The George Floyd story: Before Minnesota Growing up in the Third Ward of Houston, Floyd saw sports as a way out of his troubled surroundings and a chance at a successful life
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‘Another Act’: Bresha Webb on new Starz series ‘Run The World’ and her career Also, why she has the perfect comedic timing
* This article was originally published here
As the PGA Championship begins, a look at the history of slavery and golf along South Carolina’s coast Kiawah Island once maintained a bustling plantation economy based on slave labor
On Thursday, the 103rd PGA Championship will begin on the Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort. Twenty miles south of Charleston, South Carolina, Kiawah Island is situated between Folly Island to the northeast and Seabrook Island to the southwest. Located in Charleston County, Kiawah is separated from Folly by the Stono River and from Seabrook by the Kiawah River. An expanse of marsh separates the island from Johns Island. A causeway joins the mainland with Kiawah Island. There are seven golf courses here, including the Ocean Course, the Pete Dye masterpiece that opened in 1991 on a narrow 2½-mile wide beachfront with ocean views on one side and vast saltwater marshes on the other. With its scenic courses and luxurious oceanside villas, it may be difficult to imagine that Kiawah Island once maintained a bustling plantation economy based on slave labor. Since Kiawah was an island not as well suited to rice cultivation as other coastal islands, farmers first planted indig...
‘Another Act’: NFL star Cam Newton talks about his digital BET series ‘Sip ‘N Smoke’ Also, he opens up about his fashion choices
* This article was originally published here
Black women are more visible than ever. Now what? Black women dominate in many areas, but community and accountability are how they preserve themselves
The Undefeated turned 5 this week and is marking the occasion with a series of essays looking at the last five years in Black America. Lemonade , an album that changed the cultural landscape, takes listeners on an emotional roller-coaster through awareness, anger, disappointment, forgiveness of self and, ultimately, healing. Just in case Beyoncé’s message in 2016 wasn’t resonant enough, she dropped a full-length visual featuring Warsan Shire’s soul-stirring poetry, the Mothers of the Movement shining in the aftermath of tragedy, and generations of Black girls and women walking on water, communing on porches and focusing on healing themselves and one another. “That album not only showed the multifaceted layers of the artist herself, but it also reflected the complexity of Black women’s experiences when it comes to articulating how complex it is to live within the intersections of race and gender within a culture that is both misogynist and an...
Don’t conflate racial violence with crime When we use the language and logic of crime control to condemn racial violence, we help normalize the image of policing and prisons as socially good
What’s the risk of calling racism a crime? I thought about this after watching the reaction on social media to the news conference held the day after Robert Aaron Long killed eight people at three massage parlors in Atlanta, where Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Jay Baker said Long claims “it was not racially motivated.” Six Asian women were among the victims. Responses on social media were understandably disgusted, with some suggesting Baker was helping Long craft a self-defense. Many said it was an effort to deny that hate crimes were committed. I was struck by the frequent mention of the phrase “hate crimes” in people’s responses. I sensed many were really critiquing an all-too-familiar reality: that white people commit racial violence against nonwhite people and, with the help of authorities, often get away with it. For many, the term hate crime might serve as a shorthand for racial violence. The limits of hate ...
The Basketball Africa League is bigger than J. Cole The rapper has game, but the historic league deserves support on its own
Equity in sports took a huge step forward Sunday when the Basketball Africa League played its first game in Kigali, Rwanda. For a continent that has provided so many of the world’s greatest players, either directly (Hakeem Olajuwon of Nigeria, Joel Embiid of Cameroon) or indirectly (every other Black athlete whose ancestors survived the slave ships), this moment was centuries in the making. Wait – you want to hear about J. Cole, right? The rapper with the hot new album who signed with the BAL’s Rwanda Patriots franchise? The dude who plays pickup with NBA stars and almost sneaked in his own dunk at the 2019 NBA slam dunk contest? Whatup with Cole? Nah, not yet. We’ll get to him later. Cole played fine in the kickoff game, but to make him the centerpiece would be wrong. Disrespectful, even. Based on the humble attitude Cole displayed on the court Sunday – and you can tell a lot about a person by the way they hoop – I don’t think...