Tag: Black girls

From Ghetto to Goddess is the movement.

Wanda Sabir presents a thoughtful journey considering the effects of the pandemic on our reality, and experiencing through memorial art, theatre, healing arts and poetry the beauty, trauma, wisdom, fight and survival of Black wom(b)en holding the possibilities of the future.

I have been thinking a lot recently about restorative justice practices and violence – physical, psychological and emotional violence and the harm to persons, immediate and long term, as well as the harm to their associate families and communities. Not much attention is paid to the survivors of violence unless the violence is by the state, yet every day people are making choices which harm innocent people. Why is the activist community silent when it comes to advocacy for these silenced survivors?

Historically, Black children have been exposed to a racist system, which not only exposes them to unspeakable violence, but also criminalization. In 2018, Black children still need protection. Through the life of Trayvon Martin and others, community members and organizers are standing up for the basic rights of Black children to ensure they make it through each phase of their childhood – and exercise their right to be children.

What I loved this year was all the celebratory dancing from just before our ancestors crossed into the unknown territory to landing on these shores and celebrating life and the possibility of freedom, which remained physically just beyond reach for centuries. In small steps as we regained agency over ourselves, even if our bodies then and now continue to be exploited, liberation was a bit sweeter.

Scientists Katherine Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson, profiled in “Hidden Figures” (2016), exemplify what writer Margot Lee Shetterly calls “everyday courage,” a kind of imaginative power that filled these women – Black women, white women, invisible women – with a sense of pride and purpose even when deserved recognition went unstated. Director Theodore Melfi’s film is all the buzz.

The Just Chamia show is a locally produced television talk show that is formatted in much the same way as the Queen Latifah and the Wendy Williams show. Local flavor is what makes the Just Chamia show stand out to me. She interviews interesting people, some whom I have never heard of, as well as well known figures with mass appeal. Check out Miss Chamia LaRae, on her YouTube channel as well as in this exclusive Q&A ...

July 13 marks two years since #BlackLivesMatter was created. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has pushed to ensure that all Black lives are seen as an important part of an overall movement for social transformation. We have much to lose if we negate that all Black lives are central to the most well being for all of us. We must not rest until all of us are free.

Over the years, Kharyishi Wigington has been a tireless advocate for empowering West Oakland youth at McClymonds High School. She is at it again, this time taking a group of students on a cultural exchange to South Africa. The young leaders who have been studying and fundraising all year for their trip to South Africa are scheduled to leave in a few days but have not yet raised all the money they need. Please help as generously as you can.