Culture

Matt James, the first Black Bachelor, stands holding a rose.

The Final Rose: A Black Bachelor Can’t Fix a Franchise’s Race Problem

by Andie Kanaras
June 19, 2020 at 10:44am
The Bachelor franchise survives in the streaming age because it coddles white fragility. Read more »
illustration of queer country artists (from left to right) Orville Peck, Patrick Haggerty, Amythyst Kiah, Karen Pittelman, and Lil Nas X along a fence in front of a rural scene with lavender stalks lining the ground

Sound Out: Coming Home to Lavender Country

by Kim Kelly
June 18, 2020 at 9:51am
Queer country artists have been making their voices known for decades. Read more »
J. Cole, a lightskinned Black rapper with locs, sits onstage in a white t-shirt

Petty, Egotistical Barbs Overshadow J. Cole’s Important Message

by Evette Dionne
June 17, 2020 at 3:05pm
Holding people, including Black celebrities accountable for their inaction or misguided action, isn’t an attack or an attempt to create undue separation between Black men and Black women.  Read more »
Felix Ever After author Kacen Callender, who is Black and nonbinary and smiles directly at the camera while wearing a pink tee, has blue hair.

Unexpected Connection: “Felix Ever After” Lets Queer and Trans Teens Be Messy

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
June 17, 2020 at 1:15pm
The characterization in this book should serve as an example to others writing queer YA in 2020. Read more »
an illustration of three people holding phones with blank, black screens

Abstract Pain: George Floyd and the Viral Spectacle of Black Death

by Dede Akolo
June 17, 2020 at 11:51am
Black people’s deaths at the hands of police officers are, like everything now, mediated through the internet, with the negotiation of life and death spread through videos that go viral.  Read more »
Artist Dua Saleh, a Black nonbinary person, wears a cowboy hat and a neon hoodie and looks in the mirror.

Greater Expectations: Through Music, Dua Saleh Nurtures Personal and Political Identity

by Mary Retta
June 16, 2020 at 10:08am
 “My brain was manufacturing new language because I was refusing to be seen as a woman.” Read more »
Zaira Arafat, a Palestinian American writer with shoulder-length brown hair, sits in front of a concrete wall and smiles

Rupture and Reform: “You Exist Too Much” Is a Meditation on Queerness and Desire

by Katherine Connell
June 16, 2020 at 9:00am
Obsession serves a two-pronged function in queer stories. Read more »
a collage of Olivia McKayla Ross, a Black person with shoulder-length braids, posing in a pink cowboy hat in front of a computer camera

Data Healing: Digital Doulas Take Restorative Justice to Cyberspace

by Yaa Addae
June 15, 2020 at 9:00am
From surveillance to racist algorithms, the internet has routinely been used as a tool of global capitalism and white supremacy. Read more »
A Black woman holds a book. The text overlay reads: They paid you how much?

Very Online: The Literary World May Never Recover from #PublishingPaidMe

by Rachel Charlene Lewis
June 12, 2020 at 12:45pm
For Black writers, Twitter acts as a guiding force. Read more »
A diverse group of young women hug and lean on each other.

Ladies on Fire: “Betty” Is More Than a Skateboarding Show about Women

by Niko Stratis
June 12, 2020 at 12:23pm
Betty isn’t a show made to shatter glass ceilings so much as it is to empower those pushing against it. Read more »

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Best of Bitch

Black Girls Hunger for Heroes, Too: A Black Feminist Conversation on Fantasy Fiction for Teens

by Zetta Elliott
December 17, 2013 at 3:19pm
What happens when two great black women fiction writers get together to talk about race in young adult literature? That's exactly what happens... Read more »

It's Time to End the Long History of Feminism Failing Transgender Women

by Tina Vasquez
February 17, 2014 at 1:26pm
The marginalization of transgender women in feminism is not new, but the decades-long debate has taken on new dimension thanks to social media and the ease of finding strangers’ personal information online. Read more »

Tina Belcher's Sexual Revolution

​​​​​​​Tina Belcher, an animated teenaged girl. She wears glasses and has black hair with bangs.
by Gabrielle Moss
May 6, 2014 at 11:57am
Tina Belcher breaks all the rules of network sitcoms. That's why she's wonderful.  Read more »

Saying Goodbye to Maria and the End of a Sesame Street Era

by Angely Mercado
August 13, 2015 at 5:52pm
Growing up, Sesame Street's Maria was one of the best Latina role models I had. Read more »