"Hidden within New York, sits an underworld—a third city. In this city, dreams do not flourish and the woes of American racism, unequal wealth access, and now ethnic tokenism cripple its community members."
NYC: A Tale of Three Cities
Delivering Death
"Breaking News:Black Women having Black Babies in “Black Hospitals” is Now considered an act Of radicalism"
We Work Here: Letter From the Founder
Twice at IKEA this year, a person has approached me, not making eye contact, demanding my immediate assistance. Twice, I have smiled in that moment, feeling my chest begin to tighten, and readied my voice for an unpleasant interaction. “Gee,” I said, the most recent time. “I wonder why you assumed I work here.”... Continue Reading →
Graveyard
"When you do finally still yourself—when the monkey brain quiets and the lizard brain activates its slow, unblinking surveillance of the world around it—the city will crush you. It will crush you with nothing but its breath and the contraction of its ribs."
What It’s Like Being an African Girl (Living in America)
It's like fighting every day to find a part of yourself without losing the parts you barely have
Sloan(e)
I was distracted in daydreams about being named Sloan(e) and if I were, would I spell it Sloan or Sloane?
A Wetback Job
At Le Petit Café on Court Street, I sat across from Nina with a smile on my face and a clenched stomach. We chatted over lattes about the boys and the holidays, just as we always had. What I had to say to her shouldn’t have been explosive, but it was. In spite of the... Continue Reading →
The Reluctant Return to College
I assisted with kids in Special Education, or what we called 12-to-1 classes, after the required ratio of students to teachers. The kids were a motley crew of dysfunction. They were middle-school-aged juvenile delinquents, learning disabled, violent, from foster homes, and no one seemed to give a damn whether they succeeded or failed.
There Is a Loud Silence in New York Today: A Monologue
I am in awe he won the damn election.
This, Too, Is New York: Letter from the Founder
The writers we will be publishing in The Grate have fought to tell their stories. They have done it because they know, as all writers before them have known, that stories have power.
The Grate 
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