2411 Search results for "black life"

Meet Ruth E Carter, the Black woman behind the costumes of “Black Panther”‘s Wakanda
Black Panther doesn’t hit the theaters until February 18th, 2018, but that isn’t stopping us from being excited and reviving #BlackPanthersolit every other day on Twitter. An important piece of Wakanda is the culture and the costumes that truly are the lifeblood of the country, just as T’Challa is the face. Enter Ruth E. Carter […]
Comic: Anti-Black feelings about natural hair don’t just affect Black women
Image: "You Need A Haircut" by JeCorey Holder If one more white dude with side-shaves and a Gandalf beard looks at my glorious afro and tells me that I “need a haircut,” I am going to lose my fabulous shit. To them, I say, “Black men can't rock our glorious moisturized curls while you've got [...]
Netflix’s Marsha P. Johnson film rocked by allegations of uncredited use of Black trans woman’s work
Trans and non-binary people, especially those of color and who identify as Black, increasingly experience societal visibility, respect and fame. People increasingly recognize that every human being does not identify as a cisgender woman or a man and present in traditional ways relative those identities. At the same time that average folks outside of trans […]
The violent fat antagonism in Michael Blackson’s terrible “joke” about sexual assault claims
by Alexandria Nicole This essay contains discussion of sexual violence Southern rapper Nelly was arrested on second-degree rape charges this month. As soon as the news hit the airwaves, the internet erupted in a wave of misogynistic victim-blaming, gaslighting, and assumptions about the credibility of the alleged victim based on the rapper’s celebrity status. Among […]
What being Lincoln in a school play taught me about efforts to whitewash Black children in schooling
By George Johnson Anti-Blackness and the “alternative facts” about it did not start when Donald Trump became the 45th President of their United States. For Black children in America, we have only known a history rooted in false narratives, erasure, and the omission of any of our history unless it is first routed through a […]
National Book Awards finalists show that black art matters
Early Wednesday morning the National Book Awards committees cut down their long lists of forty works to the final twenty book selections across Poetry, Fiction, Non-Fiction and Young People’s Literature categories. According to NPR, two legacy winners have already been announced: Annie Proulx, who is being honored with the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American […]
They should be grateful: Black athletes and the right to protest
The culture wars have been in full force since Donald Trump attacked NFL players, calling them “sons of bitches” for kneeling in protest of anti-Black violence during the national anthem. An interesting result of this attack on Black men utilizing their free speech has been the claim that they should instead be grateful for their opportunity to […]
The Black church can engage more Black millennials by bringing politics back into the pulpit
By Maya King For more than two centuries, religious institutions have sat at the intersection of pain and liberation within African-American communities. Churches like Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist and Atlanta’s Ebenezer exemplified this, giving birth to the people and movements that defined the Civil Rights Era while providing political capital and a sense of stability […]
Learning to love myself enough to f*ck raw while Black and HIV positive
By Timothy Duwhite My boyfriend wants to fuck me raw. Though he hasn’t said it yet, eventually he will. Right now, however, he is just a tapestry of hints and subtleties. He asks me if he can just put the head in. He says he just wants to loosen me before slipping on the condom. […]
Black Chicago police officers who took a knee will face reprimand
After Black activist Aleta Clark approached two Black Southside of Chicago police officers to discuss police brutality and racism, the officers did not swiftly state “Blue Lives Matter”, chastise Clark, or ask why she politicized a political issue. Instead, the officers took a photo with her. In the photo posted to her Instagram account, all […]
Throwing off the yoke of respectability politics in single Black mamahood
by Tanya Fields On a daily basis, I have to quiet the voice in my head telling me that I ain’t shit. It constantly compares me to all of the fabulous Black women whose lives I get to witness snippets of on social media and beyond. Women with the alphabet behind their name, posing for […]
Stop expecting Black children to grow up straight & cisgender
By George M. Johnson It was a Sunday night like many others, me sitting at Starbucks finishing up some writing due first thing Monday morning, when a text from my mother came through to our family group chat. It was a picture of me as a young boy, playing Cops and Robbers with my little […]