Rigor vs. Liberation: Admitting When School Is Boring
A Black Studies professor whom I had in college, who radicalized me profoundly and inspired my love of Ethnic Studies, was also one of my least favorite teachers. His courses, […]
Category Archives: Queer Power
Body Image and Anti-Colonialism
Body image is something I find myself preoccupied with often, and almost always in the contexts of my Black and queer identities. As a queer man, I am bombarded with images […]
Making Our Own Movements: Queer Activism in the Gay Marriage Era
Recently reemerging debates in mainstream media about gay marriage have had me thinking about the state of my own identity in our current political moment. As a queer person of […]
Lesson Plan – Nothing About Us Without Us: Introducing Disabilities Studies
1. Freewrite: At the start of the lesson, the statement “Nothing About Us Without Us” is written up on the board. Ask students to take five minutes and write a […]
Originality for Sale: How Capitalism Erases the Individual in the Name of the Individual
I was watching a sneaker ad on TV the other day, one reminiscent of most ads geared towards young demographics. It featured a montage of different twenty-somethings doing different activities–deejaying, […]
Doing It Ourselves: Reclaiming Community Service
One of my best friends lives in a small, post industrial mill town in Western Massachusetts. The city is mostly Black and Latin@, with high unemployment and one of the […]
Traditions of Struggle: Teaching as a Spiritual Practice
Struggling myself don’t mean a whole lot, I’ve come to realize/that teaching others to stand and fight is the only way my struggle survives.” – Bernice Johnson Reagon, Sweet Honey […]
Mother Shaming: Poverty, Feminism and Young Pregnancy
I was in eighth grade the first time a close friend of mine got pregnant, and many more of my good friends would become parents before I graduated high school. […]
Vogue Studies: Imagining Creative, Inclusive Movements Through a Study of the Ballroom Scene
Voguing–which I would argue is the only uniquely queer art form–has been the single most influential element in the formation of my own identity as a queer man of color, […]
Rest In Peace Mark Aguhar
These are the axes: 1 Bodies are inherently valid 2 Remember death 3 Be ugly 4 Know beauty 5 It is complicated 6 Empathy 7 Choice 8 Reconstruct, reify 9 […]
Radical Faggot 