racism
Are We Witnessing The Return of Black-ish TV?
From the 1960s to around 2006, when The WB and UPN network merged, finding Black majority shows, on network TV, wasn’t that hard. Nor finding diverse depictions of Black people. You could find Black people living upper crust lives on The Jeffersons, The Cosby Show, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and Girlfriends; Middle Class […]
This is our Home: Ferguson and America
On Saturday, August 9th, Michael Brown was murdered in cold blood by the police in his town of Ferguson, MO. This is what happened. Whether you believe that he stole something or that he tried to wrestle a cop for his gun or whether you believe actual facts; the truth remains that at some point he stopped […]
Black Injustice from a Teen’s Point of View
I will never forget the moment I heard the Zimmerman verdict. Standing over the stove cooking dinner, my friend sent the text “Zimmerman was found not guilty.” Immediately, my heart dropped and I felt chills run through my body. There are no words that can properly convey the flush of emotion I felt as soon as I read […]
(Video)A Dark-Skinned Girl’s Response to Lupita’s Oscar Win
Long after Lupita Nyong’o won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 Years A Slave I lay in bed awake. Although she was most deserving, past experience has taught us not to anticipate the recognition of talent if possessed by a person of color. We’ve learned to expect very […]
African Americans and the Labor Movement
The Black Labor movement has remained in the shadows of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. The erasure of the labor unions role in civil rights is most apparent when The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom Unions is simply referred to as the March on Washington. However, Black membership played an important […]
The Heist: Macklemore’s Hold on Homosexuality in Hip-Hop
“If I was gay, I would think Hip Hop hates me.” Not quite, Macklemore. People still hate you. Sunday night’s Grammy Awards sparked an uproar as breakthrough rapper Macklemore and producer Ryan Lewis’s seven nominations landed them four wins. Taking over the music industry with their 2012 album The Heist, selling over 1.5 million records, […]
Racial Profiling is Real and So Are Its Lingering Effects
I had just finished browsing the merchandise of a popular retail store. I had in my hand a plastic shopping bag. It wasn’t from the store and I was worried. As I sometimes am when leaving department stores. There was a white girl some distance ahead of me. The bags she carried crunched together as […]
Dominican Republic: Valuing Haitian Labor Over Lives
Ever since European haphazard “discovery” of the Americas, violence has been an integral part in the construction of identity in colonial lands. Indigenous and African peoples enslaved, murdered and abused for the greed of nations still profiting since colonization ad nauseum. This same abject subjugation thrives among Afrodescendants to discriminate against one another. On […]
Renisha McBride and the Victimization and Criminalization of Black Women
Often at times the discourse of black folk is reduced to narratives of Black Men; likewise the discourse of women is reduced to a narrative of white women. In both cases, the voice and experiences of Black Women are left muted and silenced. A combination of racist and sexist historical and social forces render […]
Halloween is The Purge for White Folk in Blackface and Racism
This Halloween season we were bombarded with horrendous images of white folk dressing up in blackface which forced us as Americans to confront the ugly legacy of racism. Yet, instead of fully awakening to this dark and ugly tradition within white communities, some instead chose to dismiss the anger and pain experienced by many […]