News

he sixth and final season of the STARZ hit television show, Power, is set to premiere on Aug. 25. The season will be long as hell at 15 episodes, but considering the extremely high entertainment value, I’m willing to be all in and park my ass on the couch every Sunday night to pray on somebody else’s downfall. It really is the kind of must-see television that allows you to hate-watch, gleefully revel in somebody’s death and be amazed that a show where literally everybody should be dead has managed to make it to the sixth season.

Which brings me to one itsy bitsy, minor qualm I have with the news about the final season, dubbed “The Final Betrayal.” According to this here press release has, it would appear (according to my readings) that everybody will not die. As in some folks might live. This confuses me.

To wit:

“Season 6 brings us to the end of what we know is just the first chapter of the ’Power’ story. However, as one chapter comes to an end, another will begin,” said Carmi Zlotnik, President of Programming for Starz. “Courtney Kemp and 50 Cent have created a world rich with complex and dynamic characters and there are a number of stories we plan to tell as we continue to explore and expand the ‘Power’ universe.”

“We will follow some of your beloved ‘Power’ characters beyond the scope of the initial series,” said Courtney A. Kemp, “Power” Executive Producer. “But we will play with your expectations of which characters, where, and the master timeline of it all, creating a ‘Power’ universe as unpredictable as the original.”

For one, my nigga, what’s this “chapter” nonsense? Ain’t no chapters if everybody catches the fade they so aggressively deserve. But noooo, now Power is the hood version of George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice, a not quite finished series.

For twosies, who the fuck is a “beloved” character on Power? Seriously, I’ll wait on that answer. According to my quite scientific polling of niggas who watch Power, we all hate everybody. Spoiler alert, even if Angela is alive, wasn’t an’ soul upset that she got shot by Tommy. In fact, I’m fairly certain niggas celebrated. I know I did. Shit, the only death on the WHOLE-ASS SHOW that I felt kind of like “that sucks” about was Raina. If Tariq caught a hot one at the end of season 5, it’s entirely possible there could have been real live parades through New York City. With floats and everything.

The whole time, youngin’, MOST of us are literally waiting for Ghost to die. The Ghost and Angela story needs some death for that ass. Especially Angela, who is clearly filming season 6 because I follow her on Instagram and she’s sharing info so her contract is clearly not up. Like, I will be mad when I see her for the first time, even if it’s in Ghost’s dreams, which wouldn’t even be a thing if he were dead. But ya know, seasons and shit. Tommy? Cancel Christmas on his ass. Tasha got to go too. Keisha should already be dead. Kill the DA’s office too, blow the whole shit up.

Seriously, who likes anybody on this show outside of wanting them to die? It is LITERALLY what I watch for, the death of main characters. So how exactly will this show continue into different chapters? Even if I have no idea who the beloved characters would be, even if I had one, who has a storyline worth continuing? The only one with a survivable skill would be Ghost since he’s an actual businessman when he’s not a murderous psychopath. Perhaps if Tommy opened up a contract-killing office or something, but let’s be real, Tommy SHOULDN’T BE ALIVE RIGHT NOW.

But this is the beauty of television, isn’t it. I will be excitedly waiting for season 6 to start, fighting the air when I see Angela and Tariq and doing my weekly wish ritual hoping for the death of Ghost in a most splendid fashion. Well played Power.

But if you don’t kill everybody, THAT will be the real final betrayal. You owe us!

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

Because of my FOMO and my desire to both understand the bazillion Game of Thrones-related memes and references people can’t help but make, I decided to dive into the show. Plus, my entire ass Mondays are shot on social media and in the news curation service I use; a solid 10 articles immediately surface about the previous night’s episode and several headlines have spoilers. I am amused by how upset folks have been at episodes as this eighth and final season comes to a close. GoT is a cultural phenomenon like a mug.

At this point, I’m nearly at the end of season 3; so I figured what better time to share some thoughts about where I am with the show than now? Plus, it’s hard as hell to binge this show because I have little children and the sheer amount of sex and violence means I have a much, much smaller window of time to watch. At this rate, it’s going to be a while before I get to the end of the road. So let’s just do it now. Allons-y. Oh yeah, much like winter, spoilers are coming. That’s a GoT joke. If you don’t watch and/or are getting into the series, spoilers are definitely coming, though.

1. Because of the ease with which I’ve taken up this show this time around (I tried many years ago and couldn’t get into it), I have no idea what held me up before. Perhaps because of the show’s elevated status and the excitement for this final season, I’ve approached it with a different heart and soul; but I will concede that I’m rather enjoying the show. The amount of drinking games you can play (number of breasts you’ll see, heads cut off, etc) is astonishing. Granted, I was never a person who was insistently not watching, but I wasn’t compelled to join the fray either.

2. At the same time, I’m not entirely sure why folks think this show is soooo great. I like fantasy and shit and understandably, I’m not even halfway through the show, but I keep waiting for the “holy shit, GOAT!” moment. The dragons make me excited, though.

3. I know I’m supposed to hate him, but holy fucking crab cakes, Batman, do I viscerally hate Joffrey. Like, whew chilay! I want buddy roasted. Permanently. By a dragon.

4. There are a significant number of insufferable characters on this show. Jaime Lannister is one of the most insufferable. Clearly, I’m not the only one who felt that way as homie’s fortunes suuuuck and now Uno isn’t just a card game. Luckily, he doesn’t have to attempt to make it clap too often.

5. There are a lot of damn characters on this show. Whiteness is everywhere. I cannot remember the name of tons of folks and then here comes some new person who I think is important but maybe not and I legit cannot tell and they might could be killed in the next episode after changing the whole show for like 10 minutes anyway. Just saying, there are a lot of damn characters on this show.

6. This show is very intriguing in its framing. For most of the time I’m watching, the television show seems very middle ages, ya know? Hard livin’, with nothing but fighting, fuckin’ and well, a game of thrones. But then, there’s this whole other actually fantastical show that exists within it where there are dragons, dragon mothers and the Dothraki and fuckin’ Qarth and multiple people who disappear and magical houses and shit. I’m sure the whole thing will come together eventually in later seasons I’ve yet to reach, but right now, it almost feels like Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail, which if you’ve seen it, was like two entirely non-related, different movies running parallel for 85 minutes of the 90-minute movie.

