"If one is blessed with all the ire of life without good character
All that ire of life belongs to someone else
That which we are after is character
Good character"
from the Odu Ifa Ogbe Otura, as recited by Solagbade Popoola in Omoluabi
It inspired Denmark Vesey to revolt. It also inspired Martin Delany enough to name his son after Toussaint and it inspired Rev. James Holly enough to move to Haiti. In "Rebels and Runaways," Larry Eugene Rivers pointed out that slave masters in Florida were concerned about the revolution in Haiti and expressed as much in their newspapers. History is very clear on the fact that the revolution in Haiti was well-known in America. It inspired hope for black people and fear for slave masters.
yall don’t think it’s WEIRD , that CPS will potentially take your kids if you’re struggling (unable to feed them , clothe them , pay for necessary medicines , etc.) 🤔 and then once your kids are taken , they put them in a home with another family , and then give THEM money every month to take care of your kids ??
is that not a fucked up system ?!
I kinda used to think this way but then I found community and realized 1) I wasn't nearly as smart as I thought I was and 2) I needed – not just to read more but – to actually study.
The Black intellectual man is the most misread person in his own community. Too Black for white spaces. Too articulate for street credibility. Too thoughtful for the masculine archetype. He exists in a gap that nobody built infrastructure for and navigates it mostly alone.
CHILD PRAYING MANTIS: Dad, who are we all praying to exactly?
DAD PRAYING MANTIS: Depends which religion you belong to
CHILD: So not all bugs follow the same religion?
DAD: No, son… we’re in sects
I’ve been teaching Gen Z for 7 years and I can tell you right now, the issue isn’t intelligence, it’s skills. Writing, note taking, studying, close reading. We’ve replaced those skills with Chrome Books and AI and then wonder why they struggle. We failed them, not the opposite.
If you're using AI to write essays, eulogies, your wedding vows (!), I do think less of you as a person. Ceding your mental and creative abilities to a machine is an embarrassing thing and people should be ashamed to admit doing it in public.
Baltimore shares more of a culture with Philly than D.C. (e.g. port cities, working class, density/rowhomes)
We have different music, dialect, city origin, economy, social class, politics and more of a transient culture because of the federal government
In Yoruba culture, the dowry is paid to the family, not the bride. And it's prior to the wedding. But in Shona culture, it is paid bit-by-bit specifically to avoid it being so transactional, as if one is buying the wife.
@ulovewendy Just to play contrarian for a second in response to this oversimplification, how is that $50k different than a dowry? In some cultures, you have to compensate the family for raising someone worthy of your love.