February 26, 2017, Moonlight won Best Picture at the Academy Awards. February 26, 2017, marked the fifth anniversary of Trayvon Martin’s death. In my mind, these two things are not random coincidences. Both Trayvon and Chiron, the protagonist of Moonlight, are Black boys from Miami who were trying to make a way in the world […]
Category: Art
Dear Octavia
Dear Octavia, Yesterday, it was your birthday. Happy birthday, dear! I’ve been missing you a lot and thinking about you a lot lately, especially since there’s a newly discovered crop of your short stories. I feel like that was a gift for all of us. Your work has continually been a gift to me […]
Interview with Kiini Ibura Salaam and Chesya Burke
CFs Sheridf and Crunkadelic had the honor of interviewing two awesome speculative fiction authors, the fabulous Kiini Ibura Salaam (author of Ancient, Ancient) and Chesya Burke (author of Let’s Play White). We talk feminism, Afrofuturism, and so much more. Check out the interview below. Kiini and Chesya will be reading from their works at […]
De-Tangling Racism: On White Women and Black Hair
Pictures from a new exhibit by photographer Endia Beal called “Can I Touch It?” showcase several white women, all corporate execs, who agreed to get a “Black hairstyle” and then have their portrait taken. Apparently, this very quotidian fixation with Black women’s bodies and Black women’s hair is now the stuff of art exhibits. This project […]
lovers rock: the crunk feminist summer mixtape series
I refuse to cede this summer to cruelty. I have rubbed the roof of my mouth raw with pomegranate hard candies. I have learned how to take rapid-fire selfies at flattering angles. Underwhelmed by artisanal popsicles, politics and my own work ethic, I have brooded. At my best I have ridden the 2 train through […]
this is how we do it: the crunk feminist summer mixtape series
Josephine Baker famously fled the U.S. for the reprieve from racism post World War I France provided. She called France her home for the rest of her life but continued to perform stateside. She also protested. She addressed the masses at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and juxtaposed the measure of […]
soul glow: the crunk feminist summer mixtape series
Summers ago, the sage Cee Lo implored us to “drop the top and let the sunshine in.” But we don’t all ride around and get it: some of bus, bike and stride. I pound the pavement in part because I was terrorized by a jheri-curled narcoleptic on my mid-aught subway commutes. Each morn this ostensible, […]
Getting Free & Staying Free
It might seem a bit cliché for an English professor to be all like “Beloved is one of my favorite novels,” but it’s the truth. I love that book with a fiery burning passion. It’s one of those texts that I can always go back to and that never gets old. I can open any […]
the light of us: a mother’s day mix
call it our craziness even, call it anything. it is the life thing in us that will not let us die. Poet Lucille Clifton’s language for lineage was cherished. “roots,” a poem from her 1974 collection An Ordinary Woman named it light and I choose to liken it to mothering. it is the light in us it […]
“The Booty Don’t Lie”: Kelly, K. Michelle, & Janelle Monae’ Sing Black Girl Freedom
One of the biggest conundrums faced by this generation of Black feminists is the challenge of articulating a pro-sex, pro-pleasure politic in the face of recalcitrant and demeaning stereotypes that objectify, dehumanize, and devalue Black women’s bodies and lives. To be “good” feminists, we always feel that we have to make sure and say it, […]