blackgirl on mars: notes on a life in copenhagen (or how my alienation brings me closer to people).

Continuing our conversation on Radical Healing, Food Justice warrior Kelly Curry joins hosts Lesley-Ann Brown & Deborah Cowell to discuss her new book "Until the Streets of the Hood Flood with Green" which chronicles the birth of TESLA. We speak about the importance of eating and drinking electric food, our relationship to the earth and how it has been informed by colonialism + slavery and exposing children to living foods. Curry also talks about the influence of Eldridge Cleaver on her work, how his observation of "the system organising our children into poverty" led first to the Black Panthers Breakfast programme, which the Federal Government coopted in later years. We speak about the school to prison pipeline and asks most importantly, "How are you healing today?"  To make a donation to The Electric Smoothie Lab, please visit their fiscal sponsor,  http://plantingjustice.org Please indicate in the comments section that the donation is for Th...

My mother, me and Mummy Hildred - Brooklyn, 2009 When you live 6000 miles away from the place you refer to as home, it's important to have folks who you can count on to stay connected. I've been away for 17 years now, and I'm thankful that there are a few friends who are tried and true. One of them is fellow Brooklyn writer Deborah Cowell . Debbie and I met in the mid-90s when we both worked in NYC publishing. As Marie Brown's assistant, I met an array of artists and writers in Marie's office. At that time we were located in downtown Manhattan- 625 Broadway to be exact. Debbie used to be an editor at Doubleday until she left to travel and write.  This is a picture that Debbie took on that day in 2009 when she and I walked from downtown Manhattan over the Brooklyn bridge to Forte Green, Brooklyn. We visited her childhood home and then to my mother's who lives just a few blocks away. As Brooklyn girls, Debbie and I always offered each other a mutual unders...

Brook Stephenson, Jason Reynolds Rhode Island September 2014 Jason Reynolds, Brook Stephenson and John Stephenson Harlem 2007 with the All-Star Cast at Marie D. Brown's Harlem Haven of Hope. I don't know what "death" is - but I learned a lot about Living from  Brook Stephenson - someone whose recent exit has left the world and my life, a lot poorer. I am thankful to have crossed paths with a soul who showed me laughter, positivity and an indomintable commitment to success - if even just by being there. Brook Stephenson was a true friend who not only talked the talk, but walked it. He was a champion of Blackgirl on Mars and Bandit Queen Press and knew how to pick hi s friends up and support them. I learned a lot from having his spirit in my life and I if there is one priceless gift he has left me with is a commitment to be half a good a friend as he had shown me. Many times when I was sad, feeling defeated, lonely - far away from home - it was Brook wh...

Yeah right. But I do have to say, this was one election I was really close to boycotting. I can't help but feel that I have been personally messed with throughout this whole process. I have had this strange and nagging feeling that I had been set up: The stage has been cast with characters for the best show on earth: The U.S. Election. The whole world sits riveted, in front of the television while the U.S. has it's cataclysmic show-down. The whole world watches as the U.S. answers the Million Dollar Question (or should I say 700 billion?): Can the U.S. look past Race, in it's, cough cough, U.S. Presidential Race for the cough, cough, White House? Can life get any more ironic than this? And let me tell you, I've been "good" really "good"--managing to keep my mouth shut during mundane discussions that usually begin with, "Do you really think the U.S. will elect a Black man?" Luckily, no one at my job thinks me interesting enough to ask, so I...

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20) If things go well, please don't expect them to go worse. The only thing that could possibly stop you now is your own tendency toward negative expectations -- which, thankfully, you've been doing quite well at toning down in recent years. You've learned something about trusting the unknown and the improbable. True, you meet the occasional asshole, but notice how rarely that actually happens. Don't decide for people who they are in advance. Keep your focus and feel the strength of optimism. As the next few weeks unfold, give yourself room to make a series of radical decisions that feed your heart, your soul and your hunger for deep contact. My girl K always sends me my horoscope at moments when I need it most. This time it was around my recent 36th birthday. I never thought I would make it this far. Not because I was so stuck on this romantic notion of dying young, but because of the vast amounts of energy I have exerted in surviving up to this p...