Wendy Jane's Soul Shake

Elissa Butson

Last month, I wrote a post that responded to the often asked question of why I am so attracted to black culture and matters of race relations.

I had a few post comments and comments on social media where readers briefly shared their attractions to other races and cultures, including a response from a friend of a Facebook friend, Elissa Butson, who, as a white woman, said that she couldn’t relate to my essay, and that her response to the question would be very different than mine.

After I quickly got over the paranoia that my post had perhaps offended her, and it had reeked of white privilege, I excitedly engaged in a series of FB messages with Elissa.Turns out that her differences were related to her upbringing that didn’t exactly include a home or community life full of references to black culture, or black people, for that matter. Yet, Elissa seemed burning with passion to reflect on her own strong attraction to black culture, to explore the how and the why, just like I continue to do on this journey via Wendy Jane’s Soul Shake.

I love her honesty, the details she uses to capture her family, the time she grew up in, and the white girl coming-of-age explores her love of black culture memories, she vividly shares here.  Here it is: […]

In The Beginning..There Was…And Still Is:  MJ

My friend Keith Thompson suggested, as part of his birthday greeting to me in early September, that perhaps now would be a good time to write a post where I reflect back on this blog, and see where I’ve come from, what I’ve learned along the way.

My first post on February 14, 2012, started off as a so-called Valentine to black people. The last paragraph of my About page, states that I would be sharing about my attraction to black people and black culture.*

I hadn’t read my About page in some time, but when I saw those words they reminded me that was what I thought was the original purpose of the journey– […]