31 Search results for "white knowledge production"

by Donnie Moreland The first time I held a gun, I was afraid. The scenario was all too awkwardly cinematic to not be memorable. It was on a vacation with my mother to my grandparents’ South Carolina home. Sitting in their entertainment room, my grandfather entered with two guns. A magnum revolver and shotgun. He […]

by Donnie Moreland The first time I held a gun, I was afraid. The scenario was all too awkwardly cinematic to not be memorable. It was on a vacation with my mother to my grandparents’ South Carolina home. Sitting in their entertainment room, my grandfather entered with two guns. A magnum revolver and shotgun. He […]

Barely a month has passed since I wrote about appropriation and the vampiric nature of whiteness, specifically as it pertains to Black art and aesthetic. My focus was white artists and their simultaneous disavowal and infiltration of rap and hip-hop, and my purpose was to illustrate the pattern of how white society appropriates Black art […]

“Culture today is infecting everything with sameness. Film, radio, and magazines form a system. Each branch of culture is unanimous within itself and all are unanimous together.” —”The Culture Industry: Enlightenment As Mass Deception”, Dialectic of Enlightenment Stephen King recently tweeted, “I would never consider diversity in matters of art. Only quality. It seems to […]

We must do the work to detach Black women’s sexuality from violence and we must start with our foremothers. by Haillee Mason This essay contains discussion of sexual violence. The myth of white supremacist history suggests that sexual pleasure and intimacy that enslaved Black women endured were unable to be detached from violence. While I […]

“She don’t even like us. She only help us because of this.” My coworker pointed at her forearm with an ardent finger, calling attention to the mahogany of her skin. A deep, dark, gorgeous color. The white woman she spoke of was a member of the church that housed the after-school program we worked for. […]

I’ve been thinking a lot about porn and erotic display lately, but not in a way that brings me any pleasure. I’ve been thinking about them in an inquisitive, almost anthropological way that raises within me more questions than it does answers, and creates more discomfort and disgust than it does gratification. This is because […]

By Myles E. Johnson “What man wants to lay down and watch the world burn in his bedroom?” – Warsan Shire Often I gaze at myself in the mirror to ensure that I am present, that I recognize the face looking back at me, that I haven’t acquired any new scars, and my face hasn’t […]

“Sex is what makes us human.”  This, of course, is an absurd claim. And yet, it’s a lie that many believe. A lie that I have heard many times, in one form or another. I continually find myself having to argue that sex and sexuality are not and never will be factors in whether or […]

“Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within…” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time Black love is important. Some call it revolutionary. There are an abundance of art projects and essays which make that argument and explain why Black love matters—be it because marriage […]

By Lainface At this point in human history, college has become damn-near mandatory for acquiring employment and, dare I say, being validated as a functional adult in our society. The “prestige” of attending an institution of higher education yields visions of flying graduation caps, late nights studying in the library, and long, long, looong walks […]

by Fania Noel The assassination of George Floyd by the police and the uprisings that followed reverberate across the Atlantic Ocean, finding resonance and solidarity in France.  Four days after the murder of George Floyd, a medical expert was called in to evaluate the case of Adama Traoré, a Black man who died while in […]