385 Search results for "anti blackness"

I want Black time travelers to be a threat to the status quo
This essay contains spoilers for See You Yesterday, Siempre Bruja, Mortal Kombat 11, and Kindred, as well as discussions of sexual violence and anti-Black state violence. I was eighteen, a freshman in college studying film and visual arts, and deeply interested in the history of both. A film studies professor asked the class one […]
I’m tired of seeing my light skin represented in Black media
by Indigo In May, People Magazine reported that 21 year-old model Jordyn Woods would make her acting debut on season two of Freeform’s Grown-ish. Woods is scheduled to guest star as a freshman undergraduate named Dee, who possesses a “soft-spoken and sincere vulnerability” and is expected to share the screen with Trevor Jackson’s character Aaron. […]
WHO will no longer consider transgender identity a mental disorder: Here’s what it means and why it matters
Editor’s Note: June is LGBTQ Pride Month. At Black Youth Project, we will be exploring gender, sexuality, transgender issues and queer theory, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics and the things surrounding them. by Jamila Dawn Mitchell Transgender identities will no longer be considered a mental health disorder by the […]
The Black Lunatic
A history of forced institutionalization in service of white supremacy
Why we need to stop excluding Black populations from ideas of who is “Indigenous”
*Editor’s note: This piece has been deeply informed by conversations with my friend and colleague Preston Anderson through the years, among other things. A few months ago, I posted a Facebook status regarding a viral meme featuring Disney’s cartoon version of Pocahontas and John Smith, arguing that it promoted white supremacist ideas of interracial relationships […]
How theology based on a “one true god” cuts Black people off from necessary indigenous practices
By DJ Ferguson My mother, no stranger to emotional blackmail, had no hesitation in using it on behalf of her god in an attempt to reconvert me. “Don’t you think God (Yahweh) ever mourns?” she asked, hoping to get me to feel sorry for the possessive West Asian shepherd god whom I no longer worship. […]
We can’t ignore Marrianne Williamson’s fatphobia and ableism just because she supports reparations for slavery
Marianne Williamson makes me physically ill, and seeing people support her compounds my nausea. The Democratic candidate made waves last week when she delivered an impressive answer about reparations to Don Lemon post-debate: “[T]here were 250 years of slavery followed by another 100 years of domestic terrorism… given that there were 4 to 5 million […]
How my experience as a Black man working with children was tainted by racism
Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Education & Schooling, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. What are the implications of charter and private schools in communities of color? How do we counteract anti-Black textbooks and teachers in our childrens’ education? How did you heal from bullying […]
The white writer’s misimagination of Black characters in science fiction
by Inigo Laguda This essay contains spoilers for Another Life (2019) and Annihilation (2018) For a writer, I read astonishingly little. I chalk my aversion up to over-inundating myself with books as a boy and filling all my curious voids with grand words and fantastical tales. It’s almost like I nauseatingly engorged myself on literature […]
Reclaiming memory as a Black father and son in the face of cultural and racial traumas
This essay contains discussions of racialized state violence and suicide attempts by Donnie Moreland I have difficulty recalling specific details of my childhood. Trauma has a way of coloring memory. Strangely, the events I sometimes beg to forget are the ones I can see with a clarity the remainder of my youth is never afforded. […]
Used in a relentless pursuit of the elusive middle class, side hustle culture is killing Black folx
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 […]
Faced with commercialization, the Black Punk community turns to its past for a guide to keep resisting
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 […]