Summer Walker’s Altar Shouldn’t Be a Big Deal Considering How Ritualistic Christianity Is
Responses to Summer Walker's altar were rife with anti-Black commentary and lacked historical knowledge around Black people’s relationship to witchcraft. Twitter has been a source of a lot of criticism about singer-songwriter Summer Walker for the last couple of weeks. Some
Everyone Should Know What Happened to Black Wall Street
No, the massacre of hundreds of Black folks—one of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history—really happened, and most people, especially white Americans, have never even heard of it.
This essay contains discussion of anti-Black violences, including assault and murder.
The Many Shades and Iterations of South Asian Anti-Blackness
South Asians have a complex history with anti-Blackness and we need to confront and dismantle it for collective liberation. South Asia has a rampant anti-Black racism problem. I know both from experience and by being a witness to it. Everyone knows
Ilhan Omar Has Nothing to Apologize For
Ilhan Omar threatens the congressional heterodoxy on Israel, which represents the interests of the Zionist lobby, not the Jewish people. By Jordan Valerie On Monday, the political establishment helped the Zionist lobby wage a smear campaign against freshman Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-MN)
Jim Jones Was The Ultimate White Liberal
Jones used white liberalism and performative allyship to target mostly poor Black folks, seduce them into his abusive cult, take their money, and orchestrate the death of over 900 people.
This essay contains discussions of suicide, murder, and spiritual abuse“Black people were integral to Jim Jones’ ambitions. Without black followers, and black causes to encourage and support, Jones might have ended up pastoring a tiny Methodist congregation in backwater Indiana, largely frustrated and entirely unknown” (273)
—Jeff Guin, The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple
Sunday marked the 40th anniversary of the massacre at Jonestown. Jim Jones is a name that many people know or have at least heard of. It’s a name that invokes fear and awe. “Mass suicide” is the story that most know about Jonestown, but much of that is a fiction or an incomplete truth. Those who refused to drink the concoction of grape Flavor Aid laced with cyanide were held down and injected with the poison or executed by the armed guards. This is how up to a third of Jonestown, nearly 300 people, met their end on November 18, 1978, murdered on Jim Jones’ command. When we remember Jonestown, we cannot only examine that gruesome ending. We have to look at what led up to it and the insidious methods used by Jones to manipulate his followers. Jones used white liberalism and performative allyship to target mostly poor Black folks, seduce them into his abusive cult, take their money, and orchestrate the death of over 900 people. Peoples Temple began as a community of citizens who believed in racial equality and social justice, but unbeknownst to them, they were being led by a man whose only motivation was power and control. What Jones wanted more than anything else was immortality. He wanted his name to be eternal and he wanted to achieve this immortality through having total sway and dominance over others, a man who “seemed to believe that once he did anything for someone, from that moment forward the person belonged to him, with no right to disagree about anything or ever leave” (60). [caption id="attachment_50250" align="aligncenter" width="800"]