Brown Skin Girl Surrender
About the Writer:
Alicia Amber is a veteran educator from Massachusetts. She attended Virginia Union University, receiving a B.A. in English and a Masters in Educational Leadership. Alicia has taught primary and secondary grades over her 11 years in education. She resides in Newark, NJ with her son Kyri. Her love for writing began at an early age and at 11 she began to enter writing contests. Growing up in a household of creatives, writing was always a positive coping mechanism that helped her battle depression moving into adulthood. She lives by the impactful words of her idol Ms. Angela Yvonne Davis, “We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating society”. These words ring true through her writing surrounding the Black experience and further more the plight of Black Womxnhood. The liberation of Black girls and the Black community is always a forethought she strives for daily.
Taking Up Space
Like many Black girls growing up, vulnerability was not something that was tangible to me. Safe spaces much like vulnerability were dreams I saw on film and always wanted to materialize in my own life. Writing is now that space. It is a place for me and womxn like me to be honest, open and unapologetic about our experience. The art of sharing Black Womxnhood has a heartbeat, a amplified spirit and a divine energy rooted in generations of ancestors who walked similar paths that propel us forward daily. It is important that our voices take up capital in rooms we’ve forced our way into. Our voices are infinite and fill up spaces that facilitate the healing we are always seeking.
-Alicia Amber