What made you want to return to Birmingham?

A few weeks ago someone asked me that question and I realized I didn’t know how to answer it.

This question is not the same as someone asking what brought me back to Birmingham. I know how to answer that.

Unhappy with the lack of opportunity for advancement at my newspaper job, I decided to pursue another career goal of mine: teaching. When my husband discovered that the Alabama School of Fine Arts was hiring an English teacher I jumped at the chance to work at my alma mater.

I can say without exaggeration that the Alabama School of Fine Arts changed my life. I left that school not only with a great education, but also a strong sense of self  and the courage and confidence to be true to who I am. I poured my passion for the school onto the pages of my cover letter and within a few weeks I had been interviewed for the job and hired.

I suppose you could say I wanted to return to Birmingham so I could give back to the school that gave so much to me. But when I left Alabama at the age of 22 I had no intentions of ever coming back. And I spent my first year back in Birmingham regretting my decision to return to my hometown.

Why is my water bill so expensive? Why is my rent more than the average house note? Why is Alabama still taxing groceries? Will Birmingham City Schools ever improve? Why does this city still feel so segregated decades after Jim Crow?

Then I found my people.

In my latest post for WBHM I explore my loving yet complicated relationship with Birmingham and how finding my people made my hometown finally feel like home. 

It was the summer of 2002, and I was probably on hour three of the tedious process of attempting to straighten my hair with all the heat my scalp could stand. This, of course, was in addition to the chemical hair relaxer occasionally applied to my tresses. While I wrestled with my hair, my roommate turned to me and said, "Maybe your hair doesn't want to be straight. Why don't you just wear it curly?"

Those words changed everything.

I was 21 at the time, and in my two decades of living no one had ever suggested that wearing my hair in its naturally curly state was OK. Many black girls grow up with everyone from the media to their mommas telling them that pretty hair is straight hair. So when an African American woman decides - as I did that summer - to forego straightening her hair with chemical relaxers, it can feel like a revolutionary act. Or even a spiritual experience.

"It's not just a hairstyle, it's a lifestyle," says Victor Simmons. Simmons and his brother, Jeffrey Simmons, started the Visions Natural Hair & Health Expo in Birmingham three years ago.

In my latest post for WBHM I discussed my decision to go natural 12 years ago and chatted with the creators of the Visions Natural Hair & Health Expo. Read the complete post and hear an excerpt my on-air segment here.

Did you catch me on WBHM today discussing my everyday fitness challenge?
If not, hear an excerpt of the interview here. 

This morning on WBHM 90.3 FM, Birmingham's NPR affiliate, discussing my 365 days of fitness challenge. As I announced at the start of the year, in 2014 I plan to exercise every single day. I am a guest blogger for WBHM's website and for my latest post -- Strong Is the New Skinny -- I explained why I'm embarking on this challenge and had a chat with fitness professional Kelly Creel for some guidance. Creel, who is the co-owner of Inspire Fitness Birmingham, actually doesn't think I'm crazy for planning to work out daily. 

"The human body was engineered for movement, so moving it every day in some form, even if that’s at a light intensity, is a wonderful goal,” Creel said. She did, however, give me some tips on how to prevent injury during my challenge. She recommended light workouts such as restorative yoga or a leisurely walk outside once or twice a week. She also said I should let myself off the hook and take a break if I’m sick.

At this point I've been exercising daily for a month and I'm loving it! If the idea of working out every day sounds absolutely miserable, you probably need to change your idea of exercise. If I were on the treadmill (or dreadmill, as I call) every day or the boring elliptical 7 days a week I would absolutely hate this and probably wouldn't have lasted one week. But for the past month exercise has meant going for a run on my favorite trail, going for a walk with a friend, and grooving and moving with the Wii game Just Dance. It's meant Spinning classes and yoga. It's meant building strength with Jillian Michaels DVDs.  

When I was in college I taught group fitness classes and each time I laced up my sneakers and put on that microphone headset I was in a zone. There was no care or concern that my Funk Aerobics class couldn't dance away. 

But somewhere along the way I started viewing exercise as something that I had to do to shed the extra weight I picked up over the years and tone up muscles that were no longer as firm as they were in college. 

