#BIPOC stories

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

🩷 Sapphic BIPOC Books for Sapphic September

💜 Too often, books by authors of color get shelved out of view in favor of books written by well-known, already-established white authors. No more! In this amazing era of writing, there are more sapphic books by authors of color (about characters of color) than ever before! Here are a few sapphic BIPOC books to consider adding to your TBR! Spread the word about these books to give them the attention they deserve.

🩷 Girls of Paper and Fire -Natasha Ngan 🩷 You Should See Me in a Crown - Leah Johnson 🩷 Once Ghosted, Twice Shy - Alyssa Cole 🩷 Cinderella Is Dead - Kalynn Bayron

💜 Friday I'm in Love - Camryn Garret 💜 The Love & Lies of Rukhsana Ali - Sabina Khan 💜 Wild Beauty - Anna-Marie McLemore 💜 Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo

🩷 Gay the Pray Away - Natalie Naudus 🩷 D'Vaughn and Kris Plan a Wedding - Chencia C. Higgins 🩷 The Good Luck Girls - Charlotte Nicole Davis 🩷 Clap When You Land - Elizabeth Acevedo

💜 The Midnight Lie - Marie Rutkoski 💜 Tell Me How You Really Feel - Aminah Mae Safi 💜 We Set the Dark on Fire - Tehlor Kay Mejia 💜 The Henna Wars - Adiba Jaigirdar

🩷 All of Us with Wings - Michelle Ruiz Keil 🩷 How to Find a Princess - Alyssa Cole 🩷 Cinderella Is Dead - Kalynn Bayron 🩷 Sorry, Bro - Taleen Voskuni

💜 Wish You Weren’t Here - Erin Baldwin 💜 Girl, Serpent, Thorn - Melissa Bashardoust 💜 We Didn’t Ask for This - Ali Alsaid 💜 The Grief Keeper - Alexandra Villasante

🩷 Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Really Feel - Sara Farizan 🩷 Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me - Mariko Temaki 🩷 It’s Not Like It’s a Secret - Misa Sugiura 🩷 Everything Leads to You - Nina LaCour

💜 You Exist Too Much - Zaina Arafat 💜 The Skin and Its Girl - Sarah Cypher 💜 Hijab Butch Blues - Lamya H 💜 Roses in the Mouth of a Lion - Bushra Rehman

🩷 Faebound - Saara El-Arifi 🩷 Legendborn - Tracy Deonn 🩷 The Weight of Stars - K. Ancrum 🩷 Dread Nation - Justina Ireland

💜 I’ll Be The One - Lyla Lee 💜 Not Your Sidekick - C.B. Lee 💜 Honey Girl - Morgan Rogers 💜 Every Body Looking - Candice Iloh

[thebastardgerard]

Recently, after reading my friend @metalheadsforblacklivesmatter ‘s posts, I thought it was finally time to share my own story experiencing medical racism, transphobia and sexism.

TW: MEDICAL TOPICS, RACISM, TRANSPHOBIA, SEXISM AND EDS.

Somethings about me and disclaimers:

For those who don’t know me, hi hello, what’s the dealio? My name is Kuco, I’m a two-spirit black-indigenous mixed person. I am light-skinned, but most people can tell I’m mixed or assume I’m Latino, to the point where my medical documents mark me as Hispanic despite myself telling them to change it. I’m also AFAB.

While my experience is bad, it’s not unique to just me. Other people who are apart of the BIPOC community have faced the same or much worse. Regardless, please listen those in the community with darker skin. They often face much worse. If you’re only comfortable listening to those with lighter skin and feel more comfortable while claiming you’re an ally, you’re wrong and need to do better.

My story:

In 2021, I was experiencing nausea and vomiting after I ate. After a week of this continuously happening while working, I went to see a doctor who sent me to a surgeon, who sent me to a gastroenterologist to see what could be done without surgery.

