A.F. Vandevorst Spring—summer 1999.

Emili Godes (1895-1970), Papallona, c. 1930

Salt is creating nonfiction writing, poetry&content curation | Patreon

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Welcome. As I am figuring how to go about freelance writing, I want to partially support myself with Patreon. What you will get from me are weekly essays on Black pop culture/Black female sexuality/Black radicalism, long form essays on any of the aforementioned subjects and the occasional poem. I want to use Patreon as a platform to launch my writing and eventually photography and ink drawing.

Nostalghia (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1983)

I fidanzati (Ermanno Olmi, 1963)

The Black Panthers fed more hungry kids than the state of California

It wasn’t all young men and guns: the Black Panther Party’s programs fed more hungry kids than the state of California

The Black Panther’s Free Breakfast for Children Program is probably their best-known initiative, the press finding an intriguing story juxtaposing the Panther’s tough-guy-in-leather-jacket image with the act of serving small children plates of hot food. Importantly, it was mostly women who led these survival programmes, and women made up a majority of the Panther membership. They served in leadership roles from ‘Officer of the Day’ (essentially the office – and people – manager for each branch), to organising the many details of a location’s breakfast programme to initiating and leading food justice, healthcare and housing programmes within neighbourhoods.

So why does the image of the Panthers as a masculinist and violent organisation persist? The answer lies in part with media distortion, influenced both by the sexism and racism that misrepresented the Panthers. There was also a misinformation campaign by the FBI, led by J Edgar Hoover, waged against the increasingly popular Panthers, which had an enduring impact on how people saw them.

zoleikha with her handmaidens after her second dream of yousef / yousef and zoleikha united after potiphar's death, 16th c., iran

Glass bottle shaped like a date, Greek and Roman Art

Edward C. Moore Collection, Bequest of Edward C. Moore, 1891 Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY Medium: Glass

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/245683

Enrico Guazzoni The Martyrdom of St. Sebastian (Livio Pavanelli)

Film still from “Fabiola”, 1918

Audre Lorde, (1976), Between Ourselves, in The Black Unicorn, W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY, 1978, pp. 112-114