This month, however, I have rediscovered the joy of exercise. Exercise is a privilege. It's a privilege to have a body that, for the most part, moves when and how I want it to. It's a privilege to be able to afford Spinning and yoga classes, running shoes and even $10 Jillian Michaels DVDs. It's privilege to have free time that I may use to do things I love to make my body feel good. Working out isn't something I have to do; it's something I get to do. 

If you missed my interview this morning, I believe it will air again this evening around 5:30 p.m. Tune in! 

Earlier this year, I blogged about how Public Radio WBHM 90.3 FM saved my relationship with radio. 

This year, I was also tapped to blog on race and diversity issues for wbhm.org and I've been writing on topics such as Black History Month, feminism, interracial marriage, and GirlTrek. 

And this summer WBHM was a sponsor for the See Jane Write Magazine launch party. 

My local NPR station has certainly been good to me and now it's time I return the favor. 

The WBHM Fall 2013 Membership Campaign is going on now through Oct. 19 and on Tuesday, Oct. 15 I will be on air between 4 and 6 p.m. to help raise financial support for the station. 

Donations of any amount are much appreciated and you can opt to give a one-time gift or monthly contributions. If you give $90 or more you'll receive a pint glass featuring original artwork by  Véronique Vanblaere of Naked Art Gallery! 

I'd love if some of my friends and followers would call 800-444-9246 or visit wbhm.org while I'm on the air to make a donation. Or if you'd like to pledge your support in advance, please visit my personal pledge page: 

https://wbhm.org/guest/javacia_harris_bowser

Be sure to tune in on Tuesday, Oct. 15. 

On Feb. 12, 2012 I ran a half-marathon. And I ran 13.1 miles mostly because so many people had told me I couldn't. 

I have a connective tissue disease that causes my joints to be in a great deal of pain most days, even from just walking or sitting. So imagine how tough running can be on my body. Nonetheless, I refused to take no for an answer. I found a new doctor, one who's also a runner and thus understood my obsession and could offer helpful advice. I wasn't going to let this disease or the naysayers in my life tell me I couldn't check off this item on my bucket list. And in February of 2012 I did. 

Then I wanted to do it again. 

But as I tried to train for Birmingham's 2013 Mercedes Half-Marathon it wasn't just family members and friends objecting. My body was objecting too. The pain that I'd learned to live with became more intense and some days nearly unbearable. 

I didn't let this keep me from being active. I still exercised daily, but running was just too much. I put my running shoes on the shelf for a few months and recently tried to get back into the swing of things. My knees, my ankles, and my hips just weren't having it. I began to wonder if this meant I'd never cross a finish line again. 

Then I discovered GirlTrek. 

GirlTrek is a national nonprofit organization striving to inspire black women and girls to live healthy lives simply by walking. GirlTrek launched two years ago and through social media campaigns has grown to include over 17,200 women who are logging their walks online. 

There's a chapter of GirlTrek here in my hometown of Birmingham and I started attending some of their walking sessions for my mom -- I want her to be more active for the sake of her health. Little did I know GirlTrek would end up being an even bigger help for me. 

First, GirlTrek inspired my latest story for WBHM, Birmingham's NPR station. 

But GirlTrek also inspired me to reconsider my goal of completing another half-marathon. What if, I asked myself while on a solo trek at my favorite walking trail, I walked a half-marathon? This certainly isn't unheard of, but for some reason it had never crossed my mind. 

And so I decided that I will complete another half-marathon, even if I have to walk the entire race. 

One of the things I find so empowering about GirlTrek is its mantra: “When black women walk, things change.”

As the GirlTrek website declares, “Things changed when Harriet Tubman walked. Things changed when boycotters in Montgomery walked. When we walk, things WILL change.”

Now that I'm taking this new approach to one of my goals I've been wondering if I need to do the same with other aspirations as well. What would happen if I, if we, thought outside the box more and got more creative about how we will achieve our dreams?

I think I know what would happen: things would change; we would change and then we'd change the world.

A feminist in a dress! Gasp!

Can a black woman be a feminist?

I've been told on more than one occasion that the answer to that question is "No!" Last week I shared my story of being told I can't be a feminist because I'm black in a blog post for Birmingham's NPR station WBHM. When someone tells me, however, that I don't look like a feminist -- and I get that comment a lot -- they usually aren't talking about my race. 

Back when I worked for a weekly lifestyles magazine in Louisville, I frequently wrote articles that might have caused female readers to raise their fists in the air and yell "Girl power!" I quickly became known for as the paper's resident feminist. 

