Adiba Nelson

This book is real, folks. As well it should be –– it was written by one of the realest women on the planet.

[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.

Remember how I told you about the nasty little trolligans (trolls + hooligans = trolligans) that felt the need to show their racist behinds in response to a picture of Aamito Stacie Lagum, a Black model, modeling MAC’s new lipstick? And I slightly hinted at the Instagram clapback on the MAC photo feed. Well, what I didn’t tell you is that there’s an Instagram clapback, and then there’s a BLACK Instagram clapback. The two are worlds apart, and baby I promise you, you have seen nothing until you’ve seen a Black Insta-clapback.

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.

A: No one is perfect, B: Perceived perfection is a LIE, and C: THEY’RE CHILDREN FOR FUCK SAKE!

Nicely done, MAC. Nicely done.

Black women were branded as sexually promiscuous and immoral, which in turn was used as justification for sexual trauma/rape.

My father was an abusive man, plain and simple.

That wasn’t all he was, but to my mother, that's who he was. He was a controlling individual who perhaps took the scripture, “Wives, submit to your husbands” a tad bit too literally — and when my mom didn’t submit, she paid the price. Often with a blow to the head.

There wasn’t going to be any sparkle. There wasn’t going to be any new mommy magic.

It was the weirdest thing. I looked at this tiny human and felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. No overwhelming joy at finally meeting this person I’d been so excited for in months prior, no lurking sadness about no longer being pregnant and relishing in those shared “inside mommy’s belly” moments. Just... nothing. My brain said, “You have a baby now,” and that was that.