"Blackness is Enough."

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Our elders are more than the utility they provide

April 22, 2021

The problem of visibility at the intersection of aging, poverty and Blackness predates me, finding its genesis on the plantation grounds.

Anti-Blackness and the Fetishization of Visibility

March 3, 2021

Anti-blackness, predictably, got in the way of something that had the potential to be a commentary on the politics of visibility under racial capitalism.

Self healing was the key to pursuing ministry in my senior years

February 18, 2021

The call to ministry became clearer when some friends and I started opening our homes to people who had no place to live; people who had fallen through the cracks of the social "safety" net.

Words our fathers should have said: Encouragement for other Black cis-het men experiencing body-dysmorphia

January 28, 2021

I hoarded bodybuilding magazines and wasted nights diagramming routines which earned me more injuries than benefit. In the gym, I exercised to nausea, vomited and despised myself for being ill equipped for exercise regimens designed to market magazines.

Toni Morrison’s “A Mercy” reminds us all of the power Black and Native American solidarity wields

January 19, 2021

Black and Indigenous communities bear the brunt of social and environmental injustices from the same systems of oppression.

Running as an act of Resistance

November 6, 2020

I could have chosen to run east, away from the scene. Instead, I headed west, daring to face the waiting hate.

We don’t need advisory committees to take the first steps toward healing from white supremacy

October 27, 2020

After temporarily removing Christopher Columbus statues from Chicago Parks, on August 12th, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the “Project to Assess Memorials and Monuments in the City’s Public Art Collection.” Members of this project will form an advisory committee with local artists, academics and public officials to promote “racial healing and historical reckoning” for the Chicago…

Non-Black Muslims will never find justice without ensuring Black Lives Matter

October 14, 2020

On Saturday, June 20th, 62-year-old Ejaz Choudry, a Pakistani man living with schizophrenia, was tragically and violently killed by Peel Region Police in Mississauga, Ontario. Choudry’s family called the non-emergency police line to help the man as he suffered through a state of distress, only for him to be shot to death.  Many South Asians,…

Black women’s impossible dilemma: How this world ties our “safety” to the protection of our abusers

October 7, 2020

The world has an appetite for our pain, and this is what I refuse. This is why I will never again decide to protect someone who harms me.

Sex work is subject to the same anti-Blackness as every other industry in the US

September 29, 2020

When we say we are committed to Black liberation it must be in service of sex workers’ autonomy. But they are never nuanced beings. The fight for sex worker liberation is the fight for all Black lives, and until that is prioritized, erasure and respectability politics will persist. In every industry.

Trump is right, “To be anti-racist is to be anti-American”

September 22, 2020

If your anti-racism is concerned with upholding the mythology of America then you are not an anti-racist. When we cower away from accusations that anti-racism is un-American we perpetuate falsehoods that any type of liberation can exist under the banner of America. 

Interview with Jody Armour on Nigga Theory

September 3, 2020

I take issue with any and all efforts to distinguish between the worthy and the wicked on the basis of conventional moral judgments.

Police can’t save children from sexual abuse, but we must

August 26, 2020

With inadequate responses to CSA and little trust in police among people of color, relying on cops to address an issue like CSA is questionable, at best.

Liberals won’t save us, even if they are Black

August 14, 2020

But voting is not and will never be enough. Voting often legitimizes the never ending good cop/bad cop routine of the two party system.

The problem with using proximity & poverty to dismiss the fallacies of “Black-on-Black crime”

August 5, 2020

Black men’s “senseless” acts of violence are much more sophisticated in nature than both the liberal and conservative anti-abolition culture of poverty argument would have one believe.

The publishing industry cannot continue to hide its anti-Blackness behind their #BlackBestSeller

July 28, 2020

A bunch of self-confessed book addicts that is the publishing industry, may struggle to admit to itself, and its readers, that there are some problems within that throwing the faces of their Black authors to the forefront now won’t fix.

Rest is an ode to our ancestors and an invitation for our movements

July 28, 2020

Making space for stillness is an ode to those of us who have not and are unable to rest. It is an acknowledgement for those of us for which rest has been stolen.

