Irene

I want to ask you, what do you believe will happen in the afterlife? Are we as the human race going to be okay? Should I worry about what's going to happen to me after death? My girlfriend who believes in God but struggles with what to believe in exactly, is she going to be okay? I’m terrified right now, and as one of the very few looking past religious Dogma, I need your help, or at least some insight into what I should be doing, praying for, anything.

Papa Johns is the latest to use the n-word and then apologize. Because John Schnatter known as Papa John blurted out the n-word during a crisis communication training session over the phone- and not in the face of an African American- he argues his use of the word doesn’t constitute as a “slur.”

When patriotism is narrowly defined, as it is today, it can only be accepted and exhibited within the constraints of its own intolerance, and narrow worldview, like Trump’s travel ban (a.ka. Muslim Ban), upheld last week by SCOTUS in a 5-4 decision.

As a black lesbian in this Trump administration, I now feel like I am unquestionably moving into a new Jim Crow era reestablishing discriminatory laws targeting LGBTQ Americans. I grew up knowing about racist placards that read “Colored Water Fountain,” “Waiting Room For Colored Only,” ”We Serve Whites Only, and “No N-word Allowed, to name a few.

While pride events are still fraught with divisions, at their core, pride events are an invitation for communities to connect their political activism with their celebratory acts of song and dance in its continued fight for justice. They should highlight the multicultural aspect of joy and celebration that symbolizes not only our uniqueness as individuals and communities but also affirms our varied expressions of LGBTQIA life in America.

I am always worried to the point of nail-biting when my spouse leaves in the morning for work if she’ll return home to me, because she’s always stopped by the Cambridge or Boston police. They don’t see the revered physician she is at the hospital where she works. Her gender non-conforming appearance and driving a brand new BMW, that many cops derisively dub as a “Black Man’s Wagon, ” makes her a constant target of suspicion. When gender identity and sexual orientation come into play, the treatment by police can be harsher. And when the police realized my spouse is a woman, and a lesbian one at that, their unbridled homophobia surfaces.

Once again Pope Francis is rocking the world... “The Pope saying that God created an individual as gay goes far beyond a statement of welcome,” said Marianne Duddy-Burke, DignityUSA’s Executive Director. “It sets a new foundation for Catholic teaching about sexual orientation that is very different than what has been traditionally stated.

“Allegiance” will soon be coming to your neck of the woods, because it’s a tour de force. And, it’s another shameful time in American history.

Racial profiling immediately comes to mind when we hear of an incident with white police involving black and brown males. And with Ohene, a Harvard student, you wonder if he were a white student standing naked and obviously in distress along Cambridge Common in Harvard Square would he had been so dehumanized and humiliated.

The 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination is sadly a searing reminder of unaddressed gun violence in America. And, because gun violence has gone unaddressed for half a century, future generations of children residing in a safer and healthier America MLK spoke about so dreamingly in his speeches now in 2018 live in fear of guns -when they are not running scared for their lives from them.

"A Wrinkle in Time" was a must-see film for me. And, a must- see flick worldly different from dashing out to see “Black Panther.” It doesn’t mean, however, Ava Duvernay’s $100 million dollar film with a multicultural cast isn’t without problems. It is which is one of the reasons the film has received mixed reviews unlike “Black Panther’s” ongoing and wildly enthusiastic critical appraise.

I understand the very essence of Christ through the suffering of people. For example, twenty years ago this June, the remote east Texas town of Jasper consumed the nation's attention because of a heinous crime against a forty-nine-year-old vacuum cleaner salesman named James Byrd, Jr. Walking home after a party one night, Byrd was offered a ride by some passersby. Little did he know that he would soon be chained by his ankles to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged to his death - because he was black.

While Graham’s inarguably the most influential minister of the 20th Century his ministry -which provided pastoral counseling to U.S. presidents from Harry Truman to Barack Obama -lived at the crossroads of fear and intolerance as the wrath of God.

