was a woman who never minced her words. Instead, she offered her own experience with racism.

"One of my dying patients told me not to touch her with my nigger hands," she recalled after a long hospice shift as a nurse. This was meant to serve as warning to her three children that racism was still alive and well.

"Well-to-do white people don't even know Black people exist but to do their chores," she explained, a lesson learned from her early experiences as a nanny when she first came to the country.

In that particular instance, as we sat by the dinner table, she just didn't have the energy to dissect the complexities of America's racially stratified and segregated school system. She had enough to deal with as a single, working-class parent of three children. Between tirelessly working night and day shifts, moving from state to state in search of good educational and work opportunities, and avoiding "bad" neighborhoods rampant with drugs and gun violence, there simply was not enough time to invest in deconstructing the matter. All she could offer was condolences and understanding. And all I could do was bare witness. In time, my mother’s and my own experiences began to teach me that the idealized, tolerant, accepting America I was educated to believe prevailed was more of a figment of our forefather’s imagination than the reality for many Americans. I witnessed the fall of the World Trade Center that spurred Islamophobic attacks on Muslim people who were stereotyped as "terrorists". My family was priced out of good neighborhoods as they became gentrified and no longer accessible to people of color. I moved between "good" mostly white schools and "bad" overcrowded ones, which were predominantly populated with students of color. Yet, to some extent, my mental health was still safeguarded all throughout adolescence by naiveté and a “post-racial” ideology that made Barack Obama its spokesperson. Growing into adulthood and going to college allowed me to delve into statistics and studies about racial inequality that tore the shield away.

My college education painted a very divided, segregated America: the real America. A country where people of color and white people experience very discrepant realities, despite sharing a common nationality. A country where the wealth and income gaps are deplorable. A country where minority people are often barred from access to proper healthcare or education. A country here the media continues to employ stereotypes that stigmatize people of color, and neighborhoods remain segregated or are quickly becoming gentrified.

My education forced me to face the reality that I, and the rest of America, continuously tried to run away from: the insidious, inescapable reality of structural racism. And with this education, I entered adulthood and the working world where I was exposed to the harshest cruelties and truths:

• Black beauty isn't enough.
• Black opinions are unimportant.
• Black womanhood is to be mocked and degraded.
• Black men are reprobates made for imprisonment.
• Black feelings do not matter.
• Black people exist and have always existed on a financial precipice, on the verge of falling from any kind of stability at any moment.
• Black success hinges on acceptance from a people that view us as inferior.
• Black skin gives reason to fear, kill, and dismiss us as being human.
• Black lives do not matter.

And American history tells us nothing will change that.

Generation after generation, the vicious cycle of America's racism recreates itself with an unrelenting fury. Stereotypes of Black people who have their roots in antebellum America are only subtly reshaped and constantly redistributed by the modern media. The financial success of Madam C.J. Walker right on the heels of slavery's end looks no different compared to Oprah's modern financial empire, and neither negate the fact that most Black people were and continue to live in poverty. The mass incarceration and disenfranchisement of African-Americans after the Civil Rights Movement looks eerily reminiscent of The Reconstruction era when Black educational and financial gains were eroded by a white supremacy that rallied against us with unfair legal practices and state-supported terrorism. Schools named after Black America's greatest leaders are mostly failing and still segregated. The ghettos created to trap Black people continue to exist. And white ignorance and justification for these atrocities continues to replace true acknowledgement or action.

As, the anger, hurt, and resentment continues to rage inside of me—fueled by feelings of inadequacy, disappointment, anger, helplessness, and (strangely) entitlement—I find myself constantly grappling with an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I have forfeited belief in America's propensity for meaningful, everlasting change. And I emphasize the word entitlement because as a Millennial, I was led to believe that people of color were entitled to full citizenship, to have their rights and humanity respected. It is upon that mistaken foundation I laid my understanding of America and my position in it. Now I must not only deal with the unsettling realities of racism, but I also find myself mourning the loss of the American life which I was promised by a “post-racial” society, but may never have the opportunity to attain. I am too worn to do so while maintaining the guise of full emotional investment in the fight for Black advancement.

With every new headline about a police shooting or other racial transgression, I am forced to confront that deep-seated pain. I fear that pain may be my connection to my Blackness, the roots that connect me to my ancestry and history, my burden to carry for the rest of my time on this planet. That it is the reason why Fannie Lou Hamer's statement—"I'm so tired of being sick and tired"—resonates with me so deeply. It speaks to the part of my soul that no longer wants to fight and no longer wants to believe in change, even if the choice to do so will only drown me in hopelessness.

I’m still waiting for the rest of America to get sick and tired of its insidious racism. - Tiffanie Drayton