Editors Note: At 7:40pm CT on November 29, 2022, the State of Missouri murdered Kevin Johnson. It is, or should be, universally recognized, that poor children are not responsible for their hunger, that abused children are not to blame for being abused, and that we all have a collective responsibility to protect those too young to protect themselves. Yet if we fail in our duty to protect, and those we’ve failed to protect are irreparably damaged, and through that irreparable damage grow up to break the law, we as a society treat those same tormented children as unworthy of empathy . . .
trauma
The Absurdity of “Diary of a Tired Black Man”
There is an amazingly sad example of a program aired on the IMDB network called “Diary of a Tired Black Man.” Part fiction, part documentary (street interviews with people), full insanity, this effort illustrated in clear terms Kwame Ture’s statement that any analysis that doesn’t include our enemies is a worthless analysis. What he meant by that is any oppressed people who attempt to explain the conditions of their people who leave out the system causing their oppression will always come up with a confused conclusion. We wish to add our own attempt at a logical statement to Kwame’s spot . . .
Capitalism Was a Source of My Childhood Trauma
In many radical Black and Brown spaces on the Internet, I’ve seen many people pose the question “What radicalized you?” And, for some time, I could not bring myself to give anything close to a direct answer. When relating the struggle for African liberation to our personal lives, many of us have our own stories or narratives that push us forward into the realm of consciousness, especially when having to do with both race and class. However, for some of us (like myself), it may have taken a while to understand how the latter is connected to the former. Growing . . .
Spiritual Warfare
Owolabi “Perhaps there is a monstrous origin to it, after all. Perhaps to lay hands on your child is to prepare him for war.” – Ocean Vuong Part 1 I wrote poems of gratitude to my father. Poems of honor. Poems imagining survival in Mississippi in the days when the crakkas had free reign over Black bodies. My ex-wife wondered why? She heard my stories, my heart, and only saw my tears. For years in our marriage, I cried. I processed pain and how his discipline came with fists and belts. I processed silent pain when I didn’t hear the . . .