In the evening hours of last night, Kanye West announced that he was running for president. This sent many people in a frenzy. Is he running? Are we in a climate as to where there is a pathway of him winning? Is this all hullaballoo? This proclamation from West probably sounds familiar because it is. West declared that he was running for president in 2015 in his Vanguard award acceptance speech that was ironically presented to him by Taylor Swift. A full year ahead of that election and what happ

Honestly, I don’t even know how to respond to that. Depending on what side of the country you live in, it may feel like you’ve been living through a continuous loop of the 4th of July. One of the lynchpins of the holiday, fireworks, has been ringing off on a nightly basis. This year’s edition of Independence Day is going to look vastly different. Sure, hot dogs and burgers are going to be cooked. The beaches are going to be crowded - well, maybe you don’t share a huge beach towel or that food pl

The First Amendment, within the Bill of Rights protects your right to assemble and express your views through protest. During the Revolutionary War, there was a display of protest in 1773 called the Boston Tea Party. This is where men who called themselves the ‘Sons of Liberty’ boarded ships and dumped tea into the harbor in retaliation of the 1773 Tea Act. (Those same men were dressed in Native American garb which is most certainly racist) That one instance notably gets a spotlight, but did you

Tomorrow, June 6th would have been Breonna Taylor’s 27th birthday. I hate that I’m even writing about her in the past tense. Taylor was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She was an EMT that resided in Louisville, Kentucky who was also on the frontlines of COVID-19. After midnight on March 13th, Taylor and her boyfriend Kenneth Walker were sleeping in their bedroom. According to Kentucky state law, they have something called a no-knock warrant which allows officers to enter homes without announcing

Yesterday, I was happy to see the unity of many who had participated in #BlackoutTuesday. Many people came together to share information on where to donate to causes. Things such as Black literature, names of black-owned businesses, and the works of Black creatives were also amongst other things distributed. Non-Black people were listening and took an invested interest in how to use their platforms and to better educate others. A lot of people had their hearts in the right place. Because we liv

To be a black person in America is to accept the underlying companion of survival mode. It’s there when we wake up, when we leave our homes, and when we try to make a living. As we enter boardrooms, department stores, and engage in recreational activities - it meets us with a sly grin. Even when you work to engage with things like success and happiness, you are one instance away from being attached to it again. Our reward - our penance is survival. Instead of listening, black people are met wit

During the 2016 NFL season, then San Francisco 49ers quarterback, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem to protest police brutality. Even though retired Green Beret Nick Boyer convinced Kaepernick to take a knee and not sit - backlash ensued. Kaepernick has yet to find employment in the NFL after that season. Despite the right to protest guaranteed by the constitution, the President of the United States said of players who chose to exercise that right to '“get that son of a bit

Before we begin, I wanted to have everybody watch the following video: Right there are generations of pain and sadness being expressed. It’s the heaviness that black people carry around them in their everyday lives. As we go to our jobs, try to feed our families, and try to find some happiness within a country that tries to put impediments in the way. Over the past six days, many have marched in the effort to speak out about police brutality and racial injustices. Let’s keep it honest - we’ve m