26 Search results for "imaginations"

by Andrew Keahey Black horror films have a consistent combination of factors that make them successful in the public eye: relatability and catharsis. The elements in our horror movies meant to frighten and upset are often familiar to us, and are scary because the fear is something we have felt before, and often. When the […]

In a first person essay for Vox, former 911 dispatcher Rachael Herron recently wrote about her experiences with racist white people calling the police on Black people in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods. In the wake of white women calling the police on Black people for little or nothing in Oakland, at Yale and in a Philadelphia […]

The ancestors must smile at Black girls like 11-year-old Naomi Wadler and 13-year-old Marley Dias. Both used their creativity and access points in challenging society to ask, “What about the Black girls?”  Many activists, commentators and policymakers lauded Wadler as the most compelling speaker at the recent gun control demonstration March for Our Lives for critiquing […]

By Lewam Dejen As a Black woman, a diasporic transplant and a student in and of the West, I find myself in a sunken place within traditions of “collective history.” I am nowhere in the stories to which I devoted my everything. Many marginalized people know the struggle of holding tightly onto what decidedly unsees […]

By Preston Mitchum This past Pride month marked the one-year anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla. At approximately 2:00 AM, 29-year-old Omar Mateen – who allegedly pledged allegiance to ISIS on a 911 phone call during the hate crime and terrorist attack – walked into Pulse on June 12, 2016, killed 49 […]

This article has been cross-posted with permission. Saturday Night Live is what happens when white people enjoy something that’s anti-Black, systematically bigoted, and generally exclusionary to non-whites. SNL producers thought that throwing in a few Black people who we hoped had home-training would fix it. Because that’s not how white supremacy works. It took me a while to […]

Donald Trump wants to reform the federal government as we know it. This week, Trump proposed very deep cuts to the government while ramping up military and Department of Justice spending. The problem? These cuts hurt everyone, especially low income children and families, as well as the people who voted Trump into office.

As the Obamas wave us all goodbye as they prepare to leave the White House, we’re getting even more intimate looks into the past eight years of their lives. Most recently, Barack and Michelle have been revealed to be on the cover of October’s issue of Essence Magazine. The first couple took the opportunity to speak […]

TW: This story involves graphic imagery. I moved out of Orange County, California nearly two years ago. I don’t miss it. At all. And, on days like today, I am ever grateful that I got out of there when I did. Most people who know me know that I worked “for the Mouse” for five years. […]

Recently American Girl announced their newest doll Melody—a Black girl from Detroit who fights for civil rights and is an aspiring Motown singer. This is the American Girl doll that we have been waiting for, but why did it take so long?

By Dominique Hazzard I am a queer black woman. By this I mean that the words to describe my sexuality exist outside the margins, between the approved boundaries, beyond the limits of most imaginations. A queer thing is a thing that existing words cannot yet adequately describe, a thing that our language and our boxes […]

Dear Black youth, I love you. And I mean you. Not the “you” in other people’s imaginations and expectations, but I mean that I love you for who you really are. I see you for who you are, all of you, and I love you. I love you when you excel in schools that don’t […]