Mekdela

Miss Master's I was able to climb further up the ladder of higher education Something that is harder for POC And especially for WOC I fought tooth and nail and beat the odds after dropping out of law school And checking into a hospital This education does not define me I am my character and contributions to the world Not the exclusivity and elitism of higher education Something that is inaccessible for many Especially the disabled, low-income, POC These universities were built on hegemony Still, I carved a space for myself in academia I expanded my world while studying and traveling abroad I advanced myself in career opportunities and earning power And took out student loans to do it I left the ladder down for WOC that come after me.

My Year Living in England A close-up of Meghan Markle wearing a white wedding dress, diamond stud earrings, and a diamond tiara over a white veil. Her black hair is in a low bun and she is smiling. Now that my year living in England is winding down, I thought I would take a look back at all of my prior blog posts on the UK/Europe and write one last post. I absolutely got what I was looking for when I came to live in Leeds: a different cultural experience, meeting people from the other side of the world, discovering what is happening here and hearing the perspectives of British, European and Global South people. Now, a walk down memory lane: One month after arriving in Leeds and starting university, I was shocked to learn that Black History Month is in October in the UK. I also learned that Britain's (and the UK's) Black population is an immigrant population. Black Britons are primarily immigrants from African or Caribbean countries, and their descendan...

Third Culture People in Film: My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Bend it Like Beckham Two films I loved growing up are My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) and Bend it Like Beckham (2002). The two films have a lot of similarities: released in 2002, they were both Indie films with small budgets that were unexpected huge box office hits. Most notably, the two films were about the triumphs and struggles of immigrant children trying to navigate culture clash while staying true to themselves. While the films star the Greek-American daughter of a Greek family in Chicago, Illinois, and the British Indian daughter of Indian immigrants in England, respectively, any third culture person will find their stories familiar.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding opens with Toula, a full-figured, 30-year-old, Greek-American woman who works at her immigrant family's restaurant in Chicago, Illinois as a seating hostess. Her extended family is concerned for her because as a Greek woman she is "way ...

A Photo Essay of my travels around Europe A mural featuring a Black woman in a bikini top with her hands clasped tightly in front of her heart holding a microphone; she has angel wings. Next to her are the words "Rest in Peace Natasja." Copenhagen, Denmark A photo of me wearing a silver winter jacket on a balcony decorated with multi-colored Christmas lights and overlooking an apartment complex. Copenhagen, Denmark A  photo of a Danish port, a ship with tall masts sits on  a body of water and a cart selling something sits on the land on its left side. There are buildings on both sides of the port and a green and red decorated wreaths denoting Christmastime adorn the land on the left side of the port. Copenhagen, Denmark A Wishing Tree, or a tree on which people have tied white slips of paper on which they wrote their wishes. This Wishing tree carries several wishes in the form of slips of paper tied with white string on its branches. ...

                                                                      Drop Dead Diva Since I have been on a roll lately, writing about the intersections of fatphobia, popular culture and media, I decided to write about Drop Dead Diva. I was hesitant to write about Drop Dead Diva as a form of media starring a plus-size woman because of how niche and not mainstream it was. Not niche in a hipster, exclusive, extra-refined-taste way: niche as in produced for the Lifetime network. I find it insulting that television and media marketed to women are given less respect and seen as less than and inferior to male-centric shows. There is a patronizing aura and stigma surrounding television and films marketed solely to women: that they are trashy, low quality, cheesy, etc. See: romantic comedies, Lifetime movies,...

Shallow Hal I have memories of watching Shallow Hal on cable as a kid, when it enjoyed a heavy rotation on television. Back then I was too young to fully understand the cultural context and therefore the meaning of the jokes and the set-up, much like everything I watched around that age. However, it came on television about two years ago and I rewatched it. This time, as a plus-size woman who had experienced the U.S. dating scene, I understood the underlying messages. My gut instinct two years ago was to be offended by the movie and its premise. However, after rewatching it today, two years later, I found a new appreciation for the film.  The basic premise of Shallow Hal is that Hal (played by a young Jack Black) is a slightly overweight, short, average-looking white male striking out with white women. His problem? Hal (and his short, chubby, balding older friend) only pursue women that look like American supermodels: read young, tall, white and thin. The women th...

Charmed In wake of the news that 2018 may bring a reboot of the late 90s/early 2000s television show Charmed, I decided to afford myself a walk down memory lane. While the reboot will be more diverse than the usual T.V. fare (it will feature Latinas as the three sister witches, one of whom will be lesbian), the casting of three white-passing Latinas is not a far cry from the original's casting of three white Anglo-Saxon (or Anglo-Saxon passing) women. Hopefully, as this Mitu article suggests, the show will take the opportunity to explore racism and colorism within the Latinx community. Nevertheless, my 90s kid nostalgia fills me with doubt when regarding a remake: I would prefer an entirely new show, with a new title and new plots, allowing audiences/critics to make any comparisons. The original formula is hard to recreate because it is situated in its time of the late 90s and early 2000s. Here is a list of the best and worst things about the original show, in my hu...

Crush (How to know if it's a crush) You suddenly want to be around them all the time You suddenly want to talk about them all the time You are suddenly thinking about them all the time You start to feel bad if they don't feel the same way You want them to feel the same way You are over the moon if they feel the same way You can no longer focus on anything else It's like a nasty bug attacking your immune system What does it take to get better? Make yourself busy with other things Make yourself stop thinking about them Doing so without another crush is extra hard It can be done Why does cupid shoot his arrow at one out of two?

Online Dating (on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean) I normally avoid discussing or sharing anything about my dating life publicly (namely through my Social Media accounts, Facebook and Instagram, because people I do not know personally have access to them). But I do share things about other parts of my life like my friends, educational and professional achievements, personal and political opinions, etc. To some degree I can attribute this to the fact that I am more of a private person that protects certain aspects of my personal life, like my family for instance. However, it is also largely due to the fact that I hail from at least two groups considered undesirable in U.S. (and other) societies: curvy/plus-size, Black woman (and beautiful to boot!). Because I know that these groups (and I) are considered unlovable because of socially constructed notions of (un)desirability, I feel hesitant to share anything about my love life for fear that I will be made fun of, judged or ...