culture
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#ReesesRoadtoRio: Brittney Reese Honored at 3rd Annual Shadow League Leadership Awards
Brittney Reese means business, not only as she prepares for next month’s Rio de Janeiro Olympics, but also in taking her commitment to community service seriously. When she’s not perfecting her long jump, the Ole Miss alum is spending her time giving back. Each year, Reese gives a college scholarship to one male and one…
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MLK Would Never Shut Down a Freeway, and 6 Other Myths About the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter
On Saturday, as protests mounted across the country following the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed explained the large police presence at downtown protests to reporters: “Dr. King would never take a freeway.” Reed’s claim was historically absurd. Martin Luther King Jr. took many a highway—most famously, perhaps, in…
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Hip-Hop’s Best Year Ever Just Turned 20
It should come as no surprise to most of you that I wasn’t the most popular kid in high school. During my 1995-1996 freshman year, I endured an awkward, postpubescent, pre-growth-spurt phase that had me looking like the love child of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and Associate Bob from Demolition Man. Making matters worse,…
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The 10 Types of Hate Mail Every Black Writer Receives
One of the few silver linings from the last two weeks of police-involved violence is that some genuinely brilliant and fearless and incisive and resonate work from black writers has sprung from it. Making this particularly impressive is that they’ve found ways to distill, craft and articulate unique angles and relevant points while still processing…
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Killsplaining: Whether White Supremacist Cop or Wayward Teen, No One Asks to Be Murdered
We are starting to become a nation of excuses. A nation that shoots first and then looks through your personnel file to explain away why the shooting was valid. I am not a fan of uncovering the past of a person who was unjustifiably killed. If a person is killed by a rogue police officer…
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212 Slaves Died on the São José Ship; This New Exhibit Will Share Their Story
Paul Gardullo lifted an iron ballast from a Portuguese slave ship that sank in 1794 out of a crate Wednesday morning and hefted its weight in his hands. “Anytime I come into contact with the objects from the São José, it’s an incredibly moving experience,” said the curator of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American…
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Racism Is Not Hate
I have a cousin named Jerry*. He is 10 years older than I am. He was a virtuoso drummer who you would have been willing to swear had four arms and three feet if you had ever heard him play. He became a prodigy on the piano even though he never owned a keyboard. He…
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To Black Church Folks Just Waking Up: A Welcome and a Warning
The past few weeks have been rough. We are dying daily, and yet many of you have been sound asleep. You saw Mike Mike’s body lying in the middle of Canfield Green in Ferguson, Mo., on Aug. 9, 2014, but you did not “cry aloud and spare not.” Some of you prayed, and others recited…