InspiHERed By: Adrienne Maree Brown

May 2, 2011 | ELIXHER 1

This week we catch up with Adrienne Maree Brown, a 32-year-old Detroit resident and self-professed “American revolutionary.”Read More

InspiHERed By: Rebecca Emmanuelle

April 25, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week, Rebecca Emmanuelle, a 26-year-old Queens, NY resident and college counselor/instructor talks about her life and love for photography.

ELIXHER: How would you describe yourself in three words?
REBECCA: Leader. Innovator. Game changer. Wow, that sounds like a car commercial. No, these are my three words for real: Haitian-American. Silly. Abundance.

ELIXHER: What’s the biggest misconception people have of you?
REBECCA: That I’m extremely outgoing and social but I am in fact quite shy.

ELIXHER: What’s the biggest challenge you’ve had to face and how did you overcome it?
REBECCA: Coming out to traditional Haitian parents. I overcame it by doing it…after waiting 10 years. When I decided to finally tell them, I knew that regardless of their reaction it would be a transformation in my life in some capacity. Although my parents are still adjusting to that fact that the daughter they’ve known for the past 26 years was someone different than who I really am, it has been extremely freeing to show them my complete self. Their reaction was a much more positive one than I expected and they continued to remain the supportive and loving parents that they always have been to me.

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InspiHERed By: Glennisha Morgan

April 11, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community–everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week, we catch up with Glennisha Morgan, a 25-year-old freelance journalist and blogger. The Detroit native and self-professed hip hop head is also the creator of TheFembassy.com, a website that pays homage to often overlooked female emcees. Last summer, Glennisha appeared on BET’s first documentary, “My Mic Sounds Nice: A Truth About Women and Hip Hop.” She also contributes to Clutch Magazine, Autostraddle.com, and Ikons Magazine.

ELIXHER: Tell us about your love for hip hop and your passion for writing. When and how did they begin?
GLENNISHA: I’ve been a hip hop head ever since I heard Warren G’s Regulate. The West Coast caught my attention and I’ve been in love ever since. It got to the point that I actually took the time out to teach myself the history and I’m still learning everyday.

Not to sound cliché, but I’ve been writing ever since I learned how to write. In the fourth grade I started out writing poems, plays, and short stories. In the fifth grade I joined my school’s first newspaper staff and I’ve had an interest in journalism ever since. From that year on I was always a part of my school’s newspaper staff. I had an internship with a local music magazine during my sophomore year of college and continued pursuing a freelance writing career.

ELIXHER: When and why did you create The Fembassy?
GLENNISHA: I was an avid fan of VH1’s Miss Rap Supreme. At the time I was so excited just to see female emcees get some type of attention. After the show went off air I thought to myself, “Okay. Now what? Someone needs to continue to shed light on female emcees.” I didn’t see anyone else doing something so that’s when I decided to create The Fembassy. I actually stole the title from the name of the hotel that the women stayed in on Miss Rap Supreme. July 2008 is when I made it official via Blogspot.

ELIXHER: How would you describe yourself in three words?
GLENNISHA: I’d have to go with passionate, ambitious, and creative.

ELIXHER: What’s the biggest misconception people have of you?
GLENNISHA: People tend to think that I have more clout than I actually do. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t realize it. Or I’m so humble and just grateful to be able to do some of the things that I’m able to. Some of my friends think that I’m a celebrity but I beg to differ.

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InspiHERed By: Khane Kutzwell

April 4, 2011 | ELIXHER 1

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we chat with Khane Kutzwell, a 38-year-old Trinidad-native and entrepreneur.

ELIXHER: Tell us a little about yourself.
KHANE: I was born in Trinidad, raised in Far Rockaway, Queens and schooled in Manhattan. I’m a barber (Camera Ready Kutz), spiritual incense maker (Euphoric Scents), and a party promoter (SWEAT! and The Groove).

ELIXHER: When did you begin cutting hair and what drew you to the craft?
KHANE: I started cutting hair in November of 2007. I was looking to start a new business and at the time heard many barbershop horror stories from my friends. I went to barber school thinking, “I could do this as a hobby.” I ended up loving it and having more of a natural talent for it than I thought.

ELIXHER: Why was it important for you to create a space where queer folks could get their hair cut?
KHANE: Hearing the stories of friends who had particularly uncomfortable experiences at barbershops—knowing their only wish was to get groomed without being stared at, talked about, refused service, or cut in the way the barber chose instead of getting what they asked for are just two reasons why it became important to me to create a space where queer folks can have the type of bonding experience that barbershops are known for. When you’re going to a barber shop you should feel like you’re being pampered not hated. I never did and still don’t understand why some barbers are so judgmental. We’re providing a service and if the client who is paying us money (hello?!) asks for a baldy, for example, it is not our place to ask why or scoff at them but to just oblige.

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InspiHERed By: Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene

March 28, 2011 | ELIXHER

InspiHERed By spotlights phenomenal women in the Black queer community—everyone from artists to activists. Each week ELIXHER features someone whose personal journey and individual craft inspire us to dream bigger, laugh harder, and love deeper. This week we catch up with Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene, a dope 30-year-old Nigerian poet.

ELIXHER: So tell us a little about yourself.
YVONNE: [Clears throat.] Ok, let’s see. Yvonne Fly Onakeme Etaghene. That’s who I am. I’m from Nigeria. I was raised in Nigeria as well as upstate New York. What I do is always an interesting question because I feel like a lot of times what people do is known as who they are. But I am a poet. I’m a performance poet, playwright, visual artist, dancer, and essayist. I’m working on my first novel. I crochet and I cook. I like to make things.

ELIXHER: What drew you to your craft?
YVONNE: I feel like art chose me. I remember I started writing at nine. I was very lonely and I had just moved back from Nigeria. I had an accent. I didn’t feel like people “got” me. I just had a couple of friends, so I’d write stories. I used to write those five-teenagers-stuck-in-a-haunted-house kinds of stories.

If I look at all my art forms, painting is probably one of the newer ways of expressing myself, so I’m not as confident in it sometimes. I almost resist that desire in myself to paint because I’m like, “Oh, I can’t do it.” But then when I just let go of those things and I just paint, there are just all these things I can say and ways I can touch people through that medium.

So the art forms really choose me and I can choose whether or not I listen.

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