Thought — Page 2

Where Black Moms Matter

April 23, 2013

In Our Ever-Present Cloud of Doom, Let’s Be Thankful We Have Air We Can Breathe

By NICK CHILES Every once in a while as a parent, you stumble across stories or tidbits of information that help you to gain some perspective on your life and your relative blessings. This seems to be more and more necessary with this high-wire act that has become middle-class life ...

April 17, 2013

Spare the Rod: A Black Father Spanks His Daughter and Vows Never To Do It Again

By SHAWN TAYLOR A couple of years ago, I was very deeply involved in putting together an anthology entitled Ass-Whooping’s Greatest Hits: Reflections on the Spankings We Received. As a new father, I felt it was important to explore this hot-button parental issue. I solicited 83 people to contribute, and out of ...

April 16, 2013

To a 10-Year-Old, Boston Marathon Carnage is Just Another Day in the American News Cycle

By NICK CHILES There is a numbing familiarity to these scenes now, when Americans unite for a moment to share their horror at another despicable act that stole away innocent lives. This time it was in Boston, at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The last reports I saw ...

April 15, 2013

Class Act: Remembering and Celebrating 42 and Negro League Baseball, For Our Babies’ Sakes

This past weekend, we took the girlpies to see 42, the feature film about Jackie Robinson, the first African American to play in Major League Baseball. The theater was far from full, but I was happy, I have to say, that those who were there were mostly parents and grandparents ...

April 11, 2013

In Tearful Speech, Michelle Obama Recognizes Her Own Life in Hadiya Pendleton’s

By NICK CHILES Sometimes it feels like the rest of us operate in a separate world than our lawmakers in Washington. I’ve been getting that feeling a lot lately watching the contortions they have been going through to prevent gun control legislation from even making it onto the floor of ...

April 9, 2013

Strip Clubs & Dollar Bills: Explaining the Game—And Its Implications—To My Teen Daughter

I didn’t mean to black out on my 13-year-old this past weekend. It’s just that when we drove past Club Onyx, the infamous Atlanta strip club that, according to practically every rap song ever made in the history of rap songs, is the star attraction of big booty, p-popping guhls ...

April 8, 2013

What Beating A Child With A Cord Looks Like (Newsflash: It Is NOT Good Parenting)

By DR. STACEY PATTON The digital universe is full of viral videos of adults beating children. I view them warily, alert for triggers that catapult me back into the days of being viciously beaten by my adoptive mother, the wife of Pentecostal preacher with a penchant for sadistic violence in ...

April 4, 2013

Disgusting Behavior of Rutgers Coach Mike Rice Is a Violation of Parents’ Trust

By NICK CHILES As a former athlete and the father of athletes who have played sports at every level up to NCAA Division 1, I have been around dozens of coaches in my lifetime. But never have I seen anything close to the behavior of just-fired Rutgers men’s basketball coach ...

April 3, 2013

[FATHER/HOOD] Villages Don’t Raise Children Anymore

By SHAWN TAYLOR Let’s go way back. On the 1996 De La Soul classic Stakes Is High, Posdnuos emceed “Neighborhoods are now ’hoods/’Cause nobody’s neighbors/Just animals/Surviving with that animal behavior,” and ignited a huge conversation. At the time, people who agreed and disagreed were evenly matched. Fast-forward 17 years, and many of ...

March 29, 2013

Radio Station Bans Rick Ross, Lil Wayne Over Sexist Rape Lyrics: ‘Bout Time!

Round of applause for Michigan radio station 103.7 The Beat, which took a bold stand against irresponsible, misogynistic, foul, rape culture rap lyrics by banning two of Hip Hop’s biggest offenders from its airwaves: Lil’ Wayne and Rick Ross. Citing Lil’ Wayne’s lyrics in the remix of Future’s “Karate Chop,” ...