by Kimberly Foster @KimberlyNFoster

by Jenn M. Jackson

White women simply aren’t checking for Black women, children or the Black Family, a sad but true historical fact we have to face as Black people in the United States today.

by Briana Dixon for Amplify

Dear Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry:

As news broke of the Charleston shooting, I found myself in the midst of another nationwide mourning session as black people everywhere took to their computers and asked a question that plagues us all: Where are we safe?

by Arielle Newton

I’m not writing about Rachel Dolezal. There’s no need for her—and her lies, cultural theft, violence, and overall fuckery—to take up any more space.

by Altheria Gaston

Although she was born to two white parents, Rachel Dolezal claims that she is Black, a label she prefers to African-American. The Africana studies professor and now former president of Spokane’s NAACP local chapter  has been living as a Black woman for at least a decade, but she was recently “outed” by her parents, who revealed details of Dolezal’s true identity on HuffPost Live. The story of Dolezal’s perplexing experience “adopting” a new race has given some of us a few chuckles, but, more importantly, it has caused many of us to think more deeply about who gets to be black, as well as when and why.

by Anna Gibson

Black Twitter practically exploded last week, when news broke that Rachel Dolezal, a prominent civil rights activist and President of the Spokane chapter of the NAACP, had been lying about her race. After posing as a Black woman for nearly ten years, Dolezal’s parents revealed that she’s actually white.