Best Blog Posts of 2014

Though some people were quite vocal about their hate for Facebook’s “Year In Review” app, I appreciated it for reminding me to look back at 2014 and be both grateful for the blessings and mindful of the mistakes, plus focus on how to be more purposeful in 2015.

For sure, there were plenty of highs that moved through the last 365 days of my life: I penned my 23rd book, a memoir with Charlie Wilson; my 22nd book, a memoir with Jessye Norman hit bookstores; a novel I penned with co-authors Angela Burt-Murray and Mitzi Miller, is being made into “With This Ring,” an original Lifetime movie and I got to visit the set while it was filming; my girlpies continue to do amazing things, from bringing home the A’s to showing off their many talents as writers and bonafied personalities; the hubs saw his incredible new book, “Justice While Black,” publish and receive critical acclaim and was tapped to head atlantablackstar.com, the popular Black news site.

And the lows, well, they didn’t kill me. They didn’t kill us. Indeed, the turmoil that rocked our community—from Ferguson to the high-profile police shooting deaths of Eric Garner, Tamir Rice and John Crawford—made many of us, myself included, recommit to seeking justice in thoughtful, profound ways. To fight for our children. To stand up for what’s right.

Get ready, 2015.

I’m a firm believer that to move forward, it’s important to remember and honor the past. And so I will. It wasn’t hard to pin down MyBrownBaby’s best blog posts of 2014; a simple scan of my website’s analytics made clear what stood out amongst MyBrownBaby readers as interesting and share-worthy. Here, a snapshot of the Top 10 MyBrownBaby.com posts of 2014.

1. White Mom Who Sued Sperm Bank Over Black Baby Needs To Get A Grip

A white woman from Ohio who birthed a Black baby sues a Chicago-area sperm bank for mistakenly giving her vials from an African-American donor instead of the white one she and her partner chose, claiming she should get oodles of cash for the filthy work associated with raising a Black child in America.

2. For White Mothers Who Don’t Know How To Style Their Black Children’s Natural Hair: I Feel You

Author and mom Lori Tharps vow never again to make assumptions about white moms with brown children after coming clean on this one true thing: she’s aggravated, annoyed and ashamed that her lack of hairstyling skills means she has to let her daughter out the house with disheveled hair.

3. Adrian Peterson, Charles Barkley & Switches: It’s Time To Let Go of Plantation Discipline

After Minnesota Vikings Running Back Adrian Peterson admits to beating the skin off his four-year-old son with a switch, resident big mouth Charles Barkley claims all Black parents still practice this barbaric form of discipline, prompting MyBrownBaby to give some “do’s” and “don’ts” of getting your child to do right.

4. Fear Of a Black Booty: on Beyonce’s Grammy Performance & How To Watch TV With Kids

The one in which, after Beyonce’s sexy performance of “Drunk In Love,” prompts critics to call her a “whore,”  I declare I’m done—done—with all this righteous indignation over the baring of Black bodies and the demand that Black artists color within the lines of respectability drawn specifically for us.

5. Little Black Girls, Natural Hair & Words That Hurt: When Colorism Strikes Our Kids

Some of the more heartless on the internet criticize the natural hair and skin color of a beautiful Black child, prompting her grandmother to pen all the ways we should be supporting, loving and encouraging our brown babies.

6. Black Teen Mom Wins $225K After Losing Custody Of Newborn

A teenager who called the cops to help her get her baby from the other side of her mother’s locked door instead got her child snatched for her trouble, no doubt because she is young, Black, single and powerless—a removal that has consequences for all Black mothers.

7. ‘ANNIE’ Official Trailer, Starring Jamie Foxx and Quevenzhane Wallis

Yes, yes, y’all—the official trailer for the Jay-Z and Will Smith-produced ‘Annie,’ starring Oscar-nominated Quvenzhané Wallis and my boo thang Jamie Foxx!

8. Tina Fey’s Prayer For Her Daughters Makes Me Want To Fall On My Knees

Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants, has this hilarious prayer for her daughter, one I won’t hesitate to say over my daughters, too.

9. Atlanta Strip Clubs, Sex Trafficking & Our Girls: Jada’s New Documentary

While working on a documentary about sex trafficking, actress Jada Pinkett discovers how the promise of making big money and being independent and earning the “respect” of adoring “fans”—all of the things touted in everything from rap songs to Rihanna’s Instagram page to episodes of the uber popular Love and Hip Hop and the Real Housewives of Atlanta—convince young Black girls to dive booty-first into an industry that is literally preying on them.

10. 12-Year-Old Shot By Police: No Safe Place For Black Children

Tamir Rice, only 12 years old, was shot to death by cops while playing in a park in Ohio. And here we are again, we Black parents screaming from the rooftops and in cap locks that OUR CHILDREN MATTER—that, in the name of TRAYVON and JORDAN and AIYANA and MIKE and all the other Black children who’ve been bucked down by people with callous regard for our babies’ humanity, this… must… STOP.

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Denene Millner

Mom. NY Times bestselling author. Pop culture ninja. Unapologetic lover of shoes, bacon and babies. Nice with the verbs. Founder of the top black parenting website, MyBrownBaby.

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