Inheritance is the quiet force that shapes us long before we understand its presence. It lives in our families, our cultures, our languages, and our memories. For Black, Brown, Latino, Middle Eastern, Indigenous, and African diasporic communities, inheritance is a complex blend of pride, resilience, trauma, creativity, and survival. It informs how we see ourselves, how we carry our histories, and how we imagine tomorrow. In this issue of BLACK COPPER, Inheritance: Deconstructing Our Shared Histories, we unpack the layered legacies we receive—those we embrace, those we question, and those we must release to create space for new possibilities.

Across the globe, the histories we inherit are deeply entangled with systems of displacement, colonization, slavery, migration, and generational struggle. These histories are not distant—they are embodied realities passed down through stories, rituals, silence, and memory. They shape our relationships to land, identity, family, and community. Yet, they have also given birth to extraordinary traditions of resilience: cultural continuums that survived forced separation, knowledge preserved through oral histories, art forms rooted in resistance, and collective memory that refuses erasure. Too often, these inheritances are flattened in mainstream narratives—reduced to folklore, tragedy, or myth instead of the living, dynamic legacies they truly are. This issue aims to restore depth to those stories, honoring their complexity while interrogating the weight they carry.

Inheritance is not only historical—it is psychological, emotional, and political. Many of us inherit unspoken wounds: generational trauma, internalized biases, survival mechanisms shaped by oppression, and cultural expectations formed in a world that was not built for our thriving. These inheritances shape how we move, how we love, how we work, and how we dream. At the same time, we inherit joy, ingenuity, spirituality, creativity, and ancestral wisdom. Our families and communities pass down languages, aesthetic traditions, foods, rhythms, and ways of being that reflect centuries of adaptation and brilliance. This issue explores how these opposing inheritances coexist within us, asking: What do we choose to carry forward? What must we transform? And what must we heal?

The present moment continues to reshape our collective inheritance. Contemporary movements—from Indigenous land back initiatives to Afro-diasporic healing practices to youth-led organizing—are challenging dominant narratives and reclaiming cultural agency. Artists, filmmakers, and writers across the diaspora are excavating history, revisiting lineage, and creating new stories that imagine liberation beyond inherited limitations. Their work becomes a form of archival reclamation—an act of choosing what the next generation will inherit. Through their creative visions, we see a future where inheritance is not a burden but a catalyst for reimagining identity, community, and shared futures.

Yet, confronting inheritance requires acknowledging the truths we often avoid. The legacies of colonialism, migration, colorism, patriarchy, and systemic inequity continue to reverberate through our lives. Economic disparities, land displacement, environmental harm, and cultural loss disproportionately impact marginalized communities in ways directly connected to historical narratives we did not choose but must contend with. In examining these realities, this issue invites readers to confront the full spectrum of what it means to inherit—not just the beauty, but the tension and responsibility of knowing where we come from.

And still, this issue is equally about possibility. Deconstructing inheritance is not only about untangling the past—it is about rewriting the future. It is about imagining what we might build when we understand our histories with clarity and intention. It is about releasing what harms us, nurturing what sustains us, and forging new lineages grounded in healing, dignity, and collective vision. Through art, essays, photography, and narrative, we explore what it means to transform inheritance into a living, evolving practice of becoming.

Inheritance: Deconstructing Our Shared Histories is both an excavation and an offering. It asks us to look back with honesty, to sit with the weight and beauty of our origins, and to dream boldly about the legacies we hope to leave behind. Through these pages, we honor the past, illuminate the present, and envision futures shaped not by what we were given—but by what we choose to create.