This doctor was a cis white man in his late 60s who was apparently “retired.” After pointing out my symptoms and how they were getting worse, he looked through my medical history and noticed I had anxiety. He immediately went to the conclusion of a “brain-to-gut” connection, saying it was often found in woman. (Shock to no one, that wasn’t the case. Also, the issue was not my anxiety. My anxiety has progressive gone down and was at the lowest it had been in YEARS. My therapist at the time even confirmed this himself.) During this time, he also repeatedly referred to me using she/her pronouns, despite that my medical record points out that I am transgender and went by he/him pronouns at the time. (Despite me pointing this out, he continued to ignore this.) He gave me medications that were supposed to help, a doctor’s note (as I worked at the time) and sent me on my way.

Things only got worse. After 6 months of my symptoms getting worse and worse (to the point I could not eat solid food and started vomiting liquid) and several tests, he still believed it was a brain to gut issue. I had lost a lot of weight, to the point my own family noticed.

One of the last appointments I had with this doctor involved what’s called a gastric emptying test. For this test, a radioactive isotope (which isn’t harmful to humans) is put into some eggs and ingested. Pictures are taken of your stomach to track how long the isotope stays in your stomach after 2 hours, 3 hours, and 4 hours. Normally, your stomach is meant to empty at the 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hour mark. (By what I was told, mind you.)

My stomach emptied finally at the ladder end of 4 hours. This was considered on the way lower end of normal.

Once my doctor got this result, this was his response: The test says that your empty is at the lower end of what was normal, so that’s normal. Just keep taking your meds. It’s more common for Caucasian (white) people to have more serious gastric problems. Just so you know, I’m not writing you another note for your work, it’s not what I do.

This is what broke the camel’s back.

I called my primary care doctor and let her know that I wanted a different doctor who was a woman to see. I told her that he wasn’t listening to me nor taking me seriously and I refused to see him again. I also let her know that he was refusing to write me anymore work notes, despite the issue not being resolved. (A small time after this, my job let me go due to not having a return date. They said I was allowed to reapply afterwards, but I didn’t for different reasons. That’s another story for a different day.)

My primary care doctor sent me to a different doctor who was a woman and also happened to be a POC.

I had an appointment a week later, in which I told her all my symptoms and how I was barely able to eat it drink anything without being nauseous and vomiting. She listened to me while looking at my previous results from previous tests, in which she saw my gastric emptying test.

Her response was: Your test says your emptying is on the lower end of what’s normal, but by what you’re saying, it’s only gotten worse. Why didn’t he give you anything? I’m surprised you’re even talking to me right now.

I told her that he had said that due to my anxiety, it was a brain to gut issue, which was common for “woman” and continually insisted on that, as well as his other comments. She concluded I have a condition called Gastroparesis, or delayed gastric emptying. This is a condition that affects the stomach muscles and prevents proper stomach emptying. While there isn’t a certain idea of why it happens, it’s thought that those who previously suffered from EDs and have diabetes contract it more. (I had suffered from EDs when I was younger and have a history of diabetes that runs in my family, which is where I believe my causes came from.)

I suffered 9 months with this condition without proper treatment, in which my symptoms were prolonged, got worse, and almost passed, all because if ONE doctor.

