Uncategorized
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Immigrants, Caribbean Literature, & Family
I like Elizabeth Nunez. I mean this two-fold. She’s sweet, yet direct, which reminds me of many of the matriarchs in my family. And like many of the matriarchs in my family, she’s taken on the role of helping others—in this case, black writers—through her work as a professor at Medgar Evers College and as…
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What Whitney Didn't Say
I’m glad to see Whitney Houston has found her way back to the music, but I was troubled by the lack of personal accountability in her recent turn on Oprah’s show. Oprah Winfrey has rocks for brains and is generally anti-male, anti-marriage, anti-family and anti-common sense, so there were no surprises, really, when Whitney got…
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Honoring Dead Son's Wish, Parents Wed at the End of His Funeral
Holding the body of the son he’d lost in a terrible car accident, Amilcar Hill looked across the room at his long-time girlfriend Rahwa Ghirmatzion and proposed. They had been together for years, raising their son Asa together in Buffalo, always putting off marriage because it seemed “superficial and unnecessary.” But it wasn’t to their…
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A Tribute for MJ, Ratings for MTV
According to People.com, Janet Jackson will be in attendance at Sunday’s Video Music Awards at Radio City Music Hall. Whether or not she’ll perform is anyone’s guess: It’s not known whether Janet will perform – it’s being billed as a “special appearance” – but her mere presence on stage is expected to give the show…
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Obama's School Daze
If the days leading up to President Barack Obama’s address to American schoolchildren Tuesday were retold on stage, the title would be a no-brainer: “Much Ado About Nothing.” Not since the rampant Y2K panic 1999, has frantic, reflexive public reaction so outweighed the actual harm of the potential problem.To anyone with an iota of sense, the…
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Health Care And You Don't Stop
Like many others in the hip-hop generation, as I dissect all these rants and essays, it appears that much of the discussion regarding health care reform and its potential effects—as told by the media and various legislators—is shrouded in that brand of policy legalese unique to the vernacular of Washington insiders. As a result, certain…
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A Matter of Principal
At 29, I became a high school principal after a beloved school leader had retired. The teachers in the building were fearful that I might ruin what they had: a highly functioning school filled with college-bound students and positive energy. They made it clear that they were giving me one year to see what I…
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uknowurblack
You know you’re spending too much time on Twitter when you start noticing the little games that people invent before all of your friends do. If you happened to be tooling around on the site on Sunday afternoon, you might have spotted a short-lived, explosive meme called “uknowurblackwhen.” As of around 6 p.m., a whopping…
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Cash Strapped Students Seal Their Eternal Damnation
It’s becoming increasingly common for massive debt to coincide with earning a degree. Earlier this year I opened up about my own plight with student loans. In short: The funds I secured to pay for my collegiate dreams turned into my post-graduate nightmare. I’d rather wear a winter coat in hell than deal with my…
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Putting Our Faith in Health Care
After an August recess filled with hair-pulling, chart-waving and town hall recriminations, the national debate on health care reform has come back to Washington. President Barack Obama’s joint address to Congress this evening has three audiences: lawmakers, pundits and a skittish public worried about what the contentious legislation means to them. But as plan A…