3297 Search results for "bet"

Throughout my work creating collages, and scouring the web for meaningful art, I have found thousands of images of unidentified Black people. These photos of Black women, children, men, and their families, are all with unknown origins. The archives show blank faces that stare at the camera, remaining still because the slightest move will ruin […]

The man grabs her arm tightly and presses her against the gate, and in someone’s fantasy this, without context, might have been erotic. I want it to be—for her sake, I’d say if you asked—but I also want it for mine. I do not want to personally get involved in a violent dispute between strangers, […]

by Donnie Moreland The first time I held a gun, I was afraid. The scenario was all too awkwardly cinematic to not be memorable. It was on a vacation with my mother to my grandparents’ South Carolina home. Sitting in their entertainment room, my grandfather entered with two guns. A magnum revolver and shotgun. He […]

By Amber Butts 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 […]

By Terrence F. Chappell “What your mom did to you, you’re doing to me. You treat me exactly the same way your mom treated you.” My sister didn’t yell this to our mother. Her tone was much more purposeful and so it demanded much more attention. Her words authored a truth that forced my mom […]

By Sherronda  J. Brown Seems like every year I learn some new factoid about how plantations operated during the time of chattel slavery of African peoples in the Americas. I inevitably come across another unfortunate piece of knowledge that I wish I never had to know. At the same time, I always understand how it’s […]

by Mustafa Ali-Smith, Originally posted on June 30, 2020 As protests continue on both the national and global scale, widespread call-to-actions ramp up. Dismantling, defunding, and divesting from the police and providing police-free schools are becoming a part of everyday conversations. Early educational institutions have even begun to respond to these call-to-actions by ending their […]

by Alycia Kamil We Speak Our City Back On Language, Gentrification, and Black Presence in Chicago There are stories that arrive already smoothed out. Made digestible for funders, developers, and media outlets. The kind that trades in progress narratives and polished soundbites. This is not that kind of story. This piece opens differently. The voice […]

by Asha Ransby-Sporn A full decade ago this summer, I arrived at a retreat center in the Chicago suburbs with about a hundred other Black organizers, and community leaders from around the country brought together by Cathy Cohen’s Black Youth Project. Not long into former President Barack Obama’s second term, the goal of the gathering […]

by Desmond King   As I lay on the ground, I look at this delicate rose placed by a lamp post. My foggy, ragged breath blurs my vision. My eyes, My mind hover over the rose. Who placed it there? Was it a grieving mother? Childless. Taken. Only a white rose for remembrance.  A flash […]

By Dr. Eve L. Ewing & Damon Young Black Life Everywhere: Chicago, launches with our conversation series spotlighting local cultural and political organizers. This is a prolific and timely discussion between Damon Williams and Dr. Eve Ewing. Listen in as they cover the nuances and celebration of Black Life in Chicago.

Dalvin Aboagye Near the end of May, the more melanin-infused parts of the internet were set ablaze by a questionable scene in the second season of She’s Gotta Have It, the Spike Lee-produced Netflix series based on his 1986 film of the same name. Within what many already saw as a weak portrayal of Black […]