Browse By

Category Archives: Things You Need To Understand

On Being A Black Woman and Happy With It

So, there’s this thing happening in the black American community (and outside it) where women who look like me are supposed to be grateful for any crumbs that happen to fall into our bleak little lives. Apparently, our lot in life is to be miserable

linkspam: Why didn’t you call the police? Part One

TRIGGER WARNING NO VICTIM BLAMING IN THE COMMENTS OR YOU WILL BE BANNED. WITH EXTREME PREJUDICE. AND MALICE AFORETHOUGHT. I HAVE. NO. PATIENCE. PERIOD. you have been warned. Because you cannot trust them. No really. Of course, not all of them do that. But how

Evaluating the Outrageous

Adviser for Americans arrested in Haiti suspected of Child Trafficking in El Salvador. So am I supposed to believe they just happened to find someone connected to human trafficking and hired him? Don’t answer that. In other “I hate the world” news this shit right

Transcending Race…A History Lesson

So this whole thing with Chris Matthews “forgetting that Obama is black” falls into that same range of racism as “Pretty for a black girl” and the “You’re not like those other black people” claptrap often espoused by the “I’m not racist, but…” crowd. They’re

On Haiti, Helping and Hurting

So, you want to help? Great. Here’s a list of charities. However if you feel the need to sound anything like Pat Robertson I’m going to need you to go sit down somewhere and be silent. The last thing anyone needs after a crisis is

Pearl Clutching and Urban Planning

Walk in My Shoes: Surviving the walk to school. You know I understand the whole “If it bleeds it leads” concept of journalism. Really I do. But, we live on the South Side of Chicago too. I grew up here and all those sunny park

The Low Cost of Being Racist

Hotel owner tells Hispanic workers to change names. You know, you’d think that at some point in this series of increasingly bad decisions it would have occurred to him that he was creating a public relations nightmare, if nothing else. But I guess this is

The Do’s and Don’ts of Being a Good Ally

1. Don’t derail a discussion. Even if it makes you personally uncomfortable to discuss X issue…it’s really not about you or your comfort. It’s about X issue, and you are absolutely free to not engage rather than try to keep other people from continuing their