1344 Search results for "black death"

Like most black children growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward, I spent most of my life medically uninsured. If you got sick, you stayed home and endured the experimental ministering of your grandmother whose medical knowledge consisted of a spoonful of Castor Oil, two drops of sweet oil in each ear, and effectual prayer to […]

a “prominent black scholar with reams of scholarship on bookshelves” couldn’t be distinguished from “Cousin Pookie.”

Last Friday (July 24), author E. Lynn Harris died. Though his passing is getting some attention, by comparison, the deaths of other, more famous people have peppered the mainstream media at a much higher rate. A lot of folks (still) don’t know who he is. Either way, learning of his death gave me pause. Not […]

In May 2008, I was in the North Lawndale community on my way home from work when I was attacked. I was attacked by 8-12 black children ranging from ages 10 – 12.  They were throwing rocks, bricks and etc , because I had refused to give the youngest one money. I didn’t fight back. […]

Over the next couple weeks I will be exploring a gay man’s struggle. Organizing my own experiences and what I have observed in other close friends, I will try to give an inside look to what it is like to grow up as a gay man in the inner city. There are obviously many aspects […]

It was the cry heard around the world when 11 year-old Paris Jackson said, “Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine . . . I just want to say I love him so much.” From coast to coast, eyes wept for her sorrow and tears trickled down […]

It’s taken about a week for my feelings about the BET Awards to be articulated as something beyond, “I hate Debra Lee,” or “If Harriet Tubman got frequent flyer miles, she’s now really upset there weren’t more blackout dates,” or “Where’s Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey when you need them?”** or “How long before they […]

I am deeply troubled by the buffoonery of the 2009 Black Entertainment Television Award Show where “blackness” guaranteed BET’s ownership of honoring Michael J. Jackson’s life. Of course, there is an endless laundry list of technical, sexist, homophobic, and simply tone death performances that I could blog about. However, the most compelling issue for me […]

  Black Men being Hard together In mid-April 2009, Little Bow Wow told a “funny story”, which was over a live web-chat, about not wanting to get his haircut by a barber that he assumed was gay.   His comments sparked some controversy among gay media when his remarks were leaked.  One such critique came from […]

Is it really that serious?  Well, I didn’t think so until two weeks ago when Jay-Z released his street single “Death of Autotune (D.O.A.)” as a precursor to his 11th studio album, Blueprint 3, which is scheduled for release in September.   There is no question that the track goes hard, I mean it’s been proven […]

Listen, I care more about the state of Jon & Kate’s marriage than I do Perez Hilton, but I gave the guy five minutes of my time yesterday—and I hope I don’t recall that little factoid on my death bed.  (By the way, I think it’s the hair that did it.  Jon’s plugs + Kate’s […]

The pressure is on for Afghani women to predict the gender of the children they give birth to and the pressure is on for those children to be boys.  An Afghani custom that seems to have gone on for years is to dress one young girl in the family as a boy, cut her hair short […]