Rumpus Original Fiction: On Sight
You stood and put your hair up. It made you a different man. You got hard and decided you were why.
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Join NOW!You stood and put your hair up. It made you a different man. You got hard and decided you were why.
...moreFear is real. Pain is real. Loss is real. Suffering is real.
...moreI can’t relax. Bullets are on my mind.
...moreShe wants us to know the mental and emotional labor is exhausting.
...moreFaylita Hicks discusses her debut poetry collection, HOODWITCH.
...moreKendra Allen discusses her debut essay collection, WHEN YOU LEARN THE ALPHABET.
...moreMaurice Carlos Ruffin discusses his debut novel, WE CAST A SHADOW.
...moreSimone John’s first full-length collection of poems, Testify, is a remarkable exercise in documentary poetics.
...moreMychal Denzel Smith discusses his debut nonfiction book Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching, how the activist space has changed in recent years, and who he is writing for.
...moreAngie Thomas discusses her debut novel, The Hate U Give, landing an agent on Twitter, and why she trusts teenagers more than the publishing industry.
...moreAs we move backward in time, we must beware of yellow brick fallacies. Also: poppy fields, flying monkeys, and entrepreneurial wizards.
...moreFriday 2/17: Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s parents, will discuss Rest in Power: The Enduring Life of Trayvon Martin at the DuSable Museum of African American History. Tickets are $15–20 and are available here. Saturday 2/18: Head to Township for Wit Rabbit Weekend #11! Readers include Matthew Corey, Molly Dumbleton, Diddle Knabb, and […]
...moreIn the end, although I wanted you to be more like Charles Bronson or Malcolm or Luke Cage, I am very proud to have witnessed your historic presidency—the successes, and even the disappointments.
...moreEmily Raboteau discusses her essay, “Know Your Rights!” from the collection, The Fire This Time, what she loves about motherhood, and why it’s time for White America to get uncomfortable.
...moreIf you make a visual album and get nominated for crazy amounts of awards, you should probably honor your performers. Beyoncé gets this (or her people do, which is close enough to the same thing), once again proving that she stands apart as an unbelievable performer and public figure. In case you didn’t catch the VMAs, Beyoncé made sure […]
...moreBen H. Winters discusses his new novel Underground Airlines about an America where the Civil War never took place, writing speculative fiction, and modern racism.
...moreNone of the imagery of Lemonade is foreign to those of us who grew up in the South or who have Southern roots.
...more“There is a curse that will be broken,” she promises.
...moreI’m thinking about the difference between “I stay somewhere” and “I live somewhere.”
...moreThe sitting down to write, convincing myself that my voice matters, even though there are so many telling me that it doesn’t.
...moreAuthor Matt Bell talks video games, fiction, nonfiction, politics, empathy, and his new books, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Scrapper.
...moreOn Saturday, August 9, an unarmed black teenager, Michael Brown, was shot and killed by a police officer. The boy was on his way home from a convenience store in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, where about two-thirds of the residents are black. With so few of the facts confirmed, many of the […]
...moreIn the latest installment of an Autostraddle feature described as “a biweekly devotional to whoever the fuck I’m into,” Carmen Rios throws a little love party for bell hooks. Inspired by an eerily prescient hooks quote about “the white male home owner who made a mistake,” Rios ends her celebration of hooks’ legacy as a writer […]
...more“Imagine a life in which you think of other people’s safety and comfort first, before your own. You’re programmed and taught that from the gate. It’s like the opposite of entitlement.” In light of George Zimmerman’s recent acquittal, drummer and producer Questlove reflects on “pie in the face” moments and what it means for him […]
...moreNot to overload anyone on political coverage, but Ta-Nehisi Coates’s reaction to the George Zimmerman trial is an absolute must-read. In it, he looks at the actual legal text involved in the case and points out that what’s so deeply frightening about it isn’t that the verdict flouted the law; it’s that the law—and in many […]
...moreWhen there’s an injustice as great a man walking free after killing an unarmed teenager, at least we have writing to turn to. Our essays editor Roxane Gay has done some of that writing for Salon in a piece about the George Zimmerman trial titled “Racism is every American’s problem.”An essay or an Op-Ed won’t solve anything,” […]
...moreClue: Post-Racial Edition. It was the black kid in the hoodie, with his cell phone, and “hostile” girlfriend.
...moreThe Sanford City commission has rejected police chief Bill Lee’s resignation. George Zimmerman was released on $150,000 bail as he awaits trial for second-degree murder. Jelani Cobb on what it took to get Zimmerman arrested. “When law enforcement officers accept—without question—an admitted killer’s assertion that a homicide was justified because ‘he scared me,’ they license […]
...moreThe news broke earlier today that George Zimmerman will be charged for the killing of Trayvon Martin. The charge is second-degree murder. Something important to remember about this case: Trayvon Martin was killed 46 days ago. This only became a bit of a story less than a month ago. If not for the public outcry […]
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