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Race & Blackness

Our elders are more than the utility they provide

The problem of visibility at the intersection of aging, poverty and Blackness predates me, finding its genesis on the plantation grounds.

Self healing was the key to pursuing ministry in my senior years

Self healing was the key to pursuing ministry in my senior years

The call to ministry became clearer when some friends and I started opening our homes to people who had no place to live; people who had fallen through the cracks of the social "safety" net.

Running as an act of Resistance

I could have chosen to run east, away from the scene. Instead, I headed west, daring to face the waiting hate.

Interview with Jody Armour on Nigga Theory

I take issue with any and all efforts to distinguish between the worthy and the wicked on the basis of conventional moral judgments.

The problem with using proximity & poverty to dismiss the fallacies of “Black-on-Black crime”

Black men’s “senseless” acts of violence are much more sophisticated in nature than both the liberal and conservative anti-abolition culture of poverty argument would have one believe.

Gender & Queerness

Words our fathers should have said: Encouragement for other Black cis-het men experiencing body-dysmorphia

I hoarded bodybuilding magazines and wasted nights diagramming routines which earned me more injuries than benefit. In the gym, I exercised to nausea, vomited and despised myself for being ill equipped for exercise regimens designed to market magazines.

Black women’s impossible dilemma: How this world ties our “safety” to the protection of our abusers

The world has an appetite for our pain, and this is what I refuse. This is why I will never again decide to protect someone who harms me.

Police can’t save children from sexual abuse, but we must

With inadequate responses to CSA and little trust in police among people of color, relying on cops to address an issue like CSA is questionable, at best.

The problem with using proximity & poverty to dismiss the fallacies of “Black-on-Black crime”

Black men’s “senseless” acts of violence are much more sophisticated in nature than both the liberal and conservative anti-abolition culture of poverty argument would have one believe.

The perils of navigating platonic relationships with other gay men

Being a sexual minority puts pressure on gay men to connect sexually or romantically with the gay men who are most proximate to them.

Politics & Organizing

Anti-Blackness and the Fetishization of Visibility

Anti-blackness, predictably, got in the way of something that had the potential to be a commentary on the politics of visibility under racial capitalism.

We don’t need advisory committees to take the first steps toward healing from white supremacy

After temporarily removing Christopher Columbus statues from Chicago Parks, on August 12th, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the “Project to Assess Memorials and Monuments in the City’s Public Art Collection.” Members of this project will form an advisory committee with local…

Trump is right, “To be anti-racist is to be anti-American”

If your anti-racism is concerned with upholding the mythology of America then you are not an anti-racist. When we cower away from accusations that anti-racism is un-American we perpetuate falsehoods that any type of liberation can exist under the banner of America.

Liberals won’t save us, even if they are Black

But voting is not and will never be enough. Voting often legitimizes the never ending good cop/bad cop routine of the two party system.

Black Life is a Constant Practice of Mutual Aid Work

Those feelings of hopelessness have given me time to re-examine the ways American, individualistic values have seeped into Black life. And perhaps those values have prevented us from acknowledging that we’ve always prioritized and practiced communal care in our families, neighborhoods and relationships.

Special Features

Imagining Other Worlds: A Short Stories Series by Black Fiction Writers

Media & Entertainment

The publishing industry cannot continue to hide its anti-Blackness behind their #BlackBestSeller

A bunch of self-confessed book addicts that is the publishing industry, may struggle to admit to itself, and its readers, that there are some problems within that throwing the faces of their Black authors to the forefront now won’t fix.

How “Gayle King v. Kobe Bryant” obscured a valid critique of sensationalizing sexual violence

In our efforts to resist this silencing, however, we must also consider the ways that others who are not public figures are implicated in these discussions

What happened to Wilder during his loss was sexual violence, something that Black men know too well

This historical lack of cultural currency associated with Black men being raped has impacted how Wilder's assault has been read.

I hope you catch AIDS and die

When you tell me you hope my death is via “catching AIDS.” What you are saying is you want me to live forever, or at least until a miracle occurs. And in response I say, “Thank you!”

No Jay-Z, corporate sponsorships cannot replace protests

The danger in celebrating corporate activism, and elevating Jay-Z as a model of activism, is that it frames resistance and rebellion as something to be done with oppressors,

Self healing was the key to pursuing ministry in my senior years

Self healing was the key to pursuing ministry in my senior years

The call to ministry became clearer when some friends and I started opening our homes to people who had no place to live; people who had fallen through the cracks of the social "safety" net.

Non-Black Muslims will never find justice without ensuring Black Lives Matter

On Saturday, June 20th, 62-year-old Ejaz Choudry, a Pakistani man living with schizophrenia, was tragically and violently killed by Peel Region Police in Mississauga, Ontario. Choudry’s family called the non-emergency police line to help the man as he suffered through…

Rest is an ode to our ancestors and an invitation for our movements

Making space for stillness is an ode to those of us who have not and are unable to rest. It is an acknowledgement for those of us for which rest has been stolen.

We shouldn’t have to be murdered to prove that Black people are divine

We dare to make due out of the scraps given to us by creating new things out of the old, salvaging things that seem lost, bringing life to spaces where death once reigned, rolling away the proverbial stone and resurrecting. It is only through the story of Black people in this country that Christianity has an American relevance at all.

Black folks have always partaken in African Traditional Religion, even when we didn’t know it.

We are our ancestors and our ancestors are us: nothing is new. We can never appropriate African or Diasporic Traditions that are ours. We can, however, handle things roughly if we don't first exorcise ourselves of whiteness.Â

Toni Morrison’s “A Mercy” reminds us all of the power Black and Native American solidarity wields

Black and Indigenous communities bear the brunt of social and environmental injustices from the same systems of oppression.

Interview with Jody Armour on Nigga Theory

I take issue with any and all efforts to distinguish between the worthy and the wicked on the basis of conventional moral judgments.

Elite education left blood on my hands. Now it’s my responsibility to heal the damage

I know that my university won’t ever help me to be free, because its own existence is predicated on upholding white supremacy.

The anti-Black intellectual hierarchy built by standardized testing needs to come down

What educators should ask is why do we believe that Black students are low achieving and what are we doing that reinforces that belief?

Harvard denying Prof. García-Peña tenure reminds us elite schools are only here to exploit Black & Indigenous people

García-Peña’s ordeal is a necessary reminder to non-white scholars everywhere that intellectual genocide is alive and kicking.

On Black Death and grieving modalities

Our deaths, even in private, are suggestions of what we deserve. And they are always in relationship with the state.

What we can learn from the history of HIV surveillance during the era of COVID-19

The percolating crises of mass incarceration, nutrition apartheid and environmental racism makes the possibility of overcoming a pandemic another fight for our lives.

There is a COVID-19 conspiracy. Scaring Black people away from healthcare & vaccination is part of it

While Black people are vulnerable to targeting when medical treatments are being developed, we are also among the last to benefit. That is the conspiracy.

Social distancing is just part of the problem if we don’t account for anti-Blackness

Social distancing is a privilege that the well-to-do have already been practicing for centuries to keep their resources away from marginalized people.

It’s not Black people’s responsibility to end anti-Asian racism

Where was all this concern about not referencing a group of people or a place when talking about a disease, when Ebola was named after a river in the Congo?

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