A Black, Queer Reflection on The Civil Rights Movement and the Unfinished Project of Freedom
The work of civil rights history is queer and feminist. It’s also a hard, rough, incomplete project.
How to Never Call the Cops Again: A Guide with a Few Alternatives to Calling Police
If we want to move towards a police-free, abolitionist future, we have to do everything we can create an abolitionist reality right now – which starts with not calling the police into our own communities.
#BlackLivesMatter: A Longform Reading List
Fifty years of words I liked reading and you will too! Authors include James Baldwin, bell hooks, Kiese Laymon, Roxane Gay, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Toni Morrison, Bayard Rustin and Dr. Brittany Cooper.
Also.Also.Also: Police Brutality Rages at Protests Against Police Brutality — What’s Happening Now and How To Help
In today’s Also.Also.Also link roundup: many accounts of police violence against protesters, and resources for educating yourself, supporting black businesses, providing jail support, donating to mutual aid funds and more.
Keep It On The DL Encourages Community Members to Share Tips and Resources for Distance Learning
All people deserve the right to continue their education regardless of their ability to sit in a physical classroom. Accessibility should never determine a child’s ability to learn.
Police and Prison Abolition 101: A Syllabus and FAQ
The work around decarceration has been some of the most successfully documented, accessible, and digitally interactive of any movement. This is a guide to guides, organized loosely by some of the main questions and thought processes that often come up around entry into abolitionist thinking, offering resources addressing some important ideas.
74 Bail Funds You Can Absolutely Support Right Now
Donate to a bail fund. We don’t have to wait for others to commit to upholding the value of Black life and materially improve the lives of Black people. We can take care of each other instead.
Asian Communities Must Desert the American Empire and Protect Black Lives
We have been drafted to protect white institutions that come at the cost of Black lives. We have been named a “model minority” to convince us that we’ve been saved a seat at the table among white peers — but that table was cut, assembled, and varnished by Black slaves. Asian Americans should look into the face of Tou Thao and see their own brother. It is our responsibility to bring him to justice, because he is not the only one.
Extra! Extra!: There Must Be an End to the Long List of Names We Memorialize
This week’s Extra! Extra! honors all the victims – past, present and future. Oh it needs to stop – there must be an end to the long list of names we memorialize. But I’m not naive enough to think more lives won’t be lost before we reach that point.
This Is on Us: 7 Things for White People to Commit to Right Now to Protect Black Lives from the Police
The pandemic has many of us feeling, in some ways accurately, that we’re helpless, or that there’s nothing we can do. The good news is, there is; there always has been. To that end, I’d like to ask you, a white person reading this, to make a public and material commitment to what you’ll do to end state violence and the endless targeting of Black people by the police apparatus.
My Mother’s WeChat Mutual Aid Network Is a Project of Diaspora Activism
Participating in my mother’s diaspora mutual aid WeChat group helped me learn how far diasporic people will go for strangers sharing a common language when governmental aid fails.
Extra! Extra! US States and Countries Start to Reopen – How’s That Working Out?
This week’s Extra! Extra! COVID-19 takes a look at what’s going on in some of the worst hit countries in the world, how reopening has been working out and ways to stay safe in the midst of everything.
Let’s Live: North Bronx Collective is Building Resilience for the Long Road
Our collectives are here in mutual aid because we are poor people helping poor people. No charity, no hand-outs, just solidarity because we are all in this together building with our community. Being a Black dyke doing this work doesn’t feel like a stretch. That’s what we do.
Extra! Extra!: Is the Arc of the Universe Bending Toward Justice for Trans Inmates and LGBT Rights in Utah?
This week’s Extra! Extra! brings a mix of hopeful and sobering news about trans rights, the criminal justice system, violence against women and the climate catastrophes in the Bay of Bengal and in Michigan. Also, Natalie updates us on the latest Veepstakes 2020 news.
Coming Together, Staying Apart: What Taking Care and Taking Action Look Like on HIV/AIDS and COVID-19
Talking to survivors and caretakers of the HIV/AIDS epidemic about what we can learn from the past about our present.
Former TERFs and SWERFs are Fleeing The “Cult” Movements Known For Being Terrible and Wrong
“Looking back on his time in the “gender critical” feminist movement,” writes PinkNews’ Vic Parsons, “[Dyess] is unequivocal: it’s a cult.”
Trusting Abundance: A Conversation With Organizer, Sammie Ablaza Wills
“I’m not interested in creating comfortable spaces. I’m interested in safer spaces where people can be challenged.” Sammie Ablaza Wills gathers wisdom from their elders and fellow trans, queer community to lead the grassroots org, API Equality Northern California.
Extra! Extra! LGBTQ+ Frontline Workers Face Health Risks Today, Unemployment Tomorrow
This week’s Extra! Extra! COVID-19 takes a look at how the pandemic continues to harm vulnerable populations around the world, the raging fight in the US over how seriously to take any of this, the state of stimulus packages during the pandemic and a look at LGBTQ+ rights during the pandemic.
“Reach Out to One Person a Day”: Feminist AIDS Activists Reflect on COVID-19
While gay men have necessary and urgent things to say about the enduring HIV/AIDS epidemic, women have always participated in AIDS activism. I spoke with two longtime feminist AIDS activists about queer community, care, and connection in the time of COVID-19.
Extra! Extra!: Mourning Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery While a Pandemic Rages, and More
This week’s Extra! Extra! brings a sobering reminder that racist violence continues in America, even during the pandemic, with news of the tragic murders of two Black young adults now making national headlines. Additionally, we have an update on America’s broken judiciary, the state of authoritarianism in different parts of the world, another report about our impending climate-change-induced hellscape and an explainer on that bizarre failed coup attempt in Venezuela.