Category: Race

Black Fans Deserve Space Too: The Battle for Inclusion

4/1/2026

by Janaye Roberts

Photo by Daniel Lombraña González on Unsplash

Fandoms have always been my comfort zone. They are spaces where I could embrace my interests without fear of judgment. When I entered high school and joined the anime club, I thought I had finally found a community where that passion could thrive. It wasn’t just about anime; it was about connecting with people who shared the same enthusiasm.

During my junior year, one of the biggest conversations in the club was about a new animated pilot on YouTube. Everyone was buzzing about it, so naturally, my curiosity kicked in. I went home, watched it, and instantly fell in love. I couldn’t wait to talk about it with my peers, to share my excitement and join the discussion. But when I told them I’d finally watched it, the reaction wasn’t what I expected. Instead of smiles or questions, I was met with confusion and silence, and then a comment that still echoes in my mind to this day:

“Oh. You watched it? But you’re Black."

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I Saw A Black Man Holding A Gun: An Evaluation Of Black People In Writing

2/1/2024

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by Qwayonna Josephs

At nine years old, I participated in my school’s reading program. We’d get a medal for every hundred books we’d read. Being the overachiever I still am, I read everything in sight, trying to be the student wearing the most medals. This program introduced me to The Bluford Series, which consists of many black-led stories. My school had the entire collection available in the reading section of my third-grade class. All the books I read from the series had the same elements, single mothers, troubled teens, violence, incarceration, and Ebonics.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Looking back now, it’s crazy to think that my introduction to Black-led stories was a book with a Black man on the cover, holding a gun, a book that was distributed to schools from Scholastic and praised as honest portrayals of inner city kids. Yet, every one of those books I read came from the mind of Paul Langan, a white man who claims in an interview that his intention behind the idea was sparked by minority students wanting to see themselves in print. I’m sure that drew lots of students to the books, seeing someone who looked like them on the cover―it definitely drew me in―but, with maturity and clarity, I now understand the harmfulness of these stories and characters. While trying to show our “experiences,” the books highlight negative stereotypes, slap on a problematic cover, and end up in the hands of impressionable elementary, middle, and high school kids that are desperate to see themselves in a story.

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Writing For Work or Working to Write: The Inherent Elitism of Being a Writer

12/1/2022

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by S. E. Roberts

Writing is not a career that has ever paid enough money. Now, I’m not talking about bloggers or journalists, who could certainly stand to make more but don’t necessarily have to. I’m talking about novelists, poets, and short story writers, those artists who are self-advertising on social media, submitting to literary magazines, and publishing books of their work, all in the hope of being recognized and well-compensated for their work.

Photo by Emmanuel Ikwuegbu on Unsplash

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We are not a genre: reevaluating how we talk about black literature

2/1/2022

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by Ariana Tucker

Go onto any major book-selling website and you’ll probably find a section dedicated to Black authors in the list of genres and subcategories. Amazon calls theirs “Amplify Black Voices” and lists it among other popular keywords like “Award Winners” and “Celebrity Picks.” Barnes and Noble calls theirs “Black Voices” and lists it among other browsing options such as “Large Print Books” and “Trend Shop.” Click on either link and you’ll see popular books written by Black authors, most of which are the same books we’ve been talking about for the last five years.

Barnes and Noble is the worst offender of this. On their featured page of “Fiction: Black Voices,” only four were published between 2020 and 2021 (Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle is their featured book from 2021). The rest are classics by Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Ralph Ellison and books by authors like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Sister Souljah, which were published in the 2000s and 2010s. Amazon at least offers a more up-to-date list of recently released books by month and recommendations from editors and Black icons like Billy Porter and Rick Ross. You can find almost any genre and any subject here, the only difference is that the authors are all BIPOC.

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The Politics of A Black Existence

5/1/2021

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by Dominick Marconi

There was this popular meme that recirculated in 2020 which featured a still frame from the Dreamworks animated film Madagascar. It showed the four main characters, Alex the Lion, Gloria the Hippo, Marty the Zebra, and Melman the Giraffe with puzzled expressions on their faces and overlaid text that read, simply: “Why are you black?”

Everytime I see it I laugh. Everytime I think about it I laugh. I cannot speak as to why anybody else might find it funny, but to me, the comedy not only stems from the absurdity of the question's nature, but in its truth.

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<<Previous

Black Fans Deserve Space Too: The Battle for Inclusion

I Saw A Black Man Holding A Gun: An Evaluation Of Black People In Writing

Writing For Work or Working to Write: The Inherent Elitism of Being a Writer

We are not a genre: reevaluating how we talk about black literature

The Politics of A Black Existence

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