H-Town has a climate problem—and Bun B says the only solution is switching from red to blue
The weather in Texas this month has been more than just wintry—it’s been deadly. The calamities began in the state’s northern region on February 11, when Fort Worth temperatures dropped to the mid-twenties, freezing the I-35W expressway and causing a 100-vehicle collision. Several people died; dozens more were hospitalized. The crash was only the beginning of a hellish couple of weeks that left Houston — conditioned for average February lows in the forties — without electricity, gas, or water. Some locals went without power for several hours. More went without for several days.
Houston hasn’t been colder since 1989, when…
Movie studios and actors profit from the pain and names of political prisoners but rarely lend a hand in their fight
In 2018, the house in which Fred Hampton was assassinated went into foreclosure. Since then, his son, Fred Hampton Jr., who was still weeks away from being born when his father was killed in 1969, started a GoFundMe campaign to save his family’s Illinois home. By early February, “Save the Hampton House” had yet to reach its goal of $350,000. Promotion for the movie Judas and the Black Messiah, which chronicles the events leading up to the Black Panther chairman’s death was in full bloom. …
Stanley Nelson’s Netflix documentary opened my eyes to how much Black and Hispanic women were preyed on by the American government
If you haven’t seen Crack: Cocaine, Corruption & Conspiracy on Netflix, you’re missing out on the most powerful documentary of this new year. Stanley Nelson’s film does a masterful job of contextualizing the crack era of the ’80s by highlighting both its roots and branches — from the White House to inner-city street corners. Much of the information Nelson doles out isn’t new. It’s widely known that the crack-cocaine epidemic was the brainchild of then-President Ronald Reagan to keep alive some ego-driven loyalty to Nicaraguan drug dealers. I knew it was supported by both Republicans and Democrats. …
The LEVEL Man at 40
Daniel Baker developed his gifts. Desus Nice gave them to the world. Now it’s time to expand.
When your moniker is Desus Nice, you can’t afford to be mediocre. You’ve got to be quicker, wittier, more aware of and conversant with the surrounding world. You’ve got to be able to distill information, to disseminate your born knowledge to those not as learned or perceptive. You have to speak the language of your audience while raising their bar. A high-wattage smile doesn’t hurt either.
These are the attributes Daniel “Desus Nice” Baker had to accrue in order to make a living being himself. …
The luxury fashion house tried to appropriate Caribbean culture and instead disrespected Black history
Any clothing item made of 49% polyester with a $1,340 price tag is a commerce crime. That’s the ask for Louis Vuitton’s newly released Jamaican Stripe Pullover LV Intarsia. Yet, sadly, marking up the price of inexpensive materials to match one month’s rent in many major cities isn’t the fashion brand’s biggest, most recent transgression.
The shirt’s design consists of three horizontal stripes: green on top, yellow in the middle, and red down bottom. This colorway, according to the item description, was inspired by Jamaica’s national flag. The problem is that the Jamaican flag is not green, yellow, and red…
The stories of three mothers who’ve suffered irreparably due to terrible dads
“Not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour for the lack of it.” — James Baldwin
I am not a father, relationship expert nor psychologist. I’m also not a big believer in coincidence. Who I am is a son, nephew and grandson of educators whose spent decades watching unhealthy parents stress the lives of their young children and my elders. I’m also a lifelong journalist with an observant eye for connective tissue. A couple years ago, I noticed a…
Photographer Mel D. Cole has turned his lens on the folks taking to the streets for Trump — both Black and White
“Kill him with his own gun!”
On January 6, photographer Mel D. Cole watched in horror as a police officer attempting to reach the entrance of the Capitol building was dragged down the steps by a mob of rioters. Though he was shocked, Cole didn’t put his camera down; instead, he exhibited the resolve to photograph the cop being beaten, robbed of his badge, and nearly killed with his own weapon.
The result was an image that halts breathing. To witness it is to feel a sense of suffocation.
The Kobe Bryant hashtag “Girl Dad” highlighted the harm bad fathers can bring to a girl’s transition to woman
Last January, Elle Duncan’s reflection of Kobe Bryant sparkled everywhere. The ESPN anchor used 90 seconds to remember Kobe not as a five-time NBA champion or the closest incarnation of Michael Jordan. Instead, Duncan reminded those who personally knew Bryant, while informing the rest of the world, that he considered himself a “Girl Dad.” The tag immediately went viral, inspiring men of both fame and obscurity to post pictures of themselves with their daughters on social media.
While the best in men lives at the core of the hashtag, the social commodity accrued from #GirlDad also birthed a black market…
The Capitol insurrection awakened some of America’s greater parts. But can the country’s majority stay woke?
The storming and seizing of the Capitol building will forever remain etched in our collective memory. It’s challenging to forget an assault on democracy or see a federal institution penetrated. Politicians were hunted for harming. We saw property destroyed and defaced — with feces and urine left behind.
The damage superseded government property. A week after the insurrection, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez released a video sharing her experience inside the Capitol as she hid from domestic terrorists while fearing her life. Four Democratic members of Congress caught Covid-19, likely due to being bunkered for hours with unmasked Republicans. …
The coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol was 2021’s first strike — and things could get uglier
Today’s free world is white-hot.
The Divided States of America seethes from both ends. One half includes the Donald Trump faithful, which days ago stormed, scaled, and penetrated the U.S. Capitol like a ninth-century Scandinavian platoon. They accredit their rage to the phantom of a rigged election and the reality of electoral votes putting a final nail in the coffin of their defeated leader.
It’s also quite possible that the catalyst was Georgia painting both its Senate seats indigo — one secured by a Black man — which added insult to an already injured red party.
Liberals populate the second…
Bonsu Thompson
Bonsu Thompson is a writer, producer, Brooklynite and 2019 Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow.