7. Again, I know it’s early, but I really hope the direwolves mean something substantial by the end of the show. It’s like they matter but they don’t. I just like the wolves and the dragons.

8. Right now, Tyrion is my favorite character but I also really like Daenarys because she’s a dragon mother and she’s out for blood and shit. I’m guessing considering this show’s trajectory, either both will die or I will hate them both by the time the show is over.

9. I must say, the way folks have been seemingly unhappy with the final season has me less than interested in continuing to trudge this out. While I’m enjoying it, it is becoming a bit of a labor of love because I can’t truly binge it. I will keep on pushing but I really hope the series finale makes up for it all because I’d hate to know how crappy it will become and fight my way through it all anyway only to feel how everybody else feels right now.

10. In case it isn’t clear, I’m here for the dragons. Because of social media I know she loses at least one (and maybe another) and that makes me sad. If I had three dragon children I’d be so upset if I lost any of them.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

Since November 2018, VSB has teamed with Mahogany Books, an online and brick-and-mortar, black-owned bookstore located in Washington, D.C., to do a monthly book club. On the first Friday of each month, we meet in the bookstore and discuss the book we read for the month in a very casual, entertaining and often enlightening manner.

Here is a list of the books we’ve read so far:

The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin; Well-Read Black Girl Anthology, edited by Glory Edim; Heavy by Kiese Laymon; All About Love by bell hooks; Heads of the Colored People by Nafissa Thompson-Spires; She Begat This: 20 Years of the Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan; and What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker by Damon Young.

Well, I’d like to get us more involved in the book club discussions. Along with the actual in-store discussion, I think we should also do one on the VSB site. Basically, at the beginning of each month, we’ll announce the book here (along with our social media) and then on the first Friday, we’ll do an open thread here on VSB, so folks can discuss the book if they so choose.

With that said, the book for May is Yuval Taylor’s Zora and Langston. Here is the book synopsis from the publisher:

Zora and Langston is the dramatic and moving story of one of the most influential friendships in literature.

They were best friends. They were collaborators, literary gadflies, and champions of the common people. They were the leading lights of the Harlem Renaissance. Zora Neale Hurston, the author of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Langston Hughes, the author of “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “Let America Be America Again,” first met in 1925, at a great gathering of black and white literati, and they fascinated each other. They traveled together in Hurston’s dilapidated car through the rural South collecting folklore, worked on the play Mule Bone, and wrote scores of loving letters. They even had the same patron: Charlotte Osgood Mason, a wealthy white woman who insisted on being called “Godmother.”

Paying them lavishly while trying to control their work, Mason may have been the spark for their bitter and passionate falling-out. Was the split inevitable when Hughes decided to be financially independent of his patron? Was Hurston jealous of the young woman employed as their typist? Or was the rupture over the authorship of Mule Bone? Yuval Taylor answers these questions while illuminating Hurston’s and Hughes’s lives, work, competitiveness, and ambition, uncovering little-known details.

So pick up a copy of the book; it’s available at all booksellers (here’s the link from Mahogany Books). Give it a read and meet us back here on Friday, June 7. If you’re in Washington, D.C., come check us out on June 7 from 6-8 p.m., at Mahogany Books, 1231 Good Hope Road SE. We’ll also livestream the convo via VSB’s Facebook page.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

John Singleton. Dead at 51. Stroke/Hypertension.

Nipsey Hussle. Dead at 33. Murdered.

Phife Dawg. Dead at 45. Diabetes.

Paul Bromley. Alive at 35. Overweight and spiritually confused.

Is my clock ticking?

Sounds morbid right? Anxious? Yeah, I know …

As a black man living in America, thinking about my mortality has become a new daily obsession. It seems like there are a million different ways to kill a black man before his time and each form of death appears to be violent, painful and destructive.

I’m scared.

Statistics show that black men have the worst health among all other races in America. We suffer from the lowest life expectancy and the highest death rate. We live 7.1 fewer years than other races. Forty percent of black men die prematurely from cardiovascular diseases. Forty-four percent of black men are considered overweight and 24 percent of us are considered obese. Suicide and homicide are also leading causes of death for black men between the ages of 15-34.

While it is true that institutionalized racism, the impacts of mass incarceration and lack of access to health services, care, insurance and education all play a role in contributing to the sad state of black men’s health, there is another major contributor that many people in our community would rather not talk about or even acknowledge. And that’s the problem—our silence. When it comes to matters of mental and physical health among black men, many of us fail to engage in meaningful or preventative conversations until the problem has already occurred.

Growing up, there were two constants in my life: being fat and being saved. In our house, you could never have enough food or enough Jesus. Both represented love. On Sundays, you ate. On Sundays, you worshiped. When you mourned, you ate. When you mourned, you prayed. When you were happy, you ate. When you were happy, you gave God the glory. You ate what you were given, you wore what you were told and you worshiped the one and only true living God that you were told was the one and only true living God. You didn’t question God. You didn’t question your food. You didn’t question your elders. To do so was considered disrespectful.

Yet, I questioned everything but was forced to do so in silence. I never felt like I had control over my body, my mind or my spirituality. Even though we watched family member after family member become diagnosed with diabetes, high blood pressure and suffer from obesity, we didn’t talk about it or do anything to change the way we ate or took care of ourselves. I was silenced until I ballooned to 280 pounds as a 17-year-old.

Coming of age, I dealt with issues of depression, the definition of masculinity and bullying. When I tried to talk to those closest to me about my issues, the only solution I was given was to “pray about it.” So, I did. I prayed to God and nothing happened. Because nothing happened, I became even more depressed. Because I was depressed, I overate. Because I overate, I gained more weight. Because I gained more weight, I was bullied and became more depressed. Because my prayers didn’t end the bullying, I became resentful of God. Becoming resentful of God killed me spiritually, and the food I was consuming to mask that bitterness and resentment was slowly killing me. It was a vicious cycle of food and silence from me and my family about my health, obtaining therapy or how we ate.

