culture
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Letting Him Back In: Why Are We Unable to Let Go of Our Problematic Exes?
It could all be so simpleBut you’d rather make it hardLoving you is like a battleAnd we both end up with scarsTell me who I have to beTo get some reciprocitySee, no one loves you more than me And no one ever will. I can’t count how many times I played Lauryn Hill’s “Ex-Factor,” singing…
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Emil Wilbekin’s Native Son Will Change the Way Black Gay Men Are Represented in the Media
Emil Wilbekin is a superstar journalist who intends to change the way black gay men are perceived and received in mainstream media. He intends to shift culture through his initiative, Native Son, which is inspired by James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son. “Mr. Baldwin talks a lot about social justice, the black church, family,…
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Tracing Your Roots: Were My Southern Kin From Jamaica?
A search for the Caribbean origins of a reader’s family takes a few surprising turns. Dear Professor Gates: I want to learn about my paternal grandparents, Cecil E. Burley Sr. and Beatrice (King) Burley. They were both born in Jamaica but lived out their lives in Rome, Ga. I want to know how my grandmother…
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A Woman-to-Woman Conversation About a Man Is Not Always the Move
“Hello? May I speak to Barbara? Barbara, this is Shirley.” So begins a classic R&B song where one sista reaches out to another to have a woman-to-woman conversation about the man they are unwittingly sharing. Shirley found Barbara’s number in her man’s pockets and decided to call Barbara to break the news to her. But…
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What to Do if You’re Experiencing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you’re probably aware of the many cases of sexual harassment and assault that have dominated the news recently. From the #MeToo movement to Matt Lauer being fired, these stories have led to many people revealing their own horrifying experiences in the workplace. It feels as if each one…
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Will Mississippi’s New Civil Rights Museum Tell the Truth About the State’s Troublesome Past?
Myrlie Evers-Williams once had a hard time understanding how her husband could still love their home state of Mississippi so deeply. After all, Medgar Evers grew up in the segregated South and, like many African Americans, left America to fight in Europe during World War II, only to return to a state where black veterans…
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Why Nola Darling 2.0 Is Not a Good Example of Polyamory
Let me start off by saying that I loved the Netflix series She’s Gotta Have It. I thought it was brilliant, and I highly recommend it. It is classic Spike Lee—everything we want and expect from him in a film on the small screen. From the cinematography to the soundtrack to the acting, everything was…
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#Chance2018: Can We Just Impeach Donald Trump and Make Chance the Rapper President Already?
Google has teamed up with Chance the Rapper for a million-dollar campaign to bring computer science education to Chicago schools. USA Today reports that Google.org, the philanthropic division of the company that owns the internet, will donate $1 million to Chance’s* SocialWorks organization to increase the computer skills of kids from all racial, ethnic and…
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Golden Krust Is a Major Part of the Caribbean New Yorker Identity
Golden Krust CEO Lowell Hawthorne’s unabashed capitalist optimism feels out of step in a time of emboldened anti-black resentment. Still, when the businessman spoke to the Jamaican Observer as recently as October, he echoed the belief of many West Indian transplants—the blind hope that the American dream can be manifested through sheer will. “In my…
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Black Women, Don’t Throw Up Hands—Call the Bank of Hysteria to Vent
Sexual harassment got you down? Microaggressions become too much? Poverty a pain in the ass? Racism got you fucked up? Well, black women, there’s now a place to place all of your justifiable but sometimes “problematic” anger, an actual depository to just vent, let loose and scream (or text) your ass off like Nola Darling…