How Do We Really See Each Other Across Identities?: Notes From a Queer Breakup December 10, 2019 by The Queer Insomniac Leave a Comment Almost a year after separating from my partner, we had a second breakup. Our first breakup, though incredibly painful, was what I can only describe now as tender. After trying to surmount the difficulty of a nearly ten-year age difference, our romantic relationship ended upon the realization that I was not yet ready to "settle down" and wanted more time to explore life as … [Read more...]
7 Ways Non-Black People of Color Perpetuate Anti-Blackness November 18, 2019 by Palmira Muniz 2 Comments It's well-known that the common enemy among communities of color is white supremacy. Due to the wide-reaching impacts of institutionalized white supremacy, many communities of color fail to examine their own problematic behavior towards each other, especially towards the Black community. With that in mind, it's important to better understand how anti-Blackness functions even … [Read more...]
10 Ways the Beauty Industry Tells You Being Beautiful Means Being White August 30, 2019 by Maisha Z. Johnson 1 Comment Note: This article originally appeared on EverydayFeminism and is reprinted by permission. I have to cringe when I think about my early days of putting on makeup. First, my mom wouldn’t let me touch the stuff until high school -- which I can understand, knowing what I know now about how girls can be pressured to grow up too fast. But I was lagging behind other girls who … [Read more...]
3 Reasons We Need To Be Critical of Compulsory Sex Positivity in Queer Spaces August 2, 2019 by Caleb Luna 1 Comment Sex positivity often acts as an implicit — or sometimes explicit — foundation of leftist, feminist, and LGBTQ+ spaces for completely valid reasons. As women and queers, sex has been the driving force behind both our oppression and the spaces we create to separate, heal, and liberate us from our oppression. Sexualized spaces for socializing predate our modern understanding of … [Read more...]
6 Lessons To Learn From Fathers of Color This Fathers’ Day June 14, 2019 by A.X. Ruiz Leave a Comment As I reflect on my father this Fathers' Day, I'm reminded of how I used to teach writing for freshmen at a community college. One of my regular reader-response assignments included an essay by San Francisco journalist Rose del Castillo Guilbault about how the word “macho” carries different interpretations depending on culture. She argues that to Americans, "macho" is a negative … [Read more...]
How White LGBT Spaces Erase Queer People of Colour April 5, 2019 by Mari Ramsawakh Leave a Comment This article has been republished from Xtra, and is reprinted here by permission. For as long as I could remember, I had always known I was queer in some way. In the way that my feelings for girls and women around me seemed to be more intense than they were supposed to, or the way that I would feel very strange if I happened to see a sexy scene of a woman in a … [Read more...]
Dear Queer Black Activists: An Honest Letter About Desirability Politics Among Our Men September 2, 2018 by Jeff Baker, Guest Writer Leave a Comment By: Jeff Baker, Guest Writer, Co-edited by Darryl Antonio Johnson Dear Queer Black Activists, As of late, the desirability politics among a lot of same-gender-loving (SGL) and queer Black men in my social network, many of whom happen to contribute some of society’s most groundbreaking racial justice work, has felt inescapable, and as a result, my mental health has suffered. … [Read more...]
Afro-Latina: 6 Women Open Up About Being Black and Latina July 17, 2018 by Marjua Estevez, Guest Writer Leave a Comment Editor's Note: This article was originally published by Vibe.com and is republished with permission. “We got a little bit of Black in us!” This is what the Puerto Ricans I grew up around in the South Bronx used to joke. The idea that Blackness was something beyond skin color never made much sense back then. But the older I got, the more I realized how prevalent those African … [Read more...]
My Biracial Identity: Figuring Out Where Is Home July 16, 2018 by Maya Gittelman Leave a Comment My ancestry manifests in me as the aftermath of an ongoing battle. My body is the convergence of bloodlines that span continents. My heritage is layered, textured with palimpsest and patina. I am dual, simultaneous. I encompass the oppressor and oppressed, the privileged and the disenfranchised. I am mixed. Specifically, I am mixed Filipinx and white. This identity is a … [Read more...]
Stop Using Mixed-Race People as Symbols of Interracial Unity To Ease Your White Guilt June 17, 2018 by Sophie Buzak-Achiam, Guest Author Leave a Comment Editor's Note: This piece was first published in Danish magazine Friktion and is republished with permission. Dutch beer company Heineken has recently faced backlash for its “lighter is better” ad, where a light-skinned Brown bartender slides a beer past three dark-skinned Black people towards a Eurasian woman. The bartender shares a wink with her before the slogan “Sometimes … [Read more...]