Yet, when a young woman from another department came to our office to discuss an idea she had for a women's empowerment project she went to the female reporter who sat in the cubicle next to mine.  She even said to my colleague, "I know you write a lot about feminism and that it's something very important to you." Everyone in the office, including my colleague to whom she was speaking, stared at her with confused looks on their faces. Then my colleague pointed to me and said, "Javacia writes about women's issues. Not me. You're probably talking about her articles." The look of shock on her face was priceless. 

When this woman came to our office in search the resident feminist she didn't even bother asking anyone to point her in the right direction. She walked directly to my colleague. Did she assume that I couldn't have been the feminist writer because I'm black? Possibly, but I doubt my race had much to do with it. 

My co-worker only wore neutral colors and never wore makeup or heels. She also refused to shave her arm pits or legs. Meanwhile, I was probably sitting there in a floral top, trendy jeans and pumps. I'm sure my eyeshadow was perfectly color coordinated with my outfit and my cubicle looked like the color pink had thrown up all over it. In other words, I'm sure that woman didn't come to me because she didn't think I looked like a feminist. 

Can a woman be both feminist and so-called feminine? Absolutely! And frankly I'm tired of having this conversation. It's getting old, people.

Julia Gazdag recently addressed this topic quite wonderfully in a post for Hello Giggles and in that article referenced a quote from Caitlin Moran who reminds us that "the purpose of feminism isn't to make a particular type of woman." 

Gazdag goes on to say: 

The idea that women cannot express their femininity and be autonomous is really saying that women must emulate men to have a voice, when in fact, the goal of feminism is for every woman to feel empowered as a person instead of feeling gendered.

Amen. 

I believe in the equality of the sexes and this is what makes me a feminist. Period. Writing and empowering other women to write is what I consider my calling and this calling has become my form of feminist activism. The validity of my work should not be questioned simply because the finger tips typing my feminist texts are adorned with fuchsia nail polish. 

Image by Stephen Barnett via Flickr/Creative Commons

"I think I'm in love with my radio

Cause it never lets me down

And I fall in love with my stereo

Whenever I hear that sound"

- "Radio" by Beyonce

When I was a teenager I believed no one could love me like my radio.

It was always there for me. I listened to the radio while getting ready for and riding to school each morning. My radio made evening homework sessions go by faster and every night my radio sang me to sleep.

I still have fond memories of calling my favorite DJ to request my favorite song and then waiting by the radio with a blank cassette in the tape deck so I could record the highly anticipated track.

R&B ballads by the likes of Mariah Carey gave me fuel for all the sad, angst-filled love poems I wrote  back then. And the anthems sang by girl groups like TLC stirred within me a sense of self-pride that would eventually blossom into my feminism.

Then one day everything changed. Radio and I grew apart.

I could try to blame it all on mainstream music.  I could say rap music became too sexist and senseless and that pop and R&B became too trite. But, truthfully, I'm the one who changed. My favorite artists became folks like Ani DiFranco, musicians who don't get mainstream radio airplay.  And club bangers started to give me a headache.

So I turned off my radio.

Enter WBHM, Birmingham's NPR station.

I admit that in the past I was never a huge NPR fan because I felt the radio was supposed to be a source of escape and entertainment. As I grew older I started tuning in to NPR for updates on major news events, but was still far from a loyal listener.

But when I moved back to my hometown of Birmingham I decided to give WBHM a chance. I quickly got hooked on station's programming and was impressed by events like Issues & Ales.

Radio and I began to rekindle the flame.

I am a fan of good music for the same reason that I am a writer -- I love stories. And WBHM is always telling me an intriguing tale whether it's about life for children in Palestine or the story of a gay man being reunited with his siblings after being cast out the family by his ultra conservative father. Just yesterday I learned about the evolution of hand dryers and last week I began my day listening to an inspiring interview with Sonia Sotomayor.

I've become one of those people who are almost late for work because they're sitting in the parking lot in their cars enraptured by an NPR feature report. Every weekend I look forward to listening to the word game Says You.

But what about music? Well, if it weren't for WBHM I would have never learned about the artist Kendra Morris, whose album Banshee was one of my favorite releases of 2012.

Now WBHM and I are taking our relationship to a new level. We're really making things official. I've signed on to be a Race & Diversity blogger for the station's website. You can check out my debut post here.

And I leave you with this...