Category: Voices

Front and Center: Before a Guaranteed Income and the Child Tax Credit, “I Used To Have to Work Four or Five Jobs To Make Ends Meet”

Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.

“Getting to be part of the Mother’s Trust this year did a lot for me and my family. There’s the financial part that’s so important, but it also helped me show up better for my kids. I don’t think I ever let them down before, but I used to have to work four or five jobs to make ends meet. Having the income coming in on top of my wages from work gave me more time to spend with them since I didn’t have to work extra hours to make sure they had what they needed. It just helped me build myself up—financially, mentally, emotionally—everything you need to really build yourself up.”

‘Shame On You’: 16-Year-Old in Texas Refuses To Be Silent About Her Reproductive Rights

You have likely heard people across America debate abortion laws—but have you heard the viewpoint of a 16-year-old facing a potential future without the protections of Roe v. Wade?

In her home state of Texas, Haley Reyes’s reproductive rights have come under attack by lawmakers she had no part in electing to represent her and her body. Determined to have a voice in her community and confident in her right to be heard, Reyes continues to be a proud feminist and stand up for the rights of all to proper reproductive healthcare.

Before Burnout: The Price Women Pay To Have It All

“How could I, a highly-trained physician, not recognize the symptoms I taught trainees everyday?”

Society has convinced women we have to do it all: be successful in the workplace while fulfilling the lion’s share of care work at home. Women overcompensate by outperforming in both their fields and families—but the cost many face to their personal well-being is not worth it. Women must forgo this illusion and work to find balance in their life that works for them, accepting that they themselves have to be their own top priority.

Front and Center: Guaranteed Income Helped Amber Be a Better "All-Around Support System" for her Kids

Front and Center: Guaranteed Income Helped Amber Be a Better “All-Around Support System” for her Kids

Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.

“Being part of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust helped me out a lot with my bills. It helped me and my kids so much and gave us a lot of support during the pandemic. It also helped me pay for some investments in my own side business of baking.”

You’re Pretty Gay, a Short Fiction Collection: “Fickle”

“Fickle” is one of several essays featured in Drew Pisarra’s latest collection of short fiction stories You’re Pretty Gay. The collection of essays draws from his own life experiences as a queer person dealing with the world’s heternormative expectations.

“I moved to Seattle. Of course, Dick followed shortly thereafter. There was no separating Dick and me. It’s been me and Dick since the beginning and it’ll be Dick and me in the end. Actually Dick and I broke up recently, I’m sorry to say. Although I swear I bumped into him at a bar last week.”

Front and Center: Two Years After Receiving a Guaranteed Income, This Family Is Still Feeling the Benefits

Front and Center: Two Years After Receiving Guaranteed Income, This Family Is Still Feeling the Benefits

Front and Center highlights the success of Springboard to Opportunities’ Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which this year will give $1,000 per month for 12 months to 100 families headed by Black women living in federally subsidized housing.

“I was in the very first round of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, which started three years ago. So it’s been about two years since I stopped getting the guaranteed income payments, but the program allowed me to do so much that’s still benefiting me now. I was able to move out of subsidized housing and into my own place, I was able to get a more reliable car, I did a little traveling with my kids—it allowed me to be able to provide better for them.”

Bell hooks: The Black Feminist Guide That Literally Saved Our Lives

bell hooks: The Black Feminist Guide That Literally Saved Our Lives

bell hooks’s death is a reminder that the work continues, and that it is even more imperative to continue resisting systemic oppressions, to carve a path to liberation.

Her signed message to me—”Janell! To loving blackness –bell hooks”—still resonates with me because I have approached my critiques through this radical positioning of “loving blackness” and doing so as resistance to “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.”

bell hooks

bell hooks: The Iconoclastic Writer and Activist Who Reminded Us ‘Feminism Is for Everybody’ (Spring 2011)

We were devastated to hear bell hooks—scholar, writer, activist and feminist legend—died on Wednesday, Dec. 15, at her home. She was 69.

In this beloved interview from the Spring 2011 issue of Ms. between hooks and Jennifer D. Williams, hooks frankly shares her bold takes on the past, present and future of feminism, and how to *live* it—not just think it.

“On one hand we’re being told that feminism failed, but if it failed why do people want to go back and take away some basic successes of the movement?”

“The Traumas of Irwin Continue to Haunt Me”: Non-Consensual Surgery Survivor Seeks Restitution, Calls to Shut Down Detention Centers

“The Traumas of Irwin Continue to Haunt Me”: Non-Consensual Surgery Survivor Seeks Restitution, Calls to Shut Down Detention Centers

In 2019, I became one of about 40 women subjected to invasive non-consensual gynecological surgery while in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia. What happened to me is not a one-off aberration—it’s a legacy of American white-supremacist pseudo-science going back decades.

For justice to be served, the government, ICE and all culpable individuals must be held accountable for what happened to me.