813 Search results for "black music"

How theology based on a “one true god” cuts Black people off from necessary indigenous practices
By DJ Ferguson My mother, no stranger to emotional blackmail, had no hesitation in using it on behalf of her god in an attempt to reconvert me. “Don’t you think God (Yahweh) ever mourns?” she asked, hoping to get me to feel sorry for the possessive West Asian shepherd god whom I no longer worship. […]
The white writer’s misimagination of Black characters in science fiction
by Inigo Laguda This essay contains spoilers for Another Life (2019) and Annihilation (2018) For a writer, I read astonishingly little. I chalk my aversion up to over-inundating myself with books as a boy and filling all my curious voids with grand words and fantastical tales. It’s almost like I nauseatingly engorged myself on literature […]
Faced with commercialization, the Black Punk community turns to its past for a guide to keep resisting
By Monika Estrella Negra The majority of the Black punks I have talked to were drawn to (or got lost in) the Punk scene in order to escape the rigidity and heteronormative idealism of traditional Black political organizing. This is not to infer that all Black punks identify with far leftist views, nor does it […]
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 […]
Black men’s body dysmorphia needs to be discussed more openly among us
by Donnie Moreland This essay discusses body dysmorphia, self-harm ideation, and fatphobia. I remember wanting to drop fire in my belly. Wanting to light a match, open my mouth and drop it in to burn the fat. This was one of the engrossing illusions I obsessed about, from age thirteen until an age very much […]
Shedding the need for white validation and embracing the nuances of Black knowledge
by Inigo Laguda Living Black in the internet age comes with “tipping points” – times where we witness unforgettable instances of prejudicial violence or communal disrespect against those who look like us. For some of us, that tipping point was the murder of Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and/or Korryn Gaines. Some of us won’t have […]
Reflecting on “The Photograph” and Black mother-daughter relationships
by Kui Mwai Full bodied, multilayered, complex Black mother-daughter relationships are rarely captured on screen. It wasn’t until I watched Stella Meghie’s “The Photograph” that I realized just how much I was craving to see something akin to my mother and I’s relationship on film. “The Photograph” invites its viewers into characters Mae (Issa Rae) […]
Comic: Stop trying to insert yourself into Black people’s inside jokes
by JeCorey Holder
How TikTok is ushering in yet another way for youths to don “Digital Blackface”
by Cosima Smith By now many of you will have heard the term “Digital Blackface” a term defined loosely as the movement or expansion of Blackface minstrelsy to the new-age digital platforms we frequent. The “tradition” of minstrelsy dates back to the early 19th century and began as a form of entertainment at the expense of […]
Gameschooling is a critical tool that helps Black children learn
by Tonya Abari Tanya Butler grew up on the backroads of a small, predominantly white Pennsylvania town. Much of her time was spent at her grandparents’ home, playing games with her younger siblings and cousins. Nights filled with shuffling and double-dealing weren’t about winning or losing–they were about learning. Games taught Butler and her […]
Despite appropriation, vampiric whiteness will never be able to suck the blood out of Black art
I haven’t trusted Billie Eilish since I became aware of her nearly a year ago. The context in which I learned about her was a valid and necessary social media post which lamented how fucked up it is that Eilish has apparently gone out of her way to dress “modestly” so as to not be […]
Black and in Vietnam, my hair is not a spectacle
by Adam Mahoney I’ve been living in Vietnam for four months and from the first 30 minutes I arrived in the country, my hair was a problem. I’m a 20 year old junior in college, so when the opportunity to not be in a classroom full of wealthy, white peers presented itself, I jumped at […]