COLORLINES - Akiba Solomon

Akiba Solomon

Managing Editor
Brooklyn, NY

Akiba Solomon is the Managing Editor of Colorlines.com and an NABJ-Award winning journalist, editor and essayist from West Philadelphia. Online, she has written about the intersection between gender and race for Colorlines.com and culture for Ebony.com. As Colorlines.com’s inaugural reporting fellow, Solomon reported on reproductive health access for women of color during and immediately after President Barack Obama's re-election campaign. A graduate of Howard University, the Brooklyn resident co-edited Naked: Black Women Bare All About Their Skin, Hair, Hips, Lips, and Other Parts (Perigee, 2005), an anthology of original essays and oral memoirs about Black women and body image. Solomon has also been a researcher for Glamour, a health editor for Essence and a senior editor for the print versions of Vibe Vixen and The Source.

She has also written for a range of publications on a freelance basis, including Redbook, Vibe and Heart & Soul. As a panelist, she has spoken about women’s and social justice issues through the lens of hip-hop culture at a range of institutions including The Schomburg Center for the Research in Black Culture, Stanford University, Yale University, Harvard University and The University of Chicago.

Check out Akiba's media appearances here.

Follow Akiba at @akibasolomon.

On DJ Mister Cee, Malcolm X and Online Homophobia

by Akiba Solomon on April 11 2011, 10:31AM

How should we deal with the kinds of comments littering Mister Cee and Malcolm X threads?

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Gender & Sexuality, Hip-Hop & LGBT, History

Update: Resistance to Race-Baiting Chicago Billboard

by Akiba Solomon on April 4 2011, 8:57AM

More on the folks behind the racist danger womb billboards and a little something about Chicago’s reaction

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Does Anti-Abortion Option Line Withhold Vital Health Information?

by Akiba Solomon on April 1 2011, 11:08AM

Under the handle “afraid,” Gender Matters chatted with volunteers from anti-abortion Option Line and sexual health care provider Planned Parenthood. The results are in!

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Another Day, Another Race-Baiting Abortion Billboard

by Akiba Solomon on March 29 2011, 10:36AM

Life Always, the anti-abortion group that set off a firestorm in New York City with their black danger-womb billboard, are putting up a new one Chicago’s South Side—featuring President Obama.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Crisis Pregnancy Centers: One More Weapon Against Women of Color

by Akiba Solomon on March 28 2011, 9:34AM

Six big players to mind as the right’s effort to target women of color in the anti-abortion movement builds.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Health

Chris Brown Needs More Therapy and Less F.A.M.E.

by Akiba Solomon on March 23 2011, 12:05PM

The singing and dancing machine uses art to escape the domestic violence he’s seen and committed. That’s just not enough.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Chris Brown

White, Rich Gay Couples More Acceptable than Single Moms

by Akiba Solomon on March 21 2011, 12:49PM

A strange little MSNBC story shows how race and class blindness can complicate good news about changing attitudes.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

After Cleveland, Texas: Eight Ways Black Men Can Fight Rape

by Akiba Solomon on March 17 2011, 3:17PM

Anti-rape activist Dr. R’Leureux Lewis gives black men simple (and not-so-simple) ways to interrupt rape culture—and break down the negative stereotypes that help fuel it.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Texas Rape

The Gang Rape of a Latina 6th Grader, and a Horrific Community Response

by Akiba Solomon on March 14 2011, 2:48PM

Eighteen black boys and men are accused of gang-raping an 11-year-old Latina in this small East Texas town. What now?

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Texas Rape

Rep. Chris Smith and a Little International Women’s Day Irony

by Akiba Solomon on March 8 2011, 4:20PM

Rep. Chris Smith, the New Jersey Republican who tried to narrow federal funding for abortions in the case of rape, is all for women’s rights—in China.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Ivory Coast Aftermath: The People, Not the President(s) Come First

by Akiba Solomon on March 7 2011, 1:36PM

In the Ivory Coast’s post-election turmoil, seven women at an all-women’s rally are shot down. Unacceptable.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

“I Had to Accept That I Could Be Sexually Assaulted on the Job”

by Akiba Solomon on March 3 2011, 3:58PM

Five lessons in self-protection from an independent female journalist who covered rape in Haiti’s post-quake tent camps

Topics: Akiba Solomon

Bishop Eddie Long Hasn’t Learned

by Akiba Solomon on March 1 2011, 12:58PM

Bishop Eddie Long’s latest spate of all-men’s prayer vigils undermine the do-right masculinity he so desperately covets.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

9 Reasons To Hate Anti-Abortion Billboards That Target Black Women

by Akiba Solomon on February 25 2011, 1:10PM

When you target black women and call our wombs dangerous, you can’t call yourself pro-life.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Planned Parenthood

How Arizona’s New Anti-Immigrant Bills Target Women

by Akiba Solomon on February 25 2011, 10:03AM

Elizabeth Barajas-Román explains how the state’s nastiest legislators have turned their animus toward Latinas and families.

Topics: Immigration

The New Adventures of Old Cosmetic Surgery

by Akiba Solomon on February 22 2011, 1:57PM

Why the plastic surgery industry’s new take on ‘ethnic’ features is the same old thing.

Topics: Akiba Solomon

‘Sex Crimes Against Black Girls’ Exhibit Uses Art to Confront Incest

by Akiba Solomon on February 21 2011, 4:45PM

Curator Shantrelle P. Lewis braves controversy and pain to expose sexual violence against girls in the African Diaspora

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Arts & Culture

Rep. Moore Tells Anti-Choice GOP Where to Shove Black Genocide Lie

by Akiba Solomon on February 18 2011, 6:45PM

“I know a lot about having black babies. I’ve had three of them,” she explains during Pence Amendment debate.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Budget, Health, Planned Parenthood

Breast Feeding is a Black Thing

by Akiba Solomon on February 17 2011, 12:57PM

How the First Lady was right about black women and breast-feeding—and why critics like Rep. Michele Bachmann are dead wrong.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Health

Another Fashion Week, Another Colored Model Fad

by Akiba Solomon on February 16 2011, 10:49AM

But still no sign of questioning the Euro-supremacy at the root of what’s hot and what’s not.

Topics: Akiba Solomon, Arts & Culture

Akiba Solomon

Popular Threads

Recent Comments