1674 Search results for "children"

How my experience as a Black man working with children was tainted by racism
Editor’s Note: This month at BYP, we will be exploring Education & Schooling, and we are interested in publishing works that address these topics. What are the implications of charter and private schools in communities of color? How do we counteract anti-Black textbooks and teachers in our childrens’ education? How did you heal from bullying […]
Black daughters and genderqueer children need your protection too, not just your sons
by Zesiro Maji This essay discusses Black death and racist state violence against Black children Timelines and headlines are saturating Black people with images, stories, and video clips of Black Death. It’s a somber, sobering reminder of the grim reality of what it means to be a Black person in America. The unrelenting violence against […]
Comic: The cishet obsession with children’s genitals is really weird, and transphobic
Soft Content Warning: Physical Trauma involving babies (circumcision) and vague allusions about adult fascination with underage genitals. by JeCorey Holder So I’ll just go ahead and ask: when are straight people going to unpack their weird obsession with children’s genitals? In the same vein as people who claim a firm pro circumcision stance and then […]
Gameschooling is a critical tool that helps Black children learn
by Tonya Abari Tanya Butler grew up on the backroads of a small, predominantly white Pennsylvania town. Much of her time was spent at her grandparents’ home, playing games with her younger siblings and cousins. Nights filled with shuffling and double-dealing weren’t about winning or losing–they were about learning. Games taught Butler and her […]
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 […]
Protecting Black children should never mean re-injuring them, owning them, or denying their sexual autonomy
by Donnie Moreland This essay contains discussions of domestic violence and sexual assault Ruminations of my daughter’s hypothetical death play on repeat, ever since her birth. I’ve accepted them as inescapable conditions of parenthood—Black parenthood especially. I also believe the story of Julia Martin’s death in 2016 partially informs my anxieties in raising a daughter. […]
Comic: Homophobia and the weird double standards it creates about indecency with children
by JeCorey Holder Content Warning: This essay mentions pedophilia and childhood sexual abuse On today’s episode of Straight People Seem to be Physically Incapable of Minding Their Basic Heterosexual Business, let’s talk about the highly selective ignorance folks seem to lean on in regards to exposing kids and babies to sexuality. Tell me why […]
To parents of the revolution: Intentional time given to our children is important too
by Desmera Gatewood One of my movement mentors told me, the “revolution begins at home.” She told me this after I declined to go on a trip because I’d promised to take my daughter somewhere with her cousins. I’ve come to realize there’s nothing—no protest, board meeting, speaking engagement, convention, facilitation opportunity, panel, event […]
Nourishing Black children has nothing to do with their parents’ genders and everything to do with letting them be themselves
This essay contains spoilers for Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse I’ve been thinking a lot about Black children, more so than usual. About how we can best love and support them as adults in their lives. I don’t know if it’s because of the media I’ve been consuming, the conversations I’ve been having, the news I’ve […]
A meditation on intergenerational trauma and how we raise Black children
This essay contains discussion of suicide. by Donnie Moreland On the other side of her beautiful and hardened, bulging belly, I can feel them. My baby navigating the uterus of the woman I love, curious to the pressure of my palm on the soft brown flesh between them and I. I imagine their curiosity, or […]
Exposing children to examples of protest plants the seeds for them to fight for justice
By Salaam Green Protest birthed out of the American south often sets the pace for revolutionary and radical campaigns for justice. While I was teaching creative drama with a group of fourth graders outside of Birmingham, Alabama, a hotbed for civil rights and the home of many justice movements, an eager fourth grader asked me […]
Anti-Black bullying in schools devastates children. We need to invest in their healing
By Gloria O. The recent death of McKenzie Adams, a nine-year-old from Alabama who endured months of racist bullying before dying via suicide, really hurt me. It immediately evoked memories of bullying in my own childhood, reminding me of the sad fact that the world can make such little progress in so much time. Anti-blackness, […]