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Favorite Written Pieces

For a list of all of my published work, take a look here. 

Cuffing, Linking, and In-Betweening: Dating as a Black woman at a PWI

Being a Black woman and dating at a predominantly white institution is even harder – I’ve done it.

Similarly to my peers, I wanted to date Black men. It makes sense when Black women are the least likely to marry outside of their race. But Black women almost always outnumber Black men at universities. In a 2018 study by the National Center for Education Statistics, about a third of Black men were enrolled in college, but Black women beat them out with a 41 percent enrollment rate.

Now imagine t
BuzzFeed News •

“Abbott Elementary” Is Funny To Teachers, Too

The moment Miss. Redacted, 24, a former early Head Start and high school teacher, knew that Abbott Elementary, a mockumentary-style comedy following a group of passionate teachers and a self-absorbed principal at an underfunded Black and brown majority school in North Philadelphia, was something special was when she watched the episode "Desking."


In the episode, students start a dangerous TikTok trend where they jump from desk to desk. Determined to put a stop to these antics, the faculty, wh
BuzzFeed News •

Five Underappreciated Books By Black Authors That Have Been Banned

This series of personal essays depicts what it was like for author George M. Johnson to grow up as a queer Black man in America. Johnson’s intimate and honest voice acts as a guide for both queer boys and allies alike to understand the heteronormativity expected of Black men, institutional violence, and on the brighter side, Black joy. I especially enjoyed Johnson’s experiences with his intersectional identity at an HBCU where he pledged to the Black fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha. There is also a l
BuzzFeed News •

10 New And Upcoming TV Shows We Can’t Get Enough Of

Premiering on Monday, The Gilded Age, this HBO period drama created and written by Julian Fellowes (Downton Abbey), begins in 1882. We follow Marian Brook (Louisa Jacobson), who decides to move to New York City to live with her aunts, Agnes van Rhijn (Christine Baranski) and Ada Brook (Cynthia Nixon), after her father dies. The central tension focuses on the class anxiety felt by old money New Yorkers like van Rhijn and new money folks like George and Bertha Russell (Morgan Spector, Carrie Coon)
Annenberg Media •

Primetime just got Brighter

USC sophomore turned primetime television actress Alana Bright made her breakout performance in Fox’s “Our Kind of People.” The drama series premiered Tuesday and follows single mother Angela Vaughn on her journey to reclaim her family’s name amongst America’s Black elite.

Bright plays the role of 17-year-old Nikki Vaughn, daughter of Angela, a spoken word poet with a deep passion for the arts. Nikki finds herself adjusting to and navigating her new life in the elite society of Oak Bluffs, Mass
Daily Trojan •

Hustle and Fro: Quiet ain’t no back Tok

Black TikTok creators are going on strike.

As they should. For as long as I’ve been on TikTok — which has been a couple of years — I’ve seen white content creators steal the dance moves and punchlines of Black creators and give them no credit. It’s just like the film, “Bring It On,” but digital. Before I dig into this strike, though, let me explain the many times Black creators haven’t been given their flowers.

One of the most well-known examples of this is the famous TikTok dance trend, the R
Daily Trojan •

Student creates public relations firm for silenced voices

Last year, Alex Zarchy found herself stressed out from running the social media accounts of two organizations. She was spreading herself thin by writing and strategizing social posts and asking favors from friends to assist her with graphics.

Zarchy, a sophomore majoring in public relations and nongovernmental organizations and social change, realized she could turn her self-described “one-woman PR firm” into an organization of her own, and she did just that. Two Cents Public Relations, a firm
Daily Trojan •

Hustle and Fro: It's not white people music

As a lover of all music — and yes, that includes country — I was really excited when I first heard Willow Smith’s pop-punk song, “Transparent Soul,” the other day. It’s not often you see young Black women in punk and rock genres … or is it?

Nowadays in the music space, people associate rhythm and blues and rap genres as being the basis of Black music. But, in reality, they’re completely disregarding the impact Black musicians have made on music in its entirety. In many cases, people don’t even
Daily Trojan •

The Minority Support: Light skin, dark skin, but what’s really fair?

While Hollywood can be filled with drama, the only media-worthy shade in this piece is the shade of actors’ and actresses’ skin. Colorism. In the entertainment industry it appears that lighter skin takes precedence over all other factors, and when darker skinned actors are given opportunities, they’re superficial stereotypes.

Colorism isn’t something that came out of the blue, either. Hollywood began as a white-only industry, and when folks from marginalized communities were integrated and cast
Annenberg Media •

New USC organization aims to end “period poverty”

“That time of the month.” “Aunt Flo.” In the 1995 film “Clueless” it’s called “the crimson wave.” Often treated as a taboo subject, a new student organization on campus is fighting to end the stigma around menstruation. PERIOD USC, a chapter of the national organization PERIOD, was founded this semester by students who’ve experienced that stigma and want to make change on campus.

“The fact that I was scared to talk about my period until I was in 10th grade is pretty weird considering that male
Daily Trojan •

The Minority Support: Black women aren’t angry, they’re tired

Belligerent. Scary. Fearsome. Rude. Abrasive. Antagonistic. These are the words one would expect to use when describing a monster or something of the sort, but no. In this case, these are the words used to describe Black women. In the entertainment industry, there’s a sort of one-dimensionality associated with Black women on television and in film. It seems that the one emotion many are written to have is excessive anger, thus the Angry Black Woman trope is born.

Though there are many different


Social and Explainer Videos

Instagram •

The Girl with The Purple Hair Show! Ep. 2

Marlize Duncan shared a post on Instagram: "We’re back at it again with the SECOND episode of The Girl with The Purple Hair Show! In this ep. I talk about everything from @IssaRae joining the Spider-verse to must-watch shows like @InvincibleTV and @DisneyCruella! I also had the pleasure of interviewing the amazing @TheDeniseStephanie and uncovering Scooby-Doo! All that in <20 min?? Yup. So enjoy :)". Follow their account to see 46 posts.


Documentary, Television, and Radio Content

Annenberg Media •

TikTok brings success for new artists during the pandemic

Artists, Tucker Rivera (@tuckerrivera) and Samara Bradley (@samaraphonic), have found success on the short-form social media platform, TikTok, after displaying their musical talent on the app. This success, though, has also brought along its own challenges like TikTok’s algorithm.

Tucker Rivera is a political science student and athlete at a prestigious university in Chicago who had dreams of making music in the future. Then… during the pandemic … he threw up a snippet of a song on Tik Tok…

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