204 Search results for "strategy"

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 […]

Black Life Everywhere Black Life Everywhere (BLE) works with creators to preserve and present nuanced representations that are expressive of Black life. We see music, film, animation, photography, poetry, interviews and writing as integral to how we communicate and tell stories. For us, these varying forms of expression are legitimate and necessary instruments to produce […]

by Jamila Dawn Mitchell  Every year, 90% of the 250,000 people held in Illinois jails are incarcerated pretrial, prior to actual convictions, putting the rate of pretrial incarceration far above the national average of 67%. The percentage of pretrial detentions range county to county – with 51% of the jail population in Tazewell County and […]

by Aaron Jamal  E pluribus unum — Latin for “Out of many, one.” Included in the Great Seal of the United States in 1776. The political system of the United States is in a state of perpetual crisis. The state of Tennessee has proposed a new bill that will drastically limit the voting power of […]

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 Shae De Pass Content Warning: this article contains discussions of abuse and sexual assault The “separating art from the artist” debate – which is usually mentioned in light of celebrity wrongdoing – is nothing new. However, it seems to come up more often as we are constantly exposed to the intimate life details of celebrities. […]

      by Nakia Edmond Growing up in a Christian household, I was conditioned never to let the sun go down on my anger as it may provide an opportunity for the Devil. (Ephesians 4:26-27). Vengeance solely belonged to the Lord. However, on June 1st, 2020, those guiding principles came under scrutiny as protesters […]

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 […]

Recounting sad shit depleted me, so I stopped writing publicly for a long time. I stopped towards the beginning of this absurdity of a year, but I’m still as exhausted as ever. I got tired of feeling like for Black people in the face of all this death, there’s only so much we can do. […]

by Donnie Moreland There is a whispered binding between Black folks and the truth. Less truth, in that meta-ethical way we discern the spiritually evidential as Black folks, but truth telling. The expressions, negotiations and altercations with, and of, “facts.” How we tell the truth, digest it and confirm that truth as just that; gospel.  […]

 by Imade Nibokun Black people invented mental health treatment before the “pray it away” stigma and the white supremacy that produced it. While Black folks continue to address the stigmas attached to mental illness, we must also acknowledge that Black mental health practitioners existed first. The first known physician in history is an Egyptian architect […]

  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 […]