By John Yorke — 2016
From Avatar to The Wizard of Oz, Aristotle to Shakespeare, there’s one clear form that dramatic storytelling has followed since its inception.
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CLEAR ALL
From songs referencing grandma’s backyard garden to lyrics ripping government for destroying the water supply, many hip hop artists seamlessly weave climate justice into their sounds. After all, being sustainably savvy is how their grandparents and great-grandparents survived.
It’s hard to be a joyful Black creative on a good day; to pour your being into beautiful work amid ongoing injustices is already taxing. And during the current unprecedented and uncertain times, reclaiming and protecting that Black joy may feel particularly difficult.
Kerry Washington on Beyoncé, Ta-Nehisi Coates on Kendrick Lamar, Oprah Winfrey on Toni Morrison, Issa Rae on ‘Scandal,’ and 31 other prominent black artists on the work that inspires them most.
A few months and many deaths ago, I woke up exhausted, again. Every morning, I felt like I was rebuilding myself from the ground up. Waking up was hard. Getting to my desk to write was hard. Taking care of my body was hard. Remembering the point of it all was hard.
Who owns your identity, and how can old ways of thinking be replaced?
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The first thing you want is to know that you belong here, that you are a part of this planet, just like the earth and the water, the sun and the wind, and the trees.
To the list of identities Black people in America have assumed or been asked to, we can now add, thanks to this presidential election season, “Obama’s people” and “the African Americans.”