Blavity — one of my favorite blogs — recently ran an article titled, “To All My Weird Black Girls.” As soon as I saw it on my newsfeed I was excited, because I knew this article would speak to me. But then I read it in its entirety. The writer spoke plainly about being an outlier...
Tag: race politics
Post
ANOHNI’s Race-Blindness, Superficial Politics Overshadow ‘Hopelessness’
by Erin Lyndal Martin On her debut solo album Hopelessness, British-born transgender performer ANOHNI offers up a veritable sampler platter of songs about atrocities. They cover drone warfare, global warming, capital punishment, the wrongs of Obama’s administration, patriarchy, the spread of Western capitalism, the increasing divide between man and nature, torture and more. If this sounds...
Post
Daily Share: Asian Americans #WhiteWashedOut of Film World Fight Back
Margaret Cho, Keith Chow (Nerds of Color) and Ellen Oh (#WeNeedDiverseBooks) are taking a stand against the white-washing of Asian culture within media. The #WhiteWashedOut campaign launches today, May 3, with a chat at noon Pacific Time to “talk honestly and openly about the dangers of erasure and lack of representation in Asian American communities.”...
Post
Ask Ashleigh: What Should White Allies Do?
Recently I posted about the praise Matt McGorry received for dragging Piers Morgan for coming for Beyoncé. I mean, what’s really new in the world of white men? The idea that white men have to drag or offend one another to make non-white-men’s humanity newsworthy is a consistent theme of everyday white supremacist patriarchy. Honestly, I...
Post
The Problem With Putting Harriet Tubman’s Picture on the $20 Bill
When the story broke that Harriet Tubman, abolitionist and champion of the underground railroad, would replace Andrew Jackson — a racist ethnic cleanser — on the $20 bill by 2020, my reaction was lukewarm, if not outright disgusted. Of course, the racists went berserk and lost their bigoted minds on the web. No surprise there....
Post
Islan Nettles’ Murder Reminds Us Why Black Cis Men Are Black Trans Women’s Biggest Threat
The trial of trans woman Islan Nettles’ murderer lasted a few short days. It was a quick injection of an ongoing trauma, not only for Islan’s mother Delores and her loved ones, but also for Black transgender people in the United States, especially trans women and femmes. After two years and seven months of mourning and...
Post
Trauma, Abuse, and Breaking the Silence: Why Women of Color Can’t Wait
“Believe her. We have to teach our daughters how to document and hold their own stories as truth.” As we talk about prioritizing black lives, there is a fallacy that as black men are suffering at the hands of police and the criminal justice system, black women are doing just fine. The numbers tell a...
Post
Janaya Khan: “If You’re Dissing the Sisters, You Ain’t Fighting the Power: Kendrick Hailed, Beyonce ‘Failed’”
This article was originally published on Janayakhan.com. Republished with permission. Last week, Beyonce performed “Formation”, where she honored the legacy of the Black Panther Party which denounced police brutality and sought Black liberation, while celebrating her Blackness unapologetically in Black militant regalia. While she has received backlash from mainstream media and international governmental bodies for...
Post
4 Ways to Discuss Birth Control to a Black Person Through a Repro Justice Lens
I am into reproductive justice. I am an activist. This means that I advocate for everyone to have access to adequate birth control methods, safe abortions, and various forms of health care within that realm that is low cost as well as no cost regardless of economic status or background. I am the go-to person...
Post
Co-opting A Movement: Opportunism and Black Lives
Can we find black liberation at the voting polls? Five months ago, Black Lives Matter leader Alicia Garza said “No” stating, “Black Lives Matter as a network will not, does not, has not, ain’t going to endorse any candidates.” She spoke plainly about the opportunistic nature of the political sphere, “What we’ve seen is an attempt...