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https://madamenoire.com/1067100/disney-dreamers-academy-2019/
Source: Disney Dreamers Academy / Courtesy of Disney
The Disney Dreamers’ Academy is an annual weekend held in Orlando, FL by Steve Harvey and Essence Magazine in conjunction with Disney. Each year, 100 students and one chaperone of their choice are flown to Orlando for a weekend of motivation and upliftment. With a series of speakers, activities, and surrounded by the magic of Disney, students are encouraged to dream and learn that anything can happen (and often does). The program is diverse, not discriminating against race or gender. The weekend is full: students dive into their interests, network with individuals at the top of their field, and are poured into by everyone from Ruth E. Carter, Lisa Nichols to Brandi Harvey. Applications for 2020 are open and I strongly suggest if you have a high schooler or know a high schooler, that you have them apply to this dynamic program.
If you’re trying to raise a dreamer and want to know what it takes, keep reading. I took the opportunity to speak with 5 young Black women who shared what their parents and caretakers have done to keep them motivated and engaged.
Source: Disney Dreamers Academy / Courtesy of Disney
The Disney Dreamers’ Academy is an annual weekend held in Orlando, FL by Steve Harvey and Essence Magazine in conjunction with Disney. Each year, 100 students and one chaperone of their choice are flown to Orlando for a weekend of motivation and upliftment. With a series of speakers, activities, and surrounded by the magic of Disney, students are encouraged to dream and learn that anything can happen (and often does). The program is diverse, not discriminating against race or gender. The weekend is full: students dive into their interests, network with individuals at the top of their field, and are poured into by everyone from Ruth E. Carter, Lisa Nichols to Brandi Harvey. Applications for 2020 are open and I strongly suggest if you have a high schooler or know a high schooler, that you have them apply to this dynamic program.
If you’re trying to raise a dreamer and want to know what it takes, keep reading. I took the opportunity to speak with 5 young Black women who shared what their parents and caretakers have done to keep them motivated and engaged.
Source: 247PAPS.TV / SplashNews.com / Splash News
If you follow model Slick Woods on Instagram, then you know she’s the sassiest, coolest mom out here, and she’s having quite the adventure raising her son, Saphir (whom she shares with fellow model Adonis Basso). It’s crazy to think that when she was carrying him, she was only aware of his existence near the end of her pregnancy.
In a short essay she wrote about motherhood for Vogue UK in preparation for Mother’s Day (which is actually March 31 across the pond), the 22-year-old shared that she didn’t know she was pregnant because she was told long ago that she wouldn’t be able to have kids.
“I was nearly in my last trimester when I found out I was going to have a baby,” she wrote. “I’d always been told I would never be able to have a child naturally, and it was only when my agent told me I was looking kind of chubby in my bikini at Coachella that I visited my doctor. A few appointments later, a nurse was doing a sonogram. There he was: my son. I started crying tears of joy. I had life in me, and felt like I understood the true power of my body for the first time. If I could bring another human being into this world, nothing was out of reach.”
Woods famously went into labor while preparing to close out Rihanna’s Savage x Fenty show for New York Fashion Week last September. Her labor experience was quite unique, and it wasn’t just because she went from the runway, dressed in pasties, thigh-high stockings and a slinky piece of lingerie, to the hospital. A few famous faces helped her get through it, including her doula, Erykah Badu.
“My last memory before going into the hospital is of Rihanna spanking me with a whip,” she said. “I was already 2cm dilated when I left the show, and I was in labour for another 18 hours. The delivery room was out of control. There was my agent and my baby’s daddy and Erykah Badu on FaceTime, acting as my doula. Then suddenly there he was: my miracle. I have no words for what it felt like to hold him for the first time.”
Woods said raising Saphir has changed her in some major ways, and also helped her to have the familial situation she’s always wanted.
“Every day since, my son has healed me, invigorated me – and helped me come to terms with my past,” she wrote. “I never had a normal family. Now I’ve created my own. Who knew you could miss someone your whole damn life without ever having met them?”
Source: Tasia Wells/Cindy Ord / Getty
“I’ll be damned if I came all the way to Africa to be attacked[d] by a white man,” Brittany Packnett wrote in a tweet on Friday morning, detailing a terrifying encounter her and political strategist Symone Sanders experienced while waiting to board their flight in Nairobi, Kenya.
Sanders, along with Packnett, asserts that they were attacked by a white man in the Delta SkyClub Lounge at the airport. According to tweets from both, the man reportedly doused Packnett with water, pushed her and attempted to charge at them during the attack on Thursday evening.
Sanders said the trouble began when she respectfully asked the man to quiet down, according to an interview she gave with The Root.
“He was speaking loudly and cursing to someone on the phone,” Sanders said.
“The lounge attendant and two other people asked him to quiet down. I interjected after he was rude to the lounge attendant. I leaned over and said, ‘Pardon me. Will you please keep it down?'” she continued.
She said the man began speaking louder and continuously threw up his middle finger in her direction while they were sitting on the same bench. Sanders said that things escalated after a Black female lounge attendant tried to intervene on their behalf.
“So I get up and ask again, ‘Sir, please. This is ridiculous; no one is being rude to you, and you terrorizing the people in this lounge is not OK.’ He continues giving me the middle finger. … I sit down, and then the flight attendant gets back up. Next thing we know, he jumps up and throws his water at the nearest person (Brittany)—like, drenches her whole body, then pushes her down. He lunges at her, then I jump in to defend her. It was terrifying.”
Sanders identified the name of her attacker as a citizen of the United Kingdom via Twitter and gave an update that he was arrested before they boarded their flight.
According to Tweets from Packnett, men who witnessed the exchange finally intervened after their attacker attempted to lunge at them. Sanders and Packnett both say that it took 30 minutes for police to arrive on the scene. Delta has yet to make a statement regarding the issue, even as the women tagged the airline in their Tweets.
After their Tweets sparked a conversation on social media, Packnett wrote about the atrocities that Black women face in relation to their bodies, while experiencing both physical and psychological trauma. All of it compounded with the knee-jerk reaction of not being believed.
While the women undoubtedly had a live-altering trip in the motherland, we hope that Delta will do right by them on account of the racism and aggression that took place on Thursday night.