Why It’s Time to Abolish Celebrity
You don’t have to be a celebrity to act like one. Unfortunately, “celebrity” has transcended the elite class. Anyone who puts social climbing over community has internalized a celebrity mindset. …
the capitalist world forces us to see our fellow person as a competitor. we measure the value of others by their ability to fight back.
one of something must die for another to survive. this militancy bleeds into our political parties. binary, because we are binary in thought.
we are…
I used to stay up late, staring at the backlight of a laptop with a broken fan, wondering if I had the grit to beat down publishing’s door forever.
It insists on its hermitage as much as its hatred for dark-skinned people. It fights to maintain a limited worldview. …
It’s been nearly two hundred years since Ida B. Wells said we should capitalize the “B” in Black when referring to Black people.
Today, Kirkus announced that 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests have informed a new decision to capitalize Black in all future articles when referring to people of African…
“Americans have a problem with the limits we impose on our imagination.” — Senator Bernie Sanders
I supported Bernie Sanders for president in 2016 and I’m supporting him again in 2020. In a word, I feel that he’s the candidate I can trust. …
Growing up, tuning into the Oscars was a tradition for my mother and me. As thrilled as I was to see new movies throughout the year, I was equally pumped for the chance to see the most innovative and culturally relevant films rewarded on the highest stage of artistic merit.
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Navigating an industry structured around the sensibilities of the Cishet White Woman feels like walking a tightrope of barbed wire, where every other step will impale me.
The Cishet White Woman — singular — is an institutional property, just like “whiteness” itself. She represents an ideology, a power structure, rather…
The War on Inclusion: How Publishing’s Refusal to Confront Systemic Whiteness Fails Authors of Color
I can’t help but notice parallels of discrimination against people of color whenever controversies like American Dirt come up. They always point to how strongly systemic whiteness functions among industry gatekeepers and bars people of color from access to the industry.
School is a scam. Now we said it.
I caught my first whiff of corruption in the third grade, when a teacher who had no business being so close to my face, leaned aggressively over my desk and barked, “Why aren’t you doing your accelerated reader?”
I guess I’d fallen…
Earlier this week The Los Angeles Review of Books published a piece called Comping White, wherein Laura B. McGrath reminded us of the harrowing fact that publishing is 86% white.
The article explored comp titles, and how they maintain the status quo by forcing authors of color to compare our…
