1874 Search results for "because of them we can"

The Dead Cannot Correct Them: Grief, Repressions, and Life in the US
By: Amber Butts There’s always a reason the dead had to die. This country is very practiced at explaining itself, searching the dead for a reason before it admits to killing them, rifling through whatever they left behind. Alex Pretti was thirty-seven years old, an ICU nurse in Minneapolis protesting federal immigration raids when […]
Thurgood Marshall Still Asks Us To Protect The Less Powerful
by Daniel Johnson Thurgood Marshall is arguably the most important figure in modern judicial and legal history. Founder of the Legal Defense Fund as well as its first president and Director-Counsel, the first Black judge to sit on the Second Circuit of Appeals, the first Black Solicitor General, and finally, the first Black Supreme Court […]
How We Fight Adult Supremacy in Black Communities
by Tayler Simon I remember when I was a child, I told my mom I never wanted to grow up. Adults complained about bills and errands, their days already spoken for in advance. It did not look like a fun time, moving through a script you didn’t write. Now, as an adult, I agree with […]
We have to recognize the dangers of “male-identified” womanhood
by Jenn M. Jackson, PhD A few weeks ago, I posted on Threads about the ways that male-identified women are harmful to building community. I said this in reference to the numbers of Black women who work tirelessly defending Black men like Chris Brown, Bill Cosby, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and so many others who commit […]
We Were Taught to Be Useful Before We Were Allowed to Be Human
by DeLisha Tapscott, Ed.D. I learned to be useful long before I understood what labor was. Long before I had language for work, worth, or expectation, I understood that being helpful mattered. Being capable mattered. Being low-maintenance mattered. Those traits were praised early, offered as signs of maturity and goodness, folded into what it meant […]
Welcome Home to the Black Youth Project
by Jenn M. Jackson, PhD Almost a decade ago, I said goodbye to my editing position here at Black Youth Project. I was 33 years old, working on the final edits of my dissertation at the University of Chicago titled “Race, Risks, and Responses: Mapping Black American’s Reactions to Policing in the United States.” My […]
What We Carry: A Coming-of-Age Tale of Grief, Therapy, and Reckoning
by Christian M. Ivey “What We Carry” is a powerful coming-of-age story that follows Drew, a young Black college student grappling with grief, anxiety, and the long shadow of racial trauma. Get yo ass up, Drew! My alarm rang, a nasty, raggedy rang, almost soundin’ like it was yellin’ at me. Get yo ass up, […]
We Speak Our City Back: A Series on Gentrification
by Alycia Kamil We Speak Our City Back On Language, Gentrification, and Black Presence in Chicago There are stories that arrive already smoothed out. Made digestible for funders, developers, and media outlets. The kind that trades in progress narratives and polished soundbites. This is not that kind of story. This piece opens differently. The voice […]
‘Fast Color’ was snubbed by Hollywood’s white male gatekeepers because it doesn’t fit their worldview
This essay contains spoilers for Fast Color by Melanie Ojwang Fast Color immediately stands out as different from the comic based blockbusters I’ve grown used to over the past decade. When it was first released, I rushed to see it, fearing that it wouldn’t be in theaters past opening weekend. It turns out that my […]
Dear Inbetweener: Finding my place as a bisexual biracial man
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 Andrew Keahey When your whole life is in the inbetween, you see things that other people […]
Linda Fairstein will always feel justified because there’s no accountability for the violence of white feminism
By Émelyne Museaux White women’s sovereignty has always been inextricably linked to the subjugation and exploitation of Black people. Research shows that 40% of slave owners were white women during US chattel slavery. According to history professor Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, most of these white women inherited slaves from their fathers and retained ownership of them […]
The internet, as a digital looking glass, can normalize violence for Black boys
by Donnie Moreland I’m entering my apartment lot, around 9:45 PM, having returned from the gym. My vision often obscured around this time, I’m hurried to brake as two figures creep along in front of me. The two feel my headlights on their backs, thus they oblige my curiosity, and turn around. They are Black […]