The Panthers lost the Super Bowl. Peyton Manning won his second ring on the backs of a Denver Defense that ain’t nothing nice. Cam Newton didn’t shine, didn’t get to dab, didn’t ever seem to fall into the rhythm fans have become accustomed to this season. He wasn’t playing with the joy and jubilant energy […]
Newtonism: Notes on Cool Masculinity and the Fear of Black Genius
“I do not expect the white media to create positive black male images.” –Huey Newton It is the Friday before the Super Bowl and for the last two weeks there has been much ado about the anticipated performance of frontrunner for the league MVP, and star quarterback of the Carolina Panthers, Cam Newton. And […]
(Y)our N-Word
Nobody called me a nigga to my face But behind backs and closed doors I am sure I have been called every kind of n-word Especially when I excelled in systems designed for me to fail nigga Or called out bigotry and privilege in classrooms nigga Or won awards white folk swore were theirs and […]
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
“What do you think I want, respect or compliance?” This was the question I posed my class this week, after I asked them to define the terms. For compliance they yelled out things like “following orders” and “obedience.” They defined “respect” as “valuing the thoughts of others” “being loyal,” and so on. I asked […]
The Most Beautiful Children in the World: No Country For Alyan Kurdi
We can almost hear his wail. Abdullah Kurdi is photographed after he leaves a morgue in Mugla, Turkey on September 3rd. “My kids were the most beautiful children in the world… They are all gone now,” said Mr. Kurdi. His devastation is so palpable that we begin to feel our throats tighten. Alyan, his five […]
Love, Hip Hop, and Ratchet Respectability (Something Like A Review)
In a recently published book chapter called, “Brains, Booty, and All Bizness”: Identity Politics, Ratchet Respectability, and The Real Housewives of Atlanta, I define ratchet respectability as “a hybrid characterization of hegemonic, racist, sexist, and classist notions of black womanhood,” which allows black women to combine ratchet behaviors (generally linked to race) to the […]
Misogyny and Infamy: On the Erasure of Dark Skinned Black Women As Love Interests in Straight Outta Compton
Straight Outta Compton is clearly doing the damn thing at the box office. Since its debut about a month ago, the film has become the highest grossing music biopic in history. And no shade, but shade…given the music biopics of late…that Whitney biopic that should have been called the Whitney and Bobby Show, that Aaliyah […]
The Sisters are Indeed Alright
Every day we seem to get more bad news about Black women. We’re ugly and can’t get a date. We’re fat, sick, loud, and bitchy. We’re lazy, materialistic bad mothers. We don’t support our communities’ dreams cause we’re like crabs in a barrel. Does that cover it all? Even if you’re not being inundated […]
Say No to Noteps and Straight Black Pride
This evening, at the National Black Theatre in Harlem, a group of fools who have convened themselves as the Straight Black Pride Movement will be hosting a press conference to shame and antagonize Black queer people under the guise of defending the Black community. Several weeks ago they enlisted the NBT to host a […]
#WeSeeYou: With CRUNK Love and Support for Prof. Zandria F. Robinson
We write today as group of over 100 black writers, readers, artists, thinkers committed to justice and intellectual inquiry. We have taken time away from our scholarship, research, teaching, activism, and other life-affirming practices to assist in smothering the fire that threatens to engulf the entire academic industry. We are wholly aware that the American […]