Tony Norman: They All Call to Ask, ‘What Do Black People Want?’
There’s a genre of letters and phone calls that every black person with a media platform gets on a regular basis. They all begin with the correspondent declaring his or … Continue reading
Video: “Buitenkant” (The Outside)
. Winner of the Jury Award at Shnit Worldwide Film Festival 2016. A homeless woman in Cape Town breaks into an apartment, where her experience turns into a complex reflection … Continue reading
Maya Lewis: Civil Rights Are Green
A Concise History of Environmental Racism and Justice in the US I never knew the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C to be anything other than disgusting. My family would joke … Continue reading
Jessica Corbett: Celebrations as Bernie-Style Candidate Wins Mayoral Victory in Alabama
“This isn’t just a victory for Birmingham, it’s a victory for all of us” says Our Revolution’s Nina Turner, calling on progressives to “support local races all across the country.” … Continue reading
Video: Dominique Christina reads “Mothers of Murdered Sons”
. Dominique Christina performs her poem “Mothers of Murdered Sons” at the 2016 Split this Rock festival. Dominique Christina is a poet and teacher who lives in Colorado. She is mother … Continue reading
John Samuel Tieman: What to do with the Confederate War Memorial?
Recently my wife and I were in Bentonville, Arkansas. The town square is like the setting of a Sherwood Anderson novel — quaint shops, courthouse. At the center of the … Continue reading
Jose Padua: On the Persistence of Color as a Way of Seeing the World
Less than fifty years ago it would have been illegal for me to marry the woman I’m married to in the state where I now live. I didn’t know this … Continue reading
Rebecca Gordon: Turning American Communities Into War Zones, Death By Death
When It Comes to People of Color, the Police Make San Francisco “Baghdad by the Bay” In the photo, five of Beyoncé’s leather-clad, black-bereted dancers raise their fists in a … Continue reading
Vanessa German: My People Know about the Tears
sometimes i hate you. sometimes i hate you and i feel it rising up in my throat spine lips acid a neon shaft of rage through a red needle an … Continue reading
Paul Christensen: The Paradox of Diversity
It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the history of American immigration is all about bringing in scab labor to keep down wages and to force established workers … Continue reading
Jose Padua: Recollection During a Light Storm in the Valley
On 14th Street near Avenue B I’m walking in New York City during the short middle of a long summer day behind a lovely, young, brown-skinned mother pushing her child … Continue reading
George Yancy: Dear White America
In 2015, I conducted a series of 19 interviews with philosophers and public intellectuals on the issue of race. My aim was to engage, in this very public space, with … Continue reading
Daniel R. Cobb: Isis – A Cup We Have Filled With Hatred
The claim to be a civilized society, the claim to be rational, advanced, even superior, is utterly bankrupt of any truth if, at those very moments when civility and rationality … Continue reading
Leonard Pitts, Jr.: We don’t want to watch the police, but we have to
The question was first posed by Juvenal, a Latin poet whose life spanned the first and second centuries: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Translation: “Who watches the watchmen?” The old question … Continue reading
