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Broadway’s Ain’t Too Proud Is a Rousing, Joyful Nod to Black American Life and Legacy
I have had the good fortune to have seen many a Broadway play (also quite a few off-Broadway, for that matter). But only a very few over the years have stayed with me—a short list would include Fela! The Mountaintop. Choir Boy. The House That Will Not Stand. Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar. The new Broadway musical Ain’t…
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Maybe We Wanna Be in Kansas, Dorothy. It Just Became the First State to Recognize the Right to an Abortion Independent of Roe v. Wade
In the ongoing, gut-wrenching, Handmaid’s Tale-like real-life saga that is the decimation of reproductive rights across the country, yet another state has weighed in on its hatred of women. And yet. And yet, this time, Kansas came through for the bodily autonomy of its women citizenry. On Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court declared that the…
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Children of Incarcerated Parents Remain Unseen; We Have to Do Better
Not all stories about children with parents in jail involve recounts of glass barriers, letters or collect calls. And sadly, many don’t end with reunions and redemption, but with pain and shame; some stories end way too soon. On Oct. 18, 2007, my father died from a pulmonary fungal infection contracted inside of an environmentally-hazardous…
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With Hints of the Central Park Five, Activists Charge That Disabled Black Man Possibly Railroaded Into Murder Charge
On Tuesday, Chanel Lewis was sentenced to life without parole for the murder of 30-year-old Karina Vetrano, who was raped and strangled in August 2016. There was an uproar in the Queens County Criminal courtroom after the judge rendered Lewis’ sentence, as some believe that the 22-year-old developmentally disabled Brooklyn man did not receive a…
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After Securing the Bag, Russell Wilson Delivers a Prime Package to His Teammates
Now that Russell “Future Baby Daddy” Wilson is the highest paid quarterback in the entire NFL, he decided to give the men on his offensive line a little gift — $12,000 in Amazon stock each. As reported by The Root, Wilson recently signed a four-year, $140 million contract extension with the Seattle Seahawks, and hey,…
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46 Chromosomes and a Mule: Falsely Romanticizing Our Complex Genetic Identities for Profit
Last Tuesday night, a friend sent me a video of a commercial framed as a short film titled “Inseparable.” It was set in America during chattel slavery and featured Abigail, an enslaved black woman, and her love interest, a white man who was seeking to entice her to run away with him to presumably engage…
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Color Me Shocked: 2 Virginia Police Officers Fired for Ties to White Supremacist Orgs
Frankly, the shock is not so much that two Virginia police officers from separate jurisdictions were caught tied to two distinct, respective white supremacist groups, but that they were fired after said affiliations became known. For years, there has been evidence that law enforcement has been targeted and infiltrated by white supremacist organizations; something that…
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Now That We Know There’s a Maternal Mortality Crisis, How Can We Help Fix It?
If you are outraged by the maternal health crisis—and you should be—where black women are dying disproportionately from preventable childbirth-related causes and mistreatment, here’s what you can do: Get Involved. I caught up with Elizabeth Dawes Gay, co-director of the Black Mama’s Matter Alliance (BMMA) this week, and she was clear: “There is something that…
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Those Left Behind: Charles Johnson Wants to Support Families Reeling After Black Women Die in Childbirth
Because Kira Johnson was so amazing (she spoke five languages, skydived, raced cars), she has been the face of what many are now coming to see as a crisis in black maternal health. Kira Johnson put a face on what activists have known for years—that black women’s rates of death during or up to a…
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Fox’s The Resident Partners With Activist to Shine Light on America’s Maternal Mortality Crisis
“Lea Davies wasn’t a priority.” So said Dr. Devon Pravesh (Manish Dayal) on Monday night’s episode of The Resident, a fast-moving, gripping procedural drama on Fox starring The Good Wife’s Matt Czuchry, Malcolm Jamal Warner as Dr. AJ Austin, and Shaunette Renée Wilson as Dr. Mina Okafor. Monday’s episode, “If Not Now, When?” is dedicated…
