current read: John G. Jackson’s Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization
This 66-page book is a must read for every person of African descent!
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“That Justice is a blind goddess Is a thing to which we blacks are wise. Her bondage hides two festering sores That once perhaps were eyes.” — Langston Hughes
Source: “Langston Hughes, Justice” in Arnold Rampersad and David Roessel, eds The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994): 31.
“New York City officials unveiled new guidelines on Monday designed to ban discrimination on the basis of hair, saying it was believed to be the first such measure in the US. Officials at the NYC Commission on Human Rights say the guidelines, which apply to anyone, will predominately protect black people who have been discriminated against for their natural hair. ‘In New York City, we want to make the bold statement that these prohibitions on hairstyles that are closely associated with black people are a form of race discrimination,’ Human Rights Commissioner and Chair Carmelyn Malalis told BuzzFeed News in a phone interview. ‘They really fail to consider the toll these bans take on black identity.’ The guidance makes clear that the current New York City Human Rights Law protects citizens’ rights to wear their hair in a manner associated with their racial, ethnic, or cultural identities. It specifically identifies black people’s rights to wear ‘locs, cornrows, twists, braids, Bantu knots, fades, Afros, and/or the right to keep hair in an uncut or untrimmed state.’ ‘Bias against the curly textured hair of people of African descent is as old as this country and a form of race-based discrimination,’ said Chirlane McCray, the wife of Mayor Bill de Blasio, in a statement.”
This should have been done during the same time the Civil Right Act of 1964 was passed!
Source: David Mack. Buzzfeed. February 18, 2019. https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/new-york-city-hair-discrimination-ban-black.
“DiAngelo says she encounters a lot of ‘certitude from white people – they insist “Well, it’s not me”, or say “I’m doing my best, what do you want from me?”’. She defines this as white fragility – the inability of white people to tolerate racial stress. This, she says, leads to white people ‘weaponising [their] hurt feelings’ and being indignant and defensive when confronted with racial inequality and injustice. This creates a climate where the suggestion or accusation of racism causes more outrage among white people than the racism itself. ‘And if nobody is racist,’ she asks, ‘why is racism still America’s biggest problem? What are white people afraid they will lose by listening? What is so threatening about humility on this topic?'”
Source: Nosheen Iqbal. “Academic Robin DiAngelo: ‘We have to stop thinking about racism as someone who says the N-word.” The Guardian. February 16, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/16/white-fragility-racism-interview-robin-diangelo.
“Why is it so hard for white people to talk about racism? It is a question posed by the white academic Robin DiAngelo, whose book White Fragility has now spent seven months hovering at the top end of the New York Times bestseller list and has just been published in the UK. ‘The problem with white people,’ she says, ‘is that they just don’t listen. In my experience, day in and day out, most white people are absolutely not receptive to finding out their impact on other people. There is a refusal to know or see, or to listen or hear, or to validate.'”
Source: Nosheen Iqbal. “Academic Robin DiAngelo: ‘We have to stop thinking about racism as someone who says the N-word.” The Guardian. February 16, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/16/white-fragility-racism-interview-robin-diangelo.
fuck BURBERRY too!!!
You may or may not heard that during London Fashion Week, Riccardo Tisci and Burberry thought it was chic to use a NOOSE as a fashion accessory?!?!? This is insane and I don’t believe this to be a coincidence. I’m extremely disappointed because Tisci has “black friends” (like Kanye West)…maybe that explains why he thought this was okay…. either way, this was a BIG and EXPENSIVE MISTAKE! I hope their yearly revenues fall until they are shut down!!!
Source: https://www.ebony.com/news/burberry-apologizes-for-debuting-hoodie-with-noose-around-neck/.
“The accident of the predominance of white men in modern times should not give us supercilious ideas about color or persuade us to listen to superficial theories about the innate superiority of the white-skinned man. Four thousand years ago, when civilization was already one or two thousand years old, white men were just a bunch of semi-savages on the outskirts of the civilized world. If there had been anthropologists in Crete, Egypt, and Babylonia, they would have pronounced the white race obviously inferior, and might have discoursed learnedly on the superior germ-plasm or glands of colored folk.” — Joseph McCabe
Source: John G. Jackson. Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization. pg. 6. 2015 Reprint of 1939 edition.