While I got better for a time, I’m still battling with this condition, as well as other conditions that came along.

~~~~~~~~~

When those in the BIPOC community tell you we don’t trust white people, especially doctors, it’s because we’ve been shown time and time again the complete disregard for our care and safety.

Use your allyship for good and protect us.

I would like to thank my friends for your help, but especially with my partners and my friend @metalheadsforblacklivesmatter . They helped me so much through those 9 months, and even now continue to help and support me. I love you guys so so much. 🩵🩵🩵

[thecurvycritic]

André Holland Gives Expert Peformance Exhibiting Forgiveness

Loved everything about this film and you will too! #exhibitingforgiveness #sundancefilmfestival #sundance

Growing up as a military kid and getting to know my Dad was challenging.  We weren’t always sent  on his assignments and it was only as an adult that I began to understand his emotional distance and tough exterior with empathy and love. So, when I learned that Oscar-shortlisted filmmaker and celebrated painter Titus Kaphar loosely based his story into a fresh cinematic language of paint and…

[ramyeongif]

23 years old. Academic Poster Conference, at my poster. "Okay, but where are you really from?" "But what is your real name? Not your English name?" That’s the price we pay for being here.

#poetry

[thisblackwitch]

Why is it so freaking hard to find Chicano and Afro-Chicano voice actors, particularly queer Chicano and Afro-Chicano voice actors, for audiobooks? Preferably from SoCal (never thought I'd see the day I can't find an actor in California.)

I legit have a paying job for them to do. An all BIPoC dark fantasy novel which is part of a series. In others words: returning work.

Does anyone know anyone? Am I just looking in the wrong places?

Because I am finding a payload of White guys who are way too happy to "play" Chicano/Afro-Chicano and I am not doing that. All my narrators are BIPoC (and women up to this point) because all my works are BIPoC. (Don't like it? Ask J. K. Rowling for a job, I'm not her.) And this upcoming work of mine needs a male narrator.

This is very frustrating.

[chloes-history-corner]

US Minority Rights in the "Interwar Years"

After the ironically named "Great War," much of the modern world had changed. In many ways, the first World War was a conflict not just of military might, but also of culture.

Almost every country's leadership, during the opening actions of the war, assumed that strategy and resolution would be pretty much unchanged from the end of the previous century -- cavalry charges, bright uniforms, the occasional suit of armor. What they got instead was a manmade hell of high velocity gunfire, deadly artillery, and organizational ineptitude.

Clearly, such a disparity between expectation and reality caused upheaval throughout the world, not simply on the battlefield. By the end of the war, society was nearly unrecognizable from it's pre-war state. New social classes were fighting for recognition and equality on a scale never before seen. New countries were formed, upending long standing ethnic understanding, if not stability. And, most destructively, the people and systems that once held power firmly in the province of the privileged were forever changed.

There is very much to discuss concerning this tumultuous time period - Nov 1918 to around August 1939. However, I want to focus primarily on the social impact this had on class strife, and then relate that impact to a modern context. Let's start by discussing the evolution and, arguably, subsequent de-evolution of gender roles in Western society during this span of years: The Great War drained the countries involved of over 60% of their male population, meaning there were not nearly enough men left to fill the jobs and leadership roles. Women rose up in their place, entering the job market and leadership positions like never before in history. Women started making real money, allowing them more vertical freedom in society. After the war, this translated into the suffrage movement, and a shift in power away from the traditional masculine elite.

We can also consider the Harlem Renaissance, and it's impact on post war society. Although there are many elements together that birthed the Harlem Renaissance, one of these key factors was a dramatic burst in BIPOC immigration to the traditionally white Harlem neighborhood in the early 20th century. The Great War, of course, affected the African American community in Harlem. Just before the war began, the surge in BIPOC immigration blossomed into an incredible wave of black culture, art, music, and poetry. Community leaders were able to organize, and POC became even more aware of their ability to shift the power dynamics of a racist system. Once the war began, the rates of recruitment for white vs POC Americans were skewed -- although these imbalances were somewhat managed after the passing of the Selective Service Act in 1917.

