Adiba Nelson

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.

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.

They basically gave the Oscars the middle finger.

If 93% of the Academy is White, but as of 2014, only 62% of Americans were White, and art is supposed to imitate life...

How do you go from two extremely different individuals living life separately to two extremely different individuals merging their separate lives into one loving family portrait — all while avoiding a cosmic meltdown? Very, very carefully. And with a bottle of wine… or 50.

"I will peer relentlessly into every cop car I pass with a young black man in it, stretching my neck to make sure that it’s not my son who’s been arrested for driving while black, walking while black, or breathing while black. I will hold my breath while listening to every news report of another black man that has been arrested, beaten, killed, and made an example of."

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.

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.

Give me a minute please. I’m a little busy trying to decide if I should throw something, burn something, take my eyes out and dip them in bleach after reading that shit, have a woosa moment, or just. fucking. drink.

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