I have seen a lot of very angry posts lately on social media about Gov. Phil Bryant signing a proclamation naming April as Confederate Heritage Month. Granted, I am not a supporter of Bryant and I do find this timing rather distasteful, but I find the disdain for this designation unnecessary. I am not going to defend the fact that the American Civil War was not about slavery. ...
One of the hot topics among millennials today is the idea of a free college education. Bernie Sanders is probably the greatest advocate of this idea in today’s political playing field. I do not think there are many people who would refuse a free college education outright, but there are still people who feel that working for something on their own is important and I...
Imagine you are a woman who has been abused emotionally, mentally and physically by a man who has power to control your career, your financial success and your art. This is the power Lukasz Gottwald, known publicly as Dr. Luke, holds over Kesha Rose Sebert, formerly known as Ke$ha. For more than a year, Kesha has been fighting to get out of her contract with Dr. Luke,...
It’s time to sit down and shut up. It’s time to close our mouths and use our eyes and ears. It’s time to not make everything about ourselves. It’s time to stop saying “all lives matter” in response to hearing “black lives matter.” We are white and we have an enormous amount of privilege and power, and it’s time to recognize that. I would like to ask a...
This February, students across the country celebrate Black History Month. They read books by black authors, wrote research papers on civil rights activists, memorized Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech and watched videos about the Underground Railroad. And as they learn about the struggle of the past, they’ll begin to recognize it in their own present...
I have many views on what being black in America means, most of which contradict one another. For years I believed it meant fear, discrimination, anger, pain and long suffering. I believed the depiction of a history that’s been drilled into our minds repetitively, but never truly explained. The South forced me to believe these assertions were true, and the world beyond...
