75 Search results for "transformation"

When people contemplate the ways that anti-Blackness converges upon those of us who are of the Black African Diaspora – and who also identify as Black – they can make oppression seem insurmountable. The alternatives can seem both binary and grim: bury oneself in mountains of racist news, history and despair or bury one’s head […]

By Benji Hart The block on Chicago’s far north side where I stay is majority Black, poor and working class. It’s also gay as hell. The matriarch of the street is a Black cis queer woman in her 50s named Ce. She lives with her wife, a Black woman in her 30s, her daughter from […]

Contrary to popular belief, the Movement for Black Lives is not solely about police brutality. Bigger than body cameras and electoral politics, the Movement is about Black liberation and freedom for all Black people. Liberation and freedom are unconventional in the sense that the system under which society currently operates makes those two realities impossible. […]

By Sherronda Brown “When I want something, it’s fucking easy for me.” – Miley Cyrus, the self-ordained savior of our nation The words “Dumpster Fyre” hover above the head of Miley Cyrus on the cover of Billboard Magazine. Even though they refer to the debacle at Fyre Festival in which rich white kids were finessed […]

“Why don’t you hand in papers in Ebonics since that is how you talk?” I remember someone asking me this in my early days of grad school. I then explained that, as a student, it was my job to perform particular scholastic duties – including showing a mastery of the traditional APA, MLA, and Chicago […]

“Why do we accept forms of security that are rooted in violence?” – Angela Davis, Lecture at University of Chicago November 2016 When I first learned of prison abolition it was from Angela Davis during a lecture she gave at my college campus in 2009. The concept of prison abolition seemed so large and out […]

When he’s not analyzing professional basketball, Charles Barkley is prone to offer his two cents pertaining to issues in the black community – ranging from crime to protests. While there’s almost always disagreement regarding his criticisms, they do appear to come from a place of genuine concern. This became more evident when he donated $2 million […]

By Liz Adetiba and Jordie Davies   The Oakland-based organizer and activist Alicia Garza, who is also the originator of the Black Lives Matter rallying cry and one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter Network, thinks Black people have a lot to talk about outside of police violence. In this interview, we discussed with […]

The current presidential election is so divisive that everyone seems to be expressing the negative opinions about the candidates. Former high ranking politicians are clearly no exception. Initially reported by Buzzfeed, former Secretary of State Colin Powell held nothing back when he took shots at both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump in emails that were recently […]

On Monday, a coalition of organizations involved in the Movement for Black Lives released a list of specific policy demands to the public, entitled “A Vision for Black Lives.”   Fifty organizations from all over the world came together over the past year to formulate and write the demands, including the Black Youth Project 100, […]

Tearing down old, dilapidated buildings and isn’t necessarily the problem. The problem is when low-income families are forced out of their homes to free up space to build high value buildings they’ll likely never be able to afford living in. That’s gentrification. And that’s exactly what’s happening in Chicago’s Cabrini-Green neighborhood. A couple of months ago, […]

Gospel music has been an important part of America’s backbone for as far back as one could go. Even so, up until recently, one couldn’t get a bachelor’s degree in gospel performance until very recently, when Nyack College in New York became the first school to offer it as a major.