In March, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution recognizing slavery and the transatlantic slave trade as among the most serious crimes committed against humanity. The initiative, led by African nations with Ghana at the forefront, won broad support, passing with 123 votes in favor. Although the resolution met resistance from countries like the United States, Israel, and Argentina, along with several European states, its passage represents an important political gesture on the global stage.

En el mes de marzo, la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas aprobó una resolución que reconoce la esclavitud y la trata transatlántica como uno de los crímenes más graves cometidos contra la humanidad. La iniciativa, impulsada por países del continente africano con Ghana a la cabeza, obtuvo un amplio respaldo, con 123 votos a favor. Aunque la resolución encontró resistencia de países como Estados Unidos, Israel y Argentina y varios Estados europeos, su aprobación supone un importante gesto político en el plano global.

A man got sentenced to 100 years in prison this week. Seven other people got 30, 50, and 70 years apiece. Their crime, in the government’s own words, was being “antifa”—a word that has no legal definition, no membership roster, no headquarters, and no leadership, because it isn’t an organization. It’s a stance rooted in antifascism. And the government just proved you can sentence people to a century in a federal prison for holding one.

At the very heart of the struggle for civil rights in the United States stands a Black transgender drag queen and self-identified transvestite. Marsha spent her life battling deep poverty and mental illness, ultimately living out her final years with HIV. Yet, she was a fierce political force. Alongside Sylvia Rivera, a key figure on her own right, she co-founded S.T.A.R. (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), a groundbreaking organization that provided food, clothing, and shelter to homeless queer youth and drag queens.

In 2016, I entered my doctoral program at Fordham and decided to intentionally intersect my times as a tourist to connect with Eastern Cuba. Habaneros informed me that the East was the Blackest and most Caribbean part of the island. My interaction with Rastafarian community members in Havana, Cuba, also deepened my interest in the East. Additionally, my family and friends have fluid cross-cultural upbringings as Cubans of Jamaican descent and Jamaicans of Cuban descent in the United States.

I took a 16-hour bus ride across the island to Santiago de Cuba and then two motorcycles, a local bus, and a “dollar-van” Ford military-style truck to Guantánamo City. This was my first visit to the British West Indian Welfare Centre. It was 2017.

Public outrage over celebrity silence often reveals something deeper than disappointment. It reveals a collective desire for moral clarity in a culture built to avoid it.

Recent tensions involving Drake’s criticism of DJ Khaled’s silence on Palestine sparked predictable accusations of hypocrisy. Critics questioned how Drake—a Jewish Black artist who has also avoided sustained public condemnation of Zionism or explicit advocacy for Palestinian liberation—could publicly challenge another artist’s silence while remaining politically ambiguous himself.