A social justice writer with a love for carrot cake and the ocean
On Medium and Twitter, part of my tiny bio includes the words “grad school drop-out.” This descriptor is important to me because I was married to the idea of school, academic accolades, and degrees for way too long. I feel proud that I left a program that wasn’t a financially wise decision for where I was moving my life. Being a drop-out of sorts represents growth for me.
I am an Enneagram 1. If you haven’t heard of this personality typing system, I wrote an overview you can read here. Basically, Type 1s are called “Reformers” and are known for…
An organized list of links to my stories based on topic
I got the idea to create a Table of Contents from Casira Copes. I like that she just has a list pinned on her Medium page with emojis for easy navigation, and I’ve recently felt frustrated by the Medium profile format (I wish profiles were more like publications and allowed for category bars up top).
Below you’ll find a list of my articles to date, organized by category (articles listed newest to oldest).
And here’s my About Me story to get to know me better:
About Me — Madison…
Charles Mills’s thesis stands the test of time
I began reading Charles Mills’s explosive book The Racial Contract while I was enrolled in a graduate program in 2020. Mills is a philosopher by degree and profession, with a focus on “social and political philosophy, particularly in oppositional political theory as centered on class, gender, and race.”
His book, The Racial Contract is an expansion of the old philosophical social contract theory (modernized and made famous by Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Immanuel Kant, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau). …
Derek Chauvin was found guilty today, but there is still work to be done
I am the opposite of a social butterfly, especially when it comes to social media. I deleted two of my social media accounts recently, and only made a Twitter account within the last week.
Suffice to say, I am usually unaware of breaking news and social events. I find things out a little late.
Today, about an hour after the verdict was delivered, I learned the results of Derek Chauvin’s trial for the murder of George Floyd.
Guilty, on all counts.
I quickly went to Twitter to see the reactions across the nation (after hastily following a few news accounts…
Another child of color was shot in Chicago, and here’s what it teaches us
[TW: police brutality, murder]
On Tuesday, April 13th, video footage was released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability of Chicago showing the homicide of Adam Toledo at the hands of a Chicago Police Officer on March 29th, 2021. Toledo was 13 years old at the time of his death.
The video footage was procured from a body cam that the officer was wearing at the time of the confrontation. Based on this evidence, and a frame-by-frame review of the footage, the shot fired by the officer occurred just seconds after Toledo raised his hands and turned to face the…
And I’m Okay With That
When I first joined Medium, it was in a period of joblessness. My husband and I had been planning a move, and I had given our anticipated moving date to my job so that I could be transferred to a location near our new house. After providing these dates, and securing my transfer out of my current job’s locale, we heard from our real estate agent that it would actually be another month until we could move in.
Major bummer.
Since I had transferred out of my store (I was employed by Starbucks at the…
Do all women share the same collective anxiety?
I entered the patient waiting room with the nurse. The room was small, and the nurse was a tall man named Trey. The door closed.
After a long wait, the doctor entered. He was a tall, muscular, early-middle-aged man named Evan. I was seated in one of the chairs usually used by patients to hold their personal items and expected Evan to ask me to mount the patient examination table in order for him to begin. He didn’t.
He walked in, sat down in the swiveling, wheeled chair that all doctor’s offices seem to have, and moved his body directly…
I’m a woman with visible tattoos. What does this mean for my job prospects?
I recently accepted a new job that starts on Monday. It’s my first job in an office setting since I’ve always held jobs that have had me on my feet in retail or working with kids. This will be different.
Over the last few years, I’ve started to acquire a small tattoo collection. It began with a tattoo I designed myself, something small enough to fit on the back of my upper arm. It was a sensible piece — an outline of my home state encircled by the state flower. …
Stop making wokeness a goal
I recently moved from Chicago to Michigan, and I miss the city that was my home for the last four years.
There are so many little things that made a densely populated and busy city feel like home to me- local eateries, memories of summer night bicycle rides, the sound of Spanish music blaring from car speakers.
But what I don’t miss is the woke culture.
Being a liberal city, voting Blue most of the time, Chicago could be said to be known for a sense of political awareness.
Granted, it is one of the most segregated cities in the…
An introvert’s advice on moving to a new town
I recently moved, along with my husband and dogs, to a new area. We left Chicago where we had lived for the last few years to come to Michigan and settle down. My husband and I met in Michigan several years ago and knew that we would come back to the state one day.
The transition from Chicago city life to the quiet town I now live in has been difficult.
I have felt like a fish out of water.
My new coworkers constantly mention Chicago and ask me questions about it. I don’t have to lock my car doors…
