TL;DR: We made a magazine because the far right have learned to use the internet. 

Malcolm X said: “If you’re not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing.” If newspapers were enough to have Malcolm worried, imagine what he’d think about Twitter.

We live virtually now. Our online avatars are more real than we are in all meaningful senses (that is, all the ways that we exist to the big people that matter). But what is it like to be a person of colour in the digital world, a terrain that has become (or perhaps always was) the home turf of the post-truthers, the alt-righters and the straight-up no-nonsense swastika-on-my-forehead fascists? How is our black/brown-ness conjured, performed and washed away? How do we keep track of what’s true when the lies that are told about us go viral?

As people of colour, the answer to these questions matter to us. So we asked a selection of artists and writers for their responses the theme of our upcoming issue Skin Deep, which we’ve called The Spectacle. 

This issue features work by radical satirical cartoonist Khalid Albaih, once-went-viral Joshua Idehen, Lady Skollie, painter of fruit and sex, and three WOC-led groups who are experts in the history, practice and art of protest: Sisters Uncut, Movement for Justice and East End Women’s Museum, alongside 18 other awesome artists, writers and contributors.

Our new issue is officially out. Order it online by clicking the fun and flashy banner above 👆🏾👆👆🏿