443 Search results for "an african city"

How I use ancestor veneration to navigate my Mother’s Death
by Hess Love Sometimes I feel like a motherless child… a long way from home- Negro Spiritual Sunday is Mother’s Day. And the grief of losing my mother regularly brings me to my knees. I don’t imagine this day being any different. Sometimes my grief is a distant shore, sometimes the water of it wades […]
Is COVID-19 a crisis within a crisis for Black women?
by Maia Niguel Hoskin “Racism affects so many things before the patient even gets to the clinical encounter. Both implicit bias and structural racism affect how women are cared for in the healthcare system. The cards are stacked against them.”, said the Vice-Chair of Equity and Safety in Obstetrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, Allison Bryant […]
The siblings of disabled youth are committed to building more accessible worlds
by C. Imani Williams Findings from The National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs reports 1 in 5 children between the ages of 12-17 have special needs. For Black children, however, that number increases as they are more likely to be identified as persons with disabilities. On top of this stark disparity, Black […]
Black men’s body dysmorphia needs to be discussed more openly among us
by Donnie Moreland This essay discusses body dysmorphia, self-harm ideation, and fatphobia. I remember wanting to drop fire in my belly. Wanting to light a match, open my mouth and drop it in to burn the fat. This was one of the engrossing illusions I obsessed about, from age thirteen until an age very much […]
Crisis makes clear who can afford to survive (and who cannot)
“That’s all anybody can do right now. Live. Hold out. Survive. I don’t know whether good times are coming back again. But I know that won’t matter if we don’t survive these times.” – Octavia E. Butler While on a hike today, I spoke with two folks about how our bodies are shaped by the […]
Reflecting on “The Photograph” and Black mother-daughter relationships
by Kui Mwai Full bodied, multilayered, complex Black mother-daughter relationships are rarely captured on screen. It wasn’t until I watched Stella Meghie’s “The Photograph” that I realized just how much I was craving to see something akin to my mother and I’s relationship on film. “The Photograph” invites its viewers into characters Mae (Issa Rae) […]
Mental health treatment is a Black tradition, white people just took credit for it
by Imade Nibokun Black people invented mental health treatment before the “pray it away” stigma and the white supremacy that produced it. While Black folks continue to address the stigmas attached to mental illness, we must also acknowledge that Black mental health practitioners existed first. The first known physician in history is an Egyptian architect […]
Gameschooling is a critical tool that helps Black children learn
by Tonya Abari Tanya Butler grew up on the backroads of a small, predominantly white Pennsylvania town. Much of her time was spent at her grandparents’ home, playing games with her younger siblings and cousins. Nights filled with shuffling and double-dealing weren’t about winning or losing–they were about learning. Games taught Butler and her […]
The business of prisons and the laws that make sure they exist
by Cheryldean Peters Beginning in the early 1600s, my ancestors were legally forced into slavery and robbed of their freedom. They were involuntarily exploited, beaten and forced to work as servants, which primarily helped generate income for America’s economy. Their servitude drastically enhanced local and colonial economics while creating generational wealth for their oppressors. Africans […]
‘Seeking for the Lost’ and the project of finding each other as a misplaced people
by Donnie Moreland “We hummed a celebration for living. For fighting. For refusing to die. For enduring when giving up would be easier. For believing, against all odds, that we’d get home someday.” —The Coming; Daniel Black “It’s nothing like losing one’s keys. It’s not as if he has been misplaced. It’s not as simple […]
Millennials aren’t skipping church, the Black Church is skipping us
Washington Post columnist, Christine Emba, published a piece on Oct. 27, titled Why millenials are skipping church and not going back. Emba declared millennials were interested in gaming, ambitiously building their careers, or just too busy to make time to attend service. While Emba isn’t necessarily wrong in her assessment, I couldn’t help but notice […]
Watchmen, an homage to Black memory (loss)
*This essay contains spoilers from Watchmen* “You shouldn’t have swallowed your grandfather’s pills Angela. Do you know how Nostalgia works? How they make it? You know, they insert these little chips into your brain and they harvest your memories. And then they put them in a little pill and you pop one and you get to […]