Janelle Harris

I'm one part word nerd writer, one part shoe hoochie fashionista, and all parts mother of Skylar, the flighty but fabulous 14 year old who is the object of my undying affection (when she's not immersed in teen funkiness). Aside from storytelling for The Stir, I pen pieces for Essence, Ebony, Vibe, Clutch and just about anyone else who'll have me. On any given day, I find solace in Five Guys fries, Hello Kitty paraphernalia and crime TV. Love me anyway, please.

Sipping on:

Sprite on the rocks. Oh, you thought this snarkiness was alcohol-induced?

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Janelle's Latest Posts

Mom Moment
While Boy Scouts Decide the Future of Gay Members, Parents Have a Decision to Make Too

posted by Janelle Harris Thursday at 5:51 PM in Big Kid

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Next week, the Boy Scouts will hold their National Annual Meeting which, like most events of its kind, is an opportunity to put pressing issues on the table for discussion. And when they do, they’ll make a decision that weighs the future of the organization against the regulations of its past: whether or not to lift an existing ban on gay members. Boy Scouts is one in a thinning crowd of holdouts still practicing this brand of exclusionism. At least on paper, other entities have stepped up to support—or, at the bare minimum, tolerate—the LGBT community. If the Scouts’ powers that be move to accept gay boys, it probably will be less because of some great sweep of sensitivity and more due to public pressure and bias-shaming (because we don’t already have enough terms that have “shaming” tacked onto the end).
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Say What!?
Boston Bomber’s Confession Letter Contains Infuriatingly Cruel Comment About His Victims

posted by Janelle Harris Thursday at 10:34 AM in In The News

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One month after bombs shattered the euphoria at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, investigators say suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a note on the wall of the boat he was hiding in before he surrendered to police on April 19. Scrawled in pen, his message—and the makeshift dry board he scribbled it on—were riddled with bullet holes. He himself was bleeding from gunshot wounds he sustained during an earlier shootout between police and his older brother, Tamerlan, the accused co-conspirator in the attacks that senselessly killed three and injured 264. Even down to what could’ve very well been his last moments, Tsarnaev was passionate in his zealotry and dedicated to his cause. And he fired off a whole mini-manifesto about it.
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Love & Learn
10 Reasons I Couldn't Be the 'Older Woman'

posted by Janelle Harris May 9 at 8:59 AM in Love & Sex

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It’s been a while since I shared a misadventure of a single sister in the city but this latest one is a winner. Last month, I went to a birthday celebration in Philly for my not-even-a-year-younger-than-me sister, another product of the infamous babymaker who is my father. Her friends and some of her other siblings crammed into the space she reserved at a Moroccan restaurant and I—all late and wrong since I cut my hair and can’t get the ish to look decent enough for public viewing—sat uncharacteristically quiet in my seat. Even chatterboxes like yours truly get introverted sometimes. Then again, the hair keeps me a little more sedated as of late. Out on the street, one of her other guests approached me to introduce himself. It seemed perfectly innocent, since he mentioned something about applying for a job in D.C., and since I live in D.C., I just figured homeboy was networking.
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Horrifying
5 Ways the Cicadas Are Going to Make Me a Bad Parent

posted by Janelle Harris May 7 at 1:59 PM in Big Kid

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They’re coming. Every other day, it seems, there’s a news box on Google about the impending descent of the II Brood of cicadas, those huge bugs with the bulging red eyes that emerge every 13 or 17 years, depending on where you live, to mate like maniacs, replenish their high-pitch shrieking population, and wreak all kinds of terror on humankind. Specifically me. No, it hasn’t been 17 years yet since we endured their horrifyingly disgusting presence. When we survived the last go-round in 2004, no one was splitting hairs about the possibility of different iterations of those big ol’ nasty things. But we probably should have, because that was Brood X, not expected to intrude again until 2021. Meanwhile, Brood II has been percolating underfoot and once the ground warms to a consistent 64 degrees, they’ll creep up and out and all over the place, and rob entomophobiacs of 3-4 weeks of their summer.
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Eye Roll
Boston Marathon Memorabilia Hits Ebay Because There Are Always Opportunistic Jerks

posted by Janelle Harris April 22 at 9:28 PM in In The News

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In the same amount of time it takes normal folks to fully process the breadth of a tragedy, you can rest assured that the ne'er–do–wells of the world are already devising a way to make money off of it. Usually it’s some kind of capitalistic outsider. But people have stepped up to generate a little money off the back of the Boston Marathon bombings, and they were actual participants. At least seven are selling their 2013 Boston Marathon medals on EBay, drawing the ire of critics who accuse them of trying to cash in on the horrific events. One seller peddles his memento like this: "2013 Official Boston Marathon Finishers Medal given only to qualified runners who finished before the bombing took place." Classy.
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