4287 Search results for "story"

Although I was rather unceremoniously catapulted from it, I occasionally hear stirrings in the Ivory Tower. And sometimes those goings-on warrant a drivel-laced comment from me. Late last week, Brainstorm, one of the blogs on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, ran a response to the its own feature on some members of Northwestern University’s first class of […]

Given the kind of stuff that I cover here, sometimes certain blogs are obligatory. This is one of them. A few weeks ago, I read an article about Toni Morrison, who has begun promoting her latest novel, Home, available to readers next month. As usual, I found Morrison’s words to be absurdly phenomenal and inspiring. I […]

In our society, it is drastically easier to be discouraged, than to be inspired. Current events usually revolve around innocent youth being shot, black faces being incarcerated, education systems failing, and hope being so muddled that many forget about any power we have to organize our communities for change. It is imperative to find narratives […]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxkxcsrveLw Adrienne Rich said, “When a woman tells the truth she is creating the possibility for more truth around her” (May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) On the last day of Women’s Her-story Month, I honor Leymah Gbowee for her work to empower women and girls globally. My favorite part of the TED talk […]

 When our days become dreary with low-hovering clouds of despair, and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, a power that is able to make a way out of no way and […]

To: President Barack Obama cc: Attorney General Eric Holder cc: GOP Presidential Candidates Dear Mr. President: I hope this letter finds you well. With the Republican race looking more and more like the Real Housewives of something and March Madness in full swing (sorry about your bracket), I imagine that your spirits are rather high. I hope […]

Now that it is Women’s Her-story month I thought I would stoke the fires with a blog about something many black women would have a problem with, but something I need to write and have been thinking about for some time . . . our love for President Barack Obama. Perhaps, not love, but our […]

According to the Huffington Post, the family of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin were lied to by police regarding the violent past of 28 year-old neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman, who shot and killed Martin last month “in self-defense,” after calling 911 to report the young man as “suspicious.”

As much as I’d like to blog about Oprah’s interview with the Houston family, I won’t. Instead, I would like to publicly, albeit briefly, use this space to show support for Jada Willams, the 13-year-old Rocheser, New York, girl who has been harassed since her essay comparing modern-day education to Frederick Douglass’ experience with his […]

As one looks more into the politics of respectability—a discourse that displays how many members of the black middle class strive to silence what they deem to be the moral inadequacies of those most marginalized—we are able to identify historical instances that were stifled in their time period and still today. We must reclaim the […]

Nikki Giovanni is a world-renowned poet, writer, educator and activist. Her finest moment might be “Ego-Trippin’,” a funny and empowering ode to blackness that read and flows like a funkier “The Negro Speaks of Rivers.” Check it out at BlackYouthProject.com / @BlackYouthProj

Why is black history celebrated during the month of February? Because it’s the shortest month of the year. This joke has circulated in black communities for several years, and the cynicism embedded in it is telling. It points to a web of frustration, resignation and resentment which rarely fails to ensnare the observant black.