The unhealthy spiritual, mental and dietary habits that I learned as a child followed me into adulthood. I continued to yo-yo in weight until I reached 310 pounds, the heaviest I have ever been. I struggled through depression and spiritual spite until I almost lost my life, my family and my mind. Everyone around me saw this happening, yet everyone was silent. Not wanting to talk about or acknowledge what my learned actions and habits were doing to my body and my promise, people offered me only thoughts, prayers and chicken wings. My life was out of control.

As an adult, I realize that the only thing promised in life is death. I look at my wife and our beautiful children and the thought of my early demise literally brings me to tears. Who is going to hold my wife at night and make her feel protected when she is afraid? Who is going to lift her up, tell her she is intelligent, make her feel beautiful when the parasites that feed on the self-esteem of black women attack? Who is going to prepare my son to embark upon this world as a black man? Who is going to teach him emotional intelligence? Who is going to show him how to respect and love black women? Kodak Black? And my daughter—can she be a daddy’s girl if her daddy is no longer here? Whose girl will she be? Will I be here to tell her she is smart and beautiful every day so that the first time she hears that from a man it won’t be from somebody’s musty nephew who is only out to use her for her body? Will she know that in ALL matters, it is her body and her choice ALWAYS?

Or …

Will I allow my family to go through life mourning my early demise because I couldn’t say no to a pork chop sandwich? Will I go through life bitter, depressed and spiritually depleted, making way for the stresses of the world to consume me because I never took the time to figure out my own personal relationship with God or to obtain therapy to supplement my prayers?

No. I don’t receive that. I don’t receive that for myself, I don’t receive that for my family and I don’t receive that for any other black man in America.

Black men in this country live in a space that was literally created to violently suck the life from us and discard our black bodies like trash. We don’t have the time or the room for self-sabotage. Nobody is coming to save us. We must begin the uncomfortable work of dealing with issues of obesity, breaking generational cycles, questioning and seeking practices of spirituality and religion, unlearning the demonization of mental health maintenance and challenging the silent yet loud unwillingness of those closest to us to acknowledge how problematic and detrimental sweeping matters of health under the rug can be.

We have to start looking beyond the instant gratification a meal can bring to see how certain diets can affect our future or even make it so that we don’t have one. We have to teach our young men how to deal with stress and mental illness outside of tithing and prayer because sometimes, prayer alone isn’t enough. The same God who created the heavens and earth also created therapy, exercise and medication. Love is an action word. You can’t just say you love someone and expect them to believe you without actions. We have to start loving one other enough to be full, complete people mentally, physically and spiritually as if our lives depend on it.

Because they do.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

I have a complicated relationship with Alabama because Alabama is a complicated place. Though I’ve lived less time there than anywhere else in the world that could be considered home (fall of 1993 through spring 1997 and only two summers, ever), it is also the state where I went to high school and where my parents live and where my father is from. I love driving from Atlanta (another location that is home for similar life and family reasons) to Huntsville, Ala., because the route my family often takes is very scenic and because I love seeing the “Alabama the Beautiful” sign as you cross from Menlo, Ga., into Mentone, Ala., on Georgia State Road 48 that becomes Alabama State Road 117. Alabama, actually, is quite beautiful.

But the state isn’t just its lands; it is also its people and its history, and Alabama is a state fraught with the worst of both. When outsiders think of Alabama, many think of racist white people, slavery and all-around, good ‘ol American racism, and they aren’t entirely wrong. I lived in northern Alabama, home of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center and less popularly known Cummings Research Park, the second-largest research park in America (and the fourth largest in the world), specializing in research and development in a vast array of industries, from aerospace to biotechnology. It is by far the most educated part of the state and no other part comes close and yet, Confederate flags are never far away and cotton fields decorate the fringes of the city. Huntsville is still in Alabama, even if it doesn’t have the same “feel” as what people think of the rest of the state.

Still, I like it there. I like being at my parents’ house and listening to the outdoors. They don’t live in the red-clay outdoors of my father’s youth but in a city that still manages to quiet down in the evenings. I love visiting my father’s childhood town, where I used to play with my cousins and walk for miles a day just to go get something from the actual, factual country store, just to walk miles back to the house because we had nothing else to do and all of our time was ours.

Time has always moved slower in Alabama to me, no matter what part of the state I’ve been in. And that’s always been a good thing. My family is all through the state, from the north to the south, the east to the west. We are Alabama, but the good parts. Not the parts that hate black people and bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham or the reason Montgomery had to hold a bus boycott or Bull Connor and his ilk or the people who made Bloody Sunday a part of civil rights history in Selma on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in 1965.

And we’re definitely not the people from Alabama who decided that a woman has no right to her own body. I’m not surprised that Alabama passed into law HB 314, the “Human Life Protection Act,” a measure banning nearly all abortions in the state except in cases where the mother’s health is in peril. The super conservative government of the state wants to take down Roe v. Wade because why should a woman make a decision for her own life? I’m not surprised the state of Alabama is happy to take on that battle.

This is a state where judges (and future state chief justices) fight for the right to post the 10 Commandments in courtrooms despite the separation of church and state being a tenet of the very Constitution white people love so much. The right to bear arms? Absolutely! It’s in the Constitution. The stewards of government respecting the rights of its citizenry? Eh...as long as it doesn’t impede on the desires of those stewards. In Alabama, Jesus is white, the only religion is Christianity, and we’re all Baptists or Methodists. And the Bible says thou shalt not kill. So you shalt not—unless the people you kill don’t deserve the same rights you have, which is almost nobody but white men in power, apparently. In Alabama, the female governor signed away her own right to choose her own destiny. In Alabama, who is entitled to rights is a moving target for everybody but white men in power. Even the rights of their wives are up for debate.

In Alabama.