The Renaissance and the lack of POC engagement in the war - and the disparity in treatment that black Americans felt during the Depression compared to white laborers - left BIPOC communities across America energized, passionate, and ready to fight throughout the Interwar Years.

The NAACP was founded in 1909, and throughout the war and after produced an atlas of documentation entitled "The Soldier Tributes" aimed at curtailing the mistreatment of BIPOC service members. During the Interwar Years, the group became one of the most reliable legal resources for the civil rights of POC Americans, and continues it's fight today. The Renaissance continued into the years of the depression, producing a flood of art and cultural movements from the black and queer communities of Harlem and the surrounding areas. At a time when American society was crumbling at the root, the beacon of diversity celebration provided a rallying point for the POC and queer communities and allowed them to continue and transmit their ideas and hopes for a more equal world. I think it fair to say that the Civil Rights movement of the 50s and 60s could not have happened without this base of cultural identity produced in Interwar America.

Queer people faced a fluctuating level of acceptance and interest throughout the late 19th century up until around the second World War. In the late 19th century, a thriving queer scene was born from the buzz around the Masquerade Balls taking place in Harlem's "Hamilton Lounge." These balls were the immediate precursor to modern Ballroom, and were surprisingly quite popular in the northeastern US for a time. A clipping from a popular Harlem newspaper of the day of a ball on March 6, 1887 reads "The Huge crowd with it's gay colored gowns was a beautiful spectacle to behold..." and such a sentiment appeared surprisingly often even among white, cishet members of the New York population.

In the 1930s. these balls eventually grew into what was known as the "Pansy Craze," a rise in popularity and interest for queer performance and culture - featuring trans people and drag performers taking center stages in both traditionally Queer venues as well as traditionally cishet Prohibition bars and lounges. The Pansy Craze and the Masquerade Balls before it changed what it meant to be "masculine" or "feminine" during a time when these gender roles were already shaken by the demographic shift in the labor market post-war.

And so, eventually, we arrive at The Point of this discussion. The Interwar Years throughout the West (although in this post I was mostly concerned with America) witnessed a distinct shift in the traditional structure of society. What was once unquestionably the domain of white men, particularly landowners and the wealthy, now faced challenges from diverse contenders. Women began a serious fight for the vote and labor rights. BIPOC pushed the boundaries of American imagery, art, and culture. Queer people brought new dimension into previously entrenched discussions of gender roles and presentation. This onslaught of passion and power from minority groups should have dismantled conservative white society - and to some degree, it did. But, unfortunately, my point in mentioning all this is not to celebrate a great success or fundamental shift in society, bringing us into a new world of acceptance and love. I mean now to discuss the ways in which the system fought back against acceptance and love, and by so doing to contextualize the ways in which the current system fights back; I believe the similarities are dire, that the system has pulled the wool over our eyes, and that the context is needed so that we might all understand how to win this time.

The late Interwar Years, starting around the mid-1930s, brought a brutal counterattack from the conservative societal structures. Many of these movements mentioned above, though crucially important to the later success of later civil rights movements in the mid century, were harshly curtailed by the conservative white system. Despite the flood of women into the job market, the successes of the suffrage movement, and new financial independence, women were one of the groups most painfully affected by the Great Depression. BIPOC and women during this period lost almost any opportunity at work (and thus financial and societal independence) during the depression. White men were offered these jobs as the economy recovered, taking the roles that women and POC had begun filling after the male labor deficits post-WWI.

