68 Search results for "old town road"

Three Ways to Love Black
by Benji Hart 1. I’m a teenager, attending the annual Kwanzaa celebration at Amherst College, the small private school where my dad is a professor. A modest band of Black students and faculty have gathered for dinner in the Octagon. The plaster building, lemon meringue in both color and texture, was reclaimed […]
We were Transformed, but was the World? Reflecting on a Decade of Black-led Movement
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 […]
Anti-Blackness knows no borders: How nation-centric understandings of Blackness fails us
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 […]
The Metamorphosis of Marie Martin
For the second year in a row, Fix—Grist’s solutions lab—put out a call for short stories for their climate- fiction contest: Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors. Writers from across the globe activated their creativity and imaginations to offer visions of sustainability, justice, and hope. Dive into this story, The Metamorphosis of Marie Martin, […]
Anti-Asian Violence—it runs deeper than hate
by Diane Wong Since the start of the pandemic, there has been an alarming increase and series of violent hate crimes against Asian Americans. In the last two months alone, Pak Ho a 75 year old Chinese American was killed in Oakland Chinatown, Vicha Ratanapakdee a 84 year old Thai man was violently shoved to […]
Inland, a short story
by Vernon Jordan, III She sat in the back of the joint, eyeing him. From over the shoulder of his bass, he noticed her fingers around the rim of a glass, miming the bass notes. He was the player, but so was she. Rooted, was their first glance, she minded him the way trees mind […]
The work must be intergenerational
“Some things you forget. Other things you never do. But it’s not. Places, places are still there. If a house burns down, it’s gone, but the place–the picture of it–stays, and not just in my remory, but out there, in the world. What I remember is a picture floating around out there outside my head. […]
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 […]
Black people aren’t resistant to mental health treatment. We’re resistant to framing it as a cure
I was stressed. I was broke. I’d just confronted my parents with my queerness, and they responded by refusing to support my education. And since enrolling at NYU’s film school, my film-maker dreams were eroding in the face of structural barriers erected by white supremacy. I was bouncing to and from mental health crises. Everything […]
After graduating college, I received my best education from my uncle and his books
by Daniel M. Johnson Lesson 1: Origins 1964-65 was a volatile time for Betty Shabazz. The conclusion of the winter saw her gazing at her husband’s corpse, riddled with bullets, leaving her to care for her four, soon to be six, daughters. Just into her 30s, she moved to Mount Vernon, NY to continue her […]
How one online community has channeled their misogynoir into the “Save Yourself Black Men” movement
by Aaron Fountain This essay contains quotes with extremely hateful rhetoric against Black women Wearing a helmet that covers his face and talking over a compilation of photographs of Black men with mostly white women, Youtuber MadBusDriverX frequently tell his listeners “save yourself Black men.” Save themselves from what, one might ask. The answer is […]
These 2 films reveal the powerful ways Black queer women find pleasure despite heteronormative violence
By Kim M Reynolds Audre Lorde defines the erotic as a “creative source,” something that is incredibly generative and “self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society.” The erotic functions as a respect for life, a recognition and practice of intentionality and sense of love that combats the individualistic and oppressive world […]