We Got Issues!: A Young Women's Guide to a Bold, Courageous and Empowered Life

Rha Goddess · JLove Calderón

Feb 2011 · New World Library

About this eBook

In 2005, the "We Got Issues" team — Rha Goddess and JLove Calderon — traveled the country gathering rants from over 1,000 women, from Rikers Island to the Republican National Convention. They held community dialogues, rantfests, and Red Tent gatherings. This joyful call to arms by young women warriors collects the best of those events. We Got Issues! showcases a new feminine generation as they speak honestly and courageously about the 10 most important issues facing young women today, from money and racism to relationships and motherhood. Each chapter frames a particular issue socially, culturally, and politically. A diverse range of rants, poems, and monologues are accompanied by an inspiring portrait of a woman warrior, "rituals of empowerment," quotes, statistics, and trends. Powerful black-and-white images capture these spiritual descendents of Eve Ensler, Alice Walker, Jane Fonda, and other old-schoolers acting up, acting out, and demanding change.

About the author

Rha Goddess is a performing artist and social/political activist. Her work has been internationally featured in several compilations, anthologies, forums, and festivals. As founder and CEO of Divine Dime Entertainment, Ltd., she was one of the first women in Hip-Hop to independently market and commercially distribute her own music worldwide. In May 2000, Essence magazine recognized Rha as one of its “30 Women to Watch.” In 2002, BAM's prestigious Next Wave/NextNext festival chose her as one of six artists deemed to be influential in the next decade. Her activist work includes cofounding the Sista II Sista Freedom School for Young Women of Color and being the former International Spokeswoman for the Universal Zulu Nation. Visit her website at www.rhaworld.com/unstoppable.

JLove Calderón is an author, educator, and activist who's been working with young people from California to New York for the past fifteen years. She's a cofounder of the legendary B-Boy Summit, and worked for eleven years at the first ever Hip-Hop and human rights public school, the El Puente Academy for Peace and Justice in Brooklyn. JLove's been published in the Source, Clamor, and the Ave, as well as featured in the New York Times, Self magazine, the Source, Punk Planet, and on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Her debut novel, White Girl (Atria/Simon & Schuster), is due out in 2007, and she's coediting Till the White Day Is Done, a book about white privilege, Hip-Hop, and social change. Visit www.jennifercalderon.com for more information about her upcoming projects.