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A Letter of Thanks to My Son Who Wants to Be Luke Cage This Halloween
Dear L.J., I bought this house a few years ago because I wanted you to have what I did not: childhood memories of a place to call home, a backyard and the feeling of security that an apartment never could provide. I, however, was not ready for the responsibility of homeownership. When the toilet runs…
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Candyman, the Scariest âLeave Them Damn White Girls Aloneâ Movie Ever, Is 25 Years Old This Week
I canât believe itâs been 25 years. Candyman was released on Oct. 16, 1992, but I remember it like it was yesterday because I couldnât look in a reflective surface for a week after first seeing this film. To be honest, it took me over a year before I was able to enter the bathroom…
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Tina Campbell Is the Worst Type of Black Christian
Tina Campbell pissed me off. Here I am trying my damnedest not to curse because the niggas from church donât like it, and the singer from Mary Mary takes her ass on The Real and informs the world that she thought it logically consistent to vote for a nigga who said heâs grabbing folks by…
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Why âUltralight Beamâ Is the Official Song of Christians Who Love Jesus but Curse a Little
Iâm not good at being a Christian ⊠at least not the kind of Christian I was raised to be. At my home church, they take Romans 12:12 seriously, wherein Paul says, âDo not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds ⊠â For them, that meant there…
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Strong Island Is on Netflix. You Should Watch It Now
Officiating funerals is one of the hardest things I have to do in ministry. I struggle with the right words to say, the right Scriptures to read. This is difficult for me because I am agonizingly aware that the family before whom I stand lost someone they love. And no matter what I say, their…
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The 10 Best âBrown Liquorâ Songs of All Time
I didnât learn how to drink alcohol until I was 33. That is not to say that I did not partake of an adult beverage before then, but I was well into the third decade of my life before I learned to appreciate the nuanced flavor of different wines and spirits. I then began to…
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10 Things to Help Black Students Prepare for Life at a PWI
I regret not attending an HBCU. If I could do things over, I would have accepted those offers from either Howard or Hampton University and had a college experience devoid of the constant assaults on my humanity by way of microagressions and covert racism. Attending a PWI (predominantly white institution), I was ever aware of…
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Cersei Lannister Would Be an AKA: And the Other Black Greek Organizations These Game of Thrones Characters Would Pledge
In undergrad, there was a frat brother who would watch fictional movies and randomly announce which characters he thought would have tried to join black Greek organizations. Prince Akeem from Coming to America? He would have tried to be an Alpha. Jody from Baby Boy? He was Omega material. Bruce Willis in The Sixth Sense?…
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#NeverForget: 100 Years Ago, East St. Louis Was on Fire
On July 1, 1917, a car full of white men drove into East St. Louis, Ill., and opened fire, shooting into homes while black men, women and children slept in their beds. Troubled by this assault on their humanity, black citizens took up arms just in case these âjoy ridersâ returned. Not long after, white,…
