Opinions & Editorials
Victoria’s Column: Marriage, Dating and Self-Love
Dear reader, Relationships are hard. They require mutual care and attention, selflessness and the ability to sacrifice. The past 18 months have been some of the hardest I’ve ever experienced. I gained a husband and lost someone else. I found God and, through that, am finding myself. I decided to start a column because at…
Read MoreCharacter Never Goes Out Of Style
By Beverly Gadson-Birch Within the past couple of months, two women were associated with men who had recently been charged with a crime. Ladies, we need to talk! Is it worth going to jail for Mr. Cool, pants sagging, drug pushing, still living with momma pimp? Think about it! Relationships aren’t made in heaven, marriages are. …
Read MoreBuilding An Economic Infrastructure
By Barney Blakeney For the past little while I’ve been thinking about how getting stuff done takes time and effort. What’s the saying, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’? So as I thought about the $17 million that blanketed Charleston along with the August 21 solar eclipse, I better understood why Black owned businesses saw…
Read More“KEBUKA!,” An Unforgettable Memory
By Hakim Abdul-Ali There are times in my life when I have to step back and seriously reflect about many isolated, disturbing and poignant issues that affect me as a thinking “hue- man” being of color. “Life’s occurrences are symbolic metaphors in so many instances” is something that I always have to remind myself of.…
Read MoreArduous Voyages
By Hakim Abdul-Ali Today’s rap is rather simple in literary delivery, but it’s powerful in meaning. It’s about handling some of the distressing twists and traumatic turns in our lives. We all go through some “Arduous Voyages” in life as my mother used to call the difficult times in life that many “hue-mans” in her…
Read MoreWhat a Difference A Day Makes
By Beverly Gadsom-Birch Good Morning Charleston! What a difference a day makes. I believe it was Dinah Washington who sang that song back in the day. The storm passed over, hallelujah!! I decided to lighten up a little bit today with a little bit of humor because Irma really put me through the stress…
Read MoreWhat’s Good For The Goose …
By Barney Blakeney I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was reading a news report about the sentencing of the first of nine suspects involved in the local college illegal drug ring Charleston police busted last year. According to the report a circuit court judge gave 24-year-old Benjamin Nauss two years’ probation instead…
Read MoreHouston, We Have A Problem
By Beverly Gadson-Birch According to Wikipedia, “Houston, we have a problem” has often been credited to communications between Astronaut Jack Swigert and NASA during an explosion that crippled Apollo 13 spaceflight. Swigert’s words have been changed and shortened somewhat to the famous quote “Houston, we have a problem”. In the aftermath of Harvey, these same…
Read MoreBeyond The Politics Of Workplace Violence
By Barney Blakeney I got the call while writing on deadline. My mind was on the story I was writing so it took a minute to understand what the caller was talking about. The mind works a lot faster than the mouth. A lot of times people speak with half sentences as their mind…
Read MoreDon’t Let Negative Folks Destroy You
By Hakim Abdul-Ali Today I’m going to rap to you about a very troubling situation that’s oftentimes occurring in our lives. And that is dealing with negativities floating all around us. First, let me briefly set the scenario behind why I’m addressing this topic now. It’s based upon a rather impromptu conversation…
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