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By TOLLEY M. JONES

I have been told that I am “too much” throughout my life. I suppose I agree with this assessment, because I conversely have always looked around me and felt deeply that the people around me were “not enough.”

By TOLLEY M. JONES

Resistance is not new to Black people. White people who profited from their abuse and dehumanization of every aspect of our people — from the horrors of the Middle Passage, to the beating, branding and lynching of Black humans, to the use of our hair and skin to make furniture and shoes that still exist to this day — believed that applying enough torture and inhumanity toward these stolen people would crush our spirits and provide them with a docile flock of Black slaves forever.

By TOLLEY M. JONES

The silverware family in the sink swam in the Palmolive suds sea as I stood on the wooden step stool washing the dinner dishes. At 7 years old, I was too small to be able to reach the sink otherwise. My 9-year-old sister and I were responsible for...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

This morning I stood in front of my altar and lit its candles, held a stub of palo santo to the sputtering flame, and even before I spoke I felt the tingling and buzzing in my shoulders and arms that let me know The Ancestors were already there...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

 Oppressive regimes, governments, religions and family systems rely on silence to fester and thrive. Their weak and parasitic exoskeleton depends on a steady supply of hapless victims who either helplessly, unknowingly, or willingly remain within the...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

I have been lonely my whole life. I haven’t exactly been alone, but it has felt like it for all practical purposes.My father interpreted my normal small child behavior as evil and told my siblings to stay away from me lest they be tainted by my...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

A year ago, my dearest friend Kirsten’s life abruptly and shockingly ended. A year ago she came into my car as I drove in terror to her house, to say goodbye to me when I was not ready, nor prepared, to say goodbye to her. A year ago this week, we...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

“If you think we live in the land of the free, you should try to be black like me.” — Mickey GuytonHave you ever been told as a child you can’t possibly be as smart as you are? Have you ever been accused of cheating because your test scores were...

By TOLLEY M. JONES

The other day I was in my office working on a grant report with my door closed, when suddenly loud and joyous laughter exploded in the hallway. My fellow brown female coworkers were laughing the way brown women laugh when they are surrounded by other...