17 Search results for "binaries"

Editor’s Note: June is LGBTQ Pride Month. At BYP, 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. We want to hear from you! Send us your pitches at info@blackyouthproject.com By Latonya Pennington I knew that I […]

By Itoro Udofia I grew up under the tutelage of The God of the Binary. He was forever in opposition to a ubiquitous outside force. He was the Good opposed to Evil. The Strong opposed to Weak. Right opposed to Wrong. There I stood, an eager and inquisitive girl child, making mistakes and looking for […]

Content Warning: Descriptions of medical violence against folks who are intersex and/or have been diagnosed with PCOS by Gillian Giles When I was 12, the anticipation and excitement of preparing to experience my first period was all consuming. Cultural messaging taught me that the event would be a gender defining moment. I hoped starting my […]

by Donnie Moreland  This essay contains spoilers for Patrick Chamoiseau’s 1997 novel, Slave Old Man The final words of Patrick Chamoiseau’s Slave Old Man read, “Brother, I shouldn’t have, but I touched those bones.” Those bones being, “The clavicles. Some vertebrae. A few formless bits. Porous things. And a broken tibia…” Those bones, as are […]

As far as I can tell, no one really knows who first stated that Black people have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to be as successful as white people. I’d like to think that a great mass of ancestors came up with the old adage apart but simultaneously, a testament […]

By Ramon Johnson The Morehouse community has long had difficulties facilitating an inclusive campus environment for marginalized gender identities. This is particularly troubling given the high standards, goals, and ideals expressed as the foundational principles of the institution.

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 […]

I have always wanted to be strong. Not strong as in a Strong Black Woman™—an expectation of impossible emotional and spiritual fortitude against a world imbued with misogynoir. Strong as in twenty three-time Grand Slam Champion Serena Williams. Powerful as in Olympic Shot Putter and gold medalist Michelle Carter. Formidable as in the Dora Milaje […]

*Editor’s Note: March is National Disabilities Month and our themes at Black Youth Project are Ableism & Physical and Mental Health. We are interested in publishing works that address these topics and the things surrounding them. Content Warning: rape, mental health* “… mad methodology resists rote positivism and defies the cult of objectivity; it listens for […]

Where I grew up, Black was the end of discussion. People clung to what law professor Juan Perea deemed the “black/white binary paradigm of race,” a bare-bones conception that acknowledged only whiteness or Blackness but did not allow for meaningful engagement with ethnicity. In college, I learned about different kinds of Black people. I met […]

In 2014, Andrew Caldwell was introduced to the world via a viral video in which he proclaimed his deliverance from homosexuality at an annual COGIC convention in St. Louis. “I was already fighting for deliverance,” he told me in an interview two years later. “That night I said, ‘God, if you’re real, I want you […]

I wasn’t going to get into the bell hooks versus Beyoncé fray over Lemonade and its myriad implications. I resisted the echo chamber hoping the frenzy would die down sooner rather than later. I told myself that there really was no point of debating the merits of either side since most of the dialogue has been […]