We Remember!
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
The conversation about bonnets is often framed as though the only question is whether anyone can physically wear one. Of course anyone can put on a bonnet. The larger issue is how the practice is treated depending on who is wearing it. Black women have long used bonnets as practical hair-care tools. They reduce friction, […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
Understanding Vigilantes White supremacy is not maintained only by extremists, institutions, or openly racist organizations. It is also upheld by ordinary people who act as its conscripts: individuals who defend the racial order even when they do not consciously identify with it. These “white knights” rush to protect whiteness whenever its authority is questioned. They […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
When Research Becomes a Shield for Belief Imagine a person who has heard the same claim their entire life: “All dragons are purple.” Their teachers repeat it. Their books assume it. Their community accepts it. Over time, the statement stops feeling like a claim and starts feeling like reality itself. Then someone arrives and says, […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
Calling the mid-twentieth-century struggle for racial justice “the Civil Rights Movement” can be misleading. The label suggests a single, unified campaign with shared goals, leaders, and methods. In reality, Black political activism included many overlapping movements: legal challenges, labor organizing, grassroots voter drives, armed self-defense, Black nationalism, anti-colonial politics, religious activism, and campaigns for economic […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
The meme presents a linear progression of an identity crisis that people want Black Americans to have. It is a byproduct of the “We Wuz” variant of memes. It is stupid because it lacks context and oversimplifies a complex subject. Much like the meme it was born from, it is intended to silence, discredit, or […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
Certain white-centered films transform the history of conquest into a fantasy of rescue. Colonial power is stripped of its armies, plantations, forced removals, and economic motives, then returned to the screen as individual courage. The white protagonist enters a supposedly broken or endangered community, learns just enough of its culture to become exceptional within it, […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
Black American relationship life is often judged through the language of marriage, religion, and respectability, even when people’s actual relationships are far more fluid. Some partnerships involve serial monogamy, overlapping commitments, co-parenting outside marriage, or emotionally significant relationships that do not fit neatly into the husband-and-wife model. It would be inaccurate to describe Black Americans […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
The fear of absorption was an important force in relations among some precolonial African communities. Smaller groups often faced the possibility of being incorporated into larger and more powerful societies through conquest, migration, intermarriage, political alliance, tribute, or cultural assimilation. This insecurity could strengthen loyalty to one’s own community and encourage resistance to outside control. […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
The argument begins with a distinction people repeatedly confuse: a native language is not necessarily an ancestral language. A native language is the language a community acquires naturally, speaks across generations, and uses to organize everyday life. By that definition, English is the native tongue of Black Americans. Black Americans were formed as a distinct […]
Posted in For the Nation and For the Culture on Jul 20th, 2026
The word “fast” is often used to describe a girl or woman who is believed to be sexually mature, sexually available, flirtatious, or interested in attention from men. When applied to Black women and girls, however, the term carries a deeper historical meaning. It is connected to a long tradition of portraying Black femininity as […]
