Last night's victory for Donald Trump was a devastating proof that our country is based as much on hatred, sexism, racism, homophobia, and violence as it is on the unity, acceptance, and love preached by the Obama campaign for the last 8 years. It was a reminder that if a straight cisgender man is rich enough and white enough, he can get whatever he wants even if he has no business demanding it.
Whether that be a woman's body or the office of President of the United States. It is especially scary for members of the communities that Trump and his supporters- a former KKK member among them- have publicly denounced, and it is easy to feel completely hopeless right now.
But, the last few years have also been a time of tremendous creative, socially progressive output. We have gathered a few of our favorite pop culture moments from the recent past- music and writing and film that makes us feel love and acceptance, that boldly explores the fallacies of the "American Dream" that Trump so staunchly clings to, and that also allows us space to be mad and sad and angry right now.
Obviously, we are just skimming the surface here, but we are excited to share this list, and to celebrate the incredible that people of color, women, members of the LGBT community, and immigrants have made, while we begin to understand the amount that still needs to be done ton convince huge numbers of Americans of our worth.
Music
Solange Knowles's A Seat At The Table
Beyonce's Lemonade and this accompanying Lemonade syllabus
William Basinski's Disintegration Loops series
Frank Ocean's Endless, Blonde, and his accompanying zine
BuzzFeed'sBlack History Month Soundtrack
Angel Olsen's My Woman
Kendrick Lamar's untitled unmastered and literally every performance he does. Ever.
Chance the Rapper's mixtape, Coloring Book.
Blood Orange's Freetown Sound and its amazing visuals...
The intertwined music and activism of Downtown Boys
Writing
Ta-Nehisi Coates' Between The World and Me
"I Want A Dyke For President" by Zoe Leonard
Roxane Gay's bibliography, of course, and her truly amazing social media presence
The website
Muslim Girl
The work of DarkMatter
The powerful letter written by Emily Doe, addressed to her sexual assailant, former Stanford student Brock Turner
The work of the women behind Black Lives Matter
The 2 Dope Queens podcast
A Bollywood Madonna cover artist and everything she represents
Another Round podcast on how to be a better ally
Heben Nigatu on how to take a compliment
Nayyirah Waheed's salt.
Jia Tolentino's Interview With a Woman Who Recently Had an Abortion at 32 Weeks
Christine Friar on the importance of Rilo Kiley
The Racist and Sexist History of Keeping Birth Control Side Effects Secret
Durga Chew-Bose's How I Learned to Stop Erasing Myself
Media/TVBomba Estéreo's " Soy Yo" music video
Shabazz Palaces' " Belhaven Meridian" music video
Mykki Blanco's "High School Never Ends" music video
Mitski's "Happy" music video
Princess Nokia's " Brujas" music video
Ali Wong's Baby Cobra Netflix special
FX"s Atlanta
HBO's Insecure
Trump can't stop the magic.
You May Also Like