One of the biggest conundrums faced by this generation of Black feminists is the challenge of articulating a pro-sex, pro-pleasure politic in the face of recalcitrant and demeaning stereotypes that objectify, dehumanize, and devalue Black women’s bodies and lives. To be “good” feminists, we always feel that we have to make sure and say it, […]
Category: Music
Some Thoughts on ‘Accidental Racist’
Thought #1: When I first saw the name of this song go across my Facebook feed a few weeks ago I didn’t know what to make it of it. I assumed, at first, that it was an unfortunate spoof or offensive rant. I was disinterested in either so disregarded it. Thought #2: When I realized, […]
always arriving: a black scholar’s mixtape
But we knew. And our knowing was like a sister’s embrace. Sonia Sanchez, “A Letter to Dr. Martin Luther King,” homegirls and handgrenades (1984) I first sat at the feet of Sonia Sanchez at Spelman College where I was assiduously loved and educated. Sanchez was invited by the Women’s Resource and Research Center to help […]
thank you: a women’s history month mix
“You are magnificent.” So read the final line of an email I received from the CFC’s Moya Bailey the first Friday of 2012. The subject line was, “Love for you in the new year!” It recalled the summer we became friends and its consequence on her journey. She offered thanks and called me by a […]
Trigger Warning – How to Love?: Thoughts on Wayne’s “Emmett Till” Lyrics and More
By CFs Moya and Whitney We’d initially planned to post this the monday after the Oscars but other things were more pressing. *Trigger Warning for expletives, misogyny, and violent lyrics* In the remix to Future’s Karate Chop, Lil Wayne sings the “very unfortunate” (really, Fader?) lyric that compares sex to the beating of Emmett […]
On Azealia Banks and White Gay Cis Male Privilege
Guest Post by Edward Ndopu Recently, the media has exploded with news of a Twitter battle between rapper Azealia Banks and gossip blogger Perez Hilton. After Hilton inserted himself in an altercation between Banks and fellow female rapper Angel Haze, taking Haze’s side, Banks denounced him as a “messy faggot”. She then went on to […]
we: a thanksgiving mix
Thursday we feast. We who have it good enough to put a turkey on the table and lament the tryptophan-induced ‘itis with loved ones over card tables. And that we won’t include me. I won’t be home for the holidays but here in Harlem and I haven’t done turkey for more than a decade. I’ve […]
so far to go: a mix on finding your way
Listen, this isn’t what I expected: adult-onset acne, speech and eating disorders. I would have been struck dumb had you asked me to forecast these grown-up times in my ponytailed private school days. I daydreamed a lot but my imagined life was clipped: a timid choose your own adventure whose stalled plot was as foreseeable […]
Lady Gaga, Beauty, Ugliness and the Call for a Real Body Revolution
Earlier this week, Lady Gaga launched a campaign, via her website, called Body Revolution 2013. An attempt to reclaim the conversation from the folks in the media who were writing about Gaga’s body as seen in a few recent photos, wherein she looks a little larger than she usually does. (I’m not linking to those […]
Cake! Cake! Cake! Cake!: Let’s Take 2Chainz to School
At the Crunk Feminist Collective, there are educators among us who teach in unsafe classrooms, around uncomfortable kitchen tables, in crumbling youth centers, and between warring crowds on police-barricaded streets. We teach because we believe that offering a lens and the language to critically engage the world are fundamental to changing the world. It seems […]