Posts in The Sum
It’s My Birthday and I’ve Got a Gift for You (Hint: Don’t Stress)

Issue 197 — April 18, 2022

I got so many flowers on my big 8–0 April 13 that I jokingly asked whether I had died. I’m incredibly fortunate to be alive and high kicking as I veer into Betty White territory. I’m looking forward to people thinking everything I do that makes any sense at all is adorable. You know, like they do with preschoolers who use three-syllable words.

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The Joy and the Irony of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson

Issue 196 — April 11, 2022

Ketanji Brown Jackson.

Her name is already embedded in the annals of history as the first Black woman confirmed to sit on the Supreme Court of the United States.

After 232 years and 115 previous sitting justices, Judge Brown Jackson will become Justice Brown Jackson when she is sworn in at the end of the Court’s current term.

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How Would You Like an Extra Million Dollars?

Issue 194 — March 21, 2022

That’s a no-brainer, right? But I’m serious. Studies have shown that women lose between $400,000 and over $1,000,000 cumulatively over a lifetime of work in comparison with men in equal jobs with equal experience. You deserve to be paid fairly and equally to others with your qualifications.

Equal Pay Day was March 15 this year. Saying that women make on average 83 cents to men’s $1 is an oversimplification because there are huge variances based on race and ethnicity.

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(Un)equal Pay Day: Is it Good News or Bad News?

Issue 193 — March 14, 2022

It’s progress to be sure that March 15 marks Equal Pay Day 2022. Women now earn 83% of what men earn for matched full time work.

Last year the annual recognition of when U.S. women had to work into 2021 before they earned what men earned what men did in just 12 months of 2020 occurred on March 24. The year before that, the day was March 31.

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"Bravery Has no Gender" Kira Rudik and Volodymyr Zelenskyy Lead Like a Woman in the Face of the Unthinkable

Issue 192 — March 8, 2022

My heart clutched as I watched Stephanie Ruhle interview Ukrainian Member of Parliament Kira Rudik on “The 11th Hour.”

I urge you to watch it a few times, not to become fearful but to observe how she speaks powerfully AND with empathy, humanity, and courage. These characteristics are what I mean when I say she leads like a woman.

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What "And Just Like That," the Truckers' Revolt, and the Great Resignation Can Teach Leaders

Issue 191 — February 21, 2022

If you were eagerly awaiting the “Sex and the City” reboot, “And Just Like That,” perhaps you were one of many who concluded that you can’t go home again and expect it to be a satisfying visit.

I loved the iconic television series back in the day. Yet I can see that trying to update it while maintaining the elements that made it so much fun in its first go-round was an impossible task. Because its current iteration takes place in a culture chastened by a pandemic and awakened to deep seated racial injustice that makes the whiteness of the original four female friends, especially in one of the world’s most diverse cities, seem so out of place.

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How Black History Month Can Help Us All “Uncover Ourselves”

Issue 190 — February 7, 2022

Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of the 1619 Project said it like this: “At some point when you have proven yourself and fought your way into institutions that were not built for you, when you’ve proven you can compete and excel at the highest level, you have to decide that you are done forcing yourself in,” she writes in her statement explaining why she left the University of North Carolina after an acrimonious but ultimately successful tenure battle to take the inaugural Knight Chair in Race and Reporting at Howard University.

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Let's See: Why Black Women Must Be Visible Beyond Black History Month

Yes, there is a Rosa Parks signature series Barbie doll, Ella Fitzgerald Barbie (who comes with a standing microphone), Ida B. Wells Barbie with a newspaper in her hand, as well as Katherine Johnson (with an ID badge around her neck) and Maya Angelou Barbies, each in the collector series costing about $30.

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Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Fierce Urgency of Now” — Updated for 2022

Issue 189— January 17, 2022

I honestly can’t believe that my column on January 18, 2021, recognizing Dr. Martin Luther King’s birthday barely struck the alarm it deserved.

How could I not have drawn brightly the profound contrast between Dr. King’s exhortations to Civil Rights movement activists to hold nonviolent protests and last year’s January 6 violent breech of the Capitol?

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