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 […]
“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, […]
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 […]
You are invited to submit a 1-2 page autobiographical essay or first person creative nonfiction(essays/memoirs) for this anthology . The aim of Our Black is to create a book comprised of narratives on the Black Experience and the multiplicity of Blackness. The goal of Our Black is to build a collection of narratives that reflect the diverse experiences […]
It was Mary McLeod Bethune who said, “The whole world opened to me when I learned to read”. We vehemently believe that to be true. We are constantly opened to worlds past, present and future through the writings of Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Octavia Butler. There is a diversity and complexity of […]
Point to your land and I’ll point to mine. Our land was stolen. We had 200 acres of land in Linden, Alabama. My ancestors became very wealthy growing cotton and corn for the market place. My great great grandfather, Richard Howard (Cherokee) was killed by a group of European settlers around the 1870’s in […]
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 […]
For years I’ve seen Terios in my community. You know; the funny, cute and obese kid on the block. They’re always the center of attention during cookouts and block parties. Usually getting praised for their wit, their dancing skills or annihilating two adult size plates. Here’s the thing: jokes are cute. We want to endorse […]
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 […]
This post contains spoilers for last week’s episode of Scandal and includes discussion of rape. Originally posted on Persephone Magazine As I do without fail every Thursday this year, I was enjoying an episode of Scandal while participating in a live tweet. Viewers, staff, and cast interact live while watching the show in a thoroughly modern new […]
