11 Search results for "kiese laymon"

This essay discusses child abuse, sexual violence, addiction, and extreme weight loss I tell him about my recent trip up to Philly and what happened on the way back. Our Uber driver overheard a conversation between myself, a child of the Carolinas, and my friend, the most Texas Texan I know, in which she told […]

A friend and I were attending the first WakandaCon in Chicago. We stepped onto the hotel elevator on our way back to our shared room, deep in excited conversation about Black Panther and what had been discussed at the panel we had just left. Our discussion turned to how some non-Black people try their best […]

White supremacy is a series of unending violences. As a massive system designed to privilege and preserve whiteness above all else, it requires these violences to keep itself alive, and whiteness must define itself against Blackness to achieve this. Black folks respond to, subvert, and resist this in a myriad of creative, warm-hearted, affirming, ingenious, […]

How beautiful if nothing more than to watch her sashay down the catwalk. How beautiful to hear her parents cheering for this young girl as she strikes a pose, then another, then another—each more fierce than the last. I don’t even begrudge the black fanny pack strapped over her shoulder like the worst damn fashion […]

by Daniel Johnson Toni Morrison, arguably the most influential living Black writer and some would say the most influential writer regardless of race, has crafted a body of work that is simultaneously grounded in a Black feminist/womanist politic, unquestionably Black, and commercially successful. In America, those things usually do not come all in the same […]

Anger is dangerous. That’s what I learned as a child, when other people’s anger meant screaming and clenched fists and scratches and bloody lips and flying objects and switches and paddles and belts. Anger is unequal, too. See, my mom and my brother were allowed to be angry. And when they were angry, they were […]

This essay contains discussion of sex trafficking, r/pe, and sexual violence against minors.  by Josie Pickens This past week has been especially difficult for Black girls, as we’ve been made to recount and witness so much trauma while maneuvering through public conversations about our collective and personal experiences with sexual, physical, mental and emotional violence. […]

This article was originally posted at Water Cooler Convos. Over the past two weeks, I have watched Black girl after Black girl medal in the 2016 Summer Olympics. Simone Biles has dominated gymnastics. Simone Manuel did the same in swimming. Michelle Carter won gold in shot put. And, while I felt immense pride watching each […]

  The follow piece is from Gawker. It was written by Kiese Laymon. The fourth time a Poughkeepsie police officer told me that my Vassar College Faculty ID could make everything OK was three years ago. I was driving down Hooker Avenue. When the white police officer, whose head was way too small for his […]

Last week, writer Kiese Laymon published an essay, “You Are the Second Person,” chronicling his experience getting his novel, Long Division (which hit shelves earlier this month), published. Laymon’s thought-provoking, powerful, and inspiring work centered on exchanges between him and his former editor. Laymon’s former editor, described in the piece as a 54-year-old black man, […]

By: Ahmad Greene-Hayes Last week, I saw the NYC pre-screening of “The Birth of A Nation.” I left feeling invigorated by the same Holy Spirit that called Nat Turner to lead a slave revolt in 1831. My excitement soon diminished, however, when I learned that Nate Parker, the film’s lead, is a rapist. I’m a […]