The Establishment's Blog Posts Tagged 'Black' (38)

Former Black Panther Party member Assata Shakur is the first woman to be added to the FBI's 'Most Wanted Terrorists' list, with a $2 million reward offered for her capture. Hiphopandpolitics published an opinion piece stating: "Can you imagine if the FBI was this diligent about going after Wall Street Bankers who defrauded millions of…

Hi guys, we're just sharing an article about goth people of color and "race politics" in goth culture. It quotes many articles we've published, such as 'GOTH. The Aesthetic and The Subculture: Getting Past the Stupid Shit.' and …

Have you heard the news? The Ku Klux Klan is planning a big rally in Memphis. The fight is not over...

Rawstory.com reports: A Ku Klux Klan leader named Edward, who goes by the title “KKK Exalted Cyclops,” is promising the “largest” rally in Memphis history after the city decided to remove Confederate names from three parks.

On Thursday,…

'Zwarte Piet' basically amounts to a Black Face tradition in the Netherlands. Is it time to stop the madness?

Filmmaker Shantrelle P. Lewis wants to document this and ask questions in a documentary. The project's Kickstarter page explains:

"According to folklore, Sinterklaas arrives in the Netherlands via…

While we are by NO MEANS advocates for guns, some of the biggest proponents for the right to carry guns were The Black Panthers and other Black rebels.

An article in The Atlantic reminds us that the Black Panthers' Bobby Seale stated: “The American people in general and the black people in particular” must "take careful note of the racist California…

"Bury The Ratchet". That's the name of a campaign at Spelman College that challenges the images of showed in reality TV shows about women of color from Atlanta. The project is helmed by image activist Michaela Angela Davis. She recently told Jacque Reid on the Tom Joyner Morning Show that it's more a “pro-leadership” campaign than an “anti-reality show” one, aimed at getting the "spotlight off the ratchetness and on the successful women in Atlanta".

Actually this problem…

I remember an online forum I was on, that had the discussion of religion as a mental illness. The basic gist is that religion, when seen from a different perspective, can be seen as a widespread mental illness, near schizophrenia. I mean, to have religious faith, you have to believe in something that you can’t see, feel, hear or justify the existence of the same way you can with anyone else. All that one knows about that mythical being – emphasis on the “mythical” – is either…

So, there’s been something recent occurring in the online Pagan community. There was a rehash on Pagan.about.com about minority Pagan bloggers and of course, some commenter named Silvia felt mighty brave in her Whiteness and cried tears about how Wicca should be left to the White folks. Everyone, please witness this demonstration of why saying “Post-Racial America” is a long way…

Another year has ended. Yep. BW just recently passed into its third year on June 9th. I am still surprised it is still around. To be honest, it has not been an easy year to keep up things and it pretty much, personally, became a year of disappointments and being slowed down to the point I couldn’t achieve major goals for the column/blog. I’m glad people are reading and interacting but I’ve been slipping. I haven’t been on time with the Afro-Punk side of Black Witch (even this…

If you’ve been a long time reader of this blog, you most likely saw my first (and only?) mention of secret societies on BW: “Okay, Mr. Illuminati” (Afro-Punk's Version). I still think that is among one of my favorite posts. This is a revisit…

Director Robin J. Hayes is sharing his 'Black and Cuba' project with the Afro-punk community. Hayes says: "It shows how communities of color work together to overcome obstacles and create change." "At Yale ten years ago, I started the journey of making 'Black and Cuba' with a vibrant, brilliant group of friends. Feeling like misfits at this elite institution, we banded together and adventured to Cuba to see how revolution lives. During our journey, we discovered how love will…

Paganism in general is pretty sex-positive. In that sex is seen as part of nature and that it’s natural to have sexual drive and desire. We have at least two holidays for it on the Wheel of the Year, Beltane and Ostara (Spring Equinox). We’re pretty open to contraception, the first use of contraception was used in Mesopotamia and early Egypt – Egyptians invented the first condom, actually. Sexuality is seen as natural so if you’re heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual,…

Hey! Black Witch: Life from the Black Pagan Perspective, vol. 1is out now! It's for sale in both hardbound book (which I made by hand thanks to doing bookbinding as a teen) and e-book form in the Black Witch Etsy shop! More details below! Onward with the column! Not really any questions to answer, it’s been a slow month for Black Witch. But that’s kinda a good thing as the book version of this…

Did any of you read the feature in the New York Times or even on The Root where they interview…

Awwww yeeeaaahh. A topic I’ve been meaning to get at for a long ol’ time. I was just reading a book I had recently gotten, The Magical Household: Spells & Rituals for the Home, penned by Scott Cunningham and David Harrington. I kinda wanna take it back to the store. I bought it because I just recently moved into a new apartment and I was so stoked about it that I pretty much bought practically any crap that was witchy and pertained to it. I would have purified my…

The upcoming release of the feature film 'Red Tails' raises question about how Hollywood treats Black History, what gets made and what doesn't: "A crew of African American pilots in the Tuskegee training program, having faced segregation while kept mostly on the ground during World War II, are called into duty under the guidance of Col. A.J. Bullard." Executive producer George Lucas said that he had trouble getting funding for the movie, due to the fact that most of the main…

Coming out of the broom closet – revealing that you are a Pagan or a Witch – is not an easy thing to do. I am all for doing it, but please keep in mind, it's just as risky as coming out of the closet, if not more because there are still stronger stigmas out there that don't get addressed. Plus Hollywood needs something to run to when they're fresh out of ideas and apparently Witches and psychics do the trick. A lot of thought should go in revealing your religion to whom, how and…

I talk about a lot of things here on Black Witch, and believe you and me I have more up my sleeve, but ever notice I’m not very flowery in my talking? As in, I don’t talk about the positive energies that are in rivers and how I would love to wash my clothes in said river because it connects me to mother earth and how I wish I could fetch wood from a forest to heat my simple home out in the empty but lush wilderness?

No doubt these are beautiful notions that harken back to a…