What’s in a name?

“I am treacherous with old magic and the noon’s new fury.”

I am a child of the 1990s and remember spending the last seconds of December 31, 1999 on a church stage jumping up and down as the clock ticked to midnight. The new millenium. I felt special to be alive at a time where a new millennium brought promises. I am the child and grandchild of people who lived in Memphis when Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. My father fought in the Vietnam War and got the cancer to prove it.

When I read Audre Lorde’s A Woman Speaks for the first time, suddenly every ounce of anger, emotional dissonance, and malcontent that I’d ever felt made sense. I am a millennial who experienced both pay phones and cell phones, floppy disks and the cloud and I am pissed that the promises of this nation have once again been broken.

I believe in the basics. In doing the work. Nothing fancy. Just the magic of waking up and knowing that my community, connections, and conviction will carry me.

I’m angry for my mother, her mother, and hers. I also know their secrets.

I am rebellious between those pay phones and cell phones, floppy disks and the cloud.

I am a dangerous combination for the status quo.