Vanessa Taylor

Bandersnatch reveals the trend of creating white dystopias from Black realities.

“Surviving R. Kelly” exposes even more of men’s bare minimum politics when it comes to Black women

Dunia says she’s got jinns in her fingers. That they came there ’cause she killed people, settled right up beneath her nails and she knows it ’cause she can feel them. “It’s like touching a hot coal, Sumaya,” she says, curled up beneath a blanket while we listen to Khadijah sob and retch somewhere deeper in the woods.

here between the wires
we unlocked the materials for starshine & clay
figured out how to code our way into existence.
God does not exit stage left,
behind a cool red curtain &
there are no thrones whose location we can’t find.

"People say that it’s impossible to invent colors, that what we have is what we have and what we know is what we know. That is not true. We learned. We invented. We pulled color from places it shouldn’t have existed, shades of Black that did more than span a spectrum, that became unique within themselves. And in the spots where growth failed to bloom, we found new ways to articulate what had occurred."

When Nike refuses to interrogate the role they play as a massive corporation, what is there to be said about sacrificing everything?

BlacKkKlansman isn’t a story of infiltrating hate, but a harsh reminder of how easily pro-police propaganda can disguise itself in radical Black aesthetic.

This essay contains spoilers for Spike Lee’s “BlacKkKlansman” and mentions of racist violence, police brutality, sexual assault.

Coming into Islam...I learned from Black Muslims who navigated gender at a crossroads, where sexuality was equally as tumultuous and carved out the details of what it was to wear hijab and to be a hoe.

“Everywhere I look, Lord / I see FB eyes / Said every place I look, Lord / I find FB eyes / and I’m getting sick and tired of gover’ment spies” — Richard Wright, “FB Eye Blues” (1949)

ghost·ing
ˈɡōstiNG/
noun
the practice of ending a personal relationship with someone by suddenly and without explanation withdrawing from all communication.

Despite the larger movement addressing campus sexual assault, Black Muslim women still share their experiences in whispers.

The question of where you’re from is often met with eager anticipation to easily judge you.

In this op-ed, writer Vanessa Taylor explains how Super Bowl 52 may negatively impact homeless youth in Minnesota, especially those of color.

Where is your reward?