Today is the last day of one of my classes “Future of Justice: Theoretical Perspectives on Utopia” & today one of my peers led a utopian writing prompt exercise. These are my reflections: I want a utopia where we’re honest to each other about our intentions and actions. I want a utopia where we all…
Author: valencia.clement
To: Future allies in this intergenerational struggle
Dear Friend of the Future, My name is Val and I’m from New York City. My parents were born in Haiti in the town where the infamous Christopher Columbus spent his first Christmas. Since I learned and shared this history, our whole lives have been a journey of conscious awakening, re-humanization and reunification. In the…
Black Lives Matter: An unrequited American love story
Louisville PD declared a “state of emergency” in preparation for the decision to move forward with the Breonna Taylor case. It’s been almost 200 days since Taylor was killed in her home after plainclothes cops executed an inaccurate no-knock warrant on her apartment. Since then, no cops have been arrested, one cop has been fired…
Black Kings, Queens & the Power of “Both/And”
I love “both/and” analyses because they help us get to the heart of complex contemporary ideologies. Lately, I’ve been thinking about the images of Black royalty, Black capitalism as it relates to media. In the past few years, different corporations have realized the power of the Black dollar, and have begun developing stories to tell…
Erasure: Trojan Horse Tampons (and other sanitary hygiene products)
Women and gender minorities face numerous hegemonic challenges globally. We are not only united by oppression, we are also united by beautiful cerebral experiences that makes us who we are. Our diverse experiences help us find comfort in our physical and metaphysical authenticity. Our bodies and our vessels are not the end of our stories…
On Black Excellence Month and Black Abundance
Black Excellence Month is about Black Abundance; Black Bodies; Black Joy; Black Passions. Black Growth, Black Rest And Black Pleasure counteract Black Death as resistance. Black Excellence is about the blues, the soul, the rhythms and bass. Black Excellence is about the soul foods and medicines we conjure with our hands, histories, plants and pain. Black…
Discipleship and Studenthood
I took Latin for three years in high school (Shout out to Professora Gutierrez & FLHS University Scholars) It’s served my vocabulary very well. One of the words that’s been on my mind since I came to grad school was “discipulus” Discipulus is Latin for student, pupil or trainee.. When I looked at the word…
Go Straight Home: Duty, Honor and Peace
Go Straight Home Ideas of home, focus and discipline have been coming up over and over as I begin my twenty-fifth year in a new city. Moving three time zones and over 2,000 miles from my “hometown” in Queens, NY, has given me an opportunity to rethink what home is/ what it could be, to…
Go Straight Home: A Blessing in a (cautionary) Lesson
Go Straight Home Now that I’ve moved to Arizona, the farthest distance from my hometown in Springfield Gardens, New York – a lot of stories and sayings come to me at moments. Often times, I take these mental gems as a message from my ancestors, intuition, trauma or societal brainwashing – either way, it presents…
The 2019 College Bribery Scandal and Capitalist-based Meritocracy
The college bribery scandal comes a shock to some because of the lengths parents of wealthy children go to make sure their children take every opportunity, even if it they don’t have the necessary qualifications. For a long time, research has focused on how tests like the SAT and ACT aren’t proxies for intelligence or merit but rather a…