If you’re like me you’re probably geeked that the election is finally over. I mean, now I can turn all of my attention back to Parks and Recreation, Scandal, and the Real Housewives of Atlanta. Finally! But, seriously. I’m glad the election and the election coverage is over. Sure, I love a giddy Rachel Maddow […]
Category: LBGT*QIQTSAA
Learning Community with Black Girls
In a two-part series called Meet the Authors, the CFC talks to Drs. Ruth Nicole Brown, Chamara Jewel Kwakye, and Bettina Love about their recently released books, Wish to Live: The Hip-Hop Feminist Pedagogy Reader and Hip hop’s Li’l Sistas Speak: Negotiating Identities and Politics in the New South. Both books describe Black girlhoodand hip […]
Please Feel Free to Keep Your Bullshit Apology
So, I was on Facebook (granted, I know that was my very first mistake) and I came across a homophobic comment posted by my youngest brother. Back story: my little brother and I have the same dad but different moms. I don’t use the word “half-brother” because to me if feels like it somehow delegitimatizes […]
Memories, survival and safety
TRIGGER WARNING This post contains information about sexual violence that may be triggering to survivors. I know if feels like I been gone for a minute but now I’m back, green tea on ice with a fitted. 🙂 Mi familia, it has been a while since I last posted. I have to be honest, for […]
Coming Out Stories: On Frank Ocean
By Summer McDonald Original Published at The Black Youth Project I’ve spent the last week treading in the liquid of a queer-flavored ambivalence, trying to determine why the Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean coming out announcements mean less to me than other people. I have seen enough episodes of Coming Out Stories and foolishly subjected myself and […]
Interrupted Attachments: On Rights, Equality and Blackness
Remaining attached to certain ideals even when – and sometimes, most especially after – privileges that accrue to such concepts have been pointed out and problematized, should force us to ask some serious questions about the relation of citizenship and subjectivity, the relation of citizenship as subjectivity, to ongoing processes of exclusion and violence. The […]
On the Queerness of Self Love
While conducting a seminar with college students about self-esteem, Yolo Akili heard a young person say something that remains an important touchstone for those of us trying to do liberatory work in our communities. When talking about loving oneself, a Black woman said, “Self love? That shit’s gay!” I’ve turned this statement over in my […]
This is How it Works
You’ve probably already heard about Brian McKnight’s desire to release an “adult” mixtape. Now, brother McKnight has recently claimed that this shamtastery was a parody of the hypersexualized R&B songs that are par for the course. Okay, boo. You might need to start back at one. Something tells me that Forever Knight was not lampooning the […]
Box Out: On Brittney Griner and Women Who Ball (Better Than You)
Guest Post by Summer McDonald Cross posted from Black Youth Project. I have beef with Brittney Griner. It’s not because the Baylor University women’s basketball team she leads beat Notre Dame in the women’s NCAA Division 1 championship a couple of weeks ago, and I like an underdog–even if it is Notre Dame. It’s not […]
On Appropriate Victims: More on Trayvon Martin and Other Names You Need to Know
Part of the reason folks rallied in reaction to Trayvon Martin’s murder has to do with ideas about who is an appropriate or worthy victim. He was shot by a vigilante, he wasn’t armed, he was a good student, had some class privilege, he was doing something mundane, simply returning from buying Skittles and ice […]