race & politics
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The Rent is Too Damn High in Washington, DC. How the Hell are People Affording It?
A few years ago, the Washington Post dropped a story that still makes the rounds on the internets even today about just how much it costs to live comfortably in the District of Columbia. Their suggestion: Roughly $108,000 per year. This was their household “happiness” estimate. According to that same article, DC has the third…
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Welcome To Pittsburgh, Where White People Open "90's Style Hip-Hop Fried Chicken" Spots In The Gentrified Hood
If this weren’t a real thing that was really actually happening, the concept of a 90’s style hip-hop fried chicken restaurant created by White people in the hood would make for a cute and clever Chappelle or Key & Peele skit. The owners would be the type of overzealous 90’s hip-hop fans who still rock…
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I Needed Some Help With My Little Sister, And I Found It Through Black Girls Code
Teenagers are perplexing. There’s something about that combination of physicality, virility and utter lack of perspective can make them seem cold and unfeeling. Mean girls, bully boys and all permutations in between hide their former cuteness and potential behind a veneer clouded by social media and raging, swirling, gurgling hormones. But, alas I have two…
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Cinco De Mayo Is The Super Bowl Of Cultural Appropriation
“It’s that time of the year again.” (In my Jay Pharoah voice) The biggest celebration of cultural appropriation is about to go down. Unless of course you had an early start like Baylor University’s chapter of Kappa Sigma, which threw a “Mexican-Themed” party this past weekend. “Cinco de Drinko” was the kickoff event for what…
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On Black Basketball Dads, And Not Knowing How To Feel About LaVar Ball
It took roughly a month at Sterrett Classical Academy for me to be known as the best basketball player there; an admittedly considerable feat for a 10-year-old sixth grader in a school with 14-year-old eighth graders. It was a status due to a combination of the reputation I already earned from playing with the Homewood…
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Underground Season 2 Episode 9 Recap
“A sense of safety transforms the spirit.” —- Georgia We return to the safe house and how come we haven’t seen the other ladies of the sewing circle in like a month of Sundays? If you recall from last week’s episode, Cato was taken in as a runaway slave and he’s there as a stowaway…
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Whiteness Matters More Than Jesus To White Evangelicals
Two weeks into Donald Trump’s presidency, I had to turn off the news alerts on my phone. Each time I received a news alert, I would get anxious because I did not know what the hell 45 was going to do next. He had already tried to ban folks from coming into the country, and…
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Bethune-Cookman University Officials Ought To Be Ashamed Of Themselves
Bethune-Cookman University, a historically Black university in Daytona Beach, Florida, has invited – and she has accepted – ironically titled Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos to be the commencement speaker next week. I’ve read several articles about this because I’ve honestly been trying to understand and what I’ve come up with is that there is…
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There's No Such Thing As "Good Police"
In the reality-adjacent Baltimore-centered ecosystem of The Wire, “good police” stood as the single highest honor a character could receive. It was reserved for those who possessed the inherent qualities making someone a naturally gifted police officer and also performed those duties with integrity and verve. You had to be born good police, but you also needed…
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Dear White People on Netflix Is Everything That The Movie Could Have Been Plus More. You Might Should Watch It.
(There are no spoilers in this piece. You’re welcome.) Let’s get this out of the way early: The movie Dear White People wasn’t very good. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t very good. For a movie with such a provocative title and premise, I was remarkably underwhelmed by the actual movie. When my friend and…