3766 Search results for "irs"

R.I.P. John Hughes It’s been a tough summer for 80s babies. Though Purple Rain–and my sister–turned 25, those of us who remember taper-legged jeans and neon colors the first time around have had a rough summer vacation with the death of Michael Jackson and now John Hughes. Frankly, the shit is freaking me out. I’m […]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0KHbK81QxI I am looking forward to the theatre release of this comic documentary Good Hair about black folks’ obsession with ‘good’ hair. Chris Rock’s drive to start this project came when his daughter asked him why she didn’t have good hair. My best friend feels that “most people don’t think about [hair] in terms [of self-hate] as […]

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 […]

  There is a problem with leadership in America, particularly black America. From every angle when we think of our leadership there are three main themes (i.e., the problematic, the self-aggrandizer, and the bad).  Leadership is a tricky thing when you think about it. No one is at birth (here in United States of America) […]

One of my friends came to me this week and told me one of those stories that make you shake you head in disappointment. My eighteen-year-old male friend (For Blog purposes we will call him Timothy) was approached and asked out on a date by an older man (We will call him Bernis). Bernis was […]

On the day the Senate Judiciary Committee considers her nomination: I didn’t watch much of the Sotomayor hearings. I found them boring, and frankly, in some weird way they reminded me of my oral exams. And who wants recall that trauma on a weekday afternoon–especially when one is supposed to be writing a dissertation and […]

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 […]

Yesterday I received an all too normal phone call from my father telling me that someone in the community had been shot. So like I always do, I held my breath and prayed that it wasn’t somebody that I knew. Luckily in the case it wasn’t. Nonetheless, another young life from community was gone because […]

We are only moments away from the confirmation of the first Latina Supreme Court Justice and months into the first tenure of America’s first black President and I’ve become a bit inundated by Facebook fan pages, tweets, yahoo groups, swelling crowds, celebrating feminists, hardcore nationalists, just groups in general.  Hell, I’m exhausted. This isn’t to […]

Surrounded by white men in suits. Cameras flickering then flashing. Hands laid flat upon table. Nodding pensively. Swinging pendulum of opinions “we are happy” to “we have many reservations.” Judge Sonia Sotomayor listens as senator after senator summarize their thoughts about her appointment to the highest court in the land . . . a court […]

I’d been waiting for Maxwell’s return for what seemed like forever.  Yesterday, after an eight-year hiatus, he released his fourth studio album, BLACKsummers’ night.  This highly anticipated album is the first installment of a trilogy—the other two albums, which have already been named are set for release in 2010 and 2011.  The second album, blackSUMMERS’ […]

1. Is it bad that I want racial solidarity? I was surfing the Internet this weekend—because what else does a 19-year-old black kid in the hood have to do over 4th of July weekend, when he is surrounded by little kids with fire-cracker ammunition, those things can definitely be dangerous. While surfing the net, I […]