My nephew is a junior at the same high school in Madison, Ala., that I graduated from. At this point next year, he’ll be a few weeks away from graduating and beginning a new chapter in his life. I want him so far away from Alabama that he’ll lose his accent. I want him to get out and experience life in new places. He wants to be a pediatric neurosurgeon, and though his top choice, the University of Alabama-Birmingham, has one of the best medical schools in the country, so do others. I’d love for him to go to an HBCU like Morehouse College (for obvious reasons) or Howard University (because it’s in Washington, D.C., where I live). I’ve asked him to research and apply to at least one other top-tier school because his grades are amazing and many of those schools can relieve your whole financial burden pending household income. He’s thinking about Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Mostly, though, I just want him to leave Alabama. It’s not only because I want him to experience life; it’s also because I want him to try out a place where the state hasn’t spent its entire existence trying to tell everybody who isn’t a white man that they don’t matter. I know many southern states fit that bill, and even though Georgia isn’t much better (I know), as we say in the A, once you leave Atlanta, you hit Georgia. And he’d be in Atlanta with family. I just want him to be in a place that loves him more than Alabama will ever pretend to. That might not be a totally fair reading of the state, but I’ve read a lot of books and I’m not that far off.

And yet I still have told a family I know who is moving to Huntsville that it’s a nice place, in Alabama. I love the state and always will, but a large part of that love is personal nostalgia and my own family history. It might be Alabama, but to me, it is also Tuskegee, Alabama A&M, Miles, Stillman and Oakwood. It is Muscle Shoals. We roll big body ’Lacs and Caprices. And red dirt and Mason jars. And like much of black history in America, it’s full of survival and overcoming injustice. It’s a hotbed of the civil rights movement. It is Chambers County and the town of Five Points, where my family is from. It’s Madison. It’s my best friend and where he met his end, but also his mother and son. It’s my family and the lives they’ve carved out successfully and happily. It’s love. But the hate part is ingrained in the fabric, too.

And again, Alabama is beautiful. I’d wager that all of us from there who have sat on a porch or ruined a white shirt in the red dirt or driven through the state from Huntsville to Mobile would say the same. It’s ours. Even if everybody else thinks Alabama is a place to go and die at the hands of some KKK member, we know that’s not true. We also know that it isn’t a state for everybody, including some of us. It’s not a state for me and hasn’t been in the 22 years since I left. I enjoy visiting but Alabama has often been quite clear that I don’t belong there long term.

Because just as much as I love seeing that “Alabama the Beautiful” sign on the way in, something almost always happens to ensure that I’m equally excited about seeing that Georgia sign on my way out, reminding me that Georgia’s (or anywhere else for that matter) on my mind.

I have a complicated relationship with Alabama because Alabama is a complicated place.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

Last weekend, I was invited to a brunch hosted by Ebele Okobi, who is Facebook’s Head of Public Policy, Africa, and was my de facto tour guide and event planner during my week abroad. There were nine of us there—an African diasporic reunion of black people scattered throughout the globe but settled in London. Among the many conversations we had was a tongue-in-cheek assessment of the variances within the “brands” of racism, which then segued into the ways each country with an African slave-owning history currently reckons with its past. (Brazil pretends it didn’t exist at all, America acknowledges its existence but denies the existence of any sort of foundational residue from it, etc.)

And, well, I’m embarrassed to admit that it was here that I learned, for the first time, of the Congolese genocide, where up to 10 million people were killed during Leopold II’s 23-year-long rule of the Congo Free State, and countless others were systematically raped, tortured, dismembered and displaced.

Perhaps I was taught this in some history class decades ago and just forgot. Either way, that was the most American I felt in my time there.

This sort of cruelty that people with power exhibited towards vulnerable people—a process equal parts systematic, structural, intentional and gleeful—existed wherever colonization did, and still does today. It is not a uniquelyAmerican trait. But it is an American trait, more essential to our construction and our collective zeitgeist than Babe Ruth. There have been stretches in American history, of course, when the central driving force behind legislation and policy and law have been more empathetic and less antagonistic. But in the span of our history, these moments are outliers. Perhaps even anomalies. If America was honest about who and what it is, we’d sell the snapshots and postcards of the men and women smiling during lynchings at the Cheesecake Factory.

I am reminded of this history this week, as the state of Alabama passed a set of abortion-related measures and restrictions that would seem to be pointless (“Why would they do this?” an otherwise sane person might ask) if you hadn’t yet realized that the punishment is the point. This isn’t about preserving “life.” They—the governor who signed this bill, the legislators who created it, the people who voted for them, and the governors, legislators and constituents in each state where similar laws are being drafted up—just want to enact pain. They want to punish women. For possessing sexual agency. For wanting bodily autonomy. For enjoying sex. For not having babies. For having babies. For not possessing what they believe to be the birthright privileges of whiteness and maleness. It’s petty. It’s punitive. It’s vindictive. They want women—particularly women who are black or brown and/or poor—to suffer.

The silver lining here is that this realization can and should be freeing—as any compulsion to compromise, to “reach across the aisle,” to build a bridge, to extend an olive branch, or to find common ground should be set ablaze and stuffed into a cashew-shaped canoe.

You can’t sway a sadist when your pain is their greatest pleasure. You just build more canoes.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

I recently took a trip down to Atlanta for my niece’s high school graduation. Despite the amount of Red Bull I consume (does anybody else think the only reason flavored Red Bull exists is to mix with vodka?), I do not have wings. So I had to fly. There are times when I fly that I’ll spring for an upgrade to either first class if it’s not too, too expensive or just to move up in boarding so I can ensure my bag makes it into overhead cabin space. This time, however, I took whatever the airline gave me, and boy did Delta show its ass.

For one, Delta has done away with boarding zone numbers in favor of a more word-dependent system but in proving that the airline doesn’t keep up with social media or black people, the last zone to board is now called “Basic.” And really, calling it a zone is unfair; this is the point in boarding when the folks at the counter just say “anybody else waiting around who thinks they’re getting on this flight, you can board now.” On my flight to Atlanta, Delta didn’t even say that as apparently the “Basic” zone only included myself and another person, so they actually called our names over the loudspeaker like we had gotten lost in the airport or something. Do better Delta.

Well, buying a “Basic” ticket pretty much put me into a seat towards the back of the plane. And you know what that means. It means I got to sit with the folks who could afford a plane ticket, but also think that they should be able to afford a more expensive plane ticket or an upgrade, so their behavior comports to that fantasy as opposed to the reality of sitting in seat 39B. This creates an unintentionally funny social experiment of annoying people. You know the type—the kind who sit in standstill traffic and honk their horn because if the cars around them would JUST MOVE they’d be able to go about their day just fine. People are dumb. And all of those people are on airplanes, naturally. Here are five of the most ridiculous of them.

