Why we speak up when Hollywood whitewashes our favorite characters of color
Just like so many other longtime comic book fans, I was excited to hear about the upcoming Hellboy reboot. What I didn’t expect was for the movie to cause a...
Culture / Entertainment / Race
by Daren W. Jackson · Published August 30, 2017 · Last modified January 23, 2018
Just like so many other longtime comic book fans, I was excited to hear about the upcoming Hellboy reboot. What I didn’t expect was for the movie to cause a...
If white folx can’t be “allies” to their Black co-congregants in church, then I’m not sure there’s any place white allyship can actualy exist. Let me explain. On a recent...
Too often, in our hasty gestures of doling out ally and wokeness credits, we fail to turn a critical lens to the ways that performative activism rarely metes out actual...
Lifestyle / Motivational / Reflections
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published August 10, 2017 · Last modified August 13, 2017
I recently purchased Shonda Rhimes’ Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person for my partner. It wasn’t until I read the...
“That’s so ghetto,” he said to another student in my classroom. The tall, attractive Black 15-year-old was commenting on how he thought that Black women who speak loudly in public...
Moving to Chicago in 2014 taught me a number of things. It taught me what real cold felt like. It taught me how pizza should taste. And it also taught...
Love and Relationships / Reflections
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published July 12, 2017 · Last modified July 28, 2017
One of the greatest R&B lines ever delivered is “don’t need no hateration, holleration, in this dancerie.” The Queen of R&B, Mary J. Blige gave us that one in...
Culture / Love and Relationships
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published July 10, 2017 · Last modified July 13, 2017
Recently, rapper Jay-Z released his thirteenth solo album 4:44. The album details his infidelity to his wife, mother of his three children, and perhaps the biggest superstar in the world, Beyoncé....
by Daren W. Jackson · Published July 6, 2017 · Last modified January 15, 2018
I have achieved the rare feat of being in a committed relationship for nearly fifteen years. I have been married for over a decade and have three kids. I’m still...
“It’s not my fault you’re pregnant,” a male coworker said to me when I raised an issue with how infrequently people would give up their seats on our company...
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published April 14, 2017 · Last modified January 15, 2018
I give myself away all the time. To my children. To my partner. To mom. To my friends. To my job. My boss. My peers. My couch. My studies. My...
Culture / Entertainment / Race
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published March 23, 2017 · Last modified March 26, 2017
Professional athletics have long been riddled with controversy and scandal. But, there are some particularities facing Black professional athletes in the NFL and the NBA today that must be called...
I was born in 1984. While I wasn’t really allowed to watch popular television shows for almost a decade, I vividly remember seeing TLC’s “What About Your Friends” video on...
One of the most irritating byproducts of this new era of being “woke” is the increased numbers of people who read one Martin Luther King, Jr speech or saw one...
A couple of weeks ago, I wrote a conflicted piece about NBC’s “This Is Us.” Befuddled by the dissonance I experienced between the show’s resounding praise and my own thoughts...
Culture / Entertainment / Race
by Jenn M. Jackson · Published February 27, 2017 · Last modified March 4, 2017
I have long been critical of national awards shows. I have also long been critical of the white gaze. I learned in my twenties that neither of them were for...