(x-posted from stacialbrown.com) Live to be 91. This is the hearty number of years he would’ve wished for you, even if it meant that nine of them would be lived without him. He will know how to wait. Try to remember a time before him. You were just as whole — which seems impossible to Read More
“And just who are we related to?” the dog-walking stranger said, her eyes on the blond, blue-eyed 5-year-old in the pair, but her query very much meant for the brown woman – that is, me. I returned her cutesy tone, explaining that my playmate was my fiancé’s niece, and weren’t we having fun outside? My Read More
On Saturday, Monica, Jamelle and I had the honor of seeing Gabriel Arana, their colleague at The American Prospect, marry his longtime partner, Michael Collis. It was a beautiful, elegant ceremony — and also fun as hell. Ideally, one of us would say something insightful and poignant here, but we’d be hard-pressed to match the Read More
Most people know Jasper, TX, as the town where a black man named James Byrd was tied to a pickup truck and dragged to his death by three white men in 1998. The photography of Alonzo Jordan, who was something of a local institution, captures the quieter, happier moments of black life in the tiny Read More
Los Angeles Times: A federal judge in San Francisco decided today that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry, striking down Proposition 8, the voter approved ballot measure that banned same-sex unions. U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker said Proposition 8, passed by voters in November 2008, violated the federal constitutional rights Read More
[cross-posted from U.S. of J.] C.H. at Democracy in America flags a new report from the Pew Charitable Trusts on the effect of marriage on economic mobility for children: Messrs DeLeire and Lopoo find that marriage has a positive effect on economic mobility for children of all races. Among those who are born in the bottom Read More
(cross-posted from U.S. of J.) Admittedly, it’s nice that Laura Bush is pro-choice and doesn’t hate gay people, but still, it doesn’t actually count for anything. Her “right thinking” doesn’t make-up for the fact that she has offered nothing but unlimited support to her husband, whose actions as president cost the United States thousands of Read More
If you missed – intentionally or not – ABC News’ Nightline special “Face-Off: Why Can’t a Successful Black Woman Find a Man?” consider yourself lucky. Because I can’t get those 30 minutes of my life back. The title of the program itself should have been a clue to stay away. If that wasn’t enough, the Read More
PostBourgie: The Podcast, Episode 4: “Black Women Should Just Quit Life.” Monica, Jamelle and I are back with a discussion about That Study on women of color and wealth; marriage equality in D.C., and Marc Thiessen on the Daily Show. Listen to the podcast here on the blog (and subscribe). Click once to play, click Read More
In an aside in her essay of Elizabeth Gilbert‘s latest, Ariel Levy muses on the volatile definition of marriage. For contemporary political purposes, marriage is often depicted as a timeless and unchanging institution; actually, it has been enormously elastic throughout history and across cultures. In nineteenth-century China, it was perfectly acceptable for a young woman Read More