Queer people had shaken what it meant to be a man or a woman. By the mid '30s, men began presenting slightly more "feminine," whatever their caste. Women wore shorter hair, began smoking, spending their own money, and taking a more dominant role in relationships and courting. This, too, suffered from the depression. Speakeasies, a popular venue for queer culture and a way for straight people to experience queerness, began closing across the country. Cishet men began returning to work at the expense of minority laborers, and thus returned to prominence in society. White men began an attempt to return gender relations to a "simpler" pre-war ideal. These men began dressing in clean pressed suits, waistlines on pants changed, women began tending the house again, and queer people were pressed back into the shadows as society tried to escape the shame of it's queer dalliances of the 1920s.

The remaining white men in power presented a coordinated effort to disenfranchise minority groups that they felt were beginning to become too threatening - and it happened so fast that, despite the sharp increase in minority organization and identity achieved in the earlier Interwar years, nobody had a chance to present the resistance needed to prevent these changes. The white men who had been changed and affected by post-war unemployment and uncertainty were brought back into the fold with new jobs - advertising everywhere promoting the good ol' American life (featuring wealthy looking white men and their charmingly submissive wife and children). So pervasive was the narrative that by the time WWII began, despite some changes and memories of the Interwar minority explosion, largely cishet white men had a firm grip on the direction of society until the unrest of the Civil Rights movement. A major aspect of this regression was the lessons white men learned about the power of propaganda during the first World War. There is much to cover on this topic that I will save for a later post. Let it do to say here that propaganda as an organized component of war was largely invented in WWI. It's effectiveness was such that Germany exited the war believing they'd lost because their top generals had betrayed them, purposefully losing them the war. It was this belief that would inspire one Adolf Hitler a decade hence. The white men that returned from the war carried these lessons home with them and utilized those ideas to affect and organize the way advertising, media, and culture discussed society to their advantage. Minority groups, being engrossed in a vital fight for their rights and identity, had not the chance to learn what faced them. They simply knew that suddenly, the aggression towards them was cohesive, organized, and deadly.

I think we are seeing a similar trend currently. In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled on 'Citizens United vs FEC,' allowing corporations to contribute money to political officials and offices. This removed what remaining need there was for political officials to vote in line with their constituents, who until now were the only source of funding for their campaigns. Additionally, the 2000s saw the creation of the first 24-hr news cycle at CNN. This system was so profitable, and so ripe for manipulation, that major conglomerates began buying up nearly every newsroom, paper, editorial and radio station. The leadership of these conglomerates, who were donating to politicians post-Citizens United, were now able to work directly with (and in many ways control) the political system and coordinate messaging with policy. The results have been devastating. Political officials now need only consider the opinion of the highest corporate bidder and vote accordingly. Media conglomerates, now maintaining a controlling interest in the country's policy, can force nearly every media outlet to push the same message all at once - eliminating any opportunity for communities like the ones responsible for the suffrage movement, or Harlem's Renaissance community, to offer coherent resistance. It is this we must understand, and the history of our forbears can show us how to fight - what they did that worked, what they did that didn't. We must carry these lessons with us if we're to have any hope for tomorrow.

A collection of some of my sources (need to do a better job at saving these, some are not listed due to author negligence):

From Front Page to Back Seat by Beth Bailey

A People's History of Europe by Raquel Varela

Controversy: War-Related Changes in Gender Relations by Birgitta Bader-Zaar

Female Identities of the Interwar Period: A Feminist Narratological Analysis of British Literature by Jessica McCombs

Queer History by Christina B. Hanhardt

Citizen, Introvert, Queer by Deborah Cohler

A beautiful pageant : African American theatre, drama, and performance in the Harlem Renaissance by David Krasner

Gender and Power: Society, the Person, and Sexual Politics by RW Connell

[inked-and-painted]

The Learning Tree (1969) is director Gordon Parks’ first feature length film, and the first film directed by a Black director for a major US film studio (Warner Brothers-Seven Arts in this case.) The film focuses on a snippet of the life of Newt Winger, a 14 year old living in Cherokee Flats, Kansas in the 1920s. The film was shot on location in Cherokee Flats, and is semi-autobiographical; based on a book Parks write six years earlier. It was inducted into the US Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 1989.