1. The person in the last row who somehow decides that as soon as the plane stops they should grab their shit and try to run down the aisle to get as close to the front as possible.

If this is you, stop it. You’re not getting more than two rows ahead and you’re fucking up the feng shui and flow of deboarding traffic. Because if you’re going to do THAT, then you’re definitely going to try to squeeze past others while they grab their bags and not say excuse me, as you fuck up everybody else’s deboarding process.

2. The person who is in row 21 but had to put their bag in the overhead above row 27 but thinks that the whole-ass plane should wait for them to get their bag before row 22 up and gets off the plane.

I saw this yesterday. A woman literally stood in the aisle asking people six rows back to get her bag out of the overhead compartment and pass it down as opposed to waiting like she ended up HAVING to do. Just stop it.

3. The people in the window seats in any rows behind say 10 in coach, who are trying to stretch out and inch closer to the aisle that’s being blocked by, well the people closest to the aisle.

Stop touching me.

4. The folks who try to get out into the aisle for no good reason because they can’t go nowhere and obstruct the people trying to get their bags out because it’s their turn to actually get off the plane.

I realize this whole ridiculous list includes the built-in notion that there is order to getting off a plane. Some of you don’t believe this. Some of you believe you if you can beat the system, then you should beat the system. In very rare instances the system is beatable on a packed plane. But mostly, you are just like the rest of us who ain’t first-class mofos who will need to patiently and chillfully wait to get the fuck up off the plane. Eckspecially if your ass is in the “economy coach” class rows above 30. It’s gon’ be a minute, buddy. Let the folks get their bags, my G.

5. The people in middle or window seats who ask you to get their roller bags from the overhead compartment and pass it to them taking up valuable real estate as they open it up and check to make sure all the shit that was in there when they put it in the overhead space is still there EVEN though literally nobody could have stuck them for their paper without them knowing.

I hate you people. Just perish. Panama says just perish.

Bonus

On my flight to Atlanta, I was in row 35 and had the aisle seat. I was sitting next to two chaps with an affinity for flying planes who spent THE FIRST HOUR of an hour-and-a-half flight talking about famous plane crashes. Bruuuuuuuuh.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

“You’re so different. You’re so articulate. Why do you talk like a white girl? You’re the whitest black girl I know.”

Comments like these beg the question: What makes you black? Is it merely the color of one’s skin? Is it a state of mind? Knowing the lyrics to Cardi B’s songs?

It took me a while to embrace that my blackness was not the stereotype others believed.

In some ways, I am different. I was lucky to be raised in a household where I received all that I needed, with some of what I wanted. My parents encouraged me to spread my wings and move from my native New York to Miami for a job as a prosecutor. Being a black prosecutor was isolating, but I found others like me midway through my career.

I lived in a weird juxtaposition—I was a black female attorney, holding down a teaching job on the side, which allowed me some luxuries in life like a nicer car and the ability to travel. I never took it for granted; but in certain circles, I got pushback.

The message? That I “don’t know the struggle.”

Every black person’s struggle takes a different path but has the same theme. In my legal career, the struggle is respect, being heard, and having the ability to make meaningful change to uplift communities of color. The bias looks the same—while some people of color may be hesitant to embrace you because you’re perceived as “bougie,” certain white folks marvel that you can afford a luxury purse or a high-end foreign car without being tied to illegal activity. I was once at an event when a judge joked to me whether or not my Michael Kors purse was a result of dropping cases as a prosecutor.

No lie.

In doing community work, I often had to work harder to gain the credibility of my fellow people of color because I just seemed “so different.” One day, I was picking up a friend who lived in a poorer area of the city. She sent a young niece to let me know she was running late. I told her no problem. The niece went back to my friend and said, “why does she talk like that?”

“Like what, Sweetie?”

“Like a white girl”

I never was great at the code switch—I just was always me. Besides, I had no code to switch from. The result was working doubly hard in every environment.

Finally, I just stopped.

I always bristle when someone says “well s/he’s black, but you know, not really” or “s/he is the whitest black person I know.” Often this is said by a white person, possibly thinking it’s some sort of compliment, along the same lines of “you’re just so articulate.”

Really? How is that? Because the person doesn’t fit some sort of stereotype? Speak in a certain way? Throw the black power fist in the air for your entertainment?

To me, it’s not just about knowing pop culture or the latest urban wear designer. It’s knowing your history and being authentic to your roots. I’m an African-American woman, born of two immigrant Caribbean parents. If you really want to get down to it—Afro-Caribbean-American. I wear my hair in dreadlocks as a nod to the natural beauty of my own hair texture, not what Hollywood or someone else says is beauty. I can recite every Public Enemy song, but not so much for hip-hop past the year 2000 (I feel the message has been lost—with a few exceptions). I serve my community and humanity at large to the best of my ability. I fight injustice where I can. I see my dark complexion in the mirror and feel proud, strong and beautiful. Being African American presents challenges because of the ignorance of some, but I was given the tools at birth to be a warrior for positive change.

I’m in a place where I believe that the work I do daily reflects my authenticity. The work of fighting for racial equality is too important to get caught up in how I look or sound to others.

This is me.

1. Because reserving an entire section of the store for Memorial Day soirees, crispy cabaret linens, post-prom line-up BBQs and Kenny Lattimore jazz cruise brunches on skinny rivers proves that someone at Macy’s clearly did their research and knows we’re approaching prime “niggas throwing and/or attending parties where you’re mandated to wear all white” party season.

2. Because from now on, I think we should just refer to all displays of all-white clothing in department stores as the “Lattimore.”

3. Because the Lattimore in this Macy’s even has the blackest of mannequins.

4. Because from now on, I also think we should just refer to black mannequins as the “Unsullied.”

5. Because while as grating as it is when someone grants a white person a mythical invitation to “the cookout” as a reward for just not being a terrible person—AND WHY ARE YOU INVITING EXTRA PEOPLE TO COOKOUTS ANYWAY WHEN YOU KNOW THAT THE MEATS ARE ALREADY SPARSE AND ALL YOUR BLACK ASS BROUGHT WAS SOME PRINGLES???—no one would dare extend that offer to a white party.

