Crunkista’s working survival guide…for the next four years I have never prayed so much in my life. After the election results came in, I walked around in black disbelief. I mean that literally, I now wear black anytime I am outside the house. At first it was because I was mourning the loss of a […]
Tag: racism
Get Your People
So, this is a shit show. When most of the people are availing treatment at inpatient treatment for addiciton to get rid off alcohol addiction. On last night I sat with a circle of Black women in my home, fretfully watching the election results. None of us were ride-or-die Hillary supporters, but the visionary pragmatism […]
Facing “White Rage”
At the end of Jewelle Gomez’s seminal feminist novel, The Gilda Stories, Gilda and her crew of badass queer vampires (because, of course) are faced with a dying planet Earth. Centuries of white supremacy and unbridled capitalism have wreaked havoc on human society. The wealthy have escaped off planet to colonize other worlds (because, of […]
No (dis)Grace: Cam Newton and the Emotional Labor of Blackness
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 […]
The Rage of White Folks
If you let the news tell it, Black folks are rampaging all across the United States for no reason at all. Just looting and bashing police cars and making indulgent, extravagant messes across major urban areas when they should be at home getting their children fathers or learning how to not speak Ebonics. Or something […]
De-Tangling Racism: On White Women and Black Hair
Pictures from a new exhibit by photographer Endia Beal called “Can I Touch It?” showcase several white women, all corporate execs, who agreed to get a “Black hairstyle” and then have their portrait taken. Apparently, this very quotidian fixation with Black women’s bodies and Black women’s hair is now the stuff of art exhibits. This project […]
Girl, Bye: Why This Moment is Bigger than Paula Deen
Unless you’ve been living under a rock these past few days, you’ve probably heard about the kerfuffle with Our Fair Lady of Butter, Paula Deen. The quick and dirty of it all is that Deen and her brother, Bubba Hiers, are facing a discrimination suit from a former employee, Lisa Jackson, who has accused the […]
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 […]
Ode to Dark (Skinned) Girls
My melanin proficiency has often led to color complex(ion) issues brought on by my country (rural) upbringing in a community (and country) fascinated (via the hegemonic influences of beauty) with my yellow-skinned sister with looooooooooooooooooooong hair and generally ambivalent with me (and my dark skin and short/er hair). They (the adults and other children in […]
More Musings on Melanin (or lack there of)
“Depending on the context, an individual may be an oppressor, a member of an oppressed group, or simultaneously oppressor and oppressed.” -Patricia Hill Collins “The true focus of revolutionary change is never merely the oppressive situations which we seek to escape, but that piece of the oppressor which is planted deep within each of us.” […]