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Dear Writers, What Do You Have Saved in Your Drafts?
If you’re somebody who writes for a living or as a hobby or because it’s not that you won’t stop, it’s that you can’t stop, then there’s a really good chance you use some sort of publishing platform to share your thoughts with the world. Many of us started out on Blogspot or whatever came…
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I Don't Know How We're Going to Make It Through This Campaign Season Y'all
I’m typically a pretty optimistic person. For instance, I believe the children are our future. I believe in miracles. I even believe in magic. Despite my penchant for seeing a glass half-full, I’m not sure we gon’ make it through this campaign season y’all. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said “I may not get…
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America. In Black.: A VSB Essay Series About the Unique and Individual Experiences of Black People in America
One of the best parts about VSB over the course of our existence—which is going on 11 years(!!!!!) come March—is that we’ve had the opportunity to write about and share many different aspects of blackness in America. Some of it has been serious and some of it has been fun, but the vast majority of…
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Middle School Teachers Are Saints
When I was younger, say 7 or 8 years old, I wanted to be an astronaut/pediatric neurosurgeon/inventor/NBA player. Though my life has been successful, it’s safe to say I’ve stopped just short of being the most awesome multi-hyphenate careerist of all time. By the time I hit my teen years, I wanted to be some…
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Someone Added Me to the Notable Morehouse College Alumni Wikipedia Page and I Almost Cried (Thug Tears)
This morning started out like any other day. I hopped up out my bed, turned my swag on, looked myself in the mirror and said what’s up, and then promised myself not to throw any 10-year-old lyrics from Soulja Boy songs into anything I wrote today. But things happen. When I sat down to decide…
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When, If Ever, Should We Explain Blackness, for The Culture?
VSB, in conjunction with a black-owned and -serving bricks and mortar bookstore in Washington, D.C., Mahogany Books, started a book club a few months back. So far we’ve read James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, Glory Edim’s Well-Read Black Girl Anthology, and Kiese Laymon’s Heavy. Next month’s book is all about love by bell hooks.…
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If You Have Student Loans, Grown-Ish and Scholly Are Trying to Make It Rain on Your Loan Provider (for You)
If you’re like me, and presumably millions of other folks across Los Estados Unidos, student loan debt is a monkey on your back. I personally know people whose student loan burden ranges from $4,000 to as high as $200,000. Whether you’re on the low end or the probably-need-to-stay-high-to-manage-it high end, no sentence is more exciting…
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I Don't Ever Want to Try Whatever Kool-Aid Kanye West Keeps Drinking
Radical acceptance. The Serenity Prayer. “It is what it is.” That’s just a few of the myriad methods many of us employ when trying to come to grips with shit we don’t like. You didn’t get that Chrimmuh bonus you just knew you deserved? It sucks, but being unwilling to accept it isn’t going to…
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I #StandWithBennett. Hopefully, It’s for the Long Haul
Attending an HBCU tends to unlock one’s awareness about the other hundred or so HBCUs that you’re not attending. Some of us get to school and know the big name ones, but our football and basketball schedules put schools like Benedict College, Paine College, Lane College and Lemoyne-Owen College (to name a few) on the…
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Black Kids Swim Wants to Help Get More Black Children Into Competitive Swimming
When many of us think about athletic paths for our children to follow, competitive swimming isn’t typically high up on the list. Black Kids Swim (BKS) is an organization trying to change both the way we look at swimming in general and competitive swimming as an outlet and scholarship source for black children. We talked…