In my opinion it’s a beautifully shot and well-acted film. I recommend everyone watch it!

Content warning for (period typical) racism, white supremacy, and slurs. There is also gun violence and implied sexual content.

[mk-wizard]

Race-Bending: It demeans us all

Ok, for real this time, this is my very last argument against “bending” especially when it comes to race. When white actors played the parts of BIPOC people long ago, we still held Hollywood accountable for this bad casting because it is racist. It’s so serious, that a lot of these films mention and apologize in advance for doing this admitting that looking back, it was not ok. And I agree. It’s not right. A person’s culture or race is not a role even when the “tribe” or “clan” is fictional. These people are a reference to actual people, an actual culture and actual mythology. It merits respect.

And the same goes for recolouring BIPOC characters to be white. This is Baxter Stockman who is established as being black yet he was recoloured here. This is not a cool thing to do. The Lord himself meant for the human race to be colourful and equal. There is no rhyme or reason to not cast BIPOC actors to play BIPOC parts or to not paint established characters in their correct colours. Being BIPOC is natural and beautiful.

With that said, the reverse is not ok either. Even if the character and their nation is fictional, like I said before, they mirror and represent real life. And a lot of these characters are iconic. Not to mention, it’s very uncomfortable, disturbing and wrong to see a BIPOC actor/character pretending to be white. It’s like you’re saying that original BIPOC characters and roles aren’t as good as white ones and that only white characters have value. To me, that is bigoted.

Moreover, it is also bigoted towards white people and please hear me out. White people deserve to have their culture and intelligence respected too. As a Greek woman, I am not ashamed to say that I would be very offended is someone casted a BIPOC person to play Apollo the Greek God of the Sun or a BIPOC person to play Aphrodite the Greek Goddess of Love and Beauty. I can understand them having tanned or olive skin, but they would still be white. They’re Greek. And I doubt England would be pleased to see King Arthur or any of his knights be played by a BIPOC actor. Though if memory serves me correctly, this did happen and people were outraged. And rightly so. I also doubt people would be comfortable with seeing a BIPOC Thor who is the Norse God of Thunder. It looks ridiculous and it is offensive to the culture.

I’m all for representation, but it has to be done the right way otherwise the attempt not only fails, it actually makes you look bigoted because you did not put any thought into it. And if we want BIPOC leads so badly, why not make films and TV shows based on BIPOC mythology? There is so much to you can do with it and I would be elated to see it. We got a taste of it with Mulan and Moana, but we all know there’s more. Let’s see it. Let’s see it all. And there are tons, upon tons, upon tons of books with BIPOC main characters. I would love to see a film or series reboot of “n the Head of the Night which is one of my favourite cop books.

And I would love to see a Green Lantern film or series starring Jon Stewart who is the best Green Lantern in my opinion.

And I would love it if Parasite Eve got its own series from the novel that sparked it all, to the video game. Yeah, Parasite Eve the video game is actually a sequel to a Japanese horror-science fiction novel.

If I am STILL a bigot after making this argument, then all I have to say is... I’m not sorry.

[outragedtortilla]

in retrospect what I heard was a limit, a boundary a fence that firmly encompassed what you could do after all. and maybe I shouldn’t be mad and maybe I shouldn’t have asked for more

#poetry

[theblackvelvetcollective]

Musings from the Black Velveteen: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion *are* Important

by the Black Velveteen

Picture it. Summer of 2000. I was a young fourth grader eager and excited to travel with my parents and my baby sister to Myrtle Beach. Living in landlocked Tennessee, going to the beach was truly an adventure! “Don’t touch the jellyfish even if they’re on the sand” I remember my daddy telling me. Sure, daddy I like to look at jellyfish more anyway. Besides, I had other plans. My momma had taken my sister and I to the Dollar Tree a week prior to our trip and told us we could grab whatever beach toys we wanted. For context, my sister and I had just learned how to swim so we were more than prepared to get the toys we wanted! Now, I am a solution oriented individual. I enjoy planning things out especially if I have made up my mind about them. So, of course, I made sure my sister knew that we were going to take full advantage of our time on the sandy Myrtle beach. We grabbed every single sandcastle building tool we could find and made sure our momma knew we needed them all. Thankfully, they were a dollar so convincing our momma that we needed them all was easy. As I stood on the beach in my little one piece swimsuit next to my sister in her matching one piece swimsuit: the true work was about to begin.

