As breast cancer awareness campaigns have become more visible, and the color pink has become emblematic of survivors and those who support their struggle, I interpret the omnipresent October color […]
Author: Rachel Griffin
Rachel Alicia Griffin is an assistant professor in the Department of Speech Communication at Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. As a critical intercultural communication scholar, her research interests and publications span critical race theory, Black feminist thought, popular culture, gender violence, and pedagogy. She is also a frequent guest on college campuses and at conferences to present workshops and deliver keynotes that speak to how power, privilege, and intersectionality impact the ability to engage across identity differences. Most recently, she presented " Black Women and Gender Violence in For Colored Girls" on her campus; spoke at Georgetown University, Virginia Tech University, and Northwestern University; and published "The Disgrace of Commodification and Shameful Convenience: A Critical Race Critique of the NBA" in The Journal of Black Studies.
Writing Henrietta Lacks Into Herstory
Henrietta Lacks. The name meant nothing to me until I learned two years ago, at 29, that this Black woman had shaped and saved millions of lives–mine and yours included–without ever choosing to or knowing it.
Rosa Parks Did So Much More Than Sit on a Bus
The common assertion is that Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Ala. But we must confront this assertion, because each time we confine her memory to that moment we erase part of her admirable character, strategic intellect and indomitable spirit.
Black Feminist Reflections on a Small Town SlutWalk
This past Saturday, while thousands of SlutWalkers took to the streets of New York, I attended my local SlutWalk, 840 miles away in Carbondale, Ill. I went to the anti-rape […]