My Surefire Way of Preventing Writer's Block

Writer's block: the bane of ever creative person's existence. I never have it. Here's why not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S-wA5AlyYY

Peeling Back the Layers of Black Women's Lives

This week the Washington Post and Kaiser ran a comprehensive and nuanced article about the lives of Black women. The data it shares flies in the face of the many stereotypes of Black women that we see portrayed in the media -- the angry, finger-wagging, man-hating, reality-show contestants who play to America's negative stereotypes in order to earn a big payday. 

In reality, Black women live complicated lives -- we tend to be very religious, yet feel vulnerable; we say that our self confidence is high, yet we highly value beauty; we say we believe that it's very important to live a healthy lifestyle, yet we have the highest rates of overweight and obesity of any group in the United States. 

As we share our book Health First! The Black Woman's Wellness Guide my coauthor, Eleanor Hinton Hoytt, and I hope to spark a richly textured conversation about Black women's lives, encouraging Black women to place higher value upon their self care, so that we'll live lives of greater joy and improve our ability to fulfill our promise. 

Another Reason Why Journalists Need to Use Twitter

You can build a following that's interested in you -- not your newspaper or magazine. You. So when you leave, they can find and follow you wherever you go. Even if you don't land a job, you can still communicate with them. You can offer products and services.  

If you find what you're reading interesting, you should follow me on Twitter and join my Facebook fan page. 

An Ode to (Becoming) My Mother

Mommy on her honeymoon, as captured by my fatherMany years ago I declared to myself that I would become a global citizen. That I wanted to speak five languages; I wanted to feel comfortable with any person, in any location in the world. I think of this as I fly across the Atlantic, from Philadelphia to Rome to Vienna to the International AIDS Conference, alone—no, solo—neither speaking Italian nor German yet not feeling nervous or afraid. When did I become this woman, so comfortable, confident and secure? How did I birth her out of the anxious perfectionist of my youth, and when? If I have achieved this at 48, who and how will I be at 50, 55, 75, 90, I wonder? I stare these numbers on the screen, having written them in to describe my (future) self for the first time and am surprised that they do not scare me.  

I say a prayer of thanks to my mother. Because of her I do not share the obsession with youth possessed by so many American women. I don't want to turn back the clock or change any of the choices that have placed me in window-seat 9F on US Airways flight 718, now bumping through night's blackness at some incalculable altitude. On the rare occasions when I look at myself closely in the mirror, I enjoy the sunrays that splay from the corners of my eyes, brightening the world with my kindness. I am cool with the halo of whiteness that illuminates my face, surprising me each time I notice the lightness streak across my temple at a new angle--surprising my friends, especially those older than I am, who continue to compliment my "color". Apparently saying the words "grey hair" out loud has become impolite. I find this very bizarre. Fortunately I didn't get the memo. 

My feelings may change, of course—I am comfortable enough at 48 to alter my choices or course in midstream without apology or explanation—but I have no desire to cover my hair color, celebrate another 29^th birthday or pretend that 50 is the new 40. Age is honored in traditional African societies. Elders are respected for achieving longevity, for having solved and overcome the issues of life, for their wisdom, for their collection of friends, for the esteem in which others hold them, for favors that people owe them. Neither wrinkles nor dementia can diminish these achievements.

My mother embraced her maturity, as well. Even as she grappled with breast cancer, feared dying, felt uncertain that the disease the doctors pronounced her cured of was really gone for good, Mommy enjoyed growing older. She took pleasure in her work as a college counselor, felt proud of her grown children, all living in different cities; hot-air ballooned over farmhouses (you can hear the people talking below, she told me, amazed); toured Europe as a member of the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus; accidentally on purpose drifted away from her tour guide to walk the streets of Peking, taking pictures of the children who flocked around her, some of whom were seeing their photograph for the first time, and whose excitement revealed her location to the authorities; delivered meals to the elderly every Thanksgiving and Christmas. My mother's sister, Aunt Bonnie, believes that while in Europe my mother visited Vienna.  

At every age my mother lived a life of meaning and of service. This is the model that I long to live up to—a rich and joyful, time-tested way of living that served her so well. The way of life that made the golden flecks in her forest-green eyes sparkle, that caused her to spin in circles and shout "Yipee!" whenever she greeted me at the airport, that lay down the footsteps that I hope to trace, as I hurtle above the clouds toward the rose-colored horizon, toward Rome, toward Vienna, my destiny. 

International AIDS Conference, Vienna, Austria

In 2008, I had the incredible experience of attending the XVII International AIDS Conference in Mexico City as a volunteer journalist in the media delegation convened by the Black AIDS Institute, the only think tank in the U.S. focused exclusively on Black people and HIV/AIDS. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life, as I witnessed people from around the world convene to solve one of our time's most pressing problems. The display of humanity was amazing. In the same room you might find a scientist from Zimbabwe, a transgendered Spaniard, an Indian academic, a Ukranian intravenous drug user, a Japanese sex worker, an American mother -- I had never experienced anything like it. 

Before I left for Mexico City (I have posted a couple of photos here), I had promised several friends that I would blog about my experience. I didn't. Overloaded with work (reporting on a daily deadline and ghostwriting for the Institute's president and CEO, Phill Wilson), exhausted by the 4-hour, 6-mile round-trip commute back and forth to our hotel -- if the pollution wasn't so bad, I could have walked it easily -- and I trying to engage and experience the conference. I just couldn't get it together. When I returned I learned that my friends were disappointed, so this time I promise to do better. 

This year I will lead this delegation of journalists. Our goal is to report to the Black world, and particularly to Black Americans, scientific, sociological, epidemiological, etc., findings and learnings relevant to Black people, who are disproportionately affected by HIV (go here for African American stats). Funding has been withdrawn as the demographics of the disease have turned Black and Brown (including Latinos, Native Americans and Asian Pacific Islanders in the U.S.). The mainstream media consistently overlooks our stories, which is not surprising given the lack of diversity in newsrooms. But in an increasingly interconnected world, the struggle to end HIV/AIDS in the United States is not and cannot be separated from the wellbeing of other people here at home and around the world. (I see an awful lot of interracial, intercultural and international relationships these days. You'd think that people who didn't care for humanitarian reasons might be concerned out of plain old self interest.) Black America's struggle to end the epidemic is connected to the struggles of other Black people, marginalized people -- often women, children, racial/ethnic and sexual minorities -- and poor people around the world. What affects one of us affects all of us. We are one -- or so I've been told.

Each day of the conference, we will publish the Black AIDS Weekly, an electronic newsletter I run for the Institute, to bring this information to public awareness. While on these pages I will share my personal observations and experiences, in hopes that I can inspire you to take better care of yourself (by practicing safer sex, for example, or by obtaining appropriate care and treatment if you are already HIV-positive); to require of your representatives, social, civic and religious leaders that they inform themselves about the epidemic and take the steps necessary to end it, not just in Black America, but in all of America and around the world; and to make the world smaller so that we can see that we share more in common than is different about us. I hope to post daily during the conference.