stories – Page 2

Black women have been poorly represented in the mainstream. So a new yearlong fellowship prepares women to redefine the stories that are being told and control who gets to tell them. The wrenching image of a Black mother clinging to her 1-year-old son as police officers and security guards at a public benefits office in Brooklyn ripped him from her arms went viral recently. Child endangerment and resisting arrest charges against the 23-year-old Brooklyn mom were later dropped. Now, Jazmine Headley is speaking out. What happened to her, Headley told The New York Times, is not isolated; it happens to many people. “My story is the only one that made it to the surface.” “The surface” Headley is referring to is mainstream media. The charges against her were dropped and sh...

A growing body of evidence points to the mental health benefits of oral storytelling. As Joe Clemons was growing up, he used to listen to family members share stories. Some stories were imaginative and rousing, while others were more monotonous. Nevertheless, hearing accounts of how his elders experienced life before him was a form of bonding and had a large part in shaping his selfhood—especially the stories his father told him about coming of age as a Black man at the height of the civil rights movement. “A lot of those stories are tied to my identity,” Clemons said. Though his father wasn’t particularly fiery in his delivery, his career as a preacher meant oral storytelling was a natural element of his parenting. Clemons now attributes his own career as a poet and spoken word arti...

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Black Mothers Change the Narrative By Telling Their Stories