Also.Also.Also: Stop Killing Black People

Well friends, I turned them into pancakes.

Queer as in F*ck You

To quote Abeni, “who’s surprised?” The Far Right Group Behind Boston’s “Straight Pride” Also Organized “Reopen” Protest

Here’s How Our LGBTQ+ Elders Are Faring in the Pandemic

Queer Belonging: Identity and Community in American Art. The Center in partnership with The Whitney Museum of American Art invites you to a special virtual program that knits together works from the Whitney’s collection to explore gender, sexuality and LGBTQ perspectives and communities. Register now and the event is Wednesday, May 13th.

For Two Months, My Future Included a Baby. Then, in early April, I started spotting. by Zoe Whittall for The Cut (If you click this link, please know that it requires an entire box of tissues.)

I know that a lot of our finances are tiiiiiight right now, but if you have anything to spare at all, can I please leave the following for you to consider:

+ On Tuesday we talked about the likely death of lesbian bars in the wake of Covid-19, and two NYC lesbian institutions are fighting for their lives right now: Henrietta Hudson and Ginger’s Bar. Both were a home away from home when I was a messy baby gay in my 20s, and damnit I want future mini-Carmens to have the same opportunity to drink shots that taste like fruit punch (because she’s a light weight) and press up against a stranger in the corner, or to talk drunk and loud with her best friends, feeling safe, after Sunday brunch. Please give if you can.

+ Tagg Magazine is black lesbian owned, and a sister-site of Autostraddle of sorts. Like most media companies, most of their advertising clients have temporarily (or permanently) shut down their businesses. In order for Tagg Magazine to continue their work, they’re holding a fundraiser and asking for our community to help keep the voices of queer women alive. They’ve got fun perks, including a few Autostraddle merch prize packs, and are hoping to raise $7,500!

We are all we got to see each other through this storm. Thank you.

Saw This, Thought of You

Ahmaud Arbery’s death didn’t get much media attention until now, in part because it happened right as Covid-19 began scaring us into submission. But even long before the coronavirus, there has always seemed to be some reason for us to look away from black death of this kind. The era that birthed Black Lives Matter is several years past, yet we keep needing to repeat those words to a largely white America that seems exhausted by them. The shock of Arbery’s limp body slumping to the ground after very real gunshots is here to once again wake up the “woke,” I guess. Saying their names over and over again to people who don’t hear them until we eventually lose our voices has to end… Until there are severe and inescapable consequences for killing black people, anyone who isn’t fully antiracist will continue to do just that.

We didn’t need a pandemic to remember how filthy America has been left by racism and the laws that uphold it. However, we cannot baptize ourselves in the blood of the slain and leave feeling clean. We can no longer accept facsimiles. We must have actual justice.

Ahmaud Arbery Should Be Alive by Jamil Smith for Rolling Stone

Ida B. Wells Was Finally Awarded Posthumous Pulitzer Prize For Lynching Investigations. This is gut wrenching to report as the news of another black man being lynched takes over the news, 100 years later after her life’s dedication and work.

Ida B. Wells was honored alongside Nikole Hannah-Jones, whose 1619 Project for The New York Times was singularly the best work dedicated to black humanity that I read last year. It changed my heart and refocused my mind. If you are going to read two things from this link roundup today, they should be Jamil Smith’s essay on Ahmaud Arbery (linked above) and Hannah-Jones’ America Wasn’t a Democracy Until Black Americans Made It One.

And related to everything we just touched on, We Are Losing a Generation of Civil-Rights Memories. The coronavirus is rampaging black communities over 65. Now, more than ever, we can’t afford to let go of their wisdom or their stories.

I’m Teaching From Home and Don’t Know How Long We Can Keep This Up

Foodie Culture as We Know It Is Over Hannah Giorgis wrote this and even though she’s one of my favorite writers, real talk I don’t love this overly pessimistic headline (most writers don’t write their own headlines! So this isn’t on Hannah). But what I do love is this deep dive into empathetic, comforting, food TV and the ways we’re drawn to the small habits that turn into large wonders during pandemic.

Political Snacks

No links. #JusticeForAhmaud

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Carmen Phillips

Carmen Phillips is Autostraddle's former editor in chief. She began at Autostraddle in 2017 as a freelance team writer and worked her way up through the company, eventually becoming the EIC from 2021-2024. A Black Puerto Rican feminist writer with a PhD in American Studies from New York University, Carmen specializes in writing about Blackness, race, queerness, politics, culture, and the many ways we find community and connection with each other.  During her time at Autostraddle, Carmen focused on pop culture, TV and film reviews, criticism, interviews, and news analysis. She claims many past homes, but left the largest parts of her heart in Detroit, Brooklyn, and Buffalo, NY. And there were several years in her early 20s when she earnestly slept with a copy of James Baldwin’s “Fire Next Time” under her pillow. To reach out, you can find Carmen on Twitter, Instagram, or her website.

Carmen has written 716 articles for us.

3 Comments

  1. “We are all we got to see each other through this storm. Thank you.”

    I just wanted to say, as a broke college student, opening up those fundraisers terrified, anxiety gripping my chest, and seeing some of them mostly funded brought tears to my eyes. I was suddenly overcome by the feeling of having queer elders, of having people older than me looking out, so I didn’t have to have it all figured out RIGHT NOW otherwise the world would collapse.

    So I wanted to say thank you, too

  2. I will call for the DA’s resignation and keep looking for more to do. It is so horrifying and familiar, as you show showed in the connection you drew to Ida B. Wells

Comments are closed.