The Scandal Most People Remember When people from my generation hear the name Milli Vanilli, the scandal often comes to mind before the music. Rob Pilatus and Fab Morvan became international stars almost overnight. They had the long braids, the coordinated clothes, the dancing, and the kind of looks made for television. Their songs were
Milli Vanilli: The Faces of a Deception They Did Not Create Alone Read More »
A Different Way of Thinking About Money Most of us grow up with a pretty simple understanding of money. I work, somebody pays me, and then I decide what to do with what I earned. My time comes first, and the money comes afterward. I may give an employer forty hours of my life and
A Story That Almost Sounds Made Up Every once in a while, something happens in American government that sounds so strange I have to stop and make sure I understand it correctly. In 2026, President Donald Trump was involved in one of those situations. He and other plaintiffs sued the Internal Revenue Service and the
A Number That Should Get Our Attention I recently heard somebody say that Florida had finally become number one in something nobody should celebrate: declining reading performance. The statement was meant to be provocative, but underneath the humor was something that deserves serious attention. Researchers studying educational achievement across the country have described what is
When Children Cannot Read, the Whole Society Pays Read More »
Someone May Know Me Before I Know They Exist When we first started sharing our lives on social media, I do not think we fully understood how much it would change the way we connect with one another. I may believe I am simply posting photographs, celebrating accomplishments, talking about a vacation, sharing an opinion,
The Stranger Who Already Knows You: Love, Social Media, and Manufactured Familiarity Read More »
The Number That Stopped Me There is something about H.R. 40 that I did not fully understand until I looked more carefully at what the legislation actually proposes. H.R. 40 is not a bill ordering the federal government to start mailing reparations checks to Black folks. It does not establish a dollar amount for every
H.R. 40: How Long Does America Need to Study Reparations? Read More »
A World With No Up or Down Imagine living in a world containing only two dimensions: length and width. There is no height, no above, and no below. Everything exists on a completely flat surface where circles, squares, triangles, and other shapes move around. The inhabitants live their entire lives without ever imagining that another
Flatland: What If Reality Is Bigger Than What I Can See? Read More »
A Face and Voice We Already Knew Sometimes an actor plays a role so well that the character becomes part of our cultural memory. We may remember the character long before we remember the actor’s name. Jenifer Lewis is one of those performers who can make a character stay with you long after the story
Jenifer Lewis: The Mother of Black Hollywood Who Refused to Hide Read More »
The Name Behind the Music There are people whose faces become famous, and then there are people whose work becomes famous while they remain largely behind the curtain. Bryan-Michael Cox belongs to that second group. Millions of people have heard his music without necessarily knowing his name. If you listened to R&B during the late
Bryan-Michael Cox: The Man Behind the Sound of a Generation Read More »
The Question Behind the Ten Dollars What is really stopping us from putting aside ten dollars a month, year after year, and teaching our children and grandchildren to do the same? On the surface, ten dollars does not sound revolutionary. Many of us spend that much without thinking about it. Yet when a small contribution
What Is Really Stopping Us? The Power and Challenge of Black Collective Economics Read More »