Health
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My Head Is a Part of My Body and My Middle Name Is Makeba
As a child, the word “crazy” bounced around every black space I called home. “Crazy” was a destination and an origin. “Crazy” was at once a pejorative and wholly emblematic of our abundance. I loved the word “crazy.” I used it a lot in my oral communication with folks I loved. I used it to…
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The Life Lost But Never Forgotten and The Movie I Struggle to Watch Because Of It (Happy Birthday, Tra)
I can’t just watch the movie John Q. I’ve tried a few times. I actually managed to make it all the way through to the end for the first time in almost 10 years a few months ago. It was on, I was up late and I decided to force myself to make it through…
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On Loneliness at 3 A.M. in Lagos
It was 3 a.m. in Onikan, a suburb of Lagos. The street below her window was uncharacteristically quiet. In the distance, she could hear the faint thump of a bass-line and the strained, faint chorus of afrobeat. She listened for the shrieks of laughter and enjoyment coming from the building down the road. In the…
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Play The Healing Game
Prior to COVID, I’d have all of these speaking gigs and book events all across the country; shit was sweet. You know, way back when getting bipped-up—that’s how you say haircut in Baldamore—was normal and I used to order a clean one against-the-grain, leaving-just-enough-hair-to-brush type of fade before every event. And then a few hours…
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The Discreet Charms of Malady
First, oh, the stories you will tell. I awake from a four-hour surgery with an epidural and pain pump full of Fentanyl to sounds of a man dying on the gurney next to me, separated only by a threadbare curtain. Codes blare over the PA system, calling for every available physician to assist while next…
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I Just Want to Be 'Normal,' and I Need a Therapist to Convince Me It Doesn't Exist
“It is weird?” I asked, in a message I copied and pasted to several people through text, on Gchat, and in Facebook Messenger, six weeks ago. The question was a followup to a revelation I also shared with the same people: I’d recently discovered, while finally seriously researching potential therapists—after telling myself for years that…
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'Quiet Storm': A 2-Week Series About Mental Health on VSB
Like many folks who haven’t seen the hit stage play Hamilton in person, I relished the opportunity to watch it on Disney+ when it released on July 3, 2020. Even if you don’t care for musicals—or the subject matter of this particular musical—it’s impressive in its expanse and each of the stars of the show…
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‘Mind the Gap’: A 20-Year-Old Black Medical Student Is Writing a Guide Illustrating How Common Medical Symptoms Appear on Dark Skin
A Zimbabwe-born medical student living in London is filling in an important blind spot in the medical community: informing healthcare providers and patients how symptoms for a broad range of conditions appear on darker skin. It’s the kind of problem that feels shockingly outdated for the 21st century, but as 20-year-old St. George student Malone…
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Biz Markie Has Been Hospitalized for Weeks Due to Diabetes Complications
Legendary rapper, beatboxer and DJ Biz Markie has reportedly been in the hospital for weeks being treated for an illness triggered by complications of Type 2 diabetes. Per TMZ, a rep for the musician says that he is in a Maryland-area hospital, and the status of his condition is unclear. “He is receiving the best…
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Post-Traumatic Blackness Disorder: The Mental Toll of Surviving Racism
We called it “The Bull in the Ring.” Every gridiron competitor in America has likely played a variation of this ubiquitous football drill. It begins with one player in the center of a circle of other teammates, who take turns hitting the player in the middle of the “ring” in an attempt to push them…