Read Their Words. Hear Them Speak. |
How do we — the artists, the writers, the ones who are so used to squaring off with the worst of ourselves, our world, our humanity — find a language suitable for our current state of disaster, which is almost biblical in its force and Shakespearean in its unfolding? |
The 10 young Black writers in this project — talented poets from Oakland, Houston, St. Louis, Chicago, New York, Nashville, New Orleans and Los Angeles — are using the tools at their disposal, whatever they have. There’s the “Black vernacular” of Akilah Toney’s poem, the unshakable end rhymes of Alora Young, the expansive lines of Nyarae Francis’s sestina and the stunning yet harrowing fragments of Samuel Getachew’s “justice for -.” |
These fledgling June Jordans and Robert Haydens, who are youth poets laureate and organizers and rappers, examine and fight back against an America that threatens to swallow them. They redefine themselves (“I wish I understood what it is like to be a black girl / To know myself like a dictionary definition,” begins Madison Petaway in her poem) and cite their own wisdom and traditions, even building their own gods (“I’ve come to learn that my Grandmother’s God is not my own,” Jacoby Collins writes). |
“The smoke in Oakland has hands” Leila Mottley writes, painting a landscape populated with sneering men, preying streets, smoke and ash. It’s true: Our world is on fire, but these writers are courageous, fearless. |
[A text-only version of the 10 poems is available here.] |
 | | Mara Corsino for The New York Times |
|
Finding All of Puerto Rico in Bad Bunny |
Six months into the coronavirus pandemic, the writer Carina del Valle Schorske was finally on her way to San Juan, P.R., to interview one of the biggest pop stars of our time: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio. |
The world knows him as Bad Bunny, a name the 26-year-old Puerto Rican reggaeton artist gave himself as a joke. But it helped him go from bagging groceries at the supermarket to performing at Madison Square Garden in less than five years. |
The story of Bad Bunny’s success coincides with a tumultuous, pivotal moment in Puerto Rican and United States history. Since 2016, the artist has released four chart-topping albums and performed on every major stage, including Coachella and the Super Bowl. In the process, he has captured the force of a generation of Puerto Ricans who are using art to put a spotlight on the social, economic and political debacles unraveling on their homeland. |
“It’s really a story of Bad Bunny’s Puerto Rico, or Puerto Rico’s Bad Bunny,” said Ms. del Valle Schorske, who profiled Bad Bunny for The New York Times Magazine’s annual Culture Issue, which went online this week. “When I say Puerto Rico, I mean the archipelago but also the diaspora and all the solidarities the diaspora forms, that have been brought into relation by his music.” |
This is why Ms. del Valle Schorske, who is of Puerto Rican descent, wanted her article — the issue’s cover story — to be a “love letter to these recent years” of political and cultural activation. “I really feel that Benito reflects the kind of crisis generation, not just in Puerto Rico, but everywhere at this point,” she said. |
Programming to Raise Awareness of Human Trafficking |
Beauty for Freedom, a nonprofit group that raises awareness and money to fight human trafficking, is hosting on Sunday a four-hour livestream called “HERSTORY,” a day of coverage to call attention to — and raise money for — organizations founded and led by women of color from the U.S. and Africa. |
The event, which will be live-streamed on YouTube and on the group’s website, is also in honor of International Day of the Girl Child and will feature music, poetry, dance performances, panel discussions and short films. |
Monica Watkins, the co-founder and executive director, said the event would spotlight and address the needs and challenges young women face, while promoting women empowerment and the fulfillment of their human rights. |
“We feel underrepresented,” Ms. Watkins says, “we feel like we don’t have seats at the table, so we are going to make our own tables, we’re going to actually create and carve out our own seats and we’re going to do this together because we’re all we got.” |
Ms. Watkins helped found the organization after visiting Haiti, where she went after the 2010 earthquake to volunteer as an art teacher with a church. She taught classes at orphanages, mainly to children who had lost their parents in the earthquake. While there, she said she discovered that traffickers taking advantage of the children. |
“We decided that we wanted to start our own foundation with a focus on what we knew best,” she said, “which is creative therapeutic and transcendent quality of art to heal.” |
The organization has donated their services to more than 3,000 survivors of human trafficking and at-risk youth all over the world. |
 | | Black Lives Matter protest organizer Tiana Day, left, leads a march across the Golden Gate Bridge to protest police brutality in San Francisco, in June.John G Mabanglo/EPA, via Shutterstock |
|
Celebrate International Day of the Girl with Us |
Across the country, Black teenage girls are stepping up — continuing a rich legacy of Black women before them. How are they using their voices? What moves them as leaders? And how does creativity intersect with their activism? |
Join us as we celebrate International Day of the Girl in conversation with Tiana, Zee, Brianna and Shayla, hosted by Times gender editor at large Jessica Bennett. This Tuesday at 6 p.m. R.S.V.P. here. |
EDITOR’S PICKS We publish many articles that touch on race and ethnicity. Here are a few you shouldn’t miss. |
|
Invite someone to subscribe to the Race/Related newsletter. Or email your thoughts and suggestions to racerelated@nytimes.com. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment