You all know Martin Luther King Jr, but do you know the organizer of the 1963 March on Washington? His name was Bayard Rustin, and one of the reasons history has overlooked him is that he was openly gay. Rustin was an extremely intelligent organizer and strategist who helped mold Dr. King into an image of peace and nonviolence. In 1956, Bayard Rustin arrived in … Continue reading Bayard Rustin: Nonviolent Visionary
No, the Black Panther Party was not evil. No, they did not just go kill random white people. No, they were not the black equivalent of the KKK. The Black Panther Party was a Black Nationalist Movement for self-defense. It was started by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale in 1968, and later the party had chapters nationwide. The Black Panthers needed to defend themselves against … Continue reading Huey Newton and Bobby Seale: Founders of the Black Panther Party
Over the course of February, Black History Month, McCaskey freshman Tiyya Geiger researched significant and unsung Black heroes and spotlighted her findings on her Instagram story, attracting attention from peers and community members. Here’s what Tiyya had to say about her work: “Over the course of the past year, social activism work has received a lot more media attention. This does not mean that this … Continue reading Black History Month Spotlight: The Tales of Unknown and Misinterpreted Black Heroes
We’ve all been there before…that moment where you can’t stop laughing, crying, screaming, that moment when your heart pounds harder and harder every second of the movie: the moment you’ve found a true rom-com. In other words, it’s when you’ve found “To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before,” a movie series on Netflix that has been receiving a lot of global attention. To be able … Continue reading To All the Boys: the Ideal Romantic Comedy
Introduction & Context Black Lives Matter itself is a decentralized movement against police brutality and racially motivated violence, not an organization. This means that while these three women founded the movement, you cannot take their politics and apply it to the rest of the movement. This is because they are very radicalized compared to the majority of those supporting the movement, and to not support … Continue reading The Founders of Black Lives Matter: Patrisse Cullors, Alicia Garza, and Opal Tometti
I could bet good money you don’t know who Mae Mallory is, and even I didn’t know until I started to research. Mae Mallory is a forgotten Black power intellectual who was almost erased from history. Even she herself said she was, “just an insignificant black woman who believes that the tree of liberty has to be watered in blood!” and that her “white oppressors” … Continue reading Mae Mallory: Forgotten Radical
Drivers license, the debut single from 17-year-old Olivia Rodrigo, was released a few weeks ago and rocked the world. It quickly became the most-streamed song on Spotify in a week, with 65,873,080 streams. Rodrigo blew up on Tik Tok and several Drivers License trends have taken over the app. Fans quickly picked up on the connections to Rodrigo’s ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett, her co-star on the show High … Continue reading Olivia Rodrigo, Sabrina Carpenter, and Joshua Basset Drama: just a Publicity Stunt?
Red Dead Redemption 2 is an RPG by Rockstar Games, and a perfect example of the role-playing game genre as a whole. RDR2 proves this because of its high level immersive atmosphere that can really pull the player into the story and the world created. Even though RDR2 is a little over two years old now, it still has extremely high levels of replayability. There … Continue reading Red Dead Redemption II: a Visual Masterpiece
Have you ever found the most amazing winter jacket at a thrift store? Have you ever taken the time to consider the impact of that action? You may have taken a jacket away from someone in need, but you also could have prevented it from going to the landfill. Thrifting has become a trend for many, but others rely on it to survive. The argument … Continue reading Gentrified? The Ethics of Thrifting
When an older friend recommended I watch “The Queen’s Gambit,” the recent seven-episode Netflix series about a troubled female chess prodigy, I was skeptical. Chess? It sounded esoteric, boring. But I ended up bingeing the entire series in one weekend. I never expected a show about chess to be so utterly compelling. Set in the 1960s, the show revolves around Beth Harmon – played by … Continue reading The Queen’s Gambit – Making Chess Cool
In the 1990’s, Alanis Morisette was the voice of a generation. Her ‘95 album Jagged Little Pill sold over 33 million copies and at 21 years old, Morisette was the youngest person ever to receive the album of the year award. Her work was fueled by a unique sort of adolescent anger infused with love, pain, and defiance. It has been 25 years since the … Continue reading Elegant, Raw, Striking: Alanis Morissette’s 9th Studio Album Delivers
Before he retired, my uncle John Cogdill worked as a foreign service officer at US embassies. “I was what’s called a criminal investigator. Sort of like an FBI agent-but for the Foreign aid program,” he tells me over zoom call from his house in Bethesda, Maryland. “And so we had to find out if people were trying to steal our money by bribing people to … Continue reading My Uncle’s Experiences as a Foreign Service Officer Overseas
“I might own the three worst businesses right now: a hair salon, a movie theater, and a restaurant.” These are the words that begin my interview with Leigh Lindsay, owner of Zoetropolis Cinema Stillhouse and Salon Fin. “During the great depression, movie theaters and hair salons were the two businesses that did the best: because people wanted to escape reality and go to the movies, … Continue reading Interview with Leigh Lindsay, Local Business owner
Stay-at-home orders are keeping people home, and have shut down the fashion world, but young people are still finding ways to create and express themselves at home. But how is the fashion industry changing in response to the COVID-19 pandemic? With young style hungry teens at home DIY fashion is spiking. High fashion designers have either postponed or canceled fashions throughout the world, and some … Continue reading DIY Fashion Under Lockdown
In this polarized political moment, when American diversity is under attack, we are ravenous for diverse representation in pop culture. But when we reduce art to its value in a particular political climate, and when we commodify identity, we compromise artistic integrity. As the first Indian-American led TV show, Netflix’s Never Have I Ever understands that. The demographics of this country are changing—people of color … Continue reading How do we honor identity in pop culture?
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