6. Because the only white people you’ll find at white parties are Uber drivers and Dirk Nowitzki.

7. Because that might be irony but I’m kinda scared to call it that because I’m not quite sure if it is and I don’t want to get irony-shamed.

8. Because this Lattimore even has age and behavioral diversity. You have the awkwardly printed vests for cat daddies and Kappas. The white polo shirts for niggas who have to work the day of the party and won’t be able to go home and change. The ripped Levi’s for fuckboys and Libertarians; the linen shorts for retired fuckboys and Republicans; and a short-sleeved hoodie contraption for Drake and Cory Booker.

9. Because this Macy’s also has a deal where if you buy over $100 worth of clothing, you get an access code to a specifically curated cookout playlist that Macy’s partnered with Spotify and Questlove to create.

10. Because I totally made that last one up but you believed it was true because if the Lattimore exists then anything’s possible.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

My daughter is now 10 years old. This means in eight years she’ll be off to Spelman College in Atlanta to become the best she can be at the best HBCU in the country. I remember announcing on this here website that her mother was pregnant. Oh, how time flies. While my daughter can go wherever she wants—and I will be fine with whatever she decides to do with her life as long as it’s what she wants to do—if you ask her right now, she’ll tell you Spelman. Look at gawd.

This means I need to make her HBCU-ready. Or at least make sure she ain’t like waaaaaay too many folks I know who went to HBCUs who weren’t up on various parts of the game. It was quite illuminating. One thing that I learned at Morehouse College is that even though it’s a black school, so many of our experiences were vastly different. I know we are not a monolith but you’d think some things translated across the African-American diaspora. Well, since I’ve found that to be untrue, I will ensure that my children are prepared to not be outsiders to any of the more standard facets of black culture so that there will be no blackness shaming up in nobody’s dorm as niggas break out the decks of cards. Here are seven black-ass things I will make sure my chirrens are up on.

1. How to play Spades

My kids will not be the ones who don’t know how to count books or even understand how the game is played. They will know how to play Joker-Joker-Deuce-Deuce, know proper Card Slap Etiquette and how to score. Basically, one weekend a month, my home will be a Spades camp. Feel free to send your kids if you don’t know how to play. I will accept cash or money orders and I’m not going back and forth with you niggas about it. Also, Uno.

2. How to do the Electric Slide

At no point will they be outsiders at weddings, funerals, cookouts, family reunions or random warm, sunny days on the yard. Where there are two or more gathered in the name of blackness, a line dance is threatening to break out.

3. The significance of Frankie Beverly & Maze’s “Before I Let Go”

Black staple. Call it the Urban Swingline. See what I did there? My chirrens will know how to bust out the Electric Slide to this song AND KNOW this means its time to go at the club, or it’s time to really enjoy yourself at the cookout. But most importantly, they will know the best time to unleash the song. Dracarys! Do you see what I did there?

4. Cameo’s “Candy” for the same reason as “Before I Let Go”

And because Beyoncé really does care about the people, she put them both together in one song so everybody can win at the same damn time. By the time my kids are in college, presumably at HBCUs, I believe Bey’s version will be the pre-eminent version.

5. At least the whole first verse to “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing”

I know maybe one person who knows the entire second and third verses of this song. Most of us just hum. But anybody making you sing past the first verse is a masochist anyway, so as long as they have the first verse down we Gucci and I’ve done my job.

6. The black classic movies

Brown Sugar, Coming to America, The Color Purple, Love Jones, Love & Basketball, The Best Man, Boomerang, Boyz N The Hood ... I could keep going. There will be watch sessions of them all. Multiple times. Won’t be nobody talking about, “YOU HAVEN’T SEEN LOVE JONES!” to my kids. No siree, Bob.

7. The Autobiography of Malcolm X

This will happen. Because it must happen. Because it will always be one of the most important books ever. They will also read Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God and pretty much as many of the books on my black shelves as possible.

I know there are as many different ways to be black as there are black people on the planet. But my kids won’t be deficient in any of the aforementioned ways dammit.

Source: https://verysmartbrothas.theroot.com/

A new court order could potentially affect thousands of migrant families separated at the southern border before the government’s “zero tolerance“ policy was announced in 2018. A federal judge responded Friday (March 8) to the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) motion to order the government to accurately account for allmigrant family separations, including those that took place beginning as far back as July 2017, NPR reports.

Back in June 2018, Judge Dana Sabraw of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California ordered the Trump administration to terminate its family separation policy and demanded that 2,300 children be immediately returned to their families. On Friday, Sabraw granted the ACLU’s request to expand the class action lawsuit to include the thousands of additional separated families that were revealed earlier this year. As Colorlines previously reported:

The United States Department of Health and Human Serivces’ (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released a watchdog report on Thursday (January 17) indicating that thousands more children were separated from their parents at the border than what was previously understood…authorities are reportedly not sure what happened to many of the children.

The OIG report prompted the ACLU to “include the parents of those children in the same group as those affected by zero tolerance, whose reunification [Judge Sabraw] ordered last summer,” according to NBC News. 

Sabraw agreed with the ACLU in his most recent ruling and officially “defined the additional class members as all migrant families separated between July 1, 2017, and June 25, 2018,” NPR reports. “The hallmark of a civilized society is measured by how it treats its people and those within its borders,” the judge wrote in his 14-page order. “That [the Trump administration] may have to change course and undertake additional effort to address these issues does not render modification of the class definition unfair; it only serves to underscore the unquestionable importance of the effort and why it is necessary (and worthwhile).”

NPR obtained a statement from ACLU attorney Lee Gelernt regarding Sabraw’s ruling: “The court made clear that potentially thousands of children’s lives are at stake, and that the Trump administration cannot simply ignore the devastation it has caused,” he said. 

As Colorlines previously reported:

Scott Stewart, a lawyer from the Department of Justice, argued it would be a huge challenge for the government to track the families separated as far back as July 2017,” insisting it would, “dramatically change the complexity of this case from the government’s perspective.”

But as Sabraw insisted in his court order: “Although the process for identifying newly proposed class members may be burdensome,” he said, “it clearly can be done.”

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

In response to the White House instituting what has been called a “gag rule,” Maryland hopes to be the first state to opt out of the federal Title Xprogram to protect its abortion providers from restrictive measures and funding cuts.

