1541 Search results for "hood"

Blackkklansman continues the tradition of letting white women off the hook
by Josie Pickens Most Black folks of a certain age, who slowly crept towards adulthood in the nineties, have a soft spot for writer, director, producer and actor Spike Lee. I needed Lee’s movies, and his contemporary representation of Black life. The film She’s Gotta Have It aided me in understanding who I was becoming […]
DA reverses sheriff’s decision not to charge white man who killed Black man over FL parking space
Florida’s notorious “Stand Your Ground” law has faced renewed criticism for allowing a white man, Michael Drejka, to fatally shoot an unarmed Black man, Markeis McGlockton, after McGlockton pushed Drejka away from harassing his girlfriend and child. Almost a month after the fatal shooting, Drejka was finally charged on manslaughter by state prosecutors. As the […]
Hulu documentary ‘Minding the Gap’ powerfully explores the effect of toxic masculinity on boys
Minding the Gap, a documentary by Bing Liu, follows what happens to Liu and his two friends Zack and Keire as they grow up in the rust belt town of Rockford, Illinois. The film traces the violence, poverty and trauma that affected their formative years and continues to affect them as they enter adulthood. The […]
Our reactions to Black men embracing in public highlight Black masculinity’s dehumanizing expectations
by Daniel Johnson The topic of masculinity, what it is and how it is expressed in both immediate and popular culture, is one that always seems to be spurred on or perhaps made more visible by conversations which happen on social media, usually centering around how men showing each other affection seems to be taboo. […]
You are worth more than what you did today despite what anti-Black capitalism says
By Jae Nichelle We have all seen some version of the same thing on social media: praise for someone who is “self-made,” any iteration of the phrase “we all have the same 24 hours” or someone promoting their personal brand. Society normalizes the idea that “success” only comes from breaking our backs day in and […]
Reclaiming my imagination: a story of a Black nerd who once hated summer reading
I hated summer reading lists growing up — hate is a strong word, but it’s honest.
Saying “I am not my ancestors” blatantly disrespects how they lived and died for us
Ja’Loni Amor Owens In 2016, arguably the peak of activist apparel’s popularity, a number of businesses began to sell t-shirts, crewnecks, tote bags, buttons, pins and stickers with variations of the following: “I am not my ancestors; you can catch these hands”. It is understandable why variations of this phrase caught on so quickly. The […]
I thought my transness would betray my Blackness. I was wrong.
by Indigo If I were to introduce myself to anyone today, I would introduce myself as Loni. I would introduce myself as a non-binary afro-boricua whose gender pronouns are exclusively they, them, and theirs. I would introduce myself as someone who is unafraid to correct anyone who refers to me by my given name, or […]
We need to challenge fat antagonism in Black activist spaces
by Denarii Grace “I am sick and tired of being sick and tired.” These words, uttered by legendary Black civil rights leader Fannie Lou Hamer, have become as much a part of Black languages and cultural understandings, both past and present, as “lit,” “bumboclaat,” and “the bomb.” Her expression of the ongoing oppression of Black […]
Letter to my Black mother who wants me to forgive the world when I saw it try to kill her
By Kejhonti Neloms I can never forget the time when your car broke down in the parking lot of those shitty Flaget Apartments across the street from the old folks’ home. It was the West End. It was summer. It was 8AM. I think it was Sprint that fired you. Maybe it was Nextel. I […]
95 bodies—how sanitizing slavery keeps America’s hands clean
The remains of ninety-five Black people were recently found buried at a construction site in Sugar Land, Texas. The vast majority of reports about this discovery neglect to call these dead Black people what they really were: enslaved. This essay contains discussions of racialized state violence, slavery, and lynching. “African-American forced laborers” have […]
Remains of 95 Black “convict lease laborers” who were basically post-Civil War slaves found in Texas
Note: Many articles covering this event note that the men and a few women who are the subjects of this piece were identified as contract laborers, but in this historical and sociological context, these people were enslaved, still doing hard plantation labor with no compensation and not out of their own free will. According to […]