Warriors reportedly won’t be visiting Trump’s White House

Posted On June 13, 2017 By Keith Reid-Cleveland In Culture, News Flash, Sports /   No Comments

The Golden State Warriors are likely 12 hours into a non-stop celebration that won’t wind down for at least a couple more days. After winning the NBA Finals on Monday night, that’s to be expected. But the team is still making news in other, unexpected ways on the eve its second championship in three years.

Reports are coming out that suggest that the Warrioes have unanimously decided to not visit the White House due to the politics of the Trump administration, according to the Independent.

If true, this would be a huge blow to the presidency in the whole public relations department. When the New England Patriots visited the White House, only a handful of 50-plus players elected to not attend. But if an entire organization is electing to stay home instead, it’s telling of a larger issue [read: Our president is a complete jerk, for lack of more accurate but lesser appropriate words].

Let’s see how long it takes for right-wing “fans” to completely disown their team because they won’t sit down with the Donald. The twitter fingers are probably already getting started.

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Hulu Handmaid's Tale

It’s even harder to watch ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ when you know Black women’s history

Posted On June 12, 2017 By Jenn M. Jackson In Culture, Entertainment /   2 Comments

This article was originally published at Water Cooler Convos.

“I love you. Mommy loves you, Charlotte.”

I watched a character named “Ofwarren” speak those words to a rosey-cheeked baby before jumping from a bridge. She was attempting to end her own life. Ofwarren survived the plunge into the cold waters below. Yet, the image of a mother willing to die, and kill her own child, made the scene especially powerful.

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It’s time to stop trying to integrate ‘SNL’

Posted On June 7, 2017 By Jenn M. Jackson In Culture, Entertainment /   No Comments

This article has been cross-posted with permission.

Saturday Night Live is what happens when white people enjoy something that’s anti-Black, systematically bigoted, and generally exclusionary to non-whites. SNL producers thought that throwing in a few Black people who we hoped had home-training would fix it. Because that’s not how white supremacy works. It took me a while to put all that together though.

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Yara Shahidi is headed to Harvard this fall

Posted On June 7, 2017 By Keith Reid-Cleveland In Culture, Entertainment, Featured Article /   No Comments

Yara Shahidi, the Black-ish actress and soon-to-be star of her own spin-off, is headed to Harvard College this fall. While her character is headed to the fictional California University of Liberal Arts, Shahidi will be on the other side of the country.

“I committed to Harvard and I’m really excited!” Shahidi told ET in an interview.

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Keep your white friends and partners away from Black Pride events

Posted On May 31, 2017 By Hari Ziyad In Culture, Featured Article, Featured Post /   96 Comments

This June marks the 48th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, a series of violent acts of resistance in New York City credited with sparking the modern Gay Rights Movement. The uprisings, led mostly by trans people of color and drag queens, are commemorated each year with celebrations across the globe during what is known as Pride Month. For many LGBTQQIA+ people, this is a time to reaffirm their right to life and liberty against the backdrop of anti-queer stigma and violence they experience at the hands, knife- and gun-points of society-at-large.

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Liberation is a 3-step process: Broadening activism’s scope in the wake of the Movement for Black Lives

Posted On May 25, 2017 By Alyxandra Goodwin In Culture, Featured Article, Politics /   No Comments

Contrary to popular belief, the Movement for Black Lives is not solely about police brutality. Bigger than body cameras and electoral politics, the Movement is about Black liberation and freedom for all Black people.

Liberation and freedom are unconventional in the sense that the system under which society currently operates makes those two realities impossible. In order to achieve them we need radical transformation, but how do we get there?

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The forgotten collateral of exhuming the Black dead through art

Posted On May 3, 2017 By Hari Ziyad In Art, Culture, Featured Article /  2 No Comments

My best friend’s brother was murdered in 2012. We shared a birthday and the Blackness for which he was killed. My mother might say the fact that we didn’t share the same fate is only by the grace of God. I wonder what kind of God saves one mother’s Black boy just to take one away from another and calls that grace.

I am reminded of my precarious Black life, seemingly hinging on a senseless God’s whims, whenever my friend’s brother’s name is evoked. You see, Trayvon was the reason #BlackLivesMatter erupted with such force it was able to stop so many from forgetting what  makes them not matter. And, like many Black folks in my generation, Trayvon Martin’s death and his murderer’s acquittal marked a vital juncture in my social awakening. If it weren’t clear before, the disregard for Martin’s life by Zimmerman, the media, and finally, the state, made plain just how long we had been walking in place when it came to the liberation of Black communities.

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Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad

There’s a deeper message behind that Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad

Posted On April 5, 2017 By Jenn M. Jackson In Clip of the Day, Culture, Featured Article, News Flash /   No Comments

What do you get when you mix a thin, pretty, young, celebrity model (from the Kardashian brood no less) with a corporatized imaginary protest? If you guessed trash, congratulations. That’s what Pepsi gave us. You also get a glimpse of the image many white people have in their minds of corporations, consumers, and social issues. And, it’s a major problem.

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