Happy Black History Month!

Although I hope you, like me, celebrate, investigate, and televise Black history everyday, I hope this month in particular has been and continues to be a month of enlightenment for you.

The further I delve into my history the more I realize (1) how much of it has not been a part of the education for the masses, (2) how multifaceted and nuanced we are as a people, and (3) that Black history is not just my history it is our history and the history of the world at large. 

Below I have gathered some important names, books, videos, articles and blogs that I have recently found uplifting and I hope you will find so as well.  Have a great week! 

Articles: 

Ten Quotes to Celbrate Audre Lorde’s Birthday

Colorism in the Black Community 

We Can't Just Know Black History, We Have to Know it Matters

Blogs to Follow:

Black Girl Nerds

Miss Andrea Lewis 

Books: 

-The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander 

-Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from  Colonial Times to the Present by Harriet A. Washington

-The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

-Acts of Faith by Iyanla Vanzant 

People You Should Know: 

bell hooks

Audre Lorde

Ntozake Shange

Markus Prime 

Alexandra Elle 

Videos: 

Are you Still a Slave? Liberating the Black Female Body 

An Uncensored Voice is Always Relevant: Lysa Copper (StyleLikeU, Whats Underneath Project)

Resources: 

Free PDF Books on race, gender, sexuality, class, and culture 

A Reading from "For Colored Girls"

This video is a reading from "For Colored Girls" by Ntozake Shange. This is my favorite piece of literary work. I had the amazing opportunity to produce, direct and act in this play. Hope you enjoy just a short reading of the opening poem of the choreopoem. 
Click here to view the video. 

Happy New Year!!!

Welcome to 2015! Hope your 2014 was beautiful but 2015 will be even better! 

Take a look at my new video. Link here. 

Tissa Talks: "I Am" Statements

Let's talk about you.

Hi Loves! This is a quick memo about the power of "I Am" statements! Hope you enjoy have a great week! Click here for the video. 

Tissa Talks about College!

Let's Talk About College 

Hi my loves! I know it has been awhile but I have created another video for you all. Today I am telling you all about my transition to college and how that has effected my life! 

Click here to view. 

Hope you enjoy!

XOXO
-Martissa 

My Top 5 Books!

So I know I’ve been slacking. 

I moved to NY late August and began my first semester in University.  All exciting, but nonetheless very time consuming. My goal is to post once a week but I will definitely be posting every other week…I promise.

Recently I was challenged to make a list of books that have most transformed my life. So, below I have listed, in no particular order, the books which have had the most impact on me so far: 

1. For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide when the Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange: 
• I was first introduced to this choreopoem in 2010 with the release of Tyler Perry’s adaptation of this work in his movie For Colored Girls. The second I got my hands on the book I was hooked. Within the last four years I have read over this text countless times and to this day am still brought to tears. Last year, I had the fabulous opportunity to produce, direct, and act in my own production of For Colored Girls as a senior project in high school. If you have not read the play do yourself a favor and get a copy. To this day, Shange’s masterpiece has a significant impact on my self identity as a black female but more importantly as a person. 
2. A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson 
• Released in 1992, this book is Williamson’s reflection on A Course In Miracles. Recommend to me by my mother who found the book transformative in her own life, I finally read it my junior year and the book had a similar effect on me. Reading A Return to Love was part of my ongoing self-love journey; the book taught me to free myself from my own self-inflected personal hell and to find heaven right here on earth.  
3. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison 
• I actually read this one for my Advanced Placement Literature course and completely fell in love with Morrison’s style of writing and her beautiful imagery. The Bluest Eye is a great novel exploring America’s obsession of beauty, the impact of white supremacy on the black community and the rampant transmission of self hatred from person to person, generation to generation. 
4. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg 
• Written by the CEO of Facebook, Lean In is the 2014 version of The Feminine Mystique.  Everyone needs to read this book. It is a great manifesto of the gender climate in the modern day American workforce and home. Lean In pushes women to take a stand and men to stand right alongside them to continue to advance social and political equality for the sexes.  
5. This Bridge Called My Back, Writings by Radical Women of Color edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa
• I was given this feminist anthology by my high school dean in my junior year. Although I have yet to read all of the poems, essays and short memoirs in the anthology, I love the richness and intersectionality of the collection of work. 

I do have a few posts I am currently working on: a “Why Am I a Feminist” video and a post about my transition to college. So look for those posts coming soon. Hope you enjoyed this one! 

HELP! I am Stuck in My Body!

As a woman I have been reduced to a commodity for centuries. My worth, based on my physical exterior and its usefulness to men.  I am simply the house of the womb and a unit used for sexual pleasure.

And because of this, I have internalized these functions as my sole purpose. The sole definition of my femininity.  

I've been told…I am valuable if I am a virgin.  If not I have given myself away and have tarnished my body and soul.  No longer am I special for my future husband and a chunk of my identity has been broken away.  

And if I am not a virgin, I can find validation in my sensuality and sexuality.  I can sell myself short and use my body merely as a tool to afford male’s with physical pleasure.  Never once thinking about my own wants and desires, I can hand over my pleasure (to a man) in order to fulfill his sexual needs.  

But the thing is! 

I do not live in my body.  

Well yes my spirit is housed there. But who I am…who I truly am is not identified by the social standards and limitations projected upon me.  

I am spirit. More than my breast and hips. More than my purity or impurity. My worth is not derived from how large or small my behind is, my choice to have sex or not, my physical beauty or lack there of, or my decision to show off my body or to cover it. I can not and will not be defined by tangible ever changing standards of beauty, femininity, and/or worthiness.  

I am more than my body. I am my soul.