This essay contains discussions of sexual assault and racist violence A Black woman was wrongfully terminated this week. Lisa Benson Cooper is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist in Kansas City, Missouri. After working at the same company for fourteen years, she was fired when two white women coworkers complained to HR about an article that […]
According to the Guardian, August 21st marks the beginning of a nineteen-day protest and labor stoppage across the prison populations of American prisons in at least 17 states. The protest, which has largely been organized by the prisoners themselves, is designed to disrupt the system of unpaid labor many prisons in America rely upon to stay […]
By Teju Adisa-Farrar When God made mountains He made runaway slaves — Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia We were not supposed to survive. Last month, AfroPunk published an article about Argentina’s genocide of their Black populations. Unsurprisingly, Argentina is not much different from other countries who have tried to erase their Black populations or their impact […]
My fiance and I are at the point in our engagement where we are pouring over every decision we might possibly ever make together to ensure we are on the same page. I actually don’t know if it’s really just a singular point, or if continual desperate preparation for all imaginable disasters simply defines what […]
I hated summer reading lists growing up — hate is a strong word, but it’s honest.
According to reports from multiple outlets, 18-year-old Nia Wilson was killed by a white supremacist while on her way home in Oakland on July 22nd. As Teen Vogue’s Taylor Crumpton surmises, the brutal attack on Wilson may be connected to an increase in white nationalist activity in the area. Wilson’s sister Latifa was also attacked […]
By Kejhonti Neloms I can never forget the time when your car broke down in the parking lot of those shitty Flaget Apartments across the street from the old folks’ home. It was the West End. It was summer. It was 8AM. I think it was Sprint that fired you. Maybe it was Nextel. I […]
by Tabias Olajuawon This essay contains discussion of anti-Black violences, particularly lynching, and mention of r/pe “… Ancestors, you will find us still in cages, Despised and disciplined. You will find us still mis-named. Here you will find us despite.     You will not find us extinct. You will find us […]
In Brownsville, Texas, an old Walmart sits along the Mexican border. Today, it has been transformed into a safe haven, a lively city, and a home called “Casa Padre” for over 1,400 immigrant children.
by Nathaniel Phillips This essay contains spoilers for Shonda Rhimes’ For The People. A whistleblower is hunted by the US government for stealing highly sensitive information about the deportation of undocumented immigrants—medical records that should’ve been confidential and beyond the purview of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Her lawyer flips the script on the government […]
Editor’s Note: A version of this piece was previously published on The Each Other Project I learned to swim well before I was 14 by taking classes at the local YMCA in East Cleveland. If that rec center was the only frame of reference, you’d think swimming was an exclusively Black phenomenon, the pool being […]
by Tonya McKenzie This essay contains discussions and descriptions of sexual violence, child abuse, and murder There are some things that you never forget, like the sound of a car screeching down the street and slamming into one of your neighbors or the bombastic sound of a gunshot and the sight of the damage that […]