The Thread: Outside the Gaze
This is the story I needed as a young girl; this is the story we all need.
...more
Posts Tagged: White Supremacy
Equal Rights Never Go out of Style: Talking with Monica Prince
Monica Prince discusses writing, advocacy, and the art of the choreopoem.
...more
Writing in Earnest: Talking with Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah discusses FRIDAY BLACK.
...more
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with José Olivarez
José Olivarez discusses his debut collection, CITIZEN ILLEGAL.
...more
Racism Shouldn’t Be Shocking: Toppling American Myths
Let us teach something new to the next generation that speaks to the lessons we’ve learned.
...more
They Prefer People to Die: On Trump, Borders, and Racism
A good man doesn’t leave someone to die in the desert, and when he uses God’s name, he does it to bless, not to kill.
...more
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Justin Phillip Reed
Justin Phillip Reed on his debut collection, Indecency, why he loves struggling with connotation, and the irresponsibility of American society.
...more
SquareRoot of Love, Politics, and Power
If we really believe that love is important and necessary then where is it, especially when it comes to world politics and power?
...more
An Arduous Reality: Testify by Simone John
Simone John’s first full-length collection of poems, Testify, is a remarkable exercise in documentary poetics.
...more
VISIBLE: Women Writers of Color: Brooke C. Obie
Brooke C. Obie discusses the historical basis for her debut novel, Book of Addis, writing to dismantle white supremacy, and why Black speculative fiction is integral to her survival.
...more
The Lens Magnifies, the Mirror Reflects: What Photos from the Race War Show Us about Ourselves
[Still photos] grab what otherwise might feel too foreign to understand.
...more
From the Editors: On Charlottesville and White Supremacy
Rumpus editors share their thoughts on Charlottesville and white supremacy. When we have a platform to speak out against hatred and bigotry, we must use it to do so.
...more
At the Intersection of Personal and Political: Resistance, Rebellion, Life: 50 Poems Now edited by Amit Majmudar
American writers have a long, distinguished history of calling out injustice.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 15): “Southern History”
We can’t hide from our history and we can’t pass it on to future generations.
...more
Readers Report: The New Patriot
A collection of short pieces written by Rumpus readers pertaining to the subject of “The New Patriot.”
...more
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club Chat with Chen Chen
Chen Chen discusses his new collection When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, playing the game white supremacy has set up, and if God is trying and failing to be a cool dad.
...more
Where You Put It on the Line: A Conversation with Mychal Denzel Smith
Mychal 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.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 11): “Skinhead”
Using dramatic monologue, Smith unmasks the skinhead’s anger to fend off threats to his way of life.
...more
Vincent Toro: Challenging Whiteness and Refusing to Be Colonized
Poet Vincent Toro on his debut collection, Stereo.Island.Mosaic, his writing process, and searching for identity.
...more
We Brown Women
Our bodies will not be your banners. We are not yours to use and abuse, we are not yours to dupe. We see through your words, and we see your violence.
...more
Multitudes: Policing Black Art
Editors and producers skin my art and wrap my entire face with it, asking me to write and read in Black face.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Jerald Walker
Jerald Walker discusses his memoir, The World in Flames: A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult, the story of his childhood in The Worldwide Church of God, and how the act of writing delivered him from bitterness.
...more
Binary States of America: A Letter to Obama
In 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.
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Emily Raboteau
Emily 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.
...more
What I’ll Tell My Children: On Being ‘F***Able’ under the Regime of President-elect
It’s time to take responsibility for compliancy.
...more
David Biespiel’s Poetry Wire: 21 Poems That Shaped America (Pt. 6): “To Elsie”
Now the battle is joined. I will prosecute my part of it as a writer till the last dog dies…
...moreThe Night Wash Jones Won
Eighty years ago, Wash Jones appeared as a minor character in William Faulkner’s masterpiece on American identity and self-invention, Absalom, Absalom! From a craft perspective Jones was put in for a purpose: to demonstrate the role that white working-class men played in maintaining white supremacy among the wealthiest people in America before the Civil War, […]
...more
Dedicate Your No-Trump Vote: Morris Collins
Trump is on the ballot; we don’t need weapons to repudiate him, but the Blackshirts are marching in our streets.
...moreThe End of the Road
At The Establishment, Anne Theriault recounts driving out West to see the house of her childhood heroine Laura Ingalls, and what it taught her about the horrific underpinnings of the American Dream: And then we passed a mural with a confederate flag and I felt that hot prickle of shame and fear—fear because of what […]
...more
The Rumpus Interview with Robin MacArthur
Robin MacArthur discusses her debut story collection Half Wild, life in rural Vermont, and how narrative—and fiction—is key to reaching across what divides us.
...more