“And then there's the dying part-the biggest myth of all.
Death, my dad has taught me, is a ruse. A life well-lived is its own reward, and once the transcending spirit lays the worn and weary body down, there is rest and restoration.”- Valerie Boyd
Last night, your final book arrived on my doorstep and I unraveled its packaging like a Christmas gift. I cradled its gentle weight in my hands, afraid to crack the spine and meet you in its pages.
I read your introduction aloud, desperate to hear your voice again, but all I heard was the breaks in my own speech - punctuated by sniffles and a tightness in my chest.
I miss you, desperately, Valerie. May you look over those you love with rest and restoration in the spirit world.
Thank you for leaving this healing work in your absence. Thank you for loving me then, and now.
#biggerthanbravery #valerieboyd #blackjoy #blackresilience #blackgirlmagic
Kristian Contreras
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Keynote address delivered at the New Jersey Women's and Gender Studies Consortium’s Undergraduate Colloquium at The College of New Jersey on March 27, 2026.
Free Palestine.
These last few days have left me with more questions than answers and deepened my commitment to thinking, living, and creating beyond binaries. What we are witnessing with the escalation of violence in historic Palestine moves beyond “conflict” and reductive colonial logics. This violence is rooted in 75+ years of an (illegal) Israeli military enforced occupied apartheid state and over 16 years of Palestine existing as an open-air prison. I have grappled with the right words, the right resources, and how I understand solidarity and accountability beyond identity politics.
I am sitting at the seat of empire as a documented citizen of the United States of America and live on unceded land shepherded by the Tigua Pueblo peoples – right on the border of the United States of America and Mexico. The dehumanization and criminalization of immigrants along this border feels echoed in the nonchalant admission from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that Palestinians are “human animals”, and the normative framing of whose lives are grievable – who we deem innocent and the communities who are disposable. There are no clean equations for human rights and what one’s right to liberation looks like. There are no clean and neutral definitions that make “condemning violence” simple.
Today I became a doctor and I am SO proud of myself - all that I survived, created, achieved, and let go in a journey that took so much from me. Without my people, I would not have made it to my final graduation stage. To my people, I love you:
Explore this collection of resources meant to nurture our mental health and wellness needs. The university works to disappear and exploit Black women intellectuals and I want us to survive the journey in one piece and in peace.
*It's important to note that the design and intention of this thread, originally developed for the Our Sistren's Garden Discord, is not meant to operate in place of mental health professionals and/or services.
This thread on the Our Sistren's Garden serves as a place to share anything "audio" that you keep on repeat or listen to as a reminder of who you are in spite of American academia's commitment to keeping us at the figurative bottom. Maybe its Tina Turner's entire discography (a personal fave), a podcast you love, spoken word, or something in between - share your soundtrack to this season of our lives as emerging scholars!
Please enjoy our playlist, Soundtrack to the Season - a compilation of songs that got us, the sistren of the study, through the journey when we needed inspiration, a pick me up, or an invitation to dance it out.