Musings (A Medgar Evers College Student Blog)
Musings is a blog featuring the writings of Medgar Evers College students from the English department. On a regular basis, they contribute essays that address a variety of topics ranging from pop culture to Black literature. Please read and enjoy...leave a comment, too! We'd love to hear from you.
National Black Writers Conference: Heard Far and Wide
By Keyshawn Jackson Allison | I attended the National Black Writers Conference on April 1st. It was a captivating and informative experience. Cinnamon Barrington and I were tasked with registering attendees, speakers, VIPs, and vendors, and I learned much about...
Black Excellence in Crown Heights
By Cinnamon Barrington | April 1, 2023, was an amazing day! It was the National Black Writers Conference. The first time I heard about this conference was in the first semester of my 3rd year at Medgar Evers. This year,...
How Does Literature Reflect on a Society’s Cultural Norms?
By Cinnamon Barrington | There is a huge diversity of ethnicities and cultures practiced by people around the globe. In more conservative societies, men occupy positions of authority within the home and women are consigned to secondary roles. The Woman...
Kindred: The Importance of Ancestry and Culture
By Keyshawn Jackson Allison | We are often told by our loved ones about the importance of family and ancestry. It is highly important to remember your ancestors no matter the terrible circumstances in the past they may have lived...
Women’s Empowerment Through Literature
By Cinnamon Barrington | March is recognized as Women's History Month. Women's History Month is a time to recognize the achievements of women throughout history and honor the continued progress that women have made in modern times. Most of my...
Prevention and Preparation: Triple-Negative Breast Cancer
By Keyshawn Jackson Allison | March has marked the start of Women's History Month. As a result, women and their experiences are being highlighted. Recently, I attended a Zoom event with Marquita Bass, which introduced me to the dangers of...
Capturing Black History Through a Lens
By Cinnamon Barrington | Chris Cook is a Brooklyn-based artist born in East Flatbush and raised in Bedford Stuyvesant. He began working in photography roughly ten years ago. Photography compelled him to engage with others and learn their stories. As...
Black History Month: The Importance of Young Black Creative Writers Finding Their Calling
By Keyshawn Jackson Allison | Attending the Theater and Film Black History Month event was an enlightening and inspirational experience. Prominent Black film and theater professionals Woodie King Jr., Carolyn Butts, and Mia Mask spoke at the event on February...
From Margin to Center: Sexual Bureaucracy and the Immolation of the Black Identity in Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other
By Tracey Squires. My eyes are not my own, My hands belong to my brothers and sisters, Who must carry my pain- And I theirs; For we are one in the eyes of that which is called holy, Every dark...
Politics of Pleasure: Silencing Sexuality in Black Feminist Literature
By Tracey Squires. My black body is a playground, My arms, swings to swing on My torso, a sloping slide for you to slide down, You leave your footprints in my sandbox. – (poem by the author) Chartering...
The Importance of Black Literature
By Malik Windsor | Black literature is the filling in the cavity of history, the tales of the disenfranchised and long-forgotten recreating truth in the world. Black literature is important because it widens the scope of how Black people have...
Facing Grief in Marvel’s Black Panther: Wakanda Forever
By Malik Windsor | Last weekend I returned to the movie theatres for the first time since the beginning of the 2020 pandemic to see Marvel’s newest installment of Black Panther. Overshadowed by the memory of the late Chadwick Boseman,...
Angels of Biafra and Brooklyn: On Jacqueline Woodson’s Another Brooklyn
By Tracey Squires | Suffering’s song knows no home, it sings a deep and undefined refrain that speaks discordant lyrics to a despondent people. Suffering’s song is a low wail, a lost story told from a tongue made heavy with...
Twitter Trolls
By Malik Windsor | Twitter is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. It is a social networking service where users post and engage with messages described as “tweets.” Users can post, like, comment, “retweet” tweets,...
Tear in Our Social Fabric: Mahsa Amini’s Death in a Time of Roe vs. Wade
By Tracey Squires | Many die silently, their lives stolen by injustices; their stories are sutured wounds that have never asked to be closed. We hearken to this “many” rarely, and even less so if they are women. We hear their...
Fishing for Recognition
By Malik Windsor | I often hear people recite the phrases “I don’t care what you think” or “your opinion doesn’t matter;” as defense mechanisms we express when our peers’ opinions and beliefs are different from our own. In grade school,...
The Necessity of Black Literature
By Cassidy Ridgeway | In today’s ever-changing times, Black literature is a necessity for Black children and youth because it provides them with opportunities to increase their understanding of the world, sparks their inventiveness, and more importantly, allows them to...
The Overturning of Roe v. Wade
By Cassidy Ridgeway | For almost 50 years, Roe v. Wade has provided women in America with the safety and stability of knowing they are in charge of making decisions for their bodies and futures. The 1973 decision gave women...
Anyone Can Be Spider-Man
By D’Avian Johnson | I love Peter Parker. Not only is he the perfect hero, but he is also the most relatable one. He's the “everyday” man who goes through the same struggles every regular person goes through. He just...
Two Distant Strangers: A Movie Review
By Shamya Hill | In an industry that produces movies about vampires, werewolves, wizards, aliens riding bikes over the moon, and monsters, I think it is safe to say that art doesn’t imitate life except when it does. When movies...
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at Medgar Evers College, CUNY (CBL)
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The Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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