Every time I have declared the internet a graver impediment than asset to arts and culture, something comes along to renew my faith I will be wrong. That something came out of inspiration to commemorate Juneteenth with a listen to a live performance of Tyehimba Jess's Pulitzer Prize-winning poetry collection OLIO, transformed to an original production of Audible.
Author: Kalisha Buckhanon for negression
“You are not gonna silence me.” -Senator Stephanie Flowers on racist Stand Your Ground “rights”
Emmett, Trayvon, Markeis, Kalief, Oscar, Tamir, Aiyana, Stephon, Botham, Sandra, Amadou, Eleanor, Terence, Philando, Alton, Walter, Sharmel, Miriam, Tony, Jordan, Rumain, Rekia, Laquan, Eric, Michael...
What Toni wrote to Obama…
In honor of her birthday and Black History Month, read a prescient excerpt from Toni Morrison's 2008 letter to Barack Obama.
Black Girls in Paris, Harlem and more…
You'd be correct to expect this story of a young Renaissance woman's fantasy trip, to live like her iconic Black American idols, to be sexy and to weave in Josephine Baker. The novel's heroine goes to Paris in search of Baldwin and finds jazz, interracial love and the freelance hustler life...
No Excuses: 20 Black Male Soul Singers to Stream Besides R. Kelly
The ultimate power of evil is diversion, devouring, annihilation and blacking out of what is good. This is all our faults, not Kelly's. How many more men are out here for us to listen to, most of them much better vocalists than Kelly, and more romantic lyricists as well?
Remembering Maria-Hélène Schneider…
46 years ago, a moving picture testified to sexual assault against a woman. It moved all around the world, in fact. Only, the world called it “art.” Not much has changed since. This most visible example of a public rape frames sexual assault’s most misunderstood and excused forms: coerced consent, false pretenses and pressure as permission. And people can still buy and sell this sexual assault on film to this day. Why?
Lauryn Can Rest On Her Laurels.
Ms. Hill complicated the Negress image in all the right directions and ways, and she made it clear the auras of Billie Holiday and Nina Simone were more stubborn than stereotypes, and she made it known paying audiences were waiting for more like them.
negression 