Civil rights, but just for me

by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published at What Tami Said
I was going to begin this post be talking about Mohandas Gandhi. I was going to chastise Bernice King, daughter of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., and new leader of the civil rights organization Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), for her hateful pronouncement, [...]

The Brazil Files: Busy Being Foreign

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
Since I’ve been living in Brazil, I have suffered from memory loss. On occasion, I simply forget that I am black.
Let me explain . . .
I was born in the United States, in the South to be exact, during the early 1980s, to a mother with very fair skin who, along [...]

When Xenophobia Meets Homophobia

by Guest Contributor Marisol LeBrón, originally published at NACLA and Post Pomo Nuyorican Homo
An ugly blame game ensued after the passing of California’s Proposition 8, which restricted the definition of marriage to a union between a man and a woman. With exit polls reporting 70 percent of Blacks and 53 percent of Latinos/as supporting the [...]

Multiple Narratives and Contestations Over the Righteous Struggle

by Guest Contributor Margari Aziza Hill, originally published at Just Another Angry Black Muslim Woman*?

According to census data and information provided by mosques and community centers, Muslims in America make up .5% of the total population in America. Keeping it conservative, that equals just under 2 million. Some estimates go as far to say that [...]

More musings on interracial relationships

by Guest Contributor Ryan Barrett, originally published at Cheap Thrills
I noticed a funny thing while visiting my family in D.C. for Christmas. Simply put: every female in the house (my mom and aunt, who are African-American, and me and my cousin, who are interracial) was either involved with or married to a White man.
Hmm…
That’s curious.
The [...]

Hair’s To Freedom

by Guest Contributor Neesha Meminger, originally published at Neesha Meminger
This weekend, I was interviewed for a magazine article. Nothing to do with my book, or even writing, for that matter. The topic of the hour was body image. This is a topic I could go on and on and ON about (and have, on several [...]

Assimilated Beauty

by Guest Contributor Lisa Leong, originally published on the AZN Television blog
“That’s colonialism all over your face!”
The quote is from one of my favorite Asian American Studies professors on eyelid surgery, nose bridge implants, and any other kind of cosmetic surgery that transforms Asians physical features into more Caucasian ones. She meant that there is [...]

Erasing the Mexicans

by Guest Contributor Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez, originally published at Write.Live.Repeat

This photo shows my mother on her wedding day. That’s her, in the middle. Her sister “Sis” is on the left, her sister Janis on the right.
Notice how the sisters exchange a strange look across my nervous, uncertain mom (who was 24 at the time). Knowing my [...]

Nappily Ever After? Not Quite…

by Latoya Peterson
*Warning: Strong Language*
Regular readers might remember a piece I wrote a year or so ago, called Hair, Apparently. In the piece I wrote about an incident where I felt like someone had insinuated I was a “house nigga” because my hair was straightened with a chemical relaxer.
The piece sparked an interesting conversation [...]

Nappy love: Or how I learned to stop worrying and embrace the kinks

by Guest Contributor Tami, originally published on What Tami Said*
My hair is nappy. It is coarse and thick. It grows in pencil-sized spirals and tiny crinkles. My hair grows out, not down. It springs from my head like a corona. My hair is like wool. You can’t run your fingers through it, nor a comb. [...]

On Being American and African Black

by Special Correspondent Nadra Kareem

The first time I saw “Roots” I was in puberty, but since my birth the groundbreaking miniseries has been a running joke among my maternal relatives.
My mother is a black American, raised Baptist in Tennessee. My father is a Muslim from Nigeria. More specifically, for those in the know, he’s Yoruba.
When [...]

Series Introduction: The Things We Do to Each Other/The Things We Do to Ourselves

by Latoya Peterson

When I initially thought about the Things We Do to Each Other series, I had one specific idea in mind: that someone needs to start discussing the problems that happen when trying to build a multiracial coalition toward ending racism.
As a contributor, now editor, and moderator of Racialicious, one of the hardest [...]