The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto
By YaMinco
Coming off Black History Month, I really pushed myself to think about how I could honor Black people, culture, and experiences 365 days a year. I decided that I wanted to control my own narrative in terms of what it means to be Black. So I intentionally sought out media that was created by Black folx for Black folx. Along the way, I came across an interview with Charles Blow talking about his new book: The Devil You Know. The title alone caught my attention. As I listened to Blow talk about the book, I was intrigued. While I initially thought to myself, “Wow this is audacious,” I was eager to learn more.
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Angry Black Woman
By Assiatou
“Why are you always so damn angry.”
“You are too mean.”
“You need to change the tone of your voice.”
Every second of my life growing up, I was told these things. I was always being told how I needed to sound, what I needed to do or say in order to just be respected and be treated like a human being. I was criticized on every little detail of my life to make sure I was pleasing other people. I was doing everything in my power to not be seen as the angry Black girl, because for some reason these angry Black girls do not deserve respect. They do not deserve to have their voice listened to. They are not important, and you need to avoid being perceived as that.
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Book Reflections: Good Talk
By Stef
I don’t know about you, but the pandemic has been a mixed success for me when it comes to finding the time to want to sit down and read. While there were (are) endless hours to fill, it felt like my motivation and focus was burning off like morning fog. That’s a pretty lame reason to have chosen to read the graphic novel, “Good Talk” by Mira Jacob, but here we are. I thought that maybe a graphic novel would be more accessible and less burdensome for my anxiety-riddled brain.
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365: Black History Month, Black Month, Black
By Tasha K
Today is the start of Black History Month, dubbed “Negro History Week” and begun by a Black man, Carter G. Woodson. Woodsen’s intent was to highlight the rich history of an entire people-group rather than only focusing on two prominent men of history, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglas. It was converted to a whole month by Black Kent State University students in the early 1970s, and made “official” by a white man in office in 1976.
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Silently Survey My Space; I Also Have Dreams
By Tasha K
Two weeks ago in the morning, on the fourth day of the month, I learned about a Black teen I once knew, a former student, who had been rushed to a hospital the night before--gunshot wounds. Shot in the streets.
Over fifty-two years ago in the evening, on the fourth day of the month, a Black man was rushed to the hospital--gunshot wounds. Shot on a porch.
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Book Reflections: The Color Of Compromise
By Marla
Handwriting experts say that people who press really hard when they write could be angry or stressed. That would explain why all the underlines, notes, and angry faces I scrawled in The Color of Compromise are so deep I can feel them on the other side of every page.
I also wrote “Dad” at least a dozen times.
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I’M STILL HERE: 2020 Reflections from a Black Woman in a White World
By YaMinco
I recently read Austin Channing Brown’s, I’m Still Here, Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness and its relevance hit me like a ton of bricks. Yes, as a country we are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic (which has claimed the lives of over 219,000 Americans), but as Black woman, I am also living with a racial pandemic. Police brutality is killing Black people physically—not to mention that daily we are dealing with the spirit murdering of our people.
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Living in Liminal Space
By Tammy
DESCRIBE WHAT YOU’RE BRINGING: _____. The cursor blinked back at me and I hesitated momentarily before typing “Japanese curry.” I was preparing to bring a meal to someone post-surgery—someone I was still getting to know. I think she knows I’m Chinese—she asked if I made any Chinese dishes when we spoke over the phone—but we really hadn’t talked much about our family ancestry. I knew her family liked Chinese food, but in the end, making a Japanese curry dish was going to be easier (plus the quality of the dish wouldn’t be much impacted upon reheating). Yet, in those seconds of hesitation, I fretted…
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Their New Normal
By Kathleen Vaughan, Guest Blogger
I want to share beautiful sentiments around the election and what it could mean for my children. I feel all this love, pride, and energy. I feel the hashtag #myvplookslikeme. It’s a pretty great moment in history. It rivals Obama 08’ in many ways. It has that similar feeling, that, “Yepppppp.” Yet, everytime I try to tell the story, I end up dropping this glorious moment inside of a more stoney narrative. I’ll do my best to get there but I don’t see a way I can share one moment without describing the frame of my tapestry.
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On the Election Results: The Ugly
By Tasha K
The data is in, and numbers don’t lie. 71 million Americans voted for comfortable whiteness and the oppression of others as the “sanctity of life.” Each of those votes was actually a vote for the radical racist rhetoric, a litany of lies, and ongoing bullying battles. Our country is still racist, Black lives still don’t matter, and some of you will continue to question why we call Trump racist in the first place. There is a lot of work to do. Though my hope has been that those 71 million folx voted for conservatism and not racism, we will never be sure.
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On the Election Results: The Bad
By Tasha K
A tweet I read yesterday said, “We are back to regular racism, ya’ll.”...back to combating that “Get Out” racism. I dubbed the description as a “racism cushion.” The bad is here, even in the midst of a significant political change. Racism is still real. It still needs to be dismantled. It’s still killing us.
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On the Election Results: The Good
By Tasha K
The future is brighter. The youths have spoken, and will continue to change this country for the better. We will continue to shift things until systemic racism is eliminated, and it will be uncomfortable for you to be racist or supremacist in American culture and church pews.
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I am a Black creative who is tired.
By Kadrian
Being a Black woman creator, I find the duty to create to be simultaneously beautiful, masterful, and burdensome. How can I, a Black woman, bring beauty and life to society when my world is ugly? How can I bring beauty to painful and empty stories surrounding Blackness?
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All Lives Don’t Matter, So We Can Stop Saying It
By Tasha K
Today I came across the full length video of the murder of George Floyd from a new body cam. Newly released footage shows a terrified Black man being approached by the cops with a gun pointed at him. He is pulled out of his car and murdered in broad daylight on the street. I watched the whole thing. Somehow I couldn’t look away, even though I knew how it would end.
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Self Portrait and the Continuous Rage
By Tasha K
Today I painted the self portrait you can find at the bottom of this page, the hoodie was on purpose. The important part is that I am still in a rage or enraged. I forgot that even without expectations things can be disappointing.
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#blacklivesmatter, An Angry Hashtag Story, and How I Chose Not to Run
By Tasha K
I think I sat with this long enough to write about it. Today should be Ahmaud Arbery’s 26th birthday. Instead, it’s a day when folks are running 2.23 miles to remember him, to say #blacklivesmatter, or something about solidarity. They’re probably feeling like they have done something. I chose not to run.
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Subject, Encouragement for Today: A Quarantine Poem
By Tasha K
I don’t really do poetry, but was feeling inspired after reading Jessica’s poem on Twitter. The poem below is from subject lines in the first 25 emails listed in my email box. Lots of random stuff, some you might even recognize. Enjoy.
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My Lens, Brown Skin Girl
By Tasha K
I am new to this blogging thing, and even newer to leading something.
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