The world is in a collective “time out”, or if you were brought up like I was, it was called an “ass whooping “, followed by being sent to my room. We are in our collective rooms right now, & the funny thing is that our absence in moving about, is actually the best thing … Continue reading Reset

By Vanessa Rivers On August 26, 2016, NFL player Colin Kaepernick knelt during the playing of the National anthem.  He was kneeling as a peaceful protest to bring attention to the rapidly growing number of police killings, of unarmed black men, women and children, who hadn’t committed any crimes.   It is now two years later, … Continue reading Why They Kneel

Today, August 9, 2018, will mark four years since the murder of 18-year-old Michael Brown, by Darren Wilson, a cop in Ferguson, Missouri.  I don’t want to call this an “Anniversary”, because the word Anniversary always makes me think of it as a celebration of some sort, or a milestone, and there’s nothing to celebrate … Continue reading Voting Can Make a Difference

By Vanessa Rivers                                                                                                18 July 2018 I saw … Continue reading We’ve Always Been “Self-Made”

by Vanessa Rivers I don’t know if my parents could swim, but I never remembered them taking me swimming, and of course, they never paid for any lessons, bottom line, I never learned how to swim.  Through the years, I have enrolled and attended 3 swimming lesson sessions that lasted 4-6 weeks, and I still … Continue reading Swimming While Black

By Vanessa Rivers “Juneteenth” commemorates the belated liberation of enslaved people in the Confederacy, who didn’t manage to escape to Union lines during the Civil War or found themselves in occupied territory when the war ended.  The enslaved people were not freed by their owners, even though they were made free by Lincoln’s proclamation of … Continue reading Why Isn’t “Juneteenth” a Federal Holiday?

By:  Vanessa Rivers I recently stumbled upon an article, with a video of a black families encounter with a family of racists, while they were vacationing in Florida, and staying at the Omni Orlando resort.  The video was taken by the resort pool, and shows a younger white woman, an older white man and woman … Continue reading Make America Blatantly Racist Again

By:  Vanessa Rivers I’ve recently watched a segment on “Vice News," “History of Gullah Geechee Nation," about how the people living on former plantations, specifically on the Islands that border South Carolina and Georgia, who are trying to preserve their land and subsequently their Gullah Geechee culture.  They are the descendants of Central and West … Continue reading Keep What We Got