Friday, May 17

Tag: symbol

When Did Coffee Become A Status Symbol?
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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 busines...
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Sarah Baartman’s Hips Went From A Symbol Of Exploitation To A Source Of Empowerment For Black Women
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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...
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Ruby Bridges’ School Once A Symbol Of Desegregation, Now Reflects Another Battle Engulfing Public Education
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EDUCATION

Ruby Bridges’ School Once A Symbol Of Desegregation, Now Reflects Another Battle Engulfing Public Education

On Nov. 14, 1960, after a long summer and autumn of volleys between the Louisiana Legislature and the federal courts, Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old Black girl, was allowed to enroll in an all-white school. Accompanied by federal marshals, Bridges entered William Frantz Public School – a small neighborhood school in New Orleans’ Upper Ninth Ward. If that building’s walls could talk, they certainly would tell the well-known story of its desegregation. But those same walls could tell another story, too. That story is about continued racism as well as efforts to dismantle and privatize public education in America over the past six decades. As scholars of education, we combed through multiple archives to uncover this story. A civil rights landmark News outlets covering the Ruby Bridges story pub...
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Sagging Pants: The Symbol Of A Generation Hanging Itself-Prison Uniform Represents Wreckage of Black Communities?
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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...
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