Starlette Thomas

“I am somebody” is a natural response to attempts to minimize one’s “me-ness,” to deny one’s aliveness through macro and microaggressions and inflictions of systematic pain and suffering.

Systemic racism is often reinforced through a structural, learned ignorance that allows dominant groups to misunderstand the world they inhabit.

Coined by Robin DiAngelo, “white fragility” refers to a state in which even a minimal amount of “racial” stress becomes intolerable to individuals racialized as white, triggering defensive behaviors. I happen to think it’s nonsense.

National pride is decreasing. Ahead of the nation’s semiquincentennial this July 4, a new Gallup poll finds just 33% of citizens polled are “extremely proud” to be American, a quarter century low in Gallup polling that started in 2001.

“She Speaks: Black Women Artists and the Power of Historical Memory” is a highly innovative exhibition that explores 250 years of American history through the lens of womanism.

Gen Z and millennials are reclaiming their own, swapping algorithmic scrolling for intentional hobbies and offline experiences. As an elder millennial, I’m with them.

The future of believing is for imaginaries. Faith traditions bound by contextless tradition and visions of yesteryear should be viewed in the rearview mirror.

On this day in 1919, there was an incident of white supremacist domestic terrorism in Chicago. It was sparked by the drowning of Eugene Williams, a 17-year-old African American youth.

Black August honors African American radicals, revolutionaries, and political prisoners. The final summer month celebrates African American resistance against systemic, racialized oppression and state violence.

Betye Saar transformed derogatory Jim Crow-era memorabilia and racist caricatures into empowering symbols of political resistance and self-liberation. The assemblage art pioneer died on July 26. She was 99 years old.