548 Search results for "scene"

Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Black Liberation & Organizing, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. How do we hold politicians accountable to Black communities? Is that even possible? What should be our role in the electoral politics? What does abolition look like in practice? What […]

By Monika Estrella Negra The majority of the Black punks I have talked to were drawn to (or got lost in) the Punk scene in order to escape the rigidity and heteronormative idealism of traditional Black political organizing. This is not to infer that all Black punks identify with far leftist views, nor does it […]

by Kathleen Anaza  Richard Akuson obtained a level of success and visibility that could be the envy of many young people around the world. Before the age of 25, he was a licensed lawyer and opened a boutique PR firm within the Nigerian economy’s all-time highest youth unemployment rate. With all this success, his most […]

This essay contains spoilers for season two of Pose, as well as discussion of transmisogyny. by Avery Ware “On the heels of Pose, so many more folks are aware of ballroom culture and vogue is in vogue again,” says creator, director, and executive producer Steven Canals of FX’s hit series Pose – a drama that […]

By Donnie Moreland “Where do you keep the shells?” Earl whispered. Willis, enamored with the searing heat of a bullet having ripped through his shoulder, seemed to hear his nephew retroactively. “Jesus….Lord.….I can’t remember.” Earl looked back to the door, accepting he was just going to have to wait here. Wait to know their enemy, […]

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 day I thought that Chadwick Boseman was James Brown, he lit up the screen with his rosewood colored skin and small gap. He was not the real James Brown except that he was, for over two hours he was James Brown. “Get On Up” was the first time I’d seen Chadwick’s acting skills, but […]

We search for the body of the ghost’s sister underneath what is left of the fifteen level building. It’s mid morning and the sky is black, its marine layer covered in thick fog and ash. All around us the packed city spreads open like a gate, beckoning. The world is quiet now, with everyone huddled […]

by Kamilah Bush This essay discusses sexual assault and r/pe.  The first episode of HBO’s Lovecraft Country is possibly one of the most perfect television pilots of all time, in my opinion. The opening shot, drops us in the middle of a typical enough looking war scene—it is a familiar cinematic landscape with images we […]

Whether we want to admit it or not, there’s a superficial boundary between professionalism and unprofessionalism that undergirds constant productivity, capital and unhealthy notions of self worth. This boundary exists to reinforce white supremacy, carcerality, punishment, policing and surveillance. The structures that legitimize this faux boundary do so in service of themselves always. All the […]

Trigger warning: domestic violence, gun violence, mention of suicide  by Donnie Moreland  On April 3rd, 1964 and at the Cory Methodist Church, Malcolm X would give one of his most quotable speeches. The speech was titled, The Ballot or the The Bullet. He began with these words, “The question tonight, as I understand it, is […]

I am tired of thinking about and talking about and writing about gender. In fact, sometimes, I wish gender didn’t exist at all. This is an unpopular and unexpected thing for me to say, given the work I do and my background in Gender Studies. Still, it’s true. I don’t want to have to spend […]