1037 Search results for "words"

Comic: Even with human trafficking, cis straights conspire to paint trans women as monsters
by JeCorey Holder It all started among The Straights on Facebook. Let me set the mood. The rest of us were all minding our magical, stylish, non-straight business and I was enjoying a particularly fragrant blueberry tea. I saw a friend of mine going off about a woman’s post that went as follows: “Thousands of [...]
Quality, art, the culture of sameness, and white men’s egos
“Culture today is infecting everything with sameness. Film, radio, and magazines form a system. Each branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together.” —”The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception”, Dialectic of Enlightenment Stephen King recently tweeted, “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to […]
The Housing Crisis is intentional and Black communities are fighting back
by Maximillian Matthews “It was a nightmare, worse than pictures of a war torn or burned out riot area.” – Barbara Perry, a Durham, NC resident reflecting on returning to her neighborhood Horrified and traumatized, Black residents of Durham, NC surveyed the remains of their neighborhoods and businesses following the urban renewal of the late […]
Reflecting on Patrick Chamoiseau’s ‘Slave Old Man’ and physical memories of the enslaved
by Donnie Moreland This essay contains spoilers for Patrick Chamoiseau’s 1997 novel, Slave Old Man The final words of Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man read, “Brother, I shouldn’t have, but I touched those bones.” Those bones being, “The clavicles. Some vertebrae. A few formless bits. Porous things. And a broken tibia…” Those bones, as are […]
The quiet call of ghosts: Dusting my grandmother’s photo reminds me of who I am
by Tiffany Hobbs She has her eyes. It was the first time I’d looked longer than a few seconds into the eyes of the woman in the photograph on my bookshelf. Looking longer introduced me to the inevitability of dying and death. I was hiding from her eyes, playing a game I was determined to […]
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 […]
The Revolution of Black Mothering: Confronting a future that doesn’t always include us
by Hess Love belly of boat dissolves you, precipitates you into nonword from which you cry out, generates clamor of your protests, boat is your womb, a matrix, yet it expels you- Edouard Glissant I always wanted to be a mother. I wanted motherhood’s playfulness, its duty, its imagination and selflessness. Like most people that […]
‘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 […]
We need to talk about the sexual racism in HBO’s ‘Watchmen’
by Avery Ware I sat up in his bed and glared at him through squinted eyes, “What do you mean you only sleep with Black guys? Are you a fetish queen?” Boldly he responded, “Yeah, I probably am.” I’ll spare you the curse words that followed that statement. I was more angry with myself than […]
Medical Ableism is a Cultural and Institutional Issue, not an Individual Problem
by Marisa Kierra I was diagnosed with IBS at the age of fifteen, but in the last year my symptoms have rapidly gotten progressively worse. I went from having flare-ups every few months, to every few weeks and then eventually to everyday. The flare-ups and high levels of pain left me hopeless and constantly […]
Orlando Jones was fired from ‘American Gods’ because Black anger makes white people uncomfortable
by Andrew Keahey White supremacy doesn’t allow for Black anger. The second we get even mildly irritated in any way and make the mistake of actually showing it, we’re labeled as irrational, problematic, and even violent. You see it all the time. It’s one of the reasons twitchy white cops use to justify their brutality […]
Why must Black heroism in fiction be continuously made of our historical injury?
This essay contains descriptions of racial violence and spoilers for Episode 6 of HBO’s Watchmen by Donnie Moreland I don’t trust Damon Lindelhoff—the showrunner of HBO’s Watchmen. He’s a damn compelling writer, but he is one that often conflates philosophical inquiry with good storytelling, which can result in pretentiously puzzling television; of which I’m very […]