116 Search results for "africans"

Review Roundup: Zora Neale Hurston’s book on one of the last Africans in the Atlantic slave trade
Nearly 90 years after it was first written, Zora Neale Hurston’s series of interviews with one of the last Africans brought to America from the Atlantic slave trade has arrived in bookstores across the country. Barracoon is introduced rather fittingly by Alice Walker, the woman whom we can thank for a revitalized interest and scholarship […]
South Africa moves to take lands from settlers’ descendants to redistribute to indigenous South Africans
South Africa’s parliament recently moved for a controversial land redistribution plan. The plan would empower the government to seize lands from white farmers without offering them payment (a move that in the United States would likely elicit due process violation rebuttals) and give them to Black South African people. The plan’s purpose is largely recompense […]
Camila Cabello erases enslaved Africans’ contributions in call to support immigrants at the Grammys
Which came first: the derailer or the eraser? This question was inspired by pop star Camila Cabello’s pro-immigration speech to millions of viewers at the 60th annual Grammys last night. “Today, in this room full of music’s dreamers, we remember that this country was built by dreamers, for dreamers, chasing the American dream,” Cabello said […]
2 White South Africans Arrested After Video Shows Them Forcing Black Man Into A Coffin
Victor Mlotshwa didn’t think that anyone would believe him when he told them his traumatic tale of being forced into a coffin by two white men who also threatened to put him on fire. The incident occurred over three months ago. Fortunately, video footage of the altercation, taken by one of the two white assailants, […]
American doctor cured of Ebola thanks to experimental drug, may be hope for black Africans who suffer from illness
As far as we know it, there is no known cure for the deadly West African Ebola virus. But one American doctor appears to be cured thanks to an experimental drug created by Emory University researchers. Kent Brantly contracted the virus while treating infected patients in Liberia late July.
Why Black pain will never disarm white supremacy
A nursing book was recalled in 2017 because of the racist way that it discussed pain; how it is felt, how it is interpreted, and how it should be understood by physicians, and therefore, how it should ultimately be treated. This entry, entitled “Cultural Differences in Response to Pain,” included sections on “Arabs/Muslims,” “Asians,” “Blacks,” […]
Black Resistance: Examining the “1st” Free Black Town in the Americas
By Teju Adisa-Farrar When God made mountains He made runaway slaves — Nikki Giovanni, Chasing Utopia We were not supposed to survive. in 2018, AfroPunk published an article about Argentina’s genocide of their Black populations. Unsurprisingly, Argentina is not much different from other countries who have tried to erase their Black populations or their impact […]
Forbidden Laughter: The History of Laughing Barrels
By Sherronda J. Brown Seems like every year I learn some new factoid about how plantations operated during the time of chattel slavery of African peoples in the Americas. I inevitably come across another unfortunate piece of knowledge that I wish I never had to know. At the same time, I always understand how it’s […]
Anti-Blackness knows no borders: How nation-centric understandings of Blackness fails us
Dalvin Aboagye Near the end of May, the more melanin-infused parts of the internet were set ablaze by a questionable scene in the second season of She’s Gotta Have It, the Spike Lee-produced Netflix series based on his 1986 film of the same name. Within what many already saw as a weak portrayal of Black […]
I want Black time travelers to be a threat to the status quo
This essay contains spoilers for See You Yesterday, Siempre Bruja, Mortal Kombat 11, and Kindred, as well as discussions of sexual violence and anti-Black state violence. I was eighteen, a freshman in college studying film and visual arts, and deeply interested in the history of both. A film studies professor asked the class one […]
Why we need to stop excluding Black populations from ideas of who is “Indigenous”
*Editor’s note: This piece has been deeply informed by conversations with my friend and colleague Preston Anderson through the years, among other things. A few months ago, I posted a Facebook status regarding a viral meme featuring Disney’s cartoon version of Pocahontas and John Smith, arguing that it promoted white supremacist ideas of interracial relationships […]
Stolen bodies, Stolen land: Contemplating Blackness and Indigeneity
by Briana L. Ureña-Ravelo Today marks one year since I and a group of friends joined the frontline resistance in Standing Rock at the Oceti Sakowin camp, the ancestral lands of the Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota Sioux people. I have spent this past year deconstructing, unpacking, learning, relearning, disconnecting, reconnecting, going through this whole process […]