My sister and I wanted to build not just any sandcastle, but the bougie version. You know: the sandcastle with a moat. If you’re unfamiliar with a moat, it is a water filled ditch that surrounds castles allowing for only one way in and one way out and that was via a draw bridge that connected the other side of the moat to the castle. I am a person who likes to work smart, not hard. So I suggested that we build our castle first, then build our moat, then fill it with water. Simple enough plan that I shared with my parents just to make sure it wouldn’t be too difficult. They said the plan was a good one and so my sister and I began to work. We built a two and a half foot sand castle with designated wings and structures that we even named after some family members. My sister dug and dug and dug the moat. I helped, but she wanted a very deep moat: I was so proud of her hard work. Now for the cherry on top: water to fill the moat.

To help you visualize: my family was positioned about 500 feet from the ocean so my sister and I had to take our pales designated for “only moat water” to the shoreline, let the waves fill the buckets to the brim, then carry the water we could back and pour it into the moat we (she) dug. So we did our first run! We were so excited we knew we’d need a couple of trips to fill our moat but that was easy. We came back to our lovely sandcastle, stood on opposite sides of the moat and began to pour. Our jubilant smiles and bouncing legs soon turned to furrowed brows of confusion and stillness of disappointment.

We watched as the water levels kept going down until our moat was dry as a bone. My sister and I looked at each other confused and ran right back to the ocean. “Maybe there just needed to be a quick wetting of the sand. This next run we’ll see the water settle and rise!” But alas, it never did. We spent well over an hour going back and forth from the ocean to our beloved sandcastle only to be further frustrated and annoyed that our moat was not coming forth. On one run we looked over and saw some other kids, close to the shoreline, had created an (average and sloppy) sandcastle equipped with a fully functioning moat. They even had a little sail boat in the moat. My sister felt jaded and I was furious. How could this be happening? We had a plan. Our parents said it was a great one! We built a sandcastle of our own design that we were proud of. So why didn’t we have our moat? My sister, exhausted from running on sand in the hot sun, gave up. I kept putting water in until it was time for us to go back to our room. I was tired, but most of all I felt defeated. Not until a decade later did I learn that my parents had a conversation between themselves that they knew we couldn’t build a moat, but by not telling us it would keep us safe and continually in their sight and they would know where we are. As an adult: it totally makes sense, but as a nine year old I couldn’t understand why my efforts were not successful.

I remember that feeling of exhaustion and defeat. Working an entire day at the beach and finding out later my efforts were futile and in vain; also that my parents had withheld information from my sister and myself, albeit for our safety, but it kept us from reaching our goal of building a sandcastle that was for us, by us. This familiar feeling arose within me again as I continue to trudge through demanding equity, diversity, and inclusion at my workplace. By attending the Strategies to Build Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: Leadership and Policies webinar, I learned why DEI work is so important and that in order for it to truly function within an organization, empowerment and trust are key. Those in power must be willing to share that power. Management cannot simply say that they are doing “good race equity work” when internally there is a lack of trust and no indication that equity, diversity, and inclusion are prioritized. When Black women, femmes, and gems are verbally berated in the office over a simple task and there is absolutely no accountability or consequences for the harm caused: then there is no trust. When women of color have to be put through a test just for their white supervisor to trust them because they didn’t trust the last employee in that position, shows that there is no competency on how imbalanced power dynamics can be harmful. When white women in power are allowed to be bigoted and the president of the organization is complicit in that behavior, that does not show a commitment to protecting those most marginalized in the workplace. It shows that power is settled at the top and those at the top are comfortable with keeping and protecting that power, rather than sharing.

