Category: Columns
For the Loners on V-Day: Life is More than Love
When you are surrounded by thousands of people who you share studenthood with, it almost feels like an obligation to not be alone. Human connection is happening all around us, and our own fears about being alone can turn our state of being alone, into loneliness. And on a day like Valentine’s Day, when you feel like you can’t escape PDA, the color pink and every other physical embodiment of love, being single makes you feel like you’re missing out.
Being the Right Color: A Critique of Colorism in the Media
For years, African Americans have struggled with finding sufficient representation in the media. We’ve spent so long fighting that whenever we do have a moment where a TV show or film has a primarily black cast, we celebrate. We tend to become so captivated by our sense of representation that we don’t realize how poorly represented black people still are.
Dating While Black: How Implicit Racism Made Its Way to Online Dating
Eurocentric standards of beauty have been a hallmark of American society since the inception of our nation. Even now, these standards are continuously perpetuated in today’s age through the portrayal of beauty in the media. One of the key ways in which we get our standards of beauty, the acting industry, continues to be a white-dominated field. With the overrepresentation of white people in Hollywood, much of what we think is beautiful becomes centered on the archetypal white women in film.
Cardi B Boycott Hypocrisy Symptom of Larger Issue
Despite making public statements about her own personal opinion of how the NFL treated Kaepernick, Cardi B still participated in six different Super Bowl events, including a commercial for Pepsi and Amazon that aired during the Super Bowl and attending a Pre-Super Bowl event.
Media Outlets Perpetuate Negative Stereotypes About Women in Politics
Amber Doyle | Correspondent The 2020 presidential election is rumored to become the most diverse...
Sympathy for the Black Kids
In our society, race plays a factor in almost every aspect of our lives. Whether we acknowledge it or not, race often defines how we perceive other people. One of the ways in which this is commonly played out is through who we as a society direct our sympathy towards.
It’s Time to Stop Excusing Problematic Artists
Two weeks ago, Lifetime aired a limited series titled “Surviving R. Kelly.” The series does a fantastic job of highlighting R. Kelly’s years of inflicted abuse on young black women. It efficiently exposes the manipulative behavior R. Kelly has expressed for decades. The allegations against R. Kelly have been known for years; to the general public, none of this is new. His pedophilic relationship with the late singer Aaliyah was common knowledge and he had no issue advertising it through the title of her album “Age Ain’t Nothing but a Number,” which he produced.
Kevin Keatts and the Black Coaching Drought
On a Sunday in March 2017, there he stood. Giving his introductory speech to his new Wolfpack faithfuls, Kevin Keatts proclaimed his now famous statement, “Kevin Keatts is a winner.” Among that though were some less talked about—but arguably, just as important—points. Within his speech, Keatts talked about his goal of reforming the culture of NC State basketball. He spoke about wanting to adopt a hard-working culture for our program and brushed on the importance of gearing up his players for living successful lives after their time in college.
Self-Care is Not the Only Radical Act
A famous quote by author Audre Lorde says, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” Nubian Message used this quote as the cover for our self-care issue because of how much it resonated with my fellow colleagues. But there is an even more radical action: the act of caring for others.
Shawn’s Soapbox: America’s False Democracy
The midterm elections are over, and the blue wave turned out to be a blue splash with Democrats getting the House (an expected result), and Republicans keeping the Senate. While the promised blue wave did not sweep the nation, it did break through many barriers, especially for women of color, who showed out.