Protecting inanimate objects and “values” over Black lives has always been essential to America

July 22, 2020

None of this is new, and when we remember this we get stronger in our strategies of dismantling the systems that produce this violence.

Dear Ancestors: How connecting with our dead teaches Black people how to live

July 10, 2020

I once told a therapist, “The only reason I haven’t killed myself is because I’d anger and hurt so many people who love me.” I suspect I was mostly complaining because love was hacking away at my American sense of individualism.

This #BlackMansChallenge is to extend my advocacy beyond validating the struggles of Black men

June 16, 2020

For me, our revolution requires a clear, concentrated, and committed love and support for Black women, Black Trans* folks, Black gender non-conforming folks, Black queer folks, and yes, Black men.

No bad apples: Actors in anti-Black systems have created too much collective harm to be judged individually

June 10, 2020

It feels too enormous a task to mourn so many at once.

We shouldn’t have to be murdered to prove that Black people are divine

May 14, 2020

We dare to make due out of the scraps given to us by creating new things out of the old, salvaging things that seem lost, bringing life to spaces where death once reigned, rolling away the proverbial stone and resurrecting. It is only through the story of Black people in this country that Christianity has an American relevance at all.

Let our dead bury their murderers: Police & protests aren’t our only options

May 12, 2020

When do we hold the State’s feet to the fire? When do we experience righteous justice?

Nothing is clean enough for a pandemic when your blood is dirty

May 6, 2020

The funny thing about the order to stay “six feet” apart from one another is that folks like me can’t be too sure if the orderer is suggesting the distance we should be standing, or the distance we should be buried.

Black Life is a Constant Practice of Mutual Aid Work

April 28, 2020

Those feelings of hopelessness have given me time to re-examine the ways American, individualistic values have seeped into Black life. And perhaps those values have prevented us from acknowledging that we’ve always prioritized and practiced communal care in our families, neighborhoods and relationships.

There is a COVID-19 conspiracy. Scaring Black people away from healthcare & vaccination is part of it

April 17, 2020

While Black people are vulnerable to targeting when medical treatments are being developed, we are also among the last to benefit. That is the conspiracy.

Social distancing is just part of the problem if we don’t account for anti-Blackness

April 8, 2020

Social distancing is a privilege that the well-to-do have already been practicing for centuries to keep their resources away from marginalized people.

The perils of navigating platonic relationships with other gay men

March 31, 2020

Being a sexual minority puts pressure on gay men to connect sexually or romantically with the gay men who are most proximate to them.

It’s not Black people’s responsibility to end anti-Asian racism

March 20, 2020

Where was all this concern about not referencing a group of people or a place when talking about a disease, when Ebola was named after a river in the Congo?

You can’t condemn Bernie Sanders for his comments on Fidel Castro, without also condemning the U.S. for it’s history of violence

March 18, 2020

One cannot condemn Cuba as a repressive regime and then say that the United States, as Ronald Reagan claimed, is a city on a hill. The hypocrisy is a glaring reminder that seeks not to learn from history; only impose its will upon it.

How we are conditioned not to account for the mental health needs of Black people who commit violence

March 11, 2020

A cop with biases is dangerous to the community. If you are more passionate for them than for us all, mind your tongue.

How “Gayle King v. Kobe Bryant” obscured a valid critique of sensationalizing sexual violence

March 5, 2020

In our efforts to resist this silencing, however, we must also consider the ways that others who are not public figures are implicated in these discussions

What happened to Wilder during his loss was sexual violence, something that Black men know too well

March 3, 2020

This historical lack of cultural currency associated with Black men being raped has impacted how Wilder's assault has been read.

Yes, I was suicidal. But living for other people is what almost killed me

February 27, 2020

Like most Black folks, the intentional and subliminal external messaging I received growing up were variations of me being unlovable, inadequate, and too much.

Ayanna Pressley sees power in being a sexual violence survivor, & there’s science to that

February 25, 2020

For those of us survivors whose bodies revolt, it’s not just that we are experiencing random medicalized dysfunctions. We are reacting to the toxicity surrounding us.

