social issues Archives | midnight & indigo

A Brief History of Pain

.CHISARAOKWU. — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 04:00:34 +0000

Pain \peyn\ n. 3a. Physical or bodily suffering; a continuous, strongly unpleasant or agonizing sensation in the body, such as arises from illness, injury, harmful physical contact, etc. –Oxford English Dictionary (2024) My origin story begins with pain, or, at the very least, an attempt to avoid it. I was born by cesarean, the doctor believing my size too painful for my mother to push through. Since then, I’ve lived to avoid pain—no diving into a lake or pool for fear I’d hit the bottom and break both legs, quitting volleyball because the ball jammed my piano-playing

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The Price of Suffering

N.M. Baltimore — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 05:00:41 +0000

At first, there was only the Sun. Shining brightly, he illuminated powerfully in space. Sun knew he was a burning ball of gas…too hot to ever be touched. He constantly moved in a circle. Steady, slow, and consistent, Sun would go on his circular journey only to find himself right at the beginning where he started. Sun had one big flaw: by the time he reached his original starting point, he had forgotten all that happened on his prior trip. His journey was too far, too long, too tiring… and so he would forget. And yet he yielded the power

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A Place for Everything, Everything in Its Place

Victoria Meléndez — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 04:00:23 +0000

I can clean my entire apartment in under two hours. That’s two podcasts or one catch up call with a dear friend or Janelle Monae’s new album four times. Most of my weekly cleaning sessions are scored by one of these three things, but sometimes I choose silence. Sometimes I let the swish of the broom and the rhythmic churn of the dryer—the reliable tap of zippers and buttons hitting the inside of the machine—be enough. My partner and I are in a mid-distance relationship, he lives in Philly and I live in DC (it’s only long-distance if there’s a

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My Levittown

Pirette McKamey — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 04:00:31 +0000

I am embarrassed to admit that I loved Levittown even when it didn’t love me. It was my first home, and like my first love, embedded while my tissue was still soft, shape shifting me, making me tough and nimble and maybe a little too paranoid. Running around in my development of Junewood and the neighboring ones of Kenwood and Dogwood, I learned early that people felt free to yell anything they wanted to out of car windows to little Black girls, and on the street, friends were as important as family. When I was growing up, Levatown as we

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The Refrain

Ilisha Nicole — Tue, 23 Jan 2024 12:34:14 +0000

On Christmas night, I found peace in my mother’s rendition of a Jody Watley song. Only inches from the speakers, Mama sat cross-legged on the living room floor in a puffy red down coat and green winter cap. Swimming in sound, she sang along to feisty lyrics about a no-good man. I rested upright, cocooned in wool blankets on the dingy cream couch behind her. Our two-bedroom apartment on Florence Avenue was without heat and electricity, but Mama masterminded a way to get power by snaking an extension cord through a loose floorboard in the living room that led to

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Sandcastles

Johannah Maria Fienburgh — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:10:05 +0000

Behind them, the sun is rising. They’ve been crammed in the car for hours. Jimmy and Josie shouting about castle building and crab finding and wave jumping and ice cream eating, their voices a cacophonous wave from the back seat as baby Cal stared, wide-eyed, between them. Ben, next to her in the driver’s seat, cringed at their every shriek, his fingers tightening around the steering wheel. The white bump of his knuckles only loosened when she’d stroked a calming hand over his shoulder, when he’d tipped his head and brushed his cheek to her fingers. In contrast to the

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About Your X

Jā. R. Macki — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:08:40 +0000

Furloughs layoffs second layoffs meetings business arms financial investments millions low percentage growth surveys money theme inflation HR research investment raise performance evaluation quantity quality 90% of employees surveyed say X is a nice place to work. [X][X][X] X marks the spot where passive-aggressive pressures persist for performance when there’s no work to speak of. You’re in the emergency room waiting for this place to code. X marks the spot where they should run a sale on homes not a train on emotions. X marks the spot where suggestions for improvement pass through Black lips like apparitions through drywall. X

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Running Tabs

Athena Dixon — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:07:41 +0000

A country block from our Noble Street home, Ralph’s Deli had always been. The store was the epicenter of our side of the tracks. A low-income neighborhood not too far from the metropolitan houses that looked like a government subsidized, cookie-cutter suburb or the tracts of single family homes sometimes owned and sometimes rented. At Ralph’s, the fried chicken and jojos fogged the hot food case before being slipped into aluminum lined bags by the pound or the piece. There were long blue Kisko Freezies in the waist highs next to the checkout. Coolers of drinks and frozen foods. All

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Traveling in Twist Outs: The Hair Politics of Black Women Abroad

Kendall Tiarra — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:03:17 +0000

I scroll the #blacktravelfeed hashtag on Instagram enduring hour 5 of my hair braiding appointment. Three hours remaining, I contemplate changing my usual box braids style to Senegalese twists for my next beach holiday in Mexico, wondering if the looser-textured braids would withstand the heavy waters of the Caribbean. I also wonder how the beautiful, bikini-clad women on my feed maintain their silky Malaysian bundles while swimming, and why the weaves I wore in high school were so tragic. The Dominican hair braiders are speaking in a Spanish accent I quite haven’t grasped, despite being in Spain—yet the feelings of

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The Shop

Jessica Kelley — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 04:02:30 +0000

Following closely behind church and Grandmama’s House, the third most important cultural center/gathering place in the Black community is The Shop. This can be the barbershop or the beauty shop. I don’t know much about barbershops outside of a few visits with my brother when we were young. They aren’t for women, unless you have a young son who needs a cut and his dad or uncles are otherwise unavailable to take him. Sometimes you can get away with going if you’ve got a brush cut or a taper that needs fading and your stylist isn’t so good with the

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