Aloha!
I’m Arielle, Founder/Editor-in-Chief and welcome to Black Millennials.
Black Millennials was started from a place of anger and fatigue. I was writing for online publications explicitly geared towards “millennials,” and yet, my words were presented and promoted in such a way that my existence and the nuanced politics that stem from it, were options and electives…not the default.
In these moments, I realized that whiteness was the default, and my Blackness was the “other” or the “option.” My existence was an alternative lifestyle within a system of white supremacy.
So this blog was born.
My Black millennial experience is a complicated one. And I know I’m not alone. With more resources and education, we are better equipped for the invisible layers of systemic racism, while enjoying the fruits of our cultural, intellectual, and emotional labor. We can love the classic art of hip hop while turnin up at the club. We can read and internalize the works of James Baldwin while we glimpse at an episode of Empire. Hell, we can analyze Empire like the Kings and Queens we are.
So my blog is for the Black millennial; the Black 20somethings who are not the “others” but the centerpiece in a complicated story about race, gender, sexuality, and pop culture.
Let’s keep in touch! Follow me on Twitter at @arielle_newton, and follow us @BlkMillennials.
Join the BM movement through submissions.
Or you could send a carrier pigeon… blackmillennials100@gmail.com
