racial justice

Gina Ciliberto 6-03-2021

A view of George Floyd Square on the first anniversary of the death of George Floyd, in Minneapolis, May 25, 2021. REUTERS/Nicholas Pfosi

“This solidarity has the potential and the power to propel us into a new future as a community,” Rev. Ingrid Rasmussen, pastor at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, told Sojourners.

Matt Bernico 5-17-2021

A McDonald's sign in in Tiegard, Ore., on May 4, 2021. Photo: Tada Images / Shutterstock.com

Rather than reflecting the truth of the motivations of both workers and employers, the "labor shortage" conversation is a tactic to adjust public perception and create the political will big corporations need to capture cheap labor –– it's propaganda at its most straightforward.

Da’Shawn Mosley 10-23-2020
Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett in Lovecraft Country

Jonathan Majors and Jurnee Smollett in Lovecraft Country

EVERYTHING THAT THE devil stole, HBO’s giving back to me. That’s a sacrilegious statement, but sometimes that’s how I feel when I’m on my couch watching yet another show with a largely Black cast (and sometimes even crew) miraculously greenlit in a sea of Hollywood whiteness by the network titan that years ago gave us The Wire and made many of us notice the likes of Idris Elba.

For what seemed like eons to Black folks eager for visual confirmation that their lives mattered, Black characters on TV were mostly relegated to sidekick or background roles—and Black writers, directors, and showrunners were rare or entirely absent. But from Insecure to A Black Lady Sketch Show, Watchmen to I May Destroy You, HBO is perhaps the strongest ally for revolutionary Black artists and creators of color on and behind TV.

Adam Russell Taylor 10-21-2020
Illustration by Jackson Joyce

Illustration by Jackson Joyce

In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome, he writes, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him” (Romans 8:28). This passage can easily be misconstrued to mean that adversity and hardship are ordained by God. A more faithful interpretation is that God can generate good out of even terrible circumstances. In light of this eternal truth, throughout this troubling year I have found hope and resilience by discovering silver linings in the midst of uncertainty and anguish.

One of the most important blessings has been extra, uninterrupted time with my family. A frenetic travel schedule in the spring came to a screeching halt in March, and I haven’t been on a plane since. My daily two-hour commute to my kids’ school and to work also vanished. I have tried to pour much of this precious gift into my family, particularly as my two young sons adjusted to the new COVID reality, including virtual classes that tested all our sanity. Our family spent the early months of the pandemic playing many games together and watching every Marvel movie made and our favorite kid-appropriate sports movies, from Remember the Titans to Miracle to 42.

A memorial for Breonna Taylor in Louisville, Ky. Picture taken September 10, 2020. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Breonna Taylor’s name didn’t even appear in Wednesday’s indictment against Hankison, which raises alarming questions about what case the attorney general made to defend the value of her life. The decision exposes the value gap in our justice system that so often dismisses and degrades the value of Black life and treats police recklessness and misconduct with impunity. Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron failed to explain why Hankison felt it was necessary to shoot wildly and blindly into the apartment from the parking lot or the details around how this seemingly faulty no-knock warrant was obtained and executed in the first place.

Aaron E. Sanchez 8-06-2020

We live in the shadow of flags meant to forever hide us, to remind us we don’t belong.

People hold a sign during a demonstration against police violence and racial inequality in Chicago. July 24, 2020. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

What remains for all who’ve hit rock bottom is the long road to healing.

Elisa Rowe 7-21-2020

Tin House Books

HERE WE LEARN from the ghost of Marvin Gaye, question the ethics of Nikola Tesla, examine the character of God, and drift in lament and wonder.

In these poems by Hanif Abdurraqib, violence appears in different forms. In some lines, it is a fistfight between teenagers in a schoolyard, in others the anti-Blackness of a suburb or the music industry: “[T]he mailman still hands me bills like I should feel lucky to have my name on anything in this town,” Abdurraqib writes.

Thirteen of the 51 poems are titled after a criticism he heard from a white woman at a poetry reading in 2016: “How can black people write about flowers at a time like this?”

Brian Hamilton 7-01-2020

Credit: Shutterstock

The moral question is not what we meant to do. 

Lyndsey Medford 6-30-2020

Photo by Ben Neale on Unsplash

Before I learned my town’s true history, I cared about racial justice.

Brittini L. Palmer 6-30-2020

Men wearing protective face masks hold a photograph of Rayshard Brooks, the Black man shot dead by an Atlanta police officer, following his funeral, at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga. June 23, 2020. REUTERS/Lynsey Weatherspoon

Whether their blood cries out from Valdosta Ga., or the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison, their cries cannot go unanswered.

Christina Colón 6-24-2020

The Reverend Eboni Marshall Turman preaches at High Point University in North Carolina. Photo courtesy of www.marshallturman.com. 

On the 155th observance of Juneteenth, a collective of Black church pastors and theologians released a theological statement to “emphatically repudiate the evil beast of white racism, white supremacy, white superiority and its concomitant and abiding anti-Black violence.”

Aaron E. Sanchez 6-24-2020

'We Serve White's Only No Spanish or Mexicans' sign outside a Texas restaurant. 1949. Credit: Wikimedia Commons 

This history runs through, into, and over my interracial children.

J. Jioni Palmer 6-22-2020

Flag announcing another lynching is flown from the window of the NAACP headquarters on 69 Fifth Ave., New York City in 1936. Credit: Shutterstock

I’ve never been more scared for my Black son, but I knew this is what we had to do.

Danté Stewart 6-19-2020

Protesters in masks activists march with signs against police shootings and racism, Honolulu, Hawaii, June 6,2020. Photo by Oscar Sweep / Shutterstock.com

The phrase "Black Lives Matter," like Joseph’s request to take his bones wherever his people go, is to keep memory alive. To keep it alive is to fight for us when we can't fight for ourselves. It is to remind us that though our world may forget us, there is One who does not. So even as people shout loud “look how much progress this country has made; be grateful,” we understand that, as Angela Davis writes, “freedom is a constant struggle.”

Guy Nave 6-16-2020

Image via Shutterstock/ Allison C Bailey

While many Americans, especially white Americans, expect the police to protect their privileges, they often criticize police for the tactics used to protect those privileges. While people should indeed be appalled by racialized police violence, racialized policed violence is actually a symptom of the underlying pandemic of racism — a socially constructed malady designed to protect white privilege.

New York Police Department (NYPD) officers are pictured as protesters rally against the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd, in Times Square in the Manhattan borough of New York City. June 1, 2020. REUTERS/Mike Segar

That’s how fragile black life in the U.S. is. Our risk of being killed by police hinges on little things like the weather. 

Voters line up to cast their ballots outside of a polling location after Democratic and Republican primaries were delayed due to the coronavirus disease restrictions in Atlanta, Georgia. June 9, 2020. REUTERS/Dustin Chambers

These types of failures in the voting process may become additional tools in the arsenal of voter suppression, and the Black community must be prepared.

White churches need to enter conversations of racial justice with sobriety. 

Josiah R. Daniels 6-10-2020

A demonstrator waves an American flag during a protest against racial inequality in the aftermath of the death in Minneapolis police custody of George Floyd in New York City. June 9, 2020. REUTERS/Idris Solomon

Black people don’t always end up dead when encountering police. But we almost always end up wounded.