What’s Current: Playwright Ntozake Shange dies at 70

  • Ntozake Shange, the influential and popular playwright who wrote, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf, died this Saturday, at the age of 70.
  • Cesar Sayoc, who mailed pipe bombs to numerous public figures on the US left, told his lesbian manager that she would “burn in hell” because, he alleged, God hated gay people.
  • Kenyan widows are fighting back against a practice of ritualized rape known as “sexual cleansing,” which forces them to accept intercourse with a man chosen by their family or be ostracized from their communities.
  • Calgary-based group, Otahpiaaki, says that sexualized Halloween costumes purporting to represent Indigenous women are dehumanizing and should be avoided.
  • A petition addressed to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) asks the organization to reconsider their recently released policy statement on the care of transgender youth. The statement supports the “gender-affirmative care model” (GACM), which affirms a child’s belief that he/she is transgender and normalizes the concept of “gender identity,” instead of considering other factors, such as mental health issues, social trends, or same-sex attraction.
Natasha Chart

Natasha Chart is an online organizer and feminist living in the United States. She does not recant her heresy.