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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

The sixth and final season of the STARZ hit television show, Power, is set to premier 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…

I’m one of those people who live in a neighborhood where anytime I get an “out for delivery” email/text/raven for any package that won’t fit into my mailbox, I know it means it’s time for me to head home. I will either receive the package personally or be present to witness it NOT being delivered even though the…

John Singleton passed Monday, April 29, 2019. After suffering a stroke that left him in a coma, his family ultimately decided to take him off life support. To say it was a life gone too soon is an understatement, especially for a figure who has had such a tremendous impact on the black community at large. I grew up in…

Let’s just get to the “This Can’t Be Life” punchline first: According to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker Database, a directory that keeps track of claims made by one President Donald J. Trump, in the 828 days since he’s been in office (and as of April 27, 2019), Trump has made 10,011 false or misleading claims.…

1. Well done.

When confused philosopher king Kanye West rapped, “racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it...” on “Never Let Me Down” from his debut offering, The College Dropout, he was not talking about Mississippi. Or Alabama or South Carolina or, well, you get the point. Regarding Mississippi specifically, it is the last…

Washington, DC, is in the midst of a culture war between the new residents who want to mold the city into their own version of VanillaTown and the folks who didn’t ask for any of this shit but now have to defend their ways of life. Yes, we’re talking gentrification. From new residents of Chinatown trying to stop the…

When I think of the 90s, there are a few specific groups, songs and television shows that immediately come to mind: Martin, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jodeci, SWV, Wu-Tang Clan, Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away,” Groove Theory’s “Tell Me,” (for my money, one of the best and most 90s songs of all time) and indisputably Zhané’s…

Last night, Beyoncé did what Beyoncé does and dropped a whole ass 40-track album, Homecoming: The Live Album, out of nowhere that we didn’t know was coming but we’re all better off for having. Beyoncé, ever since that first secret drop back in 2013, just comes through whenever she wants and takes over the entire ass…

I’m one of those people: I’ve never seen a full episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. I say full episode because I tried to watch the first episode a few years ago and just couldn’t make it through. I don’t know what happened or why on that particular day I couldn’t complete the task. I binged the entirety of the first…

Tiger Woods made a triumphant return to Augusta National on Sunday, winning his fifth Master’s Tournament (and his first since 2005), becoming one of the oldest golfers to win a major tournament at age 43, and putting him three back from tying the record for most majors titles, currently held by golf-legend Jack…

I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life, so many that I really have no idea what that number is. The first funeral I vividly remember attending was in high school for a friend who went to my school. While the rumor mill was full of conspiracy theories, it was determined that he accidentally killed himself while…

Recently in black America, I hosted a meeting for the VSB x Mahogany Books (a black bookstore in Washington, D.C.) Monthly Book Club where we discussed the book, She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan, author of the famed book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. The book itself, …

I was reminded recently why we are taught as youth not to speak to strangers. While the goal of this lesson for children is to hopefully curb abduction and prevent being handed candy with razor blades lodged inside, it is also a lesson one can put to use as an adult. Because sometimes, something as simple as a refrain…

Today is April 4, 2019. Fifty-one years ago today, on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by James Earl Ray while standing on the balcony outside of his room, 306, at the Lorraine Motel, located at 450 Mulberry St., in Memphis, Tenn. In the time since then, the Lorraine Motel has been turned into…