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Murder Music

Murder Music In no arena is dancehall—and Jamaican society overall—more troubled than in grappling with sexual orientation. Blaring on most street corners and from car radios, dancehall’s virulent homophobia, a curdled hatred for homosexuals explicitly and pervasively articulated in the music’s lyrics and deeply entrenched in dancehall culture, foments a quotidian reign of terror against […]

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[Fiction] An adolescent girl’s discoveries about her beautiful, elusive mother: “At the time, what I saw struck me as a strange dream, one that I managed to forget for many years. I was so angry with my mother for so long. Now I’m old enough to recognize the disillusion I saw dawning on her face […]

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[Fiction] Pepa’s not afraid of anything: For two weeks, her parents were gone, and during this time Pepa took care of her brother as she did when they were not in the jungle. She prepared meals. She went to the market and mopped the floors and fed the chickens, of course. She made sure that […]

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On riots and race. What has changed, and what’s still bubbling under the surface, 20 years after the riots in South Central Los Angeles: The L.A. Riots (or uprising, civil unrest, or rebellion, depending) are often considered the first ‘multiethnic’ riots. As a pivot point of race and urban relations, they constitute a resonant moment […]

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