by Daniel Johnson James Baldwinâs January 1985 essay for Playboy, â“Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhoodâ, engages with a discussion on androgyny and the American idea of sexuality in which he raises questions about the American idea of masculinity. In the essay, Baldwin affixes violence as the key to the (white) American imagination of […]
Editor’s Note: Contains spoilers for The Sinner and Seven Seconds âWhen a boy that young kills, itâs really never just his fault.â â Detective Harry Ambrose, USAâs hit series The Sinner âThe threat just became incredible. I had to make the decision fast because Frank and I were in immediate danger. We were easy targets⌠[…]
This essay contains discussions of sexual assault and racist violence A Black woman was wrongfully terminated this week. Lisa Benson Cooper is an Emmy award-winning broadcast journalist in Kansas City, Missouri. After working at the same company for fourteen years, she was fired when two white women coworkers complained to HR about an article that […]
In 2015, Rwandan literary author Dominique Uwase Alonga founded the African publishing house, Imagine We, to cultivate, train and produce African authors and storytelling. They produce Rwandan and African children and young adultsâ books.
by Andrew Keahey Black horror films have a consistent combination of factors that make them successful in the public eye: relatability and catharsis. The elements in our horror movies meant to frighten and upset are often familiar to us, and are scary because the fear is something we have felt before, and often. When the […]
I have always wanted to be strong. Not strong as in a Strong Black Womanâ˘âan expectation of impossible emotional and spiritual fortitude against a world imbued with misogynoir. Strong as in twenty three-time Grand Slam Champion Serena Williams. Powerful as in Olympic Shot Putter and gold medalist Michelle Carter. Formidable as in the Dora Milaje […]
In a first person essay for Vox, former 911 dispatcher Rachael Herron recently wrote about her experiences with racist white people calling the police on Black people in overwhelmingly white neighborhoods. In the wake of white women calling the police on Black people for little or nothing in Oakland, at Yale and in a Philadelphia […]
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, youâd think swimming was an exclusively Black phenomenon, the pool being […]
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 JeCorey Holder
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 […]
There is Joy and then there is joy. It may seem like Joy only liked you as a child, but itâs not really her fault that she visits less and less now that you are older. She can survive better that way. This world is out to kill her, to stamp her out. And the […]
