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Here’s How Young Black Voters Are Fighting Back Against Voter Suppression in Mississippi
While folks around the country are galvanizing today, National Voter Registration Day, to make sure people are eligible to vote come Election Day, here in Mississippi, young black voters are fighting for much more than making sure our names are on the voter rolls. For four straight years, Mississippi will have had back-to-back, high-stakes elections.…
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Kindness Was Trudeau’s Ace…And Blackface May Cost Him the Election
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used to be my fourth favorite Canadian, behind Keanu Reeves, Celine Dion, and Margaret Atwood. Seeing Trudeau in blackface was more painful than when my old high school crush shared a racist meme on Facebook. It kills the part of your innocence that makes you sad and angry that you…
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The Magical, Riveting, Amazing Story of JJ and the Enthralling Power of Art
It’s early September 2019. The store clerk just outside Amsterdam Centraal Station watches me blow a gust of warm breath into my palms and tells me the best parts of summer left one week ago. The city welcomes me, as it had on my last six visits, with a cool breeze and light rain and…
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Harriet A. Washington's A Terrible Thing to Waste Injects a Dose of Hard Truth Into the Conversation About Black Lives
Harriet Washington’s 2007 tome, Medical Apartheid, not only outlined the pervasive use of medical experimentation on black Americans throughout history but circumscribed blacks’ credible distrust of the medical establishment. In fact, a large part of why J. Marion Sims’ statue was removed from New York’s Central Park more than a decade later was because of…
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Meet the New Head of Planned Parenthood: Alexis McGill Johnson Is a Seasoned Soldier in the War for Women’s Reproductive Health
It was mid-August, and just weeks into her new job as acting president/CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of American and the Planned Parenthood Action Fund, Alexis McGill Johnson was out front, defending the organization from attack. On that day, McGill Johnson said that Planned Parenthood would be pulling out of the Title X program,…
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When Will America Save Black Mothers From Dying? Never, Without Us
“I have taken trauma and turned it into triumph,” says Brittany “Tru” Kellman, founder of Jamaa Birth Village in Ferguson, Mo. At the age of 13, Kellman found herself in an unfamiliar city, running away from a violent home, and pregnant. At 37 weeks into her pregnancy, a physician decided to induce her labor without…
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At Least 100 Bahamians Forced Off Boat Headed to U.S. Because They Didn’t Have Visas
Adding to what is undoubtedly a deeply traumatic experience—losing one’s home and upending any sense of safety and normalcy—many evacuated Bahamians bound for Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Dorian were told they could not enter the United States without proper paperwork, and reportedly as many as 130—women, men, children—disembarked a ship. WSVN reporter Brian…
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Decriminalizing Sex Work Makes the Entire Black Community Safer
I came out rather late, while I was serving in the military, hundreds of miles away from my parents, siblings and children. I was stationed in Fort Myers, Virginia, and I worked part-time in Washington, D.C. This was also the time when I started transitioning and doing sex work. Since then, I have seen thousands…
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Lizzo Gets Real About Her Blues in ‘I’m Listening,’ Kicking Off Suicide Prevention Week
In June, “Truth Hurts” singer Lizzo went on social media to share that she was going through a rough time, ending her Instagram post, “Life hurts.” The IG post, which has garnered more than two million views noted, “I’m depressed and there’s no one I can talk to because there’s nothing anyone can do about…
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The Online Abuse of Black Women Persists, and It Needs to Be Checked
It can be tempting to think that social media is a veneer providing some level of protection from problematic face-to-face interactions. But on a platform known to constantly spew hostility and hatred towards black women and women of color, it is anything but. From research and analysis, we know Twitter can be a breeding ground…
