Everyday Isms

Talk to Her: Waria in Indonesia

by Dee Putri Waria is a term used in Indonesian for assigned-male-at-birth (AMAB) transgender people. It originally comes from words wanita (woman) and pria (man). (Indonesian loves to make acronyms, I’ll tell you.) Seeing waria on the street is not strange; I see them everyday working as pengamen – street performers. They usually sing in intersections or near food booths. I’d…

Read more >>

The Black Girl Conundrum

by Sam Holmes I will never forget the noise that my mother made when she first saw it. We were navigating the streets of New York on a busy Saturday in 2011, running late for a hair appointment. She was walking so briskly that I struggled to keep up. But then she stopped dead in…

Read more >>

H&M: Use Plus Size Mannequins In Stores!

by Georgia Luckhurst When I interviewed Jennie Runk over the summer about her phenomenol campaign with H&M, I was lit up with excitement about the future of plus-size representation in the modelling industry.  Here at SPARK we’re not only dismayed but horrified by the body-shaming girls face everyday, and it’s our mission to try and…

Read more >>

Julie Chen Didn't Betray Me

by YingYing Shang CBS “The Talk” host Julie Chen revealed on Thursday that as a young journalist, she was pressured by racist comments from a boss to undergo surgical procedures to enlarge her eyes. “He said, ‘Let’s face it Julie, how relatable are you to our community?” she recalled. “How big of an Asian community…

Read more >>

My Favorite Shows Aren't on TV

by Joneka Percentie Living Single. Girlfriends. A Different World. These successful 90’s and aughts sitcoms featured black leading ladies who portrayed real women. As a young girl, I didn’t understand the importance of what I was watching.  Nowadays, accurate representations of black women on television is out of style. According to the Women’s Media Center,…

Read more >>

Sheryl Sandberg is Leaning In to Paying her Interns

by Ty Slobe Last week, LeanIn.Org’s editor Jessica Bennett posted on her Facebook page a message about looking for an unpaid intern to fill a position with the organization. It read as follows: “Wanted: Lean In editorial intern, to work with our editor (me) in New York. Part-time, unpaid, must be HIGHLY organized with editorial and…

Read more >>

Rachel Jeantel Does Not Need to Justify Her Language to Anyone, but Americans Need to Be More Open to Linguistic Diversity

by Ty Slobe Racism comes in many forms. Sometimes racism manifests in the racial profiling of strangers, the way it did on the night that George Zimmerman stalked and killed Trayvon Martin. Sometimes racism is legally institutionalized, the way it is in laws like Florida’s Stand Your Ground law. Sometimes racism is more subtle, and…

Read more >>

Support for All the Wrong Reasons

by Sam Holmes In June 2013, the Supreme Court officially recognized what we already knew: DOMA was a bad piece of legislation. On a personal level, I was thrilled that my friends are the gaining rights that we all deserve, so of course, I was excited to talk about it with other people who were…

Read more >>

Contact Us!