2918 Search results for "doe"

*Please note that below this essay on colorism is a list of dark skinned Black folks’ GoFundMes you can contribute to today.* Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs – all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured. – The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison  The […]

by Donnie Moreland “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses.” In Demetrius’s head, the words spun like a tired wheel, as he walked the corners of the room. Like a drum, Marcus’s voice bounced as though he were still alive. “Art museums are nothing more than haunted houses. All museums are, really. But there […]

by Imani Brooks When I fell into depression, questioning if I was strong enough for law school, it was virtual affinity groups that saved me. Five days after graduating from Emory University, I moved to Washington, D.C. in a full U-Haul complete with my dad and dog in tow. I was looking forward to the […]

Whether we want to admit it or not, there’s a superficial boundary between professionalism and unprofessionalism that undergirds constant productivity, capital and unhealthy notions of self worth. This boundary exists to reinforce white supremacy, carcerality, punishment, policing and surveillance. The structures that legitimize this faux boundary do so in service of themselves always. All the […]

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 […]

RaceBaitr editor-in-chief and writer Hari Ziyad describes their upcoming book Black Boy Out of Time (Little A, March 1, 2021) as part memoir, part social commentary, but its ambitions push it beyond even this genre-bending interpretation. What began as an attempt to detail their life as a Black queer person growing up with 18 siblings […]

“Sex is what makes us human.”  This, of course, is an absurd claim. And yet, it’s a lie that many believe. A lie that I have heard many times, in one form or another. I continually find myself having to argue that sex and sexuality are not and never will be factors in whether or […]

In my family, we have a tradition of cooking and sitting with the grieving, especially when they have no words. Especially when the tears have been ripped out and the well to produce more has disappeared. We honor the lives of the folks who’ve been lost, beaten, and violently shredded from this world by sitting […]

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. […]

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 Dom Alexander Rummaging through a dead man’s possessions is, perhaps, the strangest thing I’ve ever done. I sit on the floor in his room. The setting, orange sun seeps through the window. I breathe in the pungent cologne, still clinging onto curtains. The carpet sinks, coinciding with the dancing footsteps of a ghost, stepping […]

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) […]