Tag: symbol

When Did Coffee Become A Status Symbol?
WHAT'S GOOD

When Did Coffee Become A Status Symbol?

Odds are when you go to the grocery store, you see many people with a Starbucks coffee cup in hand. At some point, this has made it to almost a "right of passage" to get into the grocery store. What's funny about this is most of these cups are filled up with low-quality "coffee" beverages which are mostly made up of sugar and chocolate. Those who have one of these cups in their hand probably wouldn't be able to tell a cup of coffee from Starbucks from a cup of your regular old gas station coffee. Another thing that gets lost in this is why not support the local guy? While Starbucks, Dunkin and Tim Horton coffee chains boom, there are many local coffee shops that provide a better product at a similar price. Plus you are helping someone in your community build and maintain their business, ...
Sarah Baartman’s Hips Went From A Symbol Of Exploitation To A Source Of Empowerment For Black Women
SOCIAL JUSTICE

Sarah Baartman’s Hips Went From A Symbol Of Exploitation To A Source Of Empowerment For Black Women

Rokeshia Renné Ashley, Florida International University In “BLACK EFFECT,” a track from Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 collaborative album “EVERYTHING IS LOVE,” Beyoncé describes a quintessential Black female form: Stunt with your curls, your lips, Sarah Baartman hips Gotta hop into my jeans like I hop into my whip, yeah The celebration of Sarah Baartman’s features marks a departure from her historical image. Saartjie “Sarah” Baartman was an African woman who, in the early 1800s, was something of an international sensation of objectification. She was paraded around Europe, where spectators jeered at her large buttocks. With celebrities like Beyoncé recognizing Baartman’s contributions to the ideal Black female body – and with the curvaceous posteriors of Black women lauded on TV and celebrat...
Sagging Pants: The Symbol Of A Generation Hanging Itself-Prison Uniform Represents Wreckage of Black Communities?
Journalism

Sagging Pants: The Symbol Of A Generation Hanging Itself-Prison Uniform Represents Wreckage of Black Communities?

Even more than the misappropriation of the word “nigga” as a term of endearment, the cultural phenomenon of sagging pants speaks exclusively to the institutionalized brainwashing of black America. If hip-hop is the voice of a generation, ass-sagging pants is the uniform. And both are rooted in a rebellion so entrenched that many black men proudly regurgitate, through words and attire, the tell-tale sign of psychological ownership. If we could delve beneath the often exploitative lyrics of poverty, violence, drug consumption and slangin’, we might recognize that the price tags on our youth’s sagging jeans are nothing more than potential inmate numbers in disguise. “In prison you aren't allowed to wear belts to prevent self-hanging or the hanging of others,” Judge Greg Mathis said in a 200...