#WeNeedToTalk

Ever since college, a large number of my interactions with people who label themselves as Christians have been utterly disappointing. I don’t expect Christians to be perfect (after all, who is?), but they’ve tended to put themselves above others because of their belief system. After all Jesus was, among other things, a shining example of morality, so maybe it’s not a surprise that some Christians have given into the temptation to s...

The church was a crucial part of my upbringing, as it has been for so many others in the Black community. The church I grew up in gave me my progressive and affirming faith and also provided me with my biggest cultural connection to the Black experience. It also gave me the part of our culture that has had the biggest impact on me: music.

I have been a singer and a musician my entire life. It’s what I got my bachelor’s degree in, an...

These days it's not just simple disagreements that keep us from connecting with people we once looked to as close friends, colleagues, or even family. We’ve discovered through political differences that our very morals and convictions--the beliefs that guide us and all we do--are completely opposite from people we once were close to, and it makes the feeling of loss at times unbearable.

We've not only lost the ability to have meanin...

Growing up in school we learned a sugarcoated version of slavery and Black history. We learned how Harriet Tubman freed the slaves, the role Martin Luther King Jr. played during the civil rights era (and became convinced that the only speech he ever gave was “I Have a Dream”) and sometimes, if we were lucky, we learned how Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man and how that action led to change.

But in the ...

We set aside one month each year to honor, recognize and celebrate Black history. It’s an opportunity to highlight the accomplishments of the Black community in a country where Black history is otherwise so often centered on Black pain, struggle and trauma.

This foregrounding of our pain has so many touch points in America, from what is taught in schools, to what is reported on the news, and what is created, monetized and consumed f...

Sending you all some love and a thank you today. I thank you for supporting the work that I do and that you find value in what I have to say. It means more than I could ever put into words.

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www.malyndahale.substack.com