Every time I would think about what it means to be Black in America, I would dig a hole in my garden.
After 38 years, I moved out of the city and into the country. Only an hour, but as a Black woman who has lived in cities her entire life, it sometimes feels like the moon. I moved to a house with a disturbingly large garden plot and many weeds.
I have never gardened before. But, boy, did I take on this challenge on with gusto! Look at me in my gloves and boots and overalls. Look at me chopping down weeds! (Reader, they were not weeds.) I have never in my life seen the reason for loving to garden. …
Stop thanking me for being polite when I’m angry about injustice and focus on the injustice instead
So there is this “compliment” that well-meaning people lob at me when I write conscientiously about social ills that infuriate me. I write about something deeply painful, troubling and/or problematic in our society in my own fairly measured way that feels innate to me and is not in any way meant to say anything about the deservedness of my politeness as it relates to thing that is problematic or people supporting or engaging in problematic behaviors and without fail someone, sometimes many someones, will thank me for being, “so polite.”
Instead of sharing my outrage at the initial and underlying…
George Floyd deserves a different kind of justice
The Derek Chauvin trial will be one of the most consequential trials of our lifetime. The ex-police officer who casually drained George Floyd of his life while pressing his knee into his neck as (some of) the world watched in horror is a tragic sign of the times we live in. It was the ease in Chauvin’s face and the smug look of domination and cruelty that recalled the haunting truth about White America’s love affair with abusing Black people and publicly torturing Black bodies. …
Mariame Kaba is an organizer and educator whose work focuses on restorative justice, advocating for youth, ending violence, and dismantling the prison industrial complex (PIC). She has long been vocal in the movement to abolish police and prisons, a movement that gained notoriety in 2020 after the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers and the subsequent protests.
“As a society, we have been so indoctrinated with the idea that we solve problems by policing and caging people that many cannot imagine anything other than prisons and the police as solutions to violence and harm,” she wrote…
The arc of the moral universe may be long, but the time for justice is now!
There is no doubt that President Biden and Vice President Harris are doing an outstanding job so far in their new roles as the leaders of this nation. In his short time in office, according to the Federal Register, President Biden has signed 29 executive orders at the time of this writing. These orders cover the climate crisis, the Covid crisis, the privatization of prisons, immigration, LGBTQI+ anti-discrimination, racial equity, and more.
While we know that Biden and Harris have just begun, we must keep the pressure on them to ensure that they continue to act on behalf of the…
Black History Month
Black History Month is off to a historic start!
Both the Black Lives Matter movement and Stacey Abrams have been nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes.
The Nobel Peace Prize is awarded annually to people or groups who have done the best work to hold or promote peace. Notable laureates include former president Barack Obama and civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Both Abrams and the BLM movement have been nominated for their tireless work to end prejudice and promote peace and equality.
“Abrams’ efforts to complete [Dr. King’s] work are crucial if the United States of America shall…
We can’t settle for symbolism. We gotta do more to meet the needs of our community.
On Monday, we learned that President Joe Biden’s Treasury Department plans to expedite the process of redesigning the $20 bill to feature an image of Harriet Tubman. While the idea to replace Andrew Jackson as the face was raised more than four years ago, and opposed by Donald Trump, the Biden administration wants the new $20 bills to happen stat.
“The Treasury Department is taking steps to resume efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the front of the new $20 notes,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Monday. …
Allyship is not enough anymore. Here’s what you can do.
The Supreme Court confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett has put a number of LGBTQ organizations and advocates on high alert. According to a report by the Human Rights Campaign, the biggest LGBTQ organization in the United States, Judge Barrett’s record on LGBTQ issues indicates that her confirmation poses “a direct threat to the constitutional rights of LGBTQ community and all Americans.” And upcoming court rulings covering religious rights to discriminate against LGBTQ+ could mean that the overturning of civil rights could begin as early as next week.
C.P. Hoffman, legal director of FreeState Justice, a nonprofit organization in Baltimore, Maryland…
Through her death, she became an icon. I wrestle with its impact.
Her likeness was everywhere, immortalized. A cyan dream on the September cover of Vanity Fair. Angelic, floating midair toward the skyline on 26 billionaire-branded billboards. A mural painted on two basketball courts in a park in Annapolis, Maryland, so substantial it was visible only in full from the sky. On June 5, Instagram art commemorated her on her would-be 27th birthday. Her name was likewise invoked: a jewelry business named pieces after her, WNBA players wore her name on their backs, a mask said her name at the U.S. Open.
Breonna Taylor was who she was, beautiful, and she left…
ZORA
Bold, yet refined. A publication from Medium for Black women.
