Elliott Brown, Jr. and Ashley Rahimi Syed (Photo: Nicole Disser)
When I first heard about a one-off art show and serial online publication called Young, Colored & Angry, the name really stuck with me. There really couldn’t be a better moment to discuss such a fraught label. The term might not be instantly recognizable, but the implications are all too familiar particularly in the label’s application to protestors in various cities as of late. It can be used as a way to dismiss, delegitimize, and patronize grievances related to race relations in the U.S., particularly those between people of color and the police. But Young, Colored & Angry the publication–which, by the way, is run by two self-proclaimed young, colored, and angry individuals, 22-year-old Ashley Rahimi Syed and 21-year-old Elliott Brown, Jr.– is less explicitly about the now-politics of race and the police and more about the artistic expression that is inevitably steeped in similar experiences and other instances of discrimination.