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Who Is Angela Rye? Her BET Specials May Let Us Know Exactly That
I met Angela Rye on Nov. 7, 2012. I was part of a group that put together an election night party at the Washington Post headquarters building in Washington, D.C., so we could all (hopefully) watch President Barack Obama be re-elected. Up to that point, I’d only heard of her. Black, young, college-educated, professional D.C.…
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I Guess Fair and Equal Treatment Only Matters if You Like the Person Asking for It. Yes, We’re Talking About Mo’Nique
I’m not a fan of Mo’Nique and never have been. I don’t have any disdain for her; she’s just not my brand of bourbon, if you catch my drift. If I got free tickets to see a show in person, I may go depending on what else I had going on that particular evening. I…
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I Think My 1-Year-Old Son’s Pacifier Is His Homeboy
Parents, stop me if you’ve heard any of this before. Of my three children, my youngest, Rome, is by far the biggest spark plug. He’s a living, breathing 100 emoji. When he’s asleep, we take pains to make sure he sleeps as long as possible, shushing any and everybody in the vicinity making noise—not because…
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I Watched Netflix’s Step Sisters. It Was the Best of Times, It Was the Worst of Times
Spoiler alert: There will be spoilers and a plot review in this write-up. Netflix’s controversial original movie Step Sisters finally debuted on Jan. 19. After it dropped, Lena Waithe hit the tweets to ask folks what they thought about it. Those opinions ranged, but it didn’t seem like anybody was ready to call for a…
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Paul Pierce Is a Petty Diva. He’s Not Entirely Wrong but Still Definitely a Petty Diva
If you keep up with the sports world at all, you know that on Feb. 11, 2018, the Boston Celtics organization will be honoring former Celtic great and 2008 NBA champion Paul Pierce with a formal ceremony and retiring his jersey (No. 34) to hang it up in the rafters next to Celtics great(ER)s like…
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I’m Pretty Sure a White Woman Who Almost Killed Me Thinks She Saved My Life, and I Hope Sandra Bullock Plays Her in My Life Story
I believe I have my own white-savior story that might actually be a Magical Negro story at the same damn time. I think the proper term for this story that I’m about to tell is an allegory. What’s the deeper, potentially political, meaning behind it? I don’t know. It sure as shit means something, though.…
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8 Songs That Were Made for People With Locs
According to philosopher king and wordsmith savant E-40 Fonzarelli of the Vallejo, Calif., Fonzarellis, “Jesus Christ had dreads. So shake ’em.” I ain’t got none, but I’m planning on growing some. Or at least I would if God didn’t feel differently about my hairline and would energize my follicles. It seems rather far down his…
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Are You Listening to the Atlanta Monster Podcast? You Should Be
For many of us with ties to the city of Atlanta, the name Wayne Williams evokes memories. While I was too young and too far away at the time to be directly affected by the Atlanta Child Murders—a name given to the rash of murders of black children from many of Atlanta’s impoverished communities from…
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10 Life-Essential Questions Grown-ish Hilariously Addresses in ‘If You’re Reading This, It’s Too Late’
Aaron keeps sending Zoey “u up” texts, and she’s perplexed as to whether it means that he’s in love with her or that she’s just the “‘u up’ bitch.” This sets off an interesting discussion about the romanticness of such a text. See, depending on who you are and where you grew up, the infamous…
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10 Reasons I’m Glad I Was Raised in a Black Household
How you were raised largely dictates how you will turn out as an adult. I have zero science to back this up; nor do I have a link to a white paper from the Atlanta Conference of Negro Problems’ (that was a real thing, by the way) early writings that proves this axiom dating back…
