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Alexandria, Va., Ranks as Top Place to Travel in 2018; Next-Door Neighbor Washington, DC, Says, ‘Huh?’
Washington, D.C., suburb Alexandria, Va., is the top place to visit in 2018. According to the Washington Post, in an article titled, “Alexandria, Va., Outranks Home of Disneyland as Top Place to Go in 2018, Survey Says”: [Money] magazine said in a description of its rankings called “The 20 Best Places to Go in 2018”…
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Now That I’ve Gotten My DNA Results, I Don’t Know Who to Root for in the World Cup, but Cameroon Makes the Best Jollof Rice
2017 and 2018 have been years of exploration and discovery for me so far. I’ve taken time to examine a lot about my identity as a black biracial dude and started to look into family dynamics and how they relate to that identity politic. To up that ante, I’ve also begun digging into my ancestry…
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I Got My AncestryDNA Results Back, and I’m About 40 Percent African. I’m Going to Wakanda!
I got my results back from AncestryDNA. About damn time, too. I was like a crackhead, checking my email every single day HOPING I’d get an email letting me know that my results were ready and available, and every day there’d be nothing. At some point, I almost called them like they were holding up…
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Common Has Secured the Bag and Now He Just Makes Dad Rap
Common is killing the game; or, in today’s parlance, Common has secured the bag. I’m almost 40 years old, which means that I grew up in the ’80s and ’90s listening to Common (née Lonnie Rashid Lynn Jr.) when he was rapping about watermelons and communism and asking to borrow a dollar. I still own…
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5 Things It’s Nearly Impossible to Do While Working From Home With Little Kids Around
The Washington, D.C., area is under a high-wind warning. There are winds gusting at up to 60 miles per hour. In the alley behind my house, trash cans are littered about, making it entirely impassable. A neighbor’s trash can hit my SECOND-floor window while bouncing into my neighbor’s yard. Let that marinate for a minute.…
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I Just Found Out That Cats Would Kill Us if They Were Bigger. I Replied, ‘No Shit’
I love cats. You could even call me a cat person. Have you looked at pictures of cats online? It’s riveting shit. I know some cat ladies. I’ve even been called “cat daddy” before. At the beginning of the Teedra Moses song “You’ll Never Find,” off of her Complex Simplicity album, the opening line is,…
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Raphael Saadiq Talks to VSB About Being Nominated for an Oscar, His Musical Legacy and Exercising to Wu-Tang Clan
A lot of eyes in the black community will be on this Sunday’s 90th Academy Awards. Thanks to films Get Out and Mudbound, several black folks are in the running for a coveted Oscar on the movie industry’s biggest night. One such nominee is the song “Mighty River” from the Mudbound soundtrack, which is up…
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Am I the Only Person Under 60 Who Still Carries Around a Crown Royal Bag for My Valuables?
In the black American community, there are a few cultural items revered historically and across regions of blackness without question: the Afro pick with the black fist on it, plastic coverings on furniture, pictures in Grandma’s house of white Jesus, and the Crown Royal bag. Yes, the Crown Royal bag. When you buy a fifth…
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10 Thoughts on The Loving Generation Documentary About Biracial Kids Born After Loving v. Virginia
Today, the final installment of the documentary The Loving Generation was released (please go check out “Episode 1: Checking Boxes,” “Episode 2: We Are Family,” “Episode 3: Coming of Age” and “Episode 4: The Obama Era”). Full disclosure: I’m in the documentary. It explores the stories of biracial black-and-white children born after the 1967 Loving…
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What’s the Better ’90s Party Jam: Luke’s ‘Scarred’ or ‘I Wanna Rock (Doo Doo Brown)’?
Anybody who came of age in the ’90s is familiar with 2 Live Crew and Uncle Luke. They brought us classics like “Me So Horny” and “Pop That Coochie.” Luke was the king of party jams, and he brought us many perennial classics. I was at a ’90s party in Atlanta a few weekends back…
