bell hooks

What Does Your Liberation Look Like?: In Conversation with Liz Mputu and Justin Phillip Reed
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What Does Your Liberation Look Like?: In Conversation with Liz Mputu and Justin Phillip Reed

In a blog series for Ploughshares, I interview a poet and a non-poet. This time, digital media artist Liz Mputu and poet Justin Phillip Reed. I want to talk about how to manage the expression of violence, feeling of violence, portrayal of violence and also, anger as a thing that you work with.

Microphone centered on foggy stage
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Looking Otherwise

We are one month post-“Formation.” In the wake of Beyoncé’s video release (/Super Bowl halftime performance/world tour announcement), a frenzy of reactions and reactions to reactions has proliferated. Only they’re not just reactions, they’re readings. On the immediate surface of the song’s lyrics, “Formation” is about being Black, and crucially also about looking Black, about…