In February, the Trump administration announced that health care organizations like Planned Parenthood that provide abortion referrals will no longer receive federal family planning money under Title X. On Saturday (March 16), the Maryland House of Delegates passed a bill that aims to end the state’s inclusion in the program. It now faces a vote with the state Senate. If passed, reports ThinkProgress, the law will require Maryland’s governor to use state money to fund the family planning program.

Established in 1970, Title X provides $286 million in funding for programs that provide services like birth control and mammograms, and screenings for breast cancer and cervical cancer. Under the new federal regulation, providers will be able to discuss abortion with patients, but they cannot specify where one can be obtained. Clinics will no longer be obligated to counsel women on all available options if they are pregnant—meaning they can omit abortion from conversations. Previously, a clinic could not receive federal funding unless all options were discussed. In addition, providers who offer abortions must perform the procedure in a separate facility from other services.

Earlier this month, 22 states, including Maryland, filed lawsuits to block the rule from being implemented. Maryland is, however, the first state to use legislative action to push back against the new rule. 

Reports Think Progress:

The Maryland Department of Health receives between $3 million and $4 million dollars annually from the federal government under the Title X program, [Planned Parenthood of Maryland lobbyist Robyn] Elliott said. The state doles out these federal dollars to various providers, including eight Planned Parenthood clinics. Should the administration’s rule barring abortion providers from participating in Title X take effect, the state would no longer be able to dispense federal dollars to these clinics.

Maryland’s population is nearly one half people of color, with Black residents making up 30.8 percent of the state and Latinx accounting for 10.1 percent. And based on national numbers, women of color are disproportionally more likely to receive care that is funded via Title X.

The bill’s sponsor, Representative Shane Pendergrass (D), told ThinkProgress, “We want to make sure Marylanders who get family planning services under Title X have access to the very same methods as people with private insurance. It’s that plain and simple…. Because of the federal rules, they will no longer have that access under Title X. So it’s time to walk away from the federal Title X dollars.”

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

In an effort to foster what it calls “self-sufficiency,” the Trump administration is looking to bring major changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), also known as food stamps. As a result, an estimated 755,000 people could lose benefits. Two new studies show the detrimental impact that would have not only on individuals but the nation’s economy, too.

When President Donald Trump released his budget proposal for 2020 on March 11, it included a cut of $220 billion over the next decade for SNAP. This is in addition to a rule announced in December to impose stricter work requirements for those seeking hunger relief through SNAP.

A new study from think tank Mathematica published last week (March 14) examines the characteristics of those who would be impacted by this rule change and found it would hit those with the lowest income hardest. The study analyzed the 1.2 million SNAP recipients and determined that 88 percent live in “deep poverty,” which the study defines as at or below 50 percent of the poverty level; close to 80 percent live alone; 11 percent worked; and the average monthly SNAP benefit was $181 per person.

According to the study:

Under the proposed rule, an estimated three-quarters of these SNAPparticipants would be newly subject to a three-month limit on their benefits, according to USDA. Some of them would increase existing work to an average of 20 hours per week, find work or meet the work requirements by participating in an employment and training program or workfare (unpaid work through a state-approved program). However,USDA estimates that two-thirds (755,000 people in 2020) would not meet the additional work requirements and would therefore lose eligibility after three months.

A study from another think tank, the Center for American Progress (CAP),analyzed the impact on the entire United States’ economy. It determined that the proposed budget cut, if passed, would lead to a loss of 178,000 jobs by 2030, as a result of reduced consumer spending. It looked at last year’s job market and determined that every 1 billion spent by SNAPrecipients helped support 12,748 jobs. Adds Mother Jones, “CAP estimates that taking away benefits could shrink the GDP by $18.3 billion over the next ten years.”

There are 16.4 million households and more than 34 million people who rely on SNAP benefits in the United States, according to data from the U.S.Department of Agriculture. White Americans are 38.9 percent of that group, Black Americans are 24.9 percent and Latinx are 11.8. AsColorlines previously reported, food insecurity and SNAP participation are disproportionately high among queer and trans people of color.

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

As wealthy New York families drove east to the Hamptons over the holiday weekend, the Shinnecock Indian Nation protested their presence via billboard, The New York Times reported.

Standing six-stories high, the billboards sit on the main highway that all drivers heading to the Hamptons must use. While the signs reportedly show ads for watches and reminders to drive safely, among other things, the Shinnecock tribal seal sits atop the billboards, 60 feet in the air. The message is simple: the Hamptons actually belong to the Shinnecock Indian Nation.

The jurisdiction doesn’t allow billboards, and state officials reportedly pushed back with legal action against the Shinnecocks. The Times reports that a state judge issued a temporary restraining order to halt construction on the two electronic signs. But the tribe, which is native to the land now called Long Island—including the ground on which the billboards sit—is standing its ground.

“We don’t recognize their authority on our sovereign lands,” Bryan Polite, the tribe’s chairperson, told The Times. The tribe expanded on that point in a statement posted to Facebook today (May 28). From that statement:

The state’s lawsuit against Shinnecock officials is a thinly veiled attack on the Shinnecock Nation and our right of self-determination. Throughout our history, our lands and economic future have been taken from us by the state and the surrounding community. Our goal is simply to generate revenue to provide for our people. The state has a long history of bulldozing Indian lands and Indian people to get what it wants. We will fight against the most recent effort to attack our tribal sovereignty.

The Shinnecock Nation sees the start of summer as the perfect time to protest, and the highway as the best venue to get the word out. It also sees the billboards as a way to create much-needed revenue for the tribe.

“We’re taking advantage of the opportunity because of the fact that billboards are not allowed in the Hamptons. On our land, we feel we had a captive audience with the highway traffic,” Lance Gumbs, vice chair for the Shinnecock Indian Nation, told Newsday.

As of now, Newsday reports that the tribe has no plans to remove the billboards.

Iconic author Toni Morrison has earned a lifetime’s worth of awards and honors for her contributions to literature, and today (May 22) she is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Gold Medal for Fiction. The Gold Medal—the organization’s highest honor for excellence in the arts—is awarded to artists who have achieved eminence via their entire body of work.