By constantly working marginalized workers under stressful conditions of white supremacy, white feminism, bigotry, and classism: the moat is kept from being filled. However, if those in power were willing to share their power (or the marginalized seize the power, whichever comes first), a restructuring that is beneficial for all starts to occur. Systems of accountability that actually include consequences, starts to build trust between the marginalized and those with power. The empowerment to make decisions increases support and bolsters the community building that starts within an organization. By dismantling the hierarchical structure that marginalizes and harms BIPOC, we see an organization that can prosper. So, when building a sandcastle with a moat, try to find a compromise that shares power with the powerless and emboldens those who are committed to put forth their best effort. Move closer to the sea so you can fill your moat.

[battyaboutbooksreviews]

Books by BIPOC Authors August 2023

🦇 I grew up surrounded by a melting pot of cultures, diverse communities, and unique experiences. Despite the different sources of those multicultural voices, their stories still covered universal topics of colonialism, migration, identity, and race. Each story was another flavor, another sweet spice adding to that melting pot. Today, we have books by BIPOC authors that put those unique voices to the page. If you're interested in traveling to different worlds, whether familiar or foreign, here are a few books by BIPOC authors to add to your TBR! 🦇

✨ Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang ✨ The Dark Place by Britney S. Lewis ✨ Forged by Blood by Ehigbor Okuson ✨ Accidentally in Love by Danielle Jackson ✨ A Council of Dolls by Mona Susan Power ✨ Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey ✨ The Injustice of Place: Uncovering the Legacy of Poverty in America by Kathryn J. Edin, H. Luke Shaefer, Timothy J. Nelson ✨ Hangman by Maya Binyam ✨ The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride (Historical Fiction) ✨ Under the Tamarind Tree by Nigar Alam ✨ Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas ✨ An American Immigrant by Johanna Rojas Vann

🧭 Forgive Me Not by Jennifer Baker 🧭 Two Tribes by Emily Bowen Cohen 🧭 A Quantum Life: My Unlikely Journey from the Street to the Stars by Hakeem Oluseyi and Joshua Horwitz 🧭 Writing in Color: Fourteen Writers on the Lessons We've Learned (edited by) Nafiza Azad and Melody Simpson 🧭 Ghost Book by Remy Lai 🧭 The Water Outlaws by S.L. Huang 🧭 Plantains and Our Becoming by Melania Luisa Marte 🧭 Forty Words for Love by Aisha Saeed 🧭 The Great White Bard: How to Love Shakespeare While Talking About Race by Farah Karim-Cooper 🧭 Take the Long Way Home by Rochelle Alers 🧭 Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham 🧭 Actually Super by Adi Alsaid

✨ Never a Hero by Vanessa Len ✨ I Fed Her to the Beast and the Beast is Me by Jamison Shea ✨ The Infinity Particle by Wendy Xu ✨ Night of the Living Queers, edited by Shelly Page ✨ Sign of the Slayer by Sharina Harris ✨ Her Radiant Curse by Elizabeth Lim ✨ My Father the Panda Killer by Jamie Jo Hoang ✨ Barely Floating by Lilliam Rivera ✨Happiness Falls by Angie Kim ✨ A Tall Dark Trouble by Vanessa Montalban ✨ Neverwraith by Shakir Rashaan ✨ House of Marionne by J. Elle

[handsoffmypod]

📣 HELLO, My Beautiful Humans! #NewEpisodeAlert dropped today! ...

A #TransistorFM original, This is a 3-Part Episode on #StLouisJaneDoe #OurPreciousHope #indiepod #MMIP #AANHPI #LGBTQ2S #ethicaltruecrime #BIPOC #HOM_Pod

[inhum3n]

Help if you can!

[thecurvycritic]

Teyana Taylor Shines as Impoverished Mom in A Thousand and One

I walked away from this screening and all I could remember AND talk about is how powerful Teyana Taylor's performance resonated within my spirit! Cleary the Sundance jury felt the same way. #athousandandone #sundance2023

Damaged people don’t know how to love each other. This is a line from the film that rocked me to me core when I heard it and haunts me in this moment.   Every single Black mother in 1990’s Harlem can relate to this statement boldly stated by Inez as they are acutely aware  this position is riddled with its own set of challenges.  Yet, it is compounded when trying to rebound from being…

[ramyeongif]

but maybe also I am part of the generation with the audacity to ask for mental well-being in addition to physical well-being. is that not why we journeyed across the oceans?

#poetry

[forewordreviewsmag]

TIME IS RUNNING OUT! The INDIES deadline is JANUARY 15, 2023.

We invite you to submit your book for consideration in our 2022 INDIES book awards competition.

Did you finish your novel in 2022? Was it edited and published? We want you to dream big! Dream about Winning an INDIE Award! You can secure bookstore and library orders, galore! What are you waiting for? Register your book for the INDIES Awards today.