Relationships 101: A How-To Guide for the Young Professional

by J. Brown

Omari and his wife, Charity

Episode 7 of the podcast featured a group of young, single professionals who shared their perspectives on modern dating for the 20- or 30-something. To look at things from the other end of the spectrum, I interviewed various friends of mine who have actually been able to maintain long-term relationships. Considering today's dating climate, they are the outliers, the chosen few who have managed to crack the proverbial code. To gain some knowledge on how they were able to make their relationships work, I asked them all the same set of questions and recorded their responses. Featured below are the responses of Aaron, 28; Wendy, 31; Omari, 27; Kim, 27; Brandon, 28; Trey, 24; Joele, 29; and Michael, 30. Pay attention and try to learn something.

1.) How did you and your significant other meet? 

Kim: My boyfriend and I met through a mutual friend. We were both invited to a free event and met each other on the line. We did the basic introductions and we didn't pay much attention to each other. I thought he was attractive, but nothing more. Eventually the group began discussing the NBA and we debated quite heatedly about the league. We kind of started to click from there. We went inside, drank quite a bit, danced together a lot, and the rest is history. 

Aaron: We briefly worked together and then found out that we both attended the same college, which was a nice ice breaker.  

Michael: The first time I met my now wife was in 2005 at the University of Miami, Pearson Residential College; it was during either Hurricane Katrina or Rita, I don't recall specifically. The dorms on campus were locked down for student safety, and to cull the inevitable cabin fever, the residences threw "Hurricane Parties". Skipping over some embarrassing details, I made my way into the party for the second time that night, fresh off a defeat (I should've lied when asked if I was a football player; big black guy, I could've pulled it off). Then, I met my wife. I'd like to say it was love at first sight, but I'm neither naive or romantic enough to believe in such concepts; lust at first sight is probably more applicable. We danced, we kissed, we visited my dorm room, we did NOT have coitus, and thus we were acquainted. 

Wendy: We went to middle school together.

Brandon: My significant other and I met on Tinder. Kind of crazy what a swipe right will do. 

Nightman: The Podcast - Episode 6

"The Dolezal Quandary"

Cast: J.Brown, B.Cole


It's been a long time. We shouldn't have left you.

For Episode 6, we get into the topic that's been flooding everyone's newsfeed and timeline: Rachel Dolezal's blackness. We discuss her interview with Matt Lauer from this morning and the implications of her comments.

We also touch on the NBA Finals and whether or not LeBron should win the MVP if his team loses.

Puttin' On For Your City: An Analysis

by J. Brown

Confession: I really like T-Pain. Having attending college from 2004-2008, Mr. Pain was an integral part of my party-going experiences. It could even be argued that other than Lil' Wayne, T-Pain was the biggest hip-hop artist during that time period. In addition to having his own smash singles, like "Buy U a Drank", he was also featured on A LOT of other people's singles. Just look at this list of singles that he was featured on; his 2007 was insane. 

Graduating college should have put T-Pain in a strictly nostalgic place for me, somewhere along with Bacardi Limon, fake IDs and Ramen noodles. That hasn't happened. I still enjoy his music, and could probably spend an unnecessary amount of time spouting the merits of Thr33 Ringz. So the other day, I was listening to his latest album while mopping the floors in my house. (I'm still an adult, after all.) On the first song, he used a phrase that's overused in hip-hop, but for some reason, it made me think. Yes, I said it: T-Pain's music made me think. In the first verse - which is mostly just about being a baller and gettin' these hoes - T-Pain claims that he does it "for my hood." Though I've heard rappers say this countless times on records, for some reason, I really thought to myself, 'What does that actually mean?' How exactly does one "do it for their hood"?

Album Review: To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar

Instead of giving you another biased album review with subjective statements from one listener's point of view, we decided to use a more holistic approach by asking three different listeners to share their opinions on Kendrick Lamar's latest album, To Pimp a Butterfly. In addition to regular contributor J. Brown, we received the reviews from singer/rapper/songwriter David Brown from Atlanta and videographer Rae Ruckus from NYC. None of the writers were given any of the other reviews prior to submitting their own, so each writer's piece is solely representative of the album as they heard it. Now, on to the reviews...

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

by J. Brown

I recently had an interesting conversation with a colleague at work. My coworker, a Black woman, lives in a Black neighborhood. Because of who she is and where she lives, she feels the need to stay in the neighborhood when she runs her errands or goes out to eat. As she put it, she doesn't want to just live around Black folks, but she wants to be an active part of the community. The problem is that when she goes to the post office or the local restaurant, she often notices a lack of professionalism that makes her wonder if her efforts are worth it. 

Now, just typing that sentence made me wince a bit, because I know how that's going to be read by some: Black people aren't professional, they're lazy. My colleague was also bothered, for similar reasons, as she expressed her concern. There's a natural internalization that happens to Black people when we're around other Black folks that aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. For some reason, we feel that whenever one of us isn't being professional or tactful in public, it's a reflection - and really, an indictment - on the entire race as a whole. 

This isn't fair, and might not even be a worthwhile concern all of the time, but as minorities, we're always worried about our public perception. If a white waiter has poor customer service, he's just lousy at his job. If a