by Latoya Peterson

Yesterday, a headline in the Post-Gazette worked its way around Twitter:  Study finds median wealth for single black women at $5. Most outlets qualified the link by calling it “shocking” or mentioning the five dollar figure was not a typo.
I called up a fellow young black professional friend of mine and told her [...]

by Latoya Peterson

“Gentrification is coming,” says Morgan, “and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”
What’s the difference between East of the River and River East?  According to a March 3rd article in the Washington City Paper, it depends on who you are.
Anacostia is located in South East, DC, made notorious for high levels of [...]

By Guest Contributor Mimi Thi Nguyen, originally published at Threadbared

Awl writer Cord Jefferson just penned an incredibly thoughtful piece on the phenomenon of “nu prep” or what passes for “classic Americana” in men’s style. In “White People Clothing and ‘Old Money Green,’” Jefferson wonders what to make of garments whose appeal is narrated through unsubtle [...]

On a regular basis, I’m sitting face to face with murderers. When I imagine sitting face to face with somebody who might have injured somebody I love or care about, I can imagine wanting to injure that person myself. I used to support the death penalty. [But] once I started doing the work, I became [...]

by Guest Contributor invisman52, originally published at Max Protect
After Brett Favre threw an interception at the end of the NFC Championship Game–a fatal mistake that cost his team a chance to make the Super Bowl–I knew that if the Saints would go on to win the game in overtime, many in the media would bemoan [...]

by Latoya Peterson, originally published at Jezebel
In Latina, we learned all about Sonia Sotomayor’s personal life and style. A new profile in the New Yorker thoroughly probes her work life and relationships to paint another picture of the justice as intellectually savvy, confident, and compassionate.
Running twelve long pages, Lauren Collins’s piece delves deeply into Sotomayor’s [...]

by Guest Contributor CVT, originally published at Choptensils

What aspect of U.S. life wraps all the forms of oppression and inequality into one tidy little package? What system successfully keeps women, people of color, LGBT, religious minorities, people with disabilities, and people in poverty “in their place” more effectively than any other? Why, the education system, [...]

by Guest Contributor M. Dot, originally published at Model Minority
I was reluctant about today’s class going in.
We read Mary Waters’ Ethnic Options and her book Black Identity. I reviewed Black Identity which focuses on the process of West Indian Americans coming to identify or avoiding identifying as Black.
The book contained lots of qualitative [...]

by Latoya Peterson

When you see a headline like “30 Asian Students Attacked,” one would think there would be massive rage.  An outcry about violence in schools.  A discussion of why our kids aren’t safe.  But in the wake of the attacks and continuing coverage by outlets like the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Asian-American blogosphere, the [...]

by Guest Contributor G.D., originally published at PostBourgie

Up until last fall, I lived in Bed-Stuy, and the only supermarket near me was so far away that I would just do my food-shopping on the way back from my gym — which happens to be in a completely different neighborhood.  The bodegas on either end of [...]

By Guest Contributor Dumi Lewis, originally published at Uptown Notes

On Sunday night, Kanye West once again burst into the limelight with his interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at MTV’s video music awards. His interruption and hyperbolic declaration of Beyonce’s video as the best of the decade caused the twitterverse, facebook, and likely nights and [...]

Bryant Terry is an eco chef, food justice activist, and author of Vegan Soul Kitchen (VSK): Fresh, Healthy, and Creative African-American Cuisine (Da Capo/Perseus March 2009). For the past nine years he has worked to build a more just and sustainable food system and has used cooking as a tool to illuminate the intersections among [...]

Excerpted by Latoya Peterson

Left out of the ensuing tangle of commentary on race and class has been the increasing impoverishment—or, we should say, re-impoverishment–of African Americans as a group. In fact, the most salient and lasting effect of the current recession may turn out to be the decimation of the black middle class. According to [...]

by Special Correspondent Wendi Muse
Continued from “Bela or Bust: Part 1: On Gender” . . .
Author’s note: My apologies for the delay between part one and part two! I have recently moved back to the United States and in between re-adjusting and job hunting, I had not had the chance or the mental clarity to sit [...]

by Latoya Peterson
The best article I have read to date on street lit was published last month in Elle Magazine.
Author Bliss Broyard – who explored her family’s complicated racial past in her book One Drop – presents the story of Miasha, a force in her own right and the subject of envy by other street [...]