Respectability will not save us … No matter how much we wish it would. So now that James Blake, a Harvard grad and former tennis superstar en route to the U.S. Open, was violently tackled to the ground by five...
Displaced: to force someone to leave their home, typically because of war, persecution, or natural disasters. This war being waged on black bodies is resulting in our persecution, and there is nothing natural about this disaster. It is methodological, institutionalized...
I had some serious writer’s block since I last published. Through a bout of depression, I wasn’t able to formulate or articulate my thoughts and emotions in a manner appropriate for the Blackosphere. When my Black Lives Matter Sisters...
For the past year, folks have been out in the streets protesting the lawlessness of this country’s police forces. Since the Black Lives Matter Movement started, every unarmed Black person killed by a cop has had their name turned...
Today in No-Shit-Sherlock, records show that the Dept. of Homeland Security has been surveilling Black Lives Matter activists since Ferguson. (Hi, Jeh Johnson! Hope you got me on my good side!) But of course, they’ve been surveilling us since we...
I understand that Sandra Bland’s family asked that no posts or protests be published or undertaken in her honor. While I cannot understand the tremendous pain her family is experiencing in this moment, I do believe that remaining silent...

White Flag

By Sebastian Johnson “Thine enemies roar in the midst of thy congregations; they set up their ensigns for signs.” Psalm 74:4 For months, the events have gathered, scattered ominously across the landscape like dark foreboding clouds, pregnant with the force of...
1. Justify or police our rage. We have the right to feel and express our rage in a manner we deem appropriate. My only ask is that Black folk aren’t harmed by other Black folk. 2. Apologize for our trauma or...
There was a shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal. There was a shooting, a massacre, and a tragedy at AME. Calling it anything else — especially a #CharlestonShooting is a function of white supremacy. The erasure, the inability or...
I’m not writing about Rachel Dolezal. There’s no need for her — and her lies, cultural theft, violence, and overall fuckery — to take up any more space. But since we’re all so transfixed with Black women now, can we perhaps channel...