306 Search results for "community service"

Police-Free schools are necessary, as is abolishing the white supremacist state they are rooted in
by Mustafa Ali-Smith As protests continue on both the national and global scale, widespread call-to-actions ramp up. Dismantling, defunding, and divesting from policing and providing police-free schools are becoming a part of everyday conversations. Early educational institutions have even begun to respond to these call-to-actions by ending their relationship with local police departments and promising […]
Recognizing the labor of Black women, mothers, and caretakers during COVID-19
by Jenn M. Jackson My sixty-eight year old mother has been an unpaid, unofficial caretaker for my grandmother for at least twenty years. She was a social worker for more than three decades. Now, she also works for free as an administrative assistant at church. After delivering fresh produce and cooked meals to my elderly […]
Accessing competent care is another hurdle Black folks shouldn’t have to navigate
Content Warning: Medical Violence My nana, Ella D. Martin, was a nurse from Greenwood, Louisiana who slept with medical books underneath her bed, and sometimes her pillow. And no matter the time of day, Nana would receive medical emergency calls from folks all over the world, well until she was 80. Though she worked in […]
Testing HydroxyChloroquine on Black COVID-19 patients is more medical racism
by Ivory O. My two younger sisters and I were on Facetime with our mother recently, discussing the current state of the world. My youngest sister was making fun of our mom for freaking about HydroxyChloroquine. Apparently, my mother had been distressed since the president announced that researchers are looking into using HydroChloroquine, famously known […]
How nonprofits gaslight you into the same self-sacrificing work as capitalist corporations
by Taneasha White Nonprofit work is always seen as “God’s work.” Before they even know which organization I work with, chatty Uber and Lyft drivers immediately thank me for my service. There are things that are commonplace within nonprofits that aren’t expected in corporate settings. The idea of “ice breakers” before meetings, flex time, or […]
Now is an opportunity for Black folks to reimagine what constitutes loss
by Donnie Moreland My father is a diabetic, with chronic pain and a fragile immune system due to rounds of dialysis, which cause more pain and thus tosses him into the throws of a cycle which is, observably, hell. He is also a business owner, which necessitates an urgency of decision making, that suffers when […]
COVID-19 or not, Black folks are building virtual spaces of joy, intimacy and tenderness
The impacts of capitalism and society’s never ending romanticization of working hard, being productive and making money (lest we be labeled lazy) have done a disservice to our relationships. We usually don’t have time to check in because even when we are off of work, we’re too exhausted to be present enough to support vulnerable, […]
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 […]
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 […]
Black folks don’t need a nuclear family to be legitimate
It’s Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week and, as per usual, the miserable trolls have crawled out of their pitiful caves to smear their shit on any and everything that might make people feel happy, accepted, and seen. Trolls, of course, typically believe in nothing. They simply enjoy a perpetually contrarian existence, and actively seek to make […]
Black people aren’t resistant to mental health treatment. We’re resistant to framing it as a cure
I was stressed. I was broke. I’d just confronted my parents with my queerness, and they responded by refusing to support my education. And since enrolling at NYU’s film school, my film-maker dreams were eroding in the face of structural barriers erected by white supremacy. I was bouncing to and from mental health crises. Everything […]
Combating colorism: All Black children are worth defending
This essay contains discussions of r/pe and sexual violence against and the trafficking of missing Black women and girls “One after another referred her to Missing Persons, to Juvenile Court, to her neighborhood service center, to family counseling. She was a customer come too soon to the new store, stock not yet in, sales personnel […]