by Kathleen Anaza I feel a sense of healing and reconciliation when I consider Halimat’s life outside of being my mother. My own navigations of womanhood help me contextualize her as a nuanced and fascinating individual I can relate to. Positioning her as a peer, makes it difficult to be the hypercritical daughter I’ve at […]
President Trump just announced he is commuting the sentence of 63-year-old Alice Marie Johnson, who has been jailed over 20 years on her first non-violent drug offense, following his Oval Office meeting with Kim Kardashian West. The presidential meeting and pardon received much coverage and criticism online.
Editor’s Note: A version of this piece was previously published on The Each Other Project I learned to swim well before I was 14 by taking classes at the local YMCA in East Cleveland. If that rec center was the only frame of reference, you’d think swimming was an exclusively Black phenomenon, the pool being […]
In a 1967 speech at Stanford University, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. laid out his case for a basic guaranteed income as a moral imperative for a country of capitalists. King would later more fully develop this idea in his last book Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community in which he remarks: Up […]
In 2014, Gregory Hill, a 30 year old Black man, was shot three times and killed by police in his Florida garage after complaints of loud music. To add insult to injury, last week, a federal jury awarded his family a $4 verdict in their civil case.
Rap beefs have long become a cultural staple of hip-hop, from Tupac vs. Biggie, Jay Z vs. Nas, to Remy Ma vs. Nicki Minaj. The latest rap beef to capture hip-hop fans actually erupted a decade ago, when both rappers Pusha-T and Drake taking occasional shots at each other due to several incidents with their competing […]
Last month during a congressional hearing, US Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families acting assistant secretary Steven Wagner told Congress that his agency was unable to account for 1,475 children who had been placed with sponsors between October and December of 2017. Though all the children unaccounted for showed up […]
By Ashley Young A narrative was erased for me in the summer of 2017 when I was informed by a new doctor that I had been misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder. It was my mental illness narrative, one with which I had become so strongly identified that, when it was stripped away, it occurred more as […]
by Tonya McKenzie This essay contains discussions and descriptions of sexual violence, child abuse, and murder There are some things that you never forget, like the sound of a car screeching down the street and slamming into one of your neighbors or the bombastic sound of a gunshot and the sight of the damage that […]
On May 14th, Israel killed more than 55 Palestinians and wounded an estimated 2,700 as the United States opened its embassy in Jerusalem. The protest took place as part of the Great March of Return, a weeks-long Palestinian campaign located on the Gaza strip ahead of the 70th Nakba anniversary, which marks the events of […]
Living Single began streaming on Hulu at the beginning of this year, but I have only recently had the chance to start re-watching the 90s sitcom. Throughout the show’s five seasons, I identified with each of the main characters at various moments, but there was only one episode where I was able to find any […]
Last week Tina Knowles-Lawson, the almighty matriarch who has given us all the gifts of Beyoncé and Solange Knowles revealed on Maria Shriver’s show during her Architects of Change segment that she placed her daughters in counseling early in life. Knowles-Lawson said that the inspiration came from her own childhood and thoughts that her own […]
