Beauty is everywhere.

I’m offering tips on travel photography fully aware there are many people who are better at it than me — including a lot of my friends — but they don’t like to write, so y’all get me. The reason I consider some of my friends such good photographers is because we’ve either traveled together or traveled to the same places and they were able to capture beauty that I didn’t see. Whether it’s flaking paint on a dilapidated building, a single plant growing in a sea of concrete, a hard-to-spot slice of humanity, or a better angle on a shot…

…And They’re Both Dangerous

Having been one of the only Black students in a rural Southern high school and an extremely conservative law school, I have never met a racist…according to the people who said and did racist things in front of me. Racism without racists is what has resulted in a world in which many white people view being called out for racism as being worse than racism itself. To this end, and to avoid ever having to change, many white people have decided that only they can be trusted to decide what racism is.

When it comes to…

That America-loving patriots would rather “shatter the country than share it,” as Amanda Gorman noted in her poem following the Capitol Hill riot, came as no surprise to me. It was an effortless observation to make, growing up in the South, that the louder someone was about America’s greatness, the more likely they were to fly a confederate flag and own lots of guns.

Even as a teen, their message was already clear to me: their country was the greatest and they were willing, if not eager, to fight for it. I mean sure, as one of the only Black…

People compete over a lot of things on “reality” TV: jobs, love, survival, and even other people’s junk; however, the competition for the title of Top Chef is, hands down, the best. No doubt living in New Orleans, one of the culinary capitals of the universe and home to more than a few Top Chef Alum, including Issac Toups, and Nini Nguyen, a recent fan favorite, adds to my enjoyment, but there’s a lot of other reasons to love this show.

It’ll inspire you to get off the couch.

There aren’t many shows I find that actually cause me to…

It is often said that the most difficult thing to be in America is a Black woman for one simple reason: They are simultaneously members of two of the most marginalized groups in this country. It is also often said that Black women missed out on many of the advancements and a chance to more heavily influence the feminist movement of the ’60s because it was occurring at the same time as the Civil Rights Movement. When faced with the zero-sum choice of where to focus their energies, many chose to go all-in on supporting the Black fathers, husbands, brothers…

In terms of a crime against our democracy, last week’s siege of the Capitol was the worst thing to happen to America since 9/11, but it wasn’t nearly as surprising. The Trump-inspired white terrorist violence we all knew was coming crashed through the doors of Congress. Trump summoned an armed mob of clowns, conspiracy theorists, insurrectionists, and white supremacists intent on disenfranchising 81 million Americans, inflamed and unleashed them on Congress.

For conservatives who haven’t fully bought into conspiracy theories and outright lies about the election, the Trump Mob that rioted at the Capitol, destroyed property, killed a police officer…

The America Trump and his supporters have put on display these past four years has shocked and horrified people here at home and around the world. “What has happened to America?” is a common refrain of those unfamiliar with or in denial about this country’s reality. For many African Americans, however, Trump and his base are as familiar as the chill that goes down our spine when we see a police car in the rearview mirror. What is new is how out of place and disoriented they look in a world and in a country that is desperately trying to…

It’s the Last Chance to Get Her Justice

I have only recently started to understand the profound frustration that underpins some people’s view that voting doesn’t matter. The issues and injustices they face aren’t on the ballot and are totally ignored, or deepened, by the powers that be. Even worse, some people’s issues are paid lip service every couple of years by an endless stream of politicians rehearsed in the performative art of empathy. Meanwhile, the unaddressed issues that plague these could-be voters mount.

New Orleans, where I live, offers a prime example of this by way of a public…