Adiba Nelson

[CN: mention of suicide] How did we get through love before Lemonade? We examined our lives through Mary’s shamelessly honest storytelling on My Life.

“Why would you do that? You have a daughter. Why would you put yourself in that position?”

I applaud you for being here. I applaud you for giving life the five fingers of death and deciding to show up for whatever the day brings — every day.

I would break girl code. And if you love me, I hope you would do it for me too.

It is made up of women that I've known since I was 8, and women I met last week.

Shit. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t get so sassy right now.

Black women have endured the unfathomable. We’ve watched our leaders be assassinated, and our hopes go with them. We’ve watched the nation’s leaders be assassinated, and watched our hopes float away with them too. We’ve buried our 5-year-old daughters after they were bombed to death in church, our 12-year-old sons who were playing in the park, and our 29-year-old daughters who were stopped for simple traffic violations.

They basically gave the Oscars the middle finger.

Dark brown girls should never ever ever ever EVER wear frosty pink lipstick. EVER. I don’t give a rat’s ASS what Cosmo says - just NO.

My job is to make you feel — whether it’s lust, pride, anger, guilt, joy, sadness — whatever it is you feel, I want you to feel it.