368 Search results for "white lives matter"

How the imagination of the ‘Lovecraft Country’ writer’s room failed us
by Kamilah Bush This essay discusses sexual assault and r/pe. The first episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country is possibly one of the most perfect television pilots of all time, in my opinion. The opening shot, drops us in the middle of a typical enough looking war scene—it is a familiar cinematic landscape with images we […]
Guns too often become tools of intra-communal violence at the hands of cis het Black men
Trigger warning: domestic violence, gun violence, mention of suicide by Donnie Moreland On April 3rd, 1964 and at the Cory Methodist Church, Malcolm X would give one of his most quotable speeches. The speech was titled, The Ballot or the The Bullet. He began with these words, “The question tonight, as I understand it, is […]
Choosing Play is Black radical parenting
by Hess Love “Colonialism, capitalism, the myth of white supremacy and all interwoven systems of oppression, have never allowed for the divine unique spark of children to truly flourish – and they were never designed to. Singing this spark back to us is the quest that many of us spend our adult lives journeying upon. […]
High rates of femicide make it hard to be a Black woman in this world
CW: graphic descriptions of femicide For, while the tale of how we suffer is never new, it always must be heard. -James Baldwin My grandmother once said to me, “the hardest thing anyone can be in this world, is a black woman.” Although I’ve carried these words with me throughout the years, it is now, […]
Scarcity and shame are symptoms of capitalism
Every day I’m resentful of capitalism. And when I say capitalism, I don’t mean the binary, often well-meaning but willfully simplistic response of “Well, you have an iphone don’t you?” (I do not, but that’s besides the point). I mean the ways capitalism and its siblings (environmental and medical racism, antiBlackness and state sanctioned violence) […]
For Black people in the face of all this death, sadness is the work
Recounting sad shit depleted me, so I stopped writing publicly for a long time. I stopped towards the beginning of this absurdity of a year, but I’m still as exhausted as ever. I got tired of feeling like for Black people in the face of all this death, there’s only so much we can do. […]
Comic: Black activists are not your mules
by JeCorey Holder
Direct giving is our legacy. Ignoring that legacy is anti-Black
I come from folks who organized rent parties and bail funds, who put money away for rainy days or times when mamas needed to escape dysfunctional and abusive households. I come from folks who believe in direct giving and show it. Folks who give hugs and offer handshakes in order to exchange money discreetly. Folks who […]
American “heroism” in times of crisis highlights just how disposable we are to the state
by Donnie Moreland As a boy, I remember learning about firefighters. I found their work as spectacular as the graphic novels, and Saturday morning superheroes, which crowded my daydreams. There was no difference between the cape and their fire helmet. And there were enough Black men, dawning the garb and colors of the local fire […]
Accessing competent care is another hurdle Black folks shouldn’t have to navigate
Content Warning: Medical Violence My nana, Ella D. Martin, was a nurse from Greenwood, Louisiana who slept with medical books underneath her bed, and sometimes her pillow. And no matter the time of day, Nana would receive medical emergency calls from folks all over the world, well until she was 80. Though she worked in […]
Now is an opportunity for Black folks to reimagine what constitutes loss
by Donnie Moreland My father is a diabetic, with chronic pain and a fragile immune system due to rounds of dialysis, which cause more pain and thus tosses him into the throws of a cycle which is, observably, hell. He is also a business owner, which necessitates an urgency of decision making, that suffers when […]
Black folks die from broken hearts all the time
*This piece is published in partnership with Breakthrough as part of By & For: Black Youth, a written series documenting the issues affecting Black girls and gender non-conforming youth.* This essay mentions death, suicide and state violence. “Memory is a tough place. You were there. If this is not the truth, it is also not a lie.” […]