17 May 2013
“One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.” —Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “No one is going to give you the education you need to overthrow them. Nobody is going to teach you your true history, teach you your true heroes, if they know that that knowledge will help [...]
20 May 2013
By Molly Baker On April 23, University of Arizona student Dean Saxton, better known as Brother Dean, stood on a bench brandishing a sign that bluntly stated in bold, black letters “You Deserve Rape.” Saxton proceeded to verbally harass many women that walked by on their way to class, calling them [...]
15 May 2013
By Mohadesa Najumi When I think about what modesty means in today’s political, cultural and religious environment, I am inclined to believe that the concept itself does not involve choice, or any dimension of freedom or independent thought. Rather, modesty constitutes a dictatorial concept forced upon women whether they agree [...]
13 May 2013
By Kristen Reynolds As I sit here on the eve of my graduation, cataloging what I’ve learned over the last few years as a Black woman coming into (what I hope is) consciousness – I feel a great deal of shame. Shame and, if I am going to be incredibly honest, [...]
7 May 2013
*Trigger warning* Sometimes I feel like the NRA is actively just trying to lose all the credibility it has left in this world. Just when you thought the NRA’s annual convention in Houston this weekend couldn’t draw any more negative attention, it goes out and casually promotes a company selling a product [...]
29 Mar 2013
By Monica Torres When I sign my name, it’s Monica, not Mónica. When I order pupusas at my favorite restaurant, the waiter will give my accent an approving nod, as if to say, you’re one of us. But it will only take a harder question for me to reveal the [...]
18 Mar 2013
By Alexa Lambertis At an early age, I was exposed to a woman who essentially changed my life. A sweet lady with a southern background, she was introduced to me as a family friend. I met her in her own home, where we would spend a majority of our time [...]
By Ynanna Djehuty Latinas in the United States are facing many of the same concerns regarding birthing and reproductive health care as our African-American sisters. As Latinas assimilate into American society, the threads that have kept us connected to our traditions are breaking quickly. For example, Office of Minority Health research states that the...
Read more »
By Elvia Lopez Bill Cosby knows that kids say the darndest things. Lying by the pool yesterday, I overheard my little brother tell my rather corpulent uncle he had huge boobies, what some have coined as “moobs” (man boobs). After wiping my tears of laughter, I began to think more closely about gender implications...
Read more »
By Aishah Shahidah Simmons and Heather Laine Talley Perhaps in this twenty-four hour news cycle culture, the horrid sexist and racist sexualization of nine-year old Quvenzhané Wallis both at the Academy Awards and in Twittersphere is now old news. And maybe for her sake, it should be. White feminists’ silence in the face of...
Read more »
By j.n. salters I was compelled to complain because I feel that the vast majority of black folks who are subjected daily to forms of racial harassment have accepted this as one of the social conditions of our life in white supremacist patriarchy that we cannot change. This acceptance is a form of complicity…. Racial...
Read more »
By Tanwi Nandini Islam When something happened. An allusion to something ominous from the distant past. I documented my rape thoroughly in my creative work, yet within the nucleus of my family, I’ve only felt I could openly name it to my sister. While my parents braved my teenaged vacillations between rage and impetuousness,...
Read more »
By Ynanna Djehuty I like to open with definitions. The usage of words and knowing the weight they hold is important to all discourse, regardless of whether we are conscious of their weight or not. For this piece, I want to define the key words in its title so I may offer the reader...
Read more »
By Alison Piepmeier As Keira Williams wrote here recently, Cynthia Wachenheim killed herself—and attempted to kill her son—because she felt that she’d been a terrible mother. Williams aptly observes the way in which our culture creates and upholds unrealistic standards of motherhood, the “mommy myth” of the Good Mother. These sorts of cultural narratives...
Read more »
Last month, Michelle Obama visited a Springfield, Illinois, Wal-Mart to celebrate and highlight its efforts to help Americans eat healthier. Mrs. Obama announced, “For years, the conventional wisdom said healthy products just didn’t sell. Thanks to Wal-Mart and other companies, we’re proving the conventional wisdom wrong.” If only this neoliberal logic delivered as promised....
Read more »
By David J. Malebranche His 26 year old body was calculating comfortable, sprawled over a disheveled collection of towels and sheets constituting a makeshift mattress, littered with blood-tinged gauze pads, a towel soiled with oral secretions and a crusty suction tube. Upon seeing me enter the room, his weary eyes shifted from his digital...
Read more »
By Keira Williams Before she jumped eight stories to her death, Cynthia Wachenheim left a thirteen-page suicide letter explaining that she was a bad mother. She was “evil,” she wrote, because of what she planned to do, and because of what she had failed to do in the past. Motivated by “guilt and fear,” she...
Read more »
17 May 2013
Assata do not dry like dissipated plums under castro’s bronzing sun you mural fortress you live memorial spirited artifice rouged sea salt that marinates america’s wound Assata you like stripped bone road unaware of which exit is free birth brown coagulated rhythm redefined reborn rumba queen Assata dusk breath [...]
16 May 2013
“Affirmation” by Assata Shakur* ___ I believe in living. I believe in the spectrum of Beta days and Gamma people. I believe in sunshine. In windmills and waterfalls, tricycles and rocking chairs. And i believe that seeds grow into sprouts. And sprouts grow into trees. I believe in the magic [...]
16 May 2013
for Assata Amira Nakati Carter-Goff on her tenth birthday call down the name freedom call up the spirit of no matter what now call your shared name liberation veins steel will fierce focus shielding sacred smile laugh your own name radiant as cuba laugh your yawning name into language [...]
7 May 2013
7 May 2013
30 Apr 2013
25 Apr 2013
20 Apr 2013
The Guardian