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I’ve Been Sober for 6 Years and I Miss Getting Drunk, but I Don’t Miss Being a Drunk
I miss alcohol. I’ll just tell you straight up: I miss it. No bullshit. When I go to my Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, everyone there is full of stories and cautionary tales about that sweet liquid deliverance called booze. But I remember clearly that my marriage to alcohol wasn’t all bad. We had some good times.…
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Republicans Seem Hell-Bent on Showing Us That Their God Doesn’t Exist
I remember vivid details about the morning when I first decided I didn’t want to go to church anymore. I remember that my mother attempted to wake me several times that morning when she was already fully dressed, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, wearing her nurse’s uniform that she had to wear every fourth Sunday because she…
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When America Makes You Hate Your Skin So Much You Shoplift Bottles of Ambi Fade Cream to Get Lighter
I was 13 years old the first time I shoplifted. My sister, at 15, was my lookout. We were at the tiny pharmacy in tiny Newton Falls, Ohio, in the “ethnic” section. There was, as there is now, an array of products. Products for making your hair wet and curly—not so “coarse.” There were products…
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I’m Not Ashamed of Being Broke and You Shouldn’t Be Either
I am not ashamed of being broke. Broke people make the world go round. Broke people are the original recyclers, the pioneers of creative reuse, the inventors of the most delicious, innovative foods and the people who keep hope alive in this country. I would like to restore broke to its original glory like Fred…
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I’ll Never Criticize Black People’s Belief in Jesus, but Don’t Insist I Believe in Him Too
I think I must have been 9, maybe 10 years old when it finally dawned on me that the doctrine Pastor Bivens was hollering at the assembled black folk from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church didn’t make any damn sense to me. I remember it distinctly because of how uncomfortable I was at…
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I Want To Take The Great American Roadtrip Through The Heartland, But I'm Scared Because I'm, You Know, Black
On the last day of fourth grade, when the final bell rang, we all came roaring out of the front door of the school as you do when you’re nine years old and it’s the last day of school. Out into the sunlight with that feel for freedom that you haven’t felt since your very…
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What A Stint In Rehab Taught Me About White People's Feelings About Black People's Pain
Every time I read about or see a news story on the opioid epidemic, I greet it with a resounding “So what?” It’s an admittedly vindictive stance that I am in no way ashamed of. When I see that whole towns are languishing under the tyranny of the needle, I couldn’t bring myself to care…
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Why I Believed The Lie That Black Men Are More Homophobic Than Everyone Else
Black people are made perpetual victims of confirmation bias. If you’re black, I don’t need to tell you this. But, if you’re not or you just don’t know what it means, confirmation bias is that thing you do when you swear every fat person in the world eats at The Golden Corral every day and…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