I hope you catch AIDS and die

February 20, 2020

When you tell me you hope my death is via “catching AIDS.” What you are saying is you want me to live forever, or at least until a miracle occurs. And in response I say, “Thank you!”

No Jay-Z, corporate sponsorships cannot replace protests

February 20, 2020

The danger in celebrating corporate activism, and elevating Jay-Z as a model of activism, is that it frames resistance and rebellion as something to be done with oppressors,

Elite education left blood on my hands. Now it’s my responsibility to heal the damage

February 5, 2020

I know that my university won’t ever help me to be free, because its own existence is predicated on upholding white supremacy. 

Is that building racist or is it just me?: The anti-Black history of urban planning

February 4, 2020

There are other “less” insidious markers of environmental racism that doesn’t specifically place gentrification at the center. I’ve been horrified and fascinated to track the trends of changes in communities urban development structures that impact our daily lives and our memorie

Coded or not, it’s still racism

January 23, 2020

While Black folks decipher this lexicon for our own survival, white folks either remain oblivious to the whole exchange or worse, actively deny any wrongdoing in an attempt to preserve a perception of neutrality. 

The anti-Black intellectual hierarchy built by standardized testing needs to come down

January 21, 2020

What educators should ask is why do we believe that Black students are low achieving and what are we doing that reinforces that belief?

Having friendships with cis-het Black men taught me that we get to say no to sex, too

January 16, 2020

We’re tricked into believing that sex is about performance more than it is about connection, autonomy and consent. And the pressures of performance encourage men to consider hardness as our only option, means of expression, and source of intimacy.

How “Black people are not a monolith” is used to promote respectability politics

January 10, 2020

I am in no way saying that Black people are a monolith. We have varying cultures, ideas, beliefs, etc. What I am saying is that we should be careful about when we feel the need to claim that and why.

Don’t call her bluff

January 3, 2020

FROM OUR NEW SHORT STORY SERIES, 'IMAGING OTHER WORLDS': "She leaned forward and put her hands on my desk, causing my papers and folders to shoot into the air and swirl violently around us. My laptop sparked, then burst into flames. I could hear myself screaming inside my head, but nothing came out when I opened my mouth. I couldn’t move a muscle."

We protect us: Why the state will never solve the epidemic of missing and trafficked Black women & girls

January 2, 2020

State institutions such as the police, and child welfare services are often complicit in sexual violence enacted upon Black women and girls. 

Muklaal

December 27, 2019

FROM 'IMAGING OTHER WORLDS': "Zakiya switched to verbal communication when she replied next and it amazed Diya how easily she was adapting. Or maybe she was just experiencing a delay in a proper reaction to finding out everything she knew was a lie."

What exactly is “micro” about microaggressions?

December 26, 2019

Between macro and micro, I would choose neither. I haven’t been able to make the microaggressions feel any less aggressive than a full slap to the face. For me, the macro only provides substance to the micro.

Take some into the mouth

December 20, 2019

FROM OUR NEW SHORT STORY SERIES, 'IMAGING OTHER WORLDS': "Pearl didn’t push Zura on the whole cunnilingus issue because that’s not what she needed from him. He wasn’t her only partner. What she wanted from him was a few free drinks followed by an enchanting night ride and a deep quickie."

Harvard denying Prof. García-Peña tenure reminds us elite schools are only here to exploit Black & Indigenous people

December 19, 2019

García-Peña’s ordeal is a necessary reminder to non-white scholars everywhere that intellectual genocide is alive and kicking.

Black people are dreaming to get free- Literally

December 17, 2019

The complex and intricate relationship between notions of disability and indigenous concepts of spiritual marking are alive in Harriet’s story.

Come on in, the water is fine

December 13, 2019

FROM OUR NEW SHORT STORY SERIES, 'IMAGINING OTHER WORLDS': "The weather wanted everyone in the state of Ohio to remember Henry Clement Strudel. For weeks plump, gray clouds carried heavy July rain and the sky wailed for justice."

This ‘Raising Dion’ story-line is a powerful lesson on consent, disability and possession

December 11, 2019

The relationship between Esperanza and Dion can be viewed to challenge the typical representation of disability while also encouraging nuance, accountability and change.

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