Friday, May 3

Tag: justice

How a Black Farming Community Found Justice
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SOCIAL JUSTICE

How a Black Farming Community Found Justice

Black families in the South are doing important work to continue the legacy of Black farming communities. Shirley Sherrod co-founded New Communities, a Black farming community in rural Georgia. But at one time, she wanted to leave farming far behind. As a teenager, Sherrod dreamed of leaving the South. Her mind traveled North—away from the White sheriff, known as “The Gator,” who ruthlessly and violently patrolled the area’s Black residents. Away from her family’s farm and the backbreaking days spent picking cotton. Away from the segregated schools. “My goal was to try to get as far away from that whole system and as far away from the farm as I could,” she says. But in March 1965, her senior year of high school, Sherrod’s father was shot by a White farmer during a d...
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The Joyful Intersections of Disability Justice, Care, and Pleasure
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Journalism

The Joyful Intersections of Disability Justice, Care, and Pleasure

A different kind of disability care is possible—and necessary. When I think of care and pleasure, I think of: • Me and my partner hanging out in bed during a “bed day,” constantly communicating about what hurts and what positions our bodies need to be in, offering to make each other tea or bringing over the chips. Spooning, reading, telling stories, making out and napping, in the middle of a massive pillow pile. We aren’t trying to cram ourselves into an able-bodied vision of what sexy or a relationship is; it’s totally OK for us to rest, chill, care for ourselves and each other. Our care needs are not some gross secret walled off from date night. • Or my friend whose multi-decade-old disability care collective helps her get on the toilet, shower, and dress every day, and peo...
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For Black Women, Reproductive Justice Is About More Than High-Risk Pregnancies
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Journalism

For Black Women, Reproductive Justice Is About More Than High-Risk Pregnancies

Infertility affects Black women twice as much as other women—and they’re less likely to seek assistance. Lately, more light has been shed on the risks Black women face during pregnancy and childbirth. While this is good, another struggle remains largely hidden for Black woman—becoming pregnant. While infertility affects roughly 12 percent of the population, Black women are twice as likely to experience challenges achieving or sustaining a pregnancy—and less likely to seek assistance. According to Juli Fraga, a psychologist who specializes in women’s health, including pregnancy-related depression, infertility can severely harm women’s mental health. “Depression, anxiety, PTSD, unresolved grief/loss, and marital tension are all possible mental health consequences of i...
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Journalism

9 Essential Reads For Your Racial Justice Conversations

By now we know that racism is a discussion that everyone needs to have, yet it’s easy to become overwhelmed by it all. These discussions can challenge what we know. There is still much we don’t know about each other and the impact of race and racism in our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our local governments. Many of our families and communities are simply microcosms of the greater society that often miseducates us. When we enter school, we learn about the fact of slavery but too often without context or judgment. We don’t learn about the resistance movements. Or the full stories of Nat Turner or John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth. This is changing slowly. Small groups of people of all racial backgrounds are discovering the centuries of literature that do tell these s...
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