90 Search results for "apartheid"

by Donnie Moreland  Steve McQueen’s Western Deep is a horror film. Though McQueen’s 2002 dual video installation (presented with Carib’s Leap) is, in form, video art, I feel it is possible to understand Western Deep as genre cinema.  An exploration into the TauTona Mine Shaft No.3 of South Africa—also known as Western Deep—it is a […]

Israeli soldiers checking my passport at a checkpoint in Hebron  I honestly had no intention on writing a song based on the trip I took to Palestine and Israel recently as part of a delegation of African-American activists and artists, sponsored by the Carter Center. I’m still having a difficult time processing what I witnessed. I […]

This essay contains discussion of sexual violence, gendered violence, and mention of r/pe   by Sabelo Mtsweni “khanda elixegaxegayo liyofulela abafazi; indoda iyindoda ngokuba umthetho wayo uhlonishwe ekhaya” Loosely translated, this isiZulu idiom means that a man’s authority in a household forms his very essence as a man. Before I read it in Laurence Mabuya’s […]

*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 […]

There aren’t enough accessible therapists to go around. I met this reality after an Ifa divination that I got while I was in Cuba, and my dreams for an entire year afterward, told me that I needed to focus on my mental health. My ancestors were LOUD about the mental work that I needed to […]

CW: graphic descriptions of femicide For, while the tale of how we suffer is never new, it always must be heard. -James Baldwin  My grandmother once said to me, “the hardest thing anyone can be in this world, is a black woman.” Although I’ve carried these words with me throughout the years, it is now, […]

I’ve been nursing the same headache for over a week and my right eye has been twitching for days on end. My eyes burn as I write this. Sometimes my eyelids feel so heavy it hurts to blink. I might be on the verge of tears, but I honestly can’t even tell anymore. There are […]

by Boké Saisi Large corporations that own brands such as Victoria’s Secret, Revlon, Old Navy and McDonald’s have come under public scrutiny for using Black and racialized prison labour to manufacture their commodities. Little attention, however, has been paid to Big Pharma’s predatory profiteering from prison labour and the practice of incarceration itself. The Prison […]

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. […]

By Kim M Reynolds “So, you’re coloured?” I get asked this question on fairly regular basis in Cape Town, and it’s no longer a jarring one.

By Teju Adisa-Farrar Growing up in West Oakland, having asthma did not seem abnormal to me. My brother often had asthma attacks and my parents would have to rush him to the emergency room. I was taken to the hospital several times to do breathing treatments using a nebulizer. When playing sports at Lowell Park […]

by Daniel Johnson Recently, University of Temple professor, author, and activist Marc Lamont Hill was fired from his post as an on-air political commentator at CNN after delivering an address at the U.N. during the organization’s marking of the upcoming 70th anniversary of its original Declaration of Human Rights, which came on the conclusion of […]