culture
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Om Space: 1 Man’s Mission to Heal His Community Through Yoga
Imagine a small, sustainable farm in western Maryland, a safe space where black men come together to heal and connect with themselves. They are trained to become certified yoga instructors and are educated and empowered to go out and use what they have learned about the practice of yoga to change and empower their own…
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Why the Black Lives Matter Movement Has to Take on Charter Schools
Black school systems are treated like black men and women in America. Urban schools are broken up, experimented on and policed in efforts to improve them. The reformers expect students, teachers and parents to be grateful and accept test-score growth in return, just as black communities were expected to be grateful when crime dropped even as…
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#BlackGirlsSwimFast: On Simone Manuel and Swimming to Freedom
Following their 1-2-3 finish in the 2015 NCAA 100 swimming finals, Mark Anthony Neal tweeted #BlackGirlsSwimFast to celebrate the magnificence of Lia Neal, Simone Manuel and Natalie Hinds. On Thursday night at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, it took 52 seconds for Manuel to swim the fastest. And when she touched first in a…
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An Ode to Lisa Nicole Carson
This past Saturday, while I was out of town and couch-crashing, I managed to come across a very interesting show on Centric TV. It was called Being: Lisa Nicole Carson and it chronicled Carson’s rise in the acting game throughout the ’90s up until her sudden disappearance throughout the 2000s and, now, her return. I…
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5 Mysteries Surrounding the Life and Death of Dr. Sebi
What if I told you I had a cure for AIDS? Would you believe me? What about cancer? Or diabetes? There are those who believe that Dr. Sebi, born Alfredo Bowman—a world-renowned vegetarian herbalist, healer, pathologist and biochemist—had the cure for all of them, all the diseases that bring devastation and an altered existence before…
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Ray Rice Isn’t Being Blackballed by the NFL for Domestic Violence. He’s Just Not Good Anymore
Ray Rice, barring a dramatic set of miraculous circumstances, will never play for the NFL again. I know it. He knows it. Me, you, your mama and your cousin, too, know it. The homegirl from around the way knows it. Bonita Applebum may not know it yet, but she’s about to know it once I…
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The 7 Most Outrageous and Racist Acts Found in DOJ’s Report on Baltimore Police Department
The Department of Justice’s scathing report on the Baltimore Police Department spelled out in exacting detail how the BPD violated the constitutional rights of black residents through a series of brutal and abusive tactics that basically had a community under siege. Perusing the pages of the report is like reading some bizarro crime novel, where…

