Mikki Kendall (born October 23, 1976) is an author, activist, and

cultural critic A cultural critic is a critic of a given culture, usually as a whole. Cultural criticism has significant overlap with social and cultural theory. While such criticism is simply part of the self-consciousness of the culture, the social positions of ...

. Her work often focuses on current events, media representation, the politics of food, and the history of the feminist movement. Penguin Random House published her graphic novel ''Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists'' in 2019, while her political nonfiction book '' Hood Feminism'' was released in early 2020.

Early life and education

Kendall was born in Chicago, Illinois on October 23, 1976 and was raised in the

Hyde Park Hyde Park may refer to: Places England * Hyde Park, London, a Royal Park in Central London * Hyde Park, Leeds, an inner-city area of north-west Leeds * Hyde Park, Sheffield, district of Sheffield * Hyde Park, in Hyde, Greater Manchester Austra ...

neighborhood of Chicago. Kendall is a 2005 graduate of the

University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. Kendall also has a Masters in Writing and Publishing from

DePaul University DePaul University is a private university, private, Catholic higher education, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Congregation of the Mission, Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-centu ...

Career

A veteran of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

, Kendall worked in government service until 2013 when she left her job at the

Department of Veterans Affairs The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a Cabinet-level executive branch department of the federal government charged with providing life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 170 VA medical centers and ...

to pursue her writing career full-time. Kendall is currently an essayist and cultural critic. She has written for ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'',

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

, ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'', ''

Bustle A bustle is a padded undergarment used to add fullness, or support the drapery, at the back of women's dresses in the mid-to-late 19th century. Bustles are worn under the skirt in the back, just below the waist, to keep the skirt from dragging. ...

'', ''

Essence Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...

'' and Eater (with her essay in Eater "Hot Sauce in Her Bag" named a Best Food Essay by the Association of Food JournalistsAFJ winners in 2018 Food Journalism Competition
Association of Food Journalists website, accessed September 20, 2019.). She has appeared as a cultural commentator on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

, ''

Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English (AJE; ar, الجزيرة‎, translit=al-jazīrah, , literally "The Peninsula", referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is an international 24-hour English-language news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is own ...

'', and the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

. She is recognizable as a member of

Black Twitter Black Twitter is an internet community largely consisting of African-American users on the social network Twitter focused on issues of interest to the black community in the United States.André Brock"From the Blackhand Side: Twitter as a Cultural ...

. Kendall is also the creator of the viral

Twitter hashtag Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

s #SolidarityIsForWhiteWomen, which criticized racism in the feminist movement, as well as #FastTailedGirls, a reference to the hypersexualization of Black girls, and #FoodGentrification, about the marginalization of traditional foods by commercial interest. Kendall edited the science-fiction anthology ''Hidden Youth'' for Crossed Genres Press in 2016. Kendall's graphic novel history ''Amazons, Abolitionists, and Activists: A Graphic History of Women's Fight for Their Rights'' was released in November 2019 by Ten Speed Press and her political-nonfiction book '' Hood Feminism: Notes From the Women That a Movement Forgot'' was released in February 2020 by Viking Books. It criticizes the feminist movement for being largely "the province of the privileged" and ignoring problems that disproportionately impact communities of color, including poverty, housing, medical care, and racism.

Awards and honors

*2017: Best Food Essay Award from the Association of Food Journalists for "Hot Sauce in Her Bag: Southern Black identity, Beyoncé, Jim Crow, and the pleasure of well-seasoned food"

Bibliography

Books

Recent essays

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kendall, Mikki 1976 births Living people 21st-century American women writers University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign alumni DePaul University alumni DC Comics people Marvel Comics writers Writers from Chicago 21st-century African-American women writers 21st-century African-American writers 20th-century African-American people 20th-century African-American women