Summer Is Not for Street Harassment — Regardless of Gender, Race, or Size August 1, 2019 by Shannon Weber Leave a Comment Ah, summer. Enduring six months of a freezing New England hellscape in order to re-enter the world of soft, swirling sand dunes and jeweled salty ocean waves. The perfume of sunscreen. Living in the city, battling the humidity as I take my dog to the park. Existing as a curvy, white, queer femme, cisgender woman. Feeling men’s eyes travel over my ass and my boobs as I walk down … [Read more...]
The Strain of “Model Minority”: Addressing the Mental Health Needs of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders July 30, 2019 by Julie Feng 1 Comment Just last year, when a person very close to me admitted she was struggling with depression, my initial internal reaction was disbelief. This can’t be true, I thought. My next thought was mortification for feeling this way. Why was it that I, a socially conscious person who believes strongly in mental health advocacy, immediately felt incredulity? I had to be honest with … [Read more...]
Fellow White Women: We Learned To Be Complicit With Oppression — Now We Must Become Brave July 29, 2019 by Louisa Leontiades 2 Comments This article was originally published on louisaleontiades.com as "The Cowardice of White Women: Learning to Resist" and is republished with permission. Some questions you don’t expect to have to ask in your lifetime, let alone answer. But with the rise of Trumpian fascism, a question has consistently rattled around my white woman’s brain: At what point would I put my own life … [Read more...]
5 Ways Outdoor Recreation Is Inaccessible to Marginalized Folks July 22, 2019 by Emily Zak Leave a Comment This article first appeared on Everyday Feminism under the title "Outdoor Reaction Isn't Free -- Why We Need to Stop Pretending It Is" and is reprinted by permission. When I spent a summer as a river guide, I met three people who’d abandoned their homes to live on the Rio Grande. One lived out of a bus, another in a tent, and the last in his station wagon. They spent their … [Read more...]
Quienes son tus amigos importa: por qué soy precavido de ser tu amigo cuando ninguno de tus amigos son marginados July 21, 2019 by Emanuel Urrea and Caleb Luna Leave a Comment Un día mientras trataba de resolver con vergüenza y acomplejado por mi tendencia a evaluar las clases de personas con las que se rodean las personas que son nuevas en mi vida. Estaba pensando en relación a los cuerpos, particularmente razas y gordura. Hasta ese momento tenia internalizado que era un comportamiento innecesario, prejuicioso e incluso superficial. Pero tuve una … [Read more...]
7 Things My Unruly, Curly Hair Taught Me About Being Unapologetically Latinx July 16, 2019 by Ella Mendoza Leave a Comment Growing up, people would always asked me about my hair, about my skin, about my eyes, about my mother, about my grandmother. Anti-blackness would prompt these questions to become inquiries, attempting to trace back lineage beyond dialogue, and into imaginary stories that may have been true or may have not. In their eyes, my hair symbolized something foreign, something … [Read more...]
7 Cosas ridículas que no deberías decirle a personas de raza mixta July 14, 2019 by Maya Gittelman and Emanuel Urrea Leave a Comment ¿Qué significa ser de raza mixta? Soy de raza mixta. Hay muchas formas de ser de raza mixta, el diccionario lo define como una persona cuyos padres o ancestros son de distintas etnias, pero la definición puede variar según el contexto. En la mayoría de los casos, las personas de raza mixta tienen el derecho a definir su propia identidad y su relación con sus variados … [Read more...]
Mixed Doesn’t Always Mean Part White: Uplifting Non-White Mixed Race Identities July 8, 2019 by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda Leave a Comment Growing up queer, mixed race, and Asian in the American South, my identity often felt like an absence of any identity at all. For a long time I existed in a kind of limbo state, not having a language to describe myself. Until my early twenties, I was unaware the word “mixed race” existed, much less as a term I had the option to identify with. Because I neither knew nor saw any … [Read more...]
Black Girls Cut Too: Self-Harm and Intergenerational Trauma July 5, 2019 by Stacey Stevenson, Guest Writer Leave a Comment Content note: detailed references to self-harm methods I started burning myself at 15. A friend and I burned ourselves in an attempt to engrave a symbol on our arms. After going to the local mall and buying a book on witchcraft, we decided we needed a symbol of our commitment to our new two-person coven. We drew up a draft of our symbol containing our initials (S & T) and … [Read more...]
Talking to My Asian Immigrant Family About Anti-Asian Racism July 4, 2019 by Julie Feng Leave a Comment It took twenty-three years and living a continent away before I was finally able to talk to my parents directly about anti-Asian racism in the United States. It wasn’t that we had never spoken about discrimination or microaggressions before. It was just that it was mostly about non-Asian people of color — and often, the Asian community was the perpetrator. My siblings and I … [Read more...]
Black and Brown Solidarity Post-9/11: Why I Refuse To Engage in Respectability Politics June 28, 2019 by Toni Bell 3 Comments I used to engage in respectability politics. I was taught that, if I proved I was of "good character,” I would be accepted by white society. I learned that it was my job to convince overtly and covertly racist white people that I was okay. I needed to make myself less threatening to shift their conscious and unconscious racist views and thereby make my life better. I was … [Read more...]
Why I Refuse To Leave the South as a Queer Black Person June 19, 2019 by Quita Tinsley 1 Comment I was born and raised in the Southeast -- rural Georgia, to be precise. I like my teas to be sweet, biscuits with cane syrup, hearts to be blessed, and summers that are hot. Not a day goes by that I don’t say "y’all." I spent many days as a child walking around barefoot in the grass. It’s a regular practice for me to smile at strangers and ask them “how you doing?” All of these … [Read more...]
Black in Maine: 4 Ways Black Folks Take Care of Each Other in Majority-White Communities June 15, 2019 by Samaa Abdurraqib Leave a Comment NOTE: This is an article about Black bodies in white spaces, but this is really a love letter to all of the beautiful, dope ass Black women – femmes and non-femmes – speaking the truth and holding it down in one of the whitest states in the country. They’re my homegirls. After the 2017 white terrorist attack in Charlottesville, VA, an article about a man flying a Confederate … [Read more...]
4 Ways To Fight the Whitewashing of Pride June 10, 2019 by Katie Tastrom Leave a Comment It’s Pride season! For us queer folks it can be a fun time to be extra gay and loud about it and go to parades. However, we can’t forget that the first Pride was a riot and this holiday would not have happened without Marsha P. Johnson, a Black bisexual disabled trans sex worker. Even with the history being well known at this point, many communities’ Prides are incredibly … [Read more...]
4 Ways Sick and Disabled White Folks Can Show Up for Anti-Racism June 8, 2019 by Katie Tastrom Leave a Comment I know that navigating intersections is hard, especially when you have privilege in one area and are oppressed in another. First, we need to remember it is not nearly as hard as living at the intersections of oppression. We also need to be excruciatingly honest with ourselves (and each other) about how these factors influence us at each time and place we occupy. As a white … [Read more...]
9 Reasons Why Acting in Solidarity for Racial Justice Is Preferable to “Allyship” May 30, 2019 by Jaime Grant Leave a Comment There is almost nothing more dangerous in the lives and livelihoods of Black men and women than a well-intentioned white woman with no political framework for her interactions across race. White women’s well-being, our ‘safety,’ is constantly deployed to justify white supremacist violence, especially police violence. Our casual conversations with Black and brown people on the … [Read more...]