Morrison’s eminence cannot be overstated. At age 88, the author has penned 11 novels that confront race and culture head-on, including 1987’s “Beloved,” which won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. In a thesis that argued for the best literature ever produced, The New York Times praised the book, writing that in “less than 20 years after its publication, [“Beloved” has] become a staple of the college literary curriculum, which is to say a classic.”

In addition, Morrison, who is also the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emerita, at Princeton University, has also been awarded with the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Nobel Prize in Literature, among many other distinguished honors.

In honor of the storyteller, who is also an Academy member, the Academy wrote that, “Toni Morrison has, over the years, shaken us out of the ruts of our ordinary perspective. She has allowed us to walk through various shades of the national experience, always incisively, provocatively, generously.”

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

The Department of Education (DOE) announced Monday (May 20) that it will expand the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative, which allows people experiencing financial hardship and incarceration in certain states to receive need-based Pell Grants for college-level courses.

While the government bans incarcerated people from receiving federal financial assistance, the Second Chance Pell Experiment, which the DOE launched in 2015, allows people detained in the 26 participating states to apply for Pell grants, which are financial awards for undergraduate students experiencing financial hardship. They are funded by the government and generally do not have to be repaid.

According to the DOE, there are currently 64 schools and 26 states taking part in the Second Chance Pell Experiment. Vera Institute of Justice writes in an emailed statement about the expansion that the wider scope of the program will allow “new cohorts of colleges and universities to participate and more students to enroll in postsecondary programming while in prison.” Nick Turner, president and director of Vera Institute, said in the statement, “The U.S. Department of Education’s decision to expand Second Chance Pell is an important validation of the power of postsecondary education to disrupt mass incarceration.” Turner added, “[The experiment] has proven that when barriers to postsecondary education in prison fall, enrollment rates rise, which produces better outcomes for all.”

As Colorlines previously reported, Pell Grants for incarcerated people would, “ultimately benefit students, workers, employers and states.” The Vera Institute points out that “the success of Second Chance Pell and a body of research evidence shows postsecondary education in prison reduces recidivism rates and prison expenditures while increasing public safety and economic opportunity for people after they return to the community.”

Turner says this expansion is the next step, but there is still a fight ahead. “It’s our hope that Congress will show the same commitment to expanding access to postsecondary education in prison by taking the critical step of repealing the federal ban on Pell grants for people in prison outright,” he said. “Access to postsecondary education in prison has a verified track record of creating safer communities, cutting costs and increasing economic opportunity for people and their families post-release.”

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

Since April 2016, the United States Department of the Treasury has said that freedom fighter and abolitionist Harriet Tubman would replace former president Andrew Grant on the front of the $20 bill, as Colorlines previously reported. But yesterday (May 22), Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin confirmed that the redesign will not happen while President Donald Trump is in office.

In a C-Span video of Mnuchin testifying on the international financial system before the House Committee on Financial Services, Representative Ayanna Pressely (D-Mass.) explained the efforts of grassroots organizations to update the country’s currency so it reflects the nation’s diverse population and pioneers. Pressley noted that when former Secretary Jacob Lew announced in 2016 that Tubman would be the face of the new bill, he also confirmed that final design concepts would be unveiled in 2020 to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote.

Clearly frustrated by the lack of updates on the project, Pressley asked Mnuchin, “Do you believe that representation matters in American politics and imagery? Do you believe that people, other than White men, have greatly contributed to this country and its history?”

Though Mnuchin said he agreed that others have made contributions to this country, he also said, “The $20 bill will now not come out until 2028. The $10 bill and the $50 bill will come out with new features beforehand,” adding that the redesign will be made by a different secretary altogether. “I have not made a decision to execute on a redesign.”

Source: https://www.colorlines.com/

Nearly 160 years after the Clotilda brought the last kidnapped Africans to the shores of the United States, researchers have located the ship’s remains.

In the years since the Clotilda arrived on Alabama’s shores in 1860, with 109 stolen West Africans below deck, researchers have long believed the ship was the last one of its kind to make the voyage. But where was it? Yesterday (May 22), the Smithsonian Magazinereported that the ship has been located along the Mobile River, near Twelvemile Island.

The search for the ship started in 2017, following talks between the descendants of Africatown’s founders and Smithsonian curator and National Museum of African American History and Culture’s Slave Wrecks Project (SWP) co-director Paul Gardullo. Founded in 1860 during Jim Crow and Reconstruction, Africatown was built by a group of West Africans who were brought illegally to Mobile via the Clotilda; the import of people for the purpose of enslavement was outlawed in 1807.

Rumors that the ship was still in Alabama ramped up in 2018, when a reporter with Alabama’s Advance Local thought he’d found the remains; but that wreck was deemed too large. The Alabama Historical Commission (AHC), National Geographic Society and SWP conducted a week-long survey to determine the Clotilda’s whereabouts with little luck. That same year, Gardullo jumped in to include members from Africatown in the process.

“This was a search not only for a ship. This was a search to find our history and this was a search for identity and this was a search for justice,” Gardullo told the Smithsonian. “This is a way of restoring truth to a story that is too often papered over. Africatown is a community that is economically blighted and there are reasons for that. Justice can involve recognition. Justice can involve things like hard, truthful talk about repair and reconciliation.”

And the timing couldn’t be better. This past February 2019, more than 200 descendants of Africatown’s founders gathered in Alabama for the first time, National Geographic reported. Last year, Zora Neale Hurston posthumously published “Barracoon: The Story of the Last ‘Black Cargo’,” which tells the story of Cudjo Lewis, one of the enslaved people on that final voyage.

The Clotilda was authenticated by a group of researchers, led by the AHC and the maritime archeology group SEARCH Inc., which specializes in diving for historic shipwrecks.

For residents of the small Mobile community, this is great news. “So many people along the way didn’t think that happened because we didn’t have proof. By this ship being found we have the proof that we need to say this is the ship that they were on and their spirits are in this ship,” Lorna Gail Woods, the descendant of an Africatown founder told Smithsonian Magazine. “No matter what you take away from us now, this is proof for the people who lived and died and didn’t know it would ever be found.”

Source:https://www.colorlines.com/