Washington, DC, is in the midst of a culture war between the new residents who want to mold the city into their own version of VanillaTown and the folks who didn’t ask for any of this shit but now have to defend their ways of life. Yes, we’re talking gentrification. From new residents of Chinatown trying to stop the…

When I think of the 90s, there are a few specific groups, songs and television shows that immediately come to mind: Martin, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Jodeci, SWV, Wu-Tang Clan, Jade’s “Don’t Walk Away,” Groove Theory’s “Tell Me,” (for my money, one of the best and most 90s songs of all time) and indisputably Zhané’s…

My friend Toni and I text a lot and for good reason. We are the same age. We divorced young. We have small children. We work together.

Last night, Beyoncé did what Beyoncé does and dropped a whole ass 40-track album, Homecoming: The Live Album, out of nowhere that we didn’t know was coming but we’re all better off for having. Beyoncé, ever since that first secret drop back in 2013, just comes through whenever she wants and takes over the entire ass…

I’m one of those people: I’ve never seen a full episode of HBO’s Game of Thrones. I say full episode because I tried to watch the first episode a few years ago and just couldn’t make it through. I don’t know what happened or why on that particular day I couldn’t complete the task. I binged the entirety of the first…

I’m from Boston.

Tiger Woods made a triumphant return to Augusta National on Sunday, winning his fifth Master’s Tournament (and his first since 2005), becoming one of the oldest golfers to win a major tournament at age 43, and putting him three back from tying the record for most majors titles, currently held by golf-legend Jack…

I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life, so many that I really have no idea what that number is. The first funeral I vividly remember attending was in high school for a friend who went to my school. While the rumor mill was full of conspiracy theories, it was determined that he accidentally killed himself while…

Recently in black America, I hosted a meeting for the VSB x Mahogany Books (a black bookstore in Washington, D.C.) Monthly Book Club where we discussed the book, She Begat This: 20 Years of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill by Joan Morgan, author of the famed book When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost. The book itself, …

There is an old Negro saying: If you want to get a black woman to shut the F up, actually listen to her! (I swear I heard my grandmother say that to my grandfather once).

I was reminded recently why we are taught as youth not to speak to strangers. While the goal of this lesson for children is to hopefully curb abduction and prevent being handed candy with razor blades lodged inside, it is also a lesson one can put to use as an adult. Because sometimes, something as simple as a refrain…

Today is April 4, 2019. Fifty-one years ago today, on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was gunned down by James Earl Ray while standing on the balcony outside of his room, 306, at the Lorraine Motel, located at 450 Mulberry St., in Memphis, Tenn. In the time since then, the Lorraine Motel has been turned into…

My wife is not black.

***My G, all the spoilers. All of them.***

Like everybody else, I was hit with and then devastated by the news that Grammy-nominated rapper, entrepreneur, wealth- and community-builder Nipsey Hussle, aka Neighborhood Nip, aka Ermias Asghedom, was gunned down in front of his own store yesterday in Los Angeles. At 33 years old, no matter what the circumstances,…

If you follow VSB on any social media platforms, you know that Damon is currently in week one of his national tour for his debut book, a memoir-in-essays titled What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker, released on Tuesday and published by ECCO Books. The release of this book is the culmination of a book deal he signed…

I stand before you today a black woman with a shocking secret: I wasn’t born black.

Today is What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker’s birthday, and to celebrate it, here’s me talking about the book. And also parenthood, the value of humor, Darius Lovehall, and existing while black in white America. And by “talking about the book” I mean “talking about the book and also reading one of my terrible,…

This past weekend, Jordan Peele’s Us hit theaters, and it looks like we all went to see it. This is great for his bottom line and shows that after 2017's Get Out, Peele is not experiencing a sophomore slump. Thing is, this movie is polarizing as fuck. One stroll through the social media shows you just how varied and…

1. Watch a pierogi race at a Bucs game.