For Black History Month on Valentine’s Day 2018, I’m showing my love for Mildred Loving (1942-2008). She’s often overlooked in the pantheon of African American trailblazers celebrated in February. However, in ruminating on this political era where African American civil rights are under constant assault, and the erosion of LGBTQ rights are contested under the guise of religious liberty, I give Mildred Loving a double shoutout for the catalyst she was in both interracial and same-sex marriages in this country. It’s her shoulders I, and so many others, stand on when it comes to marriage equality.

ith 2018 being the 50th anniversary of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, commemorations honoring the man will be taking place across the country. But who would think a Super Bowl ad with a King voice-over would be used to sell pickup trucks? The pitch for Dodge Ram trucks’ “Built To Serve” Volunteer Program did just tha

Martin Luther King articulated his dream of wanting every town and city throughout the world “Building the Beloved Community.” The King Center explains the concept: “In the Beloved Community, poverty, hunger, and homelessness will not be tolerated because international standards of human decency will not allow it. Racism and all forms of discrimination, bigotry, and prejudice will be replaced by an all-inclusive spirit of sisterhood and brotherhood.”

A Trump presidency is what I can best depict as a “disastrous opportunity,” because it encourages an intersectional dialogue as well as activism against potential erosion if not dismantling of decades-long civil rights gains. Americans on the margins have the most to lose in a country pivoting away from their full protections and participation in a multicultural democracy.

Black women voters in the recent Alabama U.S. Senate race are being thanked for “saving” the state from Republican candidate Roy Moore, a homophobe, slavery apologist, and accused pedophile. And we're all now are being lauded as “the backbone” of the Democratic Party. As a voting bloc, black women in Alabama didn’t just suddenly emerge for Democratic candidate Doug Jones. What hubris to think they did and not for themselves. We always have had agency and voting-mobilization strategies to support our candidates. The turnout that Alabama and the nation witnessed derives from a history of battling voter suppression that the Nineteenth Amendment, granting women the right to vote in 1920, didn’t protect us from.

As a black lesbian in this Trump administration, I now feel like I am moving into a new Jim Crow era reestablishing discriminatory laws targeting LGBTQ Americans. I grew up knowing about racist placards that said “Colored Water Fountain,” “Waiting Room For Colored Only,”We Serve Whites Only, and “No N-word Allowed, to name a few.

Democratic Senate President Stanley C. Rosenberg, 68, looked heartbroken, shocked and devastated during an impromptu press conference outside of his office at the State House where he publicly addressed allegations that his spouse, Bryon Hefner, 38, groped and assaulted four men who do business before the Senate.

The reality of unarmed African American women- LBTQ, gender nonconforming and straight- being beaten, profiled, sexually violated and murdered by law enforcement officials with alarming regularity is too often ignored – especially with the focus of police brutality on our males.

Since the election of Donald Trump, most Americans on both sides of the political aisle feel American democracy is under siege. The infighting going on in both the Democratic and Republican camps has cast a pall on the country’s future. And neither party, at present, can tamp down the support nor enthusiasm some have for establishment outsiders like Vermont US Senator Bernie Sanders and President Donald J. Trump — even with his declining approval rating. In this environment of the falling Republic, Donna Brazile has written a book titled “Hacks: The Inside Story of the Break-ins and Breakdowns That Put Donald Trump in the White House.”

Boston-born White House chief of staff John Kelly’s recent remark on Laura Ingraham’s new Fox News show reopened a divide so deep in this country about slavery that I am reminded of American novelist William Faulkner’s quote “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.”

With October being LGBTQ History Month it allows the LGBTQ community to look back at historical events. And Matthew Shepard’s murder is one of them. This October marks nineteen years since the death of Matthew Shepard. In October 1998, Shepard, then 21, was a first-year college student at University of Wyoming. Under the guise of friendship, two men (Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson) lured Shepard from a tavern, tortured and bludgeoned him with their rifles, and then tethered him to a rough-hewn wooden fence to die – simply because he was gay.