132 Search results for "media studies"

by Jenn M. Jackson, PhD Almost a decade ago, I said goodbye to my editing position here at Black Youth Project. I was 33 years old, working on the final edits of my dissertation at the University of Chicago titled “Race, Risks, and Responses: Mapping Black American’s Reactions to Policing in the United States.” My […]

In the United States, police kill over 1,000 and injure more than 51,000 people each year, with evidence suggesting that these figures could be underreported by as much as 55%. In addition to these numbers being substantially higher than other developed nations, unfortunately, they are also plagued by biases and systematic failures which disproportionately affect […]

The Price of Presence: Notes From Atlanta’s Strip Economy Notes From An Urban Feminist A year ago I landed in Atlanta, Georgia without my three children, my husband or community. I arrived with four luggages in tow, and although I considered myself a fully realized feminist whose identity could stand alone, I felt like something […]

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 […]

This essay contains spoilers for See You Yesterday, Siempre Bruja, Mortal Kombat 11, and Kindred, as well as discussions of sexual violence and anti-Black state violence.    I was eighteen, a freshman in college studying film and visual arts, and deeply interested in the history of both. A film studies professor asked the class one […]

by Donnie Moreland I’m entering my apartment lot, around 9:45 PM, having returned from the gym. My vision often obscured around this time, I’m hurried to brake as two figures creep along in front of me. The two feel my headlights on their backs, thus they oblige my curiosity, and turn around. They are Black […]

*Editor’s note: This piece has been deeply informed by conversations with my friend and colleague Preston Anderson through the years, among other things. A few months ago, I posted a Facebook status regarding a viral meme featuring Disney’s cartoon version of Pocahontas and John Smith, arguing that it promoted white supremacist ideas of interracial relationships […]

by Donnie Moreland  “I get harassment as a woman and I get the extra harassment because of race and being a black woman. They will call white women a ‘c*nt’ and they’ll call me a ‘n*gger c*nt’.” – Imani Gandy, Rewire.News “You’re a fucking fat ass nigger. Hang yourself bitch.” – Anonymous

by Donnie Moreland  Two Black men, their naked bodies shifting in-between spaces where shadows were not obstructed by an abrasive key-light. The slow moving image stripped bare of any noise aside from my own breath. Even still, their bodies colliding, their grunting, their moaning—though I could not hear—shook me as thunder might. I was disquieted, […]

This essay contains discussions of racialized sexual violence and mentions r/pe by Donnie Moreland There is this thing with us, as Black men. This war. Well, less war and more an inter-communal pogrom, wherein any Black man who shows no desire to lay with women exclusively is designated a cancer, subject to extermination. The prevention […]

By Donnie Moreland Only on nights like this, could “sweet” be an adjective to describe the air. A prize, really. All those brothers, shoulder to shoulder on the Mall, and you can imagine how much funk can stew in a day. But a soft wind started everyone on their way back from where they began […]

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 […]