Adiba Nelson

"I now had my seat of power, my throne, if you will. That’s why I customized my chair to look like a throne. And that’s why I liked it in my act: because I was truly in love with it and all that it represented for me. It was no longer a trap or a cage. It was freedom. It was power. It was sexy. And it was mine."

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.

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.

Enter: Lemonade. [...] Beyoncé reminds us that she is as real a woman as the rest of us. She is a strong woman, yet made even stronger in her ability to start anew.

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.

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

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

Where did you even get that statistic from? Did you make it up?

While most of my friends on social media are in a complete uproar over season four of Orange Is The New Black (OITNB to the rest of us), I am standing at full attention, giving Jenji Kohan the loudest slow clap in the history of slow claps.

If I had to pinpoint it, I’d say I am a diva because I had a mom who demanded nothing but the very best from me, from how I sat in a chair, to how I entered a room, to what grades I brought home. She demanded the best from me — and now, finally, I am at a point where I demand the very best from myself, and those I surround myself with.