Tim Howard replaces Bob Marley in the Freedom Riders, because AMERICA. You’re all: “But, G.D., what about Nelson Mandela there in the back? He wasn’t American neither!” But that’s not Nelson Mandela. It’s Uncle Ben. Nice try, troll. Just as the foundations of the American hegemon rest upon the fruitless toil of the Negro, so Read More
PB’s own Joel “blackink12” Anderson had himself a hell of a first week at Buzzfeed, topped off with an appearance on Melissa Harris-Perry’s show on MSNBC Saturday morning.
Ray Lewis entered the NFL in tears, mourning the death of his slain friend and roommate Marlin Barnes on draft day. Ray Lewis left the NFL in a spasm of joy Sunday, a two-time Super Bowl champion at the conclusion of the final game of his 17-season career. In between, Lewis went from an Read More
I had a mostly unremarkable, short career in football—yet that was still more than enough time for the game to leave its mark, all over my body. I had been dealing with arthritis, joint stiffness, and backaches for years when a weight-room mishap drove me to an emergency clinic in the summer of 2010, when I was 32. Several follow-up appointments ended with me in an MRI machine and an appointment with a neurosurgeon.
After his six-year-old daughter declares matter-of-factly that little girls don’t play football, a father considers how our ideas about gender are formed.
Once the whistles were blown and men started thudding into one another again, Robert Griffin III summoned all of that magic and most everyone forgot about his head in favor of his arm and legs. It’s easy to forget about the men – and their heads – beneath all that armor. They are our conquering Read More
The cloud of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) — the concussion-related brain disease that can lead to mental illness and Alzheimer’s-like symptoms — has hung over the apparent suicide of Junior Seau, one of the N.F.L.’s great linebackers. The news was the final straw for Ta-Nehisi Coates of the Atlantic, who wrote that he could no longer find enjoyment Read More
… Michael Vick was white? Well, if we have to provide an answer, I suppose he’d look like Brian Austin Green and play like a slightly less effective but more dynamic blend of Steve Young and Fran Tarkenton. But that’s not really the question worth asking. What I really want to know is what is Read More
“[At] the end of the day, all the people that was rooting on me to fail, at the end of the day they have to wake up tomorrow and have the same life that they had before they woke up today. They have the same personal problems they had today. I’m going to continue to Read More
Jamilah King has a good post up at ColorLines that ponders what, if anything, is required of athletes when it comes to political leadership. As professional athletes have risen in media exposure and income over at least the past four decades, so too has the call for them to take center stage in some of Read More
