Essay Archives – Scalawag

MEDIA, CULTURE, & MEANING

'Backrooms' and 'Obsession' echo our technofascist hellscape

by Sherronda J. Brown July 22, 2026August 24, 2026

The fear 'Obsession' induces, the horror of losing agency to feed someone else's greedy desires, is a fear that is very present in our current technological landscape. It's a fear of becoming completely dehumanized, reduced to data profiles and hollowed out by endless extraction.

MEDIA, CULTURE, & MEANING

I Saw the Matrix Glow

by Sherronda J. Brown June 11, 2026June 11, 2026

Wonder Man is autistic and I love that for me

MEDIA, CULTURE, & MEANING

Wonder Man is autistic-coded and I love that for me

by Sherronda J. Brown February 17, 2026February 17, 2026

Scalawag-illustration-for-Sol-Elias-Freak-Generations-The-Moral-Panic-Playbook-from-Crack-Babies-to-Trans-Kids

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Freak Generations: The Moral Panic Playbook from Crack Babies to Trans Kids

by Ja'Loni Owens August 7, 2025August 7, 2025

In the Open Air

Love Letter From A Poet Under Empire

by mónica teresa ortiz September 5, 2024September 5, 2024

Surviving the Crash

Surviving the Crash

by Ryan Ken May 31, 2024May 31, 2024

The Hell Inside Hell: Solitary Confinement in Texas Hides the Sexual Abuse of Women and Girls

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

The Hell Inside Hell

by Kwaneta Harris May 30, 2024August 26, 2025

Hell and High Water: From Gaza to Mississippi

Hell and High Water: From Gaza to Mississippi

by Mary Annaïse Heglar May 2, 2024August 27, 2024

Rest is Not Resistance

Rest is Not Resistance, and That is OK

by Trey Washington March 28, 2024November 19, 2024

Brown Eyes in a Blue-Eyed World

Brown Eyes in a Blue-Eyed World

by Kahlia Phillips March 27, 2024March 27, 2024

Israel has targeted and killed at least 75 Palestinian journalists and media workers in attempts to silence the free press from witnessing the horrors of the occupation and siege of Gaza.

SCALAWAG UPDATES

Why journalists must speak out about Gaza

by Aja Arnold, Victoria Bouloubasis, Rebecca Chowdhury, R. Garringer, Charmaine Lang, Nour Saudi, Tina Vasquez, Irene Vázquez and Lewis Raven Wallace December 5, 2023December 5, 2023

State conspiracies and censorship of the incarcerated in prison.

POLITICS & THE PEOPLE

Conspiracyz, Scum Pigz, & the Dept. of Censorship

by G. Z. June 21, 2023September 27, 2023

Tina Turner performs onstage at the United Center, October 1, 2000. (Photo by Paul Natkin/Getty Images) How Tina Turner's abuse and trauma remains a hip-hop trope.

How Tina Turner's trauma remains a hip-hop trope—and why we need to abolish it

by Justin A. Davis May 25, 2023November 13, 2023

Victim or survivor? The language of patriarchal violence. Assigning language of victimhood or survival to those who have experienced gender violence is dehumanizing—not empowering.

Who said we all survived?

by Breya M. Johnson May 25, 2023May 24, 2023

The Captive Maternal is a function, not an identity marker

by Joy James April 28, 2023November 21, 2023

How Atlanta’s tradition of compromise betrays Black revolutionary violence: a critique of Black Political Action and the bargain of freedom. A critique of the state's appropriation of John Lewis' legacy to quell the radical demands for Black Power at its heart.

What's Next for the Captive Maternal, Part II: Notes on a Rebel(lion) without a Cause

by Tea Troutman April 27, 2023November 21, 2023

How Atlanta’s tradition of compromise betrays Black revolutionary violence: a critique of Black Political Action and the bargain of freedom. A critique of the state's appropriation of John Lewis' legacy to quell the radical demands for Black Power at its heart.

What's Next for the Captive Maternal: Notes on a Rebel(lion) without a Cause

by Tea Troutman April 26, 2023November 21, 2023

Is abolition a love language? On Black love as a form of resistance in the case of the first Black Bachelor Matt James. Revolutionary Love challenges the erotic logic of racial fetishism. An examination of romance and the politics of Black masculinity.

Oshun's Suicide, Part II: Eros, Repetition, and Reprieve in Black Popular Culture

by Jordan Mulkey April 21, 2023November 21, 2023

Is abolition a love language? On Black love as a form of resistance in the case of the first Black Bachelor Matt James. Revolutionary Love challenges the erotic logic of racial fetishism. An examination of romance and the politics of Black masculinity.

Oshun's Suicide: Eros, Repetition, and Reprieve in Black Popular Culture

by Jordan Mulkey April 19, 2023November 21, 2023

Black Poetics and the Captive Maternal: Joy James asks poets to confront Black violence, using poetry as a means of survival and liberation.

On the Tensions and (Im)Possibilities of Black Poetics: No Shame, No Devil

by Jon Jon Moore Palacios April 14, 2023November 21, 2023

Reproductive justice and the fight for bodily autonomy in the state's war on Black women's abortion “rights,” labor, bodies, and caretaking.

Reflections on Reproductive Justice and the Captive Maternal

by Breya M. Johnson April 12, 2023November 21, 2023

Black educators' undervalued labor and the need for community support and Revolutionary Love against schooling-as-colonial-indoctrination.

Radical Care Work in the Project of Schooling

by Anna Almore April 7, 2023November 21, 2023

From Caretaker to Rebel: The dialectical relationship between Black motherhood and captivity and the role of love as a tool of political will.

Love and War: Dialectics and the Stages of the Captive Maternal

by Ziyana Lategan April 5, 2023November 21, 2023

Da'Shaun Harrison on death and revolution in the struggle for freedom. Dying is a part of struggle. Revolutionary Love is the catalyst.

The Stakes of Revolution and the Death of Desire

by Da'Shaun L. Harrison March 31, 2023November 21, 2023

The Captive Maternal's Revolutionary Love. The transformative power of Black love in the face of oppression.

At the impasse of Revolution and Revolutionary Love

by RAW Wilcox March 30, 2023November 21, 2023

Contradictions and Convictions: Megan Thee Stallion and why abolition can't wait

by Da'Shaun L. Harrison February 14, 2023December 1, 2023

There is no healing in an antiblack world

by Da'Shaun L. Harrison February 1, 2023December 1, 2023

In the soil, in the sound: Houston's Jamal Cyrus gets to the root of Southern Black aesthetics

by Alysia Nicole Harris November 17, 2022December 1, 2023

SCALAWAG UPDATES

Anita Hill: Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to the Supreme Court signals historic change

by Anita Hill February 28, 2022July 1, 2022

Contraband Books: What Texas prisons have against Michelle Alexander, Frederick Douglass, and Alice Walker

by Julie Poole September 28, 2021September 28, 2021

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