Featured Articles

Attacking the Black Woman
By:
Jessica Corbin
(Lifestyle Column: Black Culture)

Breaking News! The black woman has been attacked! Suspects include major media outlets, morning news shows, talk shows, Twitter and Facebook. Her so called friends have become enemies. The result has been internal conflict. Who can she turn to now?
In a recent turn of events 9 year old Quvenzhané Wallis, is called a cunt by The Onion. The Onion is a farcical newspaper featuring world, national and community news. While The Onion is revered and loved for its use of satire and word play, it’s taken it too far in calling out the young actress. The actress with the exotic name is “the youngest-ever Academy Award nominee for Best Actress”, but all that was ignored when The Onion found it funny to call her this sexually degrading title. While grown women have become quite experienced in rebounding degrading names or harmful slurs, a 9 year old has no such defense about this type of attack. This is where the insults need to stop; this is the point at which all black women need to take a stance in defending our own honor and glory.

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College Thugdom

by:

Stuart Washington

 A peculiar occurrence has been surfacing on college campuses everywhere. It is unclear as to whether or not it is strictly on Historically Black College or University Campuses. Experience screams at the inclination to limit the occurrence to just HBCUs, so I am willing to bet that it transpires at HWCUs also. “Do your pants hang low? Do they wobble to your toes”? Can you hide the defecation spots? Why must you stop them from hitting the flo’? Do you pants hang low”?

            I cannot figure out for the life of me why gentlemen all over the nation will not pull their pants up. What really baffles me is the inability for college students to put on a belt and keep their pants around their waist. It is simple! The syllogism goes like this, If you were a thug, you would be a violent person. And therefore would not be able to sit in class without exercising your thugaciousness. Pull your pants up.

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Diving into the Roots

The Big Deal about Black Women's Hair

by: Jessica Corbin

Specialty Column: Black Culture

Be it Natural, relaxed, coarse, or curly, braided or locked, black hair requires a lot of time attention and care. From days of childhood black women have sat in the laps of maternal figures as our hair was parted, greased and braided. Only to find it unraveled by the end of the week to suffer the repercussions of a good wash and the brutality of the hot comb.

From the stages of young girlhood and then teenage years, one would think that by womanhood we would have mastered the delicate art of hair care and style of our own black hair. Yet that idea is quite the contrary, black women continue to change, redo, unbraid  go natural, stay relaxed, cut their hair and try millions of styles within any given month. There are several reasons for the constant changing of black women's hair, besides the indecisiveness and satisfaction with just one style of coif; black women face a myriad of issues when it comes to keeping their "du" intact. From issues of dry scalp, shrinkage and dull hair, black women are constantly trying new products and strategies to keep their hair healthy and intact.

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Women in HipHop

By:

Stuart Washington 

By this time now everyone involved in the Hip Hop culture has seen the major motion picture Notorious. The message Biggie Smalls played by Jamal Woolard gives to Big Mama aka Lil’ Kim played by Naturi Naughton is misogynistic in its tone. Even though male rappers writes about fighting or killing other brothers women should not write about the rough parts of their lives, but instead sell sex. Pioneers in the game like Roxanne Shante, MC Lyte, and Queen Latifah should be edified more, because they wore clothes while challenging the status quo whether that was White males in America or they African American male counterparts. 

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Colorlines; Shades of Brown

by 

Jessica Corbin

In Soledad OBrien's Latest installment of "Who is Black in AMERICA", the issues of color in the "black" community are discussed. The ways black people are defined by themselves and others was called into question. How one views self and how the world views you take on two different roles. she then asks her audience to define blackness. The terms black and African American can not be attributed to every person of color. In my opinion, to be black is to be a person of color while one who is African American is one who's parents and grandparents have been born and raised in AMERICA.

Yet issues among African Americans arise when people tend to get shade specific as if the brown paper bag test is still being applied. Both in social networking and in day to day conversation, people of color compare and contrast those of darker skin complexion to those of a lighter shade. To be lighter, makes one better and those who are darker. These are just a few of the slave masters tricks still at play. Shade divisions and contentions exist only to separate and divide the black community.

In the words of a very conscious friend of mine Jacob Maxey "most if not all people of color are still under some for of mental slavery. we tend to set our self back by falling into beliefs that have kept us lockdown still to this day." To be of any form of color is to be subject of being called or assumed black. This however should not be viewed as a derogatory term. The world is more populated with more people of color than white and this should be awe inspiring, to be of such a vast and beautiful people. So whether you are very light with just a hint of African or African American, or dark like the evening sky with a twinkle in your eye, believe in the beauty of you and your people. 

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