Seeing a Black version of a White classic series has some folks flustered. Let's unpack this. — White folks are used to seeing themselves on TV. Let's face it. Back in 1988, when the original Wonder Years series aired, mainstream American television focused on telling the same coming-of-age story. Boy meets girl — scratch that — White boy meets girl was the premise of dozens of series…

Why do some White people see diversity as an existential threat? — Diversity is not a personal attack on White people, but good luck convincing award-winning novelist James Patterson of that fact. In an interview in The Times, he expressed concern that it's too hard for old White men to get writing gigs. It's as if he just arrived from an alternative…

And How Much We Have Left Still to Do — Women’s History Month is here, and so is International Women’s Day. And with them comes a time to celebrate women, to reflect on our history, and see how far we’ve come. It’s easy to look at the state of the world for women, especially in the West, and think “we’ve…

The “I’m not Black, I’m OJ” approach is not wise for any Black man in life, much less Hollywood. Stringer Bell is telling a familiar tale in his Esquire UK cover story. In the now viral interview, Elba shared that he no longer refers to himself as a “Black actor”…

Elon Musk is open to acquiring the platform and within minutes you can become a newsletter entrepreneur. — The traditional media industry has been somewhat disrupted by Substack. 2022 showed that the San Francisco-based tech company definitely is on the rise. According to SimilarWeb data, Substack generated 50.6 million visits in December 2022 and is growing pretty fast.

Claims of an out-of-wedlock birth crisis and “babies having babies” are racist myths. It’s time to tell the truth. — Surely you’ve heard it before. The problem facing Black people isn’t racism; it’s girls and women having babies out of wedlock. Whenever someone mentions the issue of ongoing racial discrimination in America, the answer from conservatives always sounds like this. Bill O’Reilly said it in the early days of the…

In our ritualistic adornment of firsts, we fail to provide context — I don't know who needs to hear this, but Black History Month is not all about Black "firsts." We could tell you all about Hiram Revels, who became the first Black senator, Carol Moseley Braun, the first Black woman senator, or Barack Obama, who became America's first Black President—but only…

Does dark skin need protection from UV rays? Let’s unpack this. — Every summer, families, friends, and couples hit the beach hoping to catch some rays and have some fun. While spending some time in the sun boosts Vitamin D in the body, people who stay out too long risk damaging their skin. In America, all of us — Black, White and…

Custom images, no less — This morning I was griping about the difficulty of finding the specific image I needed for a Medium article I was writing where I referenced a robot doing dishes. As one does. “I just want robots in a kitchen.” I wasn’t finding anything on the free photo sites. I puttered…

The quick and broad acceptance of Ukrainian refugees exposes the United States’ racism at the highest levels — The quick acceptance of 100,000 Ukrainian refugees into the United States goes far beyond Joe Biden’s unchecked prejudice that came to the surface during the primaries leading up to the 2020 presidential election. It also comes as no surprise after Biden made his views abundantly clear when talking about Black…

It pays well per view — This is a PSA for all creative writers on Medium. I’ve been introduced to another writing site. I’m new to this writing site, but it pays well: $0.02 per view. …

Everyone knows our system is corrupt, but it’s even more corrupt than you might realize — The modern medical industry was built on the backs of black people who were tortured, stolen from, and otherwise exploited. While the people suffer, the health care industry rakes in record profits. …