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A starter park for decolonizing your literature and film: 23 black creatives to follow now
From Janet Mock to Yara Shahidi
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Your support makes all the difference.Because of the recent killings of George Floyd, Atatiana Jefferson, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery, the world has seemingly shifted. Ideologically, communally and proactively, more people than ever before are declaring themselves anti-racists.
But as Janet Mock said: “To be an ally is to refuse to sit comfortably in the fact that you believe in equality. Allyship is not a noun, it's a verb, it requires you to take action.”
Protesting is an excellent start, but consuming the creative outlets of black writers, activists, journalists and idealists is the next step. Consider this article of 23 people to follow today a starting point for decolonizing your culture.
Brittany Packnett Cunningham
Brittany Packnett Cunningham is an activist, educator and writer whose TED talk about confidence gathered 3 million views on YouTube.
“I say all the time that protest is telling the truth out loud and in public,” Cunningham wrote in a controversial Twitter thread addressing racism she said she experienced at Fox News 20 years ago. “So when I tell you all about converting the energy instead of letting it overtake you, I'm speaking from personal experience.”
Follow @mspackyetti
Danielle Prescod
Prescod is a style director at BET and former fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar whose interview with The Cut about what it’s like to be a black woman working in the fashion industry went viral.
“I got braids for the first time in my adult life last summer because I finally felt I worked somewhere I would feel comfortable wearing that hairstyle in the office. It was a big deal! I never would have done it at Condé Nast, Hearst, Time Inc.”
Follow @danielleprescod
Ibram X Kendi
Kendi is a bestselling author and a National Book Award winner for his nonfiction Stamped From The Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America.
“Our kids are not colorblind,” Kendi told CBS This Morning in an interview. “We must be talking to them about the demonstration, about police brutality, about racism.”
Follow @ibramxk
Feminstina Jones
A feminist author and activist who write about race and social justice, Jones’ books include Reclaiming Our Space: How Black Feminists Are Changing The World From The Tweets To The Streets & Push The Button.
“Without justice, there can be no peace,” Feminstine wrote in a recent Instagram post. “The call for peaceful protest is a matter of life and death.”
Follow @feminstajones
Alicia Garza
Garza is an Oakland-based organizer, writer, public speaker who co-founded the Black Lives Matter network to combat racism globally.
“You cannot tell people to go home when you haven’t addressed the reason they’re in the streets to begin with,” Garza wrote recently.
Follow @chasinggarza
Angela Rye
Angela Rye is an advocate and political strategist who also describes herself as an “empowermenteur”. She is the CEO of IMPACT strategies and a CNN political commentator as well as an NPR political analyst.
“My daddy said the greatest gift was seeing the activism he saw from young people this moment,” Rye wrote recently. “He said it's the greatest thing he’s seen in his lifetime.”
Follow @angelarye
Ijeoma Oluo
Writer, speaker and internet yeller, Ijeoma Oluo is the author of the bestselling book So You Want to Talk About Race. She writes on the intersection of race, identity, feminism, mental health and above all social justice.
“We are not overreacting, we are not playing victims, we are being terrorized,” she wrote in a tweet. “The constant, growing, unbearable trauma of being black in a white supremacist country lies in the fact that you cannot heal from things that keep happening.”
Follow @ijeomaoluo
Patricia A. Taylor
Patricia Taylor is the founder of the blog Some Thoughts From Your Black Friend, where she tells a lot of stories about the various issues black people face in everyday life in America.
“My tears aren’t for consumption,” Taylor wrote recently when addressing the international protests and subsequent performative allyship.
Follow @patricia_a_taylor
Ava DuVernay
Emmy award-winning Ava DuVernay is a writer and director known for the film When They See Us. She is also the highest-grossing black woman director in American box office history.
“Officers who kill unarmed black people often get admin pay, another job, a life of anonymity. Their victims get eulogies,” DuVernay wrote recently. “We have a blind spot as a society in agreeing not to speak these officers' names, I do not agree to that anymore.”
Follow @ava
Austin Channing Brown
Austin Channing Brown is an author and speaker on American racial justice. She is the author of I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness.
“Anti-racism isn’t a position of neutrality. It isn’t achieved by being silent or apolitical,” she said, of the reaction to the George Floyd protests.
Follow @austinchanning
Janet Mock
Golden Globe nominee Janet Mock is the trans trailblazing writer behind the writing and directing of FX pose and of recent Netflix Hollywood. She is a bestselling author of two memoirs that center on trans life and blackness.
Follow @janetmock
Toi Smith
A creator, mother and Growth + Impact strategist who founded Black Women Are Love and uses her Instagram feeds to inspire views about black rights, Toi Smith wrote recently that “allyship is a love language.”
Follow @toimaire
Yara Shahidi
Everyone knows Yara Shahidi as badass Joey Johnson in ABC's hit sitcom, Black-ish. But aside being an actress and a young advocate, she is also a social media educator whose work on black rights has been recognized by a number of her colleagues.
Follow @yarashahidi
W. Kamau Bell
W. Kamau Bell is an Emmy award-winning sociopolitical comedian who is outspoken on racial issues.
“I'm calling out racism in all over the country & right here in my backyard,” Kamau wrote in a recent tweet.
Follow @wkamaubell
Etan Thomas
Known for playing NBA from 2001 to 2011, Etan Thomas is also a poet, activist and motivational speaker. He is the author of We Matter: Athletes and Activism.
“America is really fortunate that black people only want equality and not revenge,” Thomas tweeted recently.
Follow @etanthomas36
Cleo Wade
Known as an Instapoet, influencer and artist, Cleo Wade is also the bestselling author of Heart Talk: Poetic Wisdom for a Better Life.
“The world is changing,” Wade wrote on Instagram. “It’s hard and it's complicated and heartbreaking but it's beautiful and important and incredible.”
Follow @cleowade
Blair Amadeus Imani
Blair Amadeus Imani is a historian, activist and public mental health advocate. She is the co-host of America Did What?!, a podcast that speaks of anti-racism. In her own words, her aim is to “deconstruct anti-blackness in everyday language”.
Follow @blairimani
Tamika D. Mallory
Tamika D. Mallory is the civil rights activist whose viral video about America looting black people went viral earlier this year.
“America has looted black people,” Mallory said then. “We learned it from you, we learned violence from you. If you want us to do better, then dammit, you do better.”
Follow @tamikadmallory
Marc Lamont Hill
Marc Lamont Hill is a social justice activist and author. He is currently a political contributor for CNN and a host for BET News.
Follow @marclamonthill
Kimberlé Crenshaw
Kimberlé Crenshaw is a lawyer and civil rights advocate. She is also the founder of the intellectual movement called Critical Race Theory.
“If black lives do matter, then all black lives have to matter,” Crenshaw wrote recently, when speaking about the intersections of race and gender.
Follow @kimberlecrenshaw
Alishia McCullough
Alishia McCullough is a social justice champion, author and counselor. She is also a fat liberation promoter.
Follow @blackandembodied
Mireille Cassandra Harper
Mireille Cassandra Harper is a writer and publicist whose Instagram focuses on educating allies on how they can meaningfully contribute to the current moment without drowning out black voices.
Follow @mireillecharper
Layla Saad
Layla Saad is an author and speaker who centers on race, social justice and identity. She is a bestselling author for the book Me and White Supremacy.
“If you mean black people then say black people. Not POC or BIPOC,” she recently wrote, when talking about the importance of acknowledging the specific struggles black people have experienced in America.
Follow @laylafsaad
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