My greatest fear is dying by the hands of white supremacists and just becoming a hashtag that eventually loses steam. But, I frequently do want to die. TW: This essay discusses suicidality, mentions of Black death, inpatient stays, madness, abuse, police encounter, hopelessness, and depression. By Lennox Orion It is 2012, I am 15-years-old and...
Tag: trayvon martin
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The Hashtag As Black Death
The Hashtag, used as a way to market the murders of Black people, commodifies their deaths, and as such, separates them from the possibility of life before Death. We have reached another pivotal moment in modern history; a continuation of the radical movement birthed in 2014 through the murder of Mike Brown in Ferguson. Months...
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Black Pain And The Difficult Work Of Telling Our Stories
We cannot tell difficult stories for the sake of telling them, we have to tell them because if we do not, the perpetrators of our pain get to decide its impact. By Kamilah Bush Recently, I’ve been thinking about what it means to be an artist who creates “difficult work.” I think of recent pieces...
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We Need Beyoncé’s Unapologetic Pro-Blackness in Mainstream Spaces
Beyoncé creates space for Blackness regardless of her audience, and it’s empowering to witness. By Jazmine Joyner Beyoncé officially changed the game, again, this past Saturday. Her performance at Coachella not only broke streaming records for the festival, but when she took the stage, she also became the first Black woman to ever headline the...
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Teaching Beyond Respectability Politics
In the wake of the deaths of Jordan Edwards and Richard Collins, two more black boys left to a hashtag, the highlighting of accolades and posturing is more prevalent than ever. By Erica Buddington “Silence and uniformity are not reflections of a job well done.” I said this to a former supervisor who’d walked into...
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Jordan Edwards Died Exactly 25 Years After the L.A. Riots, and Nothing Has Changed.
The police shooting of 15-year-old Jordan Edwards reveals that we haven’t made any real progress since Rodney King and the L.A. Riots. Editor’s Update: A previous version of this article stated that the L.A. Riots took place 20 years ago. The actual number is 25, though the thesis of the piece still holds. How ironic is...
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Why I’m Voting for Michelle Obama
When First Lady Michelle Obama took the stage in New Hampshire this month to rally for Hillary Clinton — and responded with authentic anger and horror to Donald Trump’s remarks about groping women — I was at first disappointed that Trump had once again managed to make the presidential campaign all about himself. But as...
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Protect Legend Preston: How and Why Black Children are Denied Childhood
Legend Preston, a 10-year-old bigger-bodied Black boy, was chased by Newark officers with their guns drawn because they thought he was a suspect in an armed robbery. In the video footage his mom took, Preston says, “Some police started coming this way with guns pointed at me, and then I ran into the backyard.” He goes on to...
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Black Ohio Teen Faces Jail For Standing Ground Against Abusive Father, But George Zimmerman Walks Free?
Convicting Bresha Meadows for the murder of her father will jeopardize the future of passing “stand your ground” law in Ohio. In a not so strange way, the story of Bresha Meadows — the 14-year-old Black teenage girl from Warren, Ohio who shot her abusive father, Jonathan Meadows, 41, in the head — makes me...
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How Much Of An Activist For Black Lives Is LeBron James?
Unless Lebron James plans to risk his career and get arrested in the streets during a live Cavs game, public statements and court symbolism are as far as he can go under white supremacist capitalism. It’s never been easy being a Black athlete. First, at the outset of birth of national leagues, Blacks with any...