Tag Archives: Anti-Blackness

Proving Your Pain

Posted in Global Issues, Health and Wellness, Personal Growth by
Photo is of a mural of someone screaming.
Photo from Flickr

Today I called an airline for a refund on a flight I had scheduled prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was quite an ordeal.

In November 2019, I bought tickets to travel to Austin, TX, in May 2020. I had no clue that I would be diagnosed with breast cancer weeks later, how expensive cancer be as I worked to improve and maintain my quality of life, how challenging it would be to interact with medical providers and loved ones, how much pressure it is to take care of others even when I needed care, how the COVID-19 pandemic would intersect with my cancer and fertility treatment, how emotional freezing my eggs would be, and how George Floyd’s murder would place the United States’ racism under a magnifying glass in ways that reminded me of the ways others and myself have experienced racism in this country.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Schools During a Pandemic and Allyship During a Movement

Posted in Global Issues, Lunch with Lindsay, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Social Connection and Relationships by

In case you are wondering where I have been for the past two weeks, I have been active. I might not have been active on this website, but I have been active. Like many of you, I have been dedicating my time to my day job, exercise that is never frequent enough, napping, and honestly doing “nothing.”

When I say “nothing,” I really mean resting; times are tough, and we all need to practice self-care. If you follow this blog regularly, you know that I am no stranger to talking about this topic and recently covered the importance of it in Lunch with Lindsay: Supporting Black Lives Matter and Practicing Self-Care.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Reflecting on Life After Juneteenth, US History in Schools, and Screening Practices at Bars

Posted in Global Issues, Health and Wellness, Lunch with Lindsay, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Social Connection and Relationships by

More than a week ago, I created another video titled Lunch with Lindsay: Public Acknowledgment of Juneteenth, US History in Schools, and Screening Practices at Bars. I did not post it on this website right away because 1) I was busy with other things, and 2) I needed time to process the conversation.

As you will hear in the video that I posted above, my friends and I were observing many employers and companies acknowledge Juneteenth for the first time. Companies across industries were figuring out how to properly acknowledge and/or celebrate this holiday in a time where they are determining what it means to foster a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive environment for all people, particularly Black people.

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What Is Your Guiding Light?

Posted in Global Issues, Health and Wellness, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Spirituality by
Photo from Flickr

On and off since my breast cancer diagnosis, I have not been sleeping well. When I went on leave to focus on my recovery from surgery, I had more time to focus on making sleep and other basic self-care habits a priority.

After my leave ended, I started radiation and returned to work within a day of each other. Again I had to learn new sleeping patterns as my daily schedule had drastically changed within only a couple days.

Then my radiation ended, and I had to readjust my daily work schedule and relearn new sleeping patterns. It is as if my body does not know how much to rest because it does not know what to expect.

My body sure was jolted by recent stories of Ahmaud Arbery, Tony McDade, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and most recently Rayshard Brooks.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Work, Social Media, White Supremacy, Systemic Change, Global Movements, Elections, and Parenting During a Pandemic

Posted in Global Issues, Health and Wellness, Lunch with Lindsay, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Social Connection and Relationships by

If you couldn’t tell by now, the titles for my blog posts are getting really long. There is so much to discuss in the world that short titles do not seem fitting anymore.

When I first started Unfiltered Snapshot five years ago, you could tell by my earlier posts that it was meant to serve as a place for advice. The first post is titled Are You Really Looking for Advice? The tagline originally was “Raw Advice for Real Life.” That was the intention.

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Lunch with Lindsay: Supporting Black Lives Matter and Practicing Self-Care

Posted in Global Issues, Health and Wellness, Lunch with Lindsay, Personal Growth, Professional Development, Social Connection and Relationships, Spirituality by

Is it just me, or did last week feel pretty long?

Actually, if you are like many people in my social circles who have been heavily engaged in the active work of racial justice, the last few decades have felt extremely long.

I both am encouraged to see more people fighting for racial justice—especially Black lives—in ways I have not seen in my lifetime, and I also am frustrated that this journey to progress is both so long and mentally and emotionally taxing for those involved. This is why when I saw the NPR Code Switch piece titled A Decade of Watching Black People Die, I thought to myself, “A decade? JUST a decade?” I decided not to listen to it.

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