213 Search results for "black childhood"

Social stigma and jokes help to create misinformation about herpes
by Vanessa Maki Editor’s Note: This Sexual Health and Awareness month, we will be exploring related issues at BYP, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. What does sexual health look like outside of cishetero norms? Where does the #MeToo movement go from here? What can we do to better support […]
I don’t know what my grief looks like outside of social pressures to perform it in acceptable ways
My heroes are never buried when they die, at least not at first. As soon as I hear the news, I borrow their face from their still chilling body to post alongside a hastily written message of grief and well-wishes. I want to be the earliest to write about their loss, for everyone to see […]
In a world where my parents let me be as free as Dwyane Wade & Gabrielle Union let Zaya
How beautiful if nothing more than to watch her sashay down the catwalk. How beautiful to hear her parents cheering for this young girl as she strikes a pose, then another, then another—each more fierce than the last. I don’t even begrudge the black fanny pack strapped over her shoulder like the worst damn fashion […]
Jordan Peele’s ‘Us’ contends with unresolved trauma, and a host of other unsettling things
This essay contains spoilers for Us. In the surface story of Us, the Wilson family travels to Santa Cruz for summer vacation and finds themselves stalked by doppelgängers in a sudden home invasion, but there is so much more to be found beneath it. Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) and Gabe (Winston Duke), with daughter Zora (Shahadi […]
How prison-based thinking warps a lack of empathy for “deserving” victims to harm the vulnerable
Editor’s Note: sexual violence and mention of rape I’ll admit it: I have a sort of macabre fascination with true crime. My fiancé is always making fun of me for it, and it’s not a trait I’m super proud of, to be honest. I recognize that how the media handles the sensational abuses they document […]
Colleges sanitizing remnants of white supremacy on their campuses isn’t progress
By Gloria Oladipo My school, Cornell University, has tried very hard to help me forget that it once housed a plantation. My school, along with many other universities across the country, has continually tried to sanitize their campuses of overt references to American slavery while still allowing covert examples of anti-Blackness to flourish.
What do we do with abusers like R. Kelly if we abolish prisons?
Editor’s Note: This essay contains discussions of childhood sexual violence I didn’t order that extra whiskey ginger last week. I went home when my body told me to, even though it was still early and my friends were still partying. I rested when I got sick, or as much as I possibly could without missing […]
Finding our way back to the religions stolen from our ancestors
Not enough people know about Bois Caïman. I only learned of it myself within the last few years. Even among those of us who are familiar with the 18th century slave rebellion that led Haiti (once called Saint-Domingue) to its independence from French colonial rule, some do not know that this insurrection began with a […]
The Christianity I was taught didn’t align with my values. ‘The Color Purple’ helped me reimagine religion
By Gloria Oladipo Being around family for the various holidays this year has reminded me a lot of religion, specifically Christianity, which has been in my life since childhood. Rules based on Christian teachings were foundational to my upbringing. Using the Bible’s critique of witchcraft, my parents banned Harry Potter from our house. I wasn’t […]
How do I admit I’m lonely when this world only values the ones who get ‘chosen’?
Admitting that I might want to have some form of partnership in my life is hard to do. To be more specific, admitting to this as a consciously single, intentionally childfree, marriage-averse, asexual/aromantic Black womxn approaching thirty is hard for me to do. The words themselves aren’t necessarily hard for me to say or write. […]
‘The Haunting of Hill House’ & the colonial obsession with salvaging a world of suffering for the sake of sanity
Editor’s Note: This essay contains spoilers of season 1 of Haunting of Hill House and discussion of suicide I don’t remember how my parents died in the nightmare, but I woke up screaming bloody murder. I had to have been about 4-years-old. I don’t think I had considered being indefinitely away from my parents before, […]
Looking back at Rod Serling’s ‘The Twilight Zone’, and why Jordan Peele’s reboot will be great
by Andrew Keahey When I was young, I would intentionally avoid black and white television, except for The Twilight Zone. The show just hit all the right notes for me, even in my childhood. The wildly fantastic tales hosted by the slick man with the cigarette was part of the reason I got into writing […]