I just spent Christmas away from my family in Virginia for the first time.

When I had enough of asking Mom and Dad for money to buy Taco Bell combos, CDs from Sam Goode and extra night-and-weekend minutes, I knew it was time to get a damn job. Sure, they’d have to accompany me, unlicensed and autonomy-seeking, to make these purchases. But upon arrival, who’d be pulling hard-earned-dollar…

This week at VSB, we’re running a series called Albums That Changed My Life in which different writers let you in on the music that helped shape and mold them into the people they are now. Today we hear from Alex Hardy as he explains how Whoopi ’nem affected his life with the Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit soundtrack.

Look, I know blackness is the gift that keeps on giving. I know how awesome we are, and can understand why sweet potato pie tops pumpkin pie, that we effortlessly create and inform pop culture, and why folks set aside their good sense and pride to get next to us or be like us. And I also know that in these…

It could all be so simple. Though eradicating racial hateration should be an intraracial undertaking, undoing centuries of Olympic-level oppression and curing chronic multigenerational Caucasian terribleness is frequently placed on our to-do lists, along with setting trends and keeping the Electric Slide alive and…

Lupus was part of my life story long before I gained firsthand experience as a young tenderoni. I've watched my mother battle the autoimmune disease for my entire life, and she had already dealt with the shit for 15 years before I entered the world.

Unlike many youngins I know today who’d implode from boredom and cluelessness without access to a tablet, television, or other nonsense-powered technology, my childhood homies and I were pretty active, outdoorsy kids. Though we were introduced to computers early and were known to overdo it on the Nintendo, we were…

I can breathe now. After spending the past 13 months trying to get accepted and five days powering through a dense curriculum and teaching simulations, I finally received my certification as a Mental Health First Aid Instructor. Therapy and chicken wings for everyone. I first heard of the Mental Health First Aid course

In this age of foot-faced presidential swampdonkeys, culture vulturing ho-ass racial stowaways, and mediocrity-masking alternative facts, a number of things are inarguable:

Over the weekend, I breezed through Bobby Brown's memoir, Every Little Step: My Story and it was quite the learning experience. Well, duh, of course I know who Bobby Brown is, but when he was doing his thing in the 80s, my wee heart could only focus on Anita Baker and Janet Jackson. My earliest memories of him involve …

Remember that time a foot-faced, soul-sucking gargoyle became a beacon of hope for previously shamed racist swampdonkeys and self-hating Black folks everywhere and won the U.S. presidential election, thus empowering a new wave of oppressive shitbaggery and violence by the hateful, unmoisturized masses?

OK, so, look: I am not a mental-health professional yet. I am, however, starting my journey toward becoming a therapist next spring and am developing an ultradope mental-health nonprofit to address the unique mental-wellness needs of black folks. I am but a humble, grits-loving chile who loves some therapy, writes…

(I first read this cautionary tale last week at Colored Boy and Friends: Mental Health Edition in New York City with the help of Bondfire Radio's Tasty Keish.)

A few weeks ago, I walked into Broadway Dance Center and bought a 10-class card, ending months of wanting and planning and needing to get back into dance, specifically ballet. I promised myself that I would dive back in when I landed in New York in July, and then life happened, but still I rise, and so here we are.…

As a book-loving Black literary homothug who writes openly about life, sexuality, society, and the innumerable consequences and byproducts of White Terribleness and the absence of Teen Summit on post-Y2K childhood development (hint: they’re doomed), Sir James Baldwin has always occupied a peculiar space in my world.…

Do you remember that mobile home showdown in Kill Bill, when Beatrix plucks out Elle’s remaining good eye, sending her into hysteria as she flailed madly around that mobile home floor, blinded by rage, pain, and betrayal?

1. Black people are everything.

I realized the depths of my technological dependency when I first had the misfortune of watching the vibrancy and life fade from my MacBook Pro charger for the very first time. I wouldn’t wish the experience on my worst enemy or the most fervent Slim Jesus fan.

If I had moved to New York last fall as intended, you would be surely be referring to me in the past tense today.

Last week, I hopped in a time machine and moseyed on down to Memphis to partake in a screening of WGN’s upcoming series, Underground, on behalf of Terry Hines & Associates (who organized the screening) and Very Smart Brothas (who asked if I wanted to attend). The series stars Jurnee Smollett-Bell as “Rosalee” and the…