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Bustle •

'The Fall Of Rome' Was The Book I Needed As A Black Girl At A White Boarding School

"We — I mean people like me — are just here to round out somebody else’s experience," Rashid Bryson tells his English teacher Jana Hanson during a sobering moment in Martha Southgate’s novel The Fall of Rome. In that one line, the young protagonist sheepishly states the unspoken truth about prep-school life: That he, a young kid from Brooklyn with brown skin and kinky-coily hair, isn't really supposed to be there.
Vocal: Education •

Fair, Just, or Equal?

She wanted to let me know that she was well aware that I was not an ice-skater. To this day, I can still see her writing in the margins. "Do you really think that you should be the one telling this story?" I was, as I had learned in Judy Blume books, indignant. I was also confused. Try as I might with my child's mind, I could not understand why she would say something like this to me. Furthermore, I was angry at the idea that this virtual stranger was making this kind of judgment of my life.

Ye

Validity

I've watched the video over and over again. Each time, I've witnessed Calvin, a trans-man, grow increasingly frustrated. The tension builds so high until he actually breaks down in laughter at the sheer absurdity of the arguments being made. While Calvin and Candis, the other transgender person at the meeting, shared their personal experiences, the two conservatives gave straw man arguments about how people—namely children—were at risk if people just choose a restroom at random.

Meanwhile, Cand
Longevity •

Naked Yoga

Gymnosophist is a term the ancient Greeks used to describe the “naked wise men” or the “naked philosophers” of India. Suffice to say, spiritual nudity has had a long tradition in India, as well as in yogic practice. In Sanskrit, the practice of nude yoga is called Nagna Yoga or Vivastra Yoga.

As a matter of fact, the Bhagavata Purana, one of the sacred Hindu texts, encourages nudity. It says: "A person in the renounced order of life may try to avoid even a dress to cover himself. If he wears anything at all, it should be only a loincloth…”

Validity

I've watched the video over and over again. Each time, I've witnessed Calvin, a trans-man, grow increasingly frustrated. The tension builds so high until he actually breaks down in laughter at the sheer absurdity of the arguments being made. While Calvin and Candis, the other transgender person at the meeting, shared their personal experiences, the two conservatives gave straw man arguments about how people—namely children—were at risk if people just choose a restroom at random.
Traveling Strange •

Take Off

After one play, I was hooked. I couldn't help it. Everything about the members of the band seemed childlike and fun. There was a certain level of gaiety and lightness that I had rarely seen embodied in black performers--save perhaps for Ella Fitzgerald who always seemed to sing with a smile in her voice. Tank's bubbliness in particular was so infectious that it was had to ignore. I imagined that if I could unzip her torso, a thousand pink balloons would fly out and fill the  room from end to end
Out of the Ashes Blog •

Meet the father-son team that is changing the way parents reconnect with their children after prison

Out of The Ashes - Sunday, March 03, 2019

There is no shortage of stories in the news media about fatherless homes. Every day there is a new study detailing the negative impact on larger society on the number of growing families that don’t have a male presence in the home. However, little attention is paid to the realities behind the statistics, to the real-life devastation visited upon those whose fathers were never there to teach them the bare necessities of life.