Cultural Purgatory Archives

I’ve been an adjunct professor in the Midwest for three years now. By virtue of location and profession alone, I have enough material to write twenty parts to this Cultural Purgatory series. But let’s take it one culturally dissonant experience at a time. I teach at two schools: one is a large, practically isolated, suburban Read More

Sometimes, I feel like I’m playing a perpetual game of “You Know How I Know [I’m] Black?” and losing. I know it’s problematic. I know there is no true rubric by which to define Blackness and there are no behaviors, vocal inflections, or dietary or pop cultural preferences that “belong” to any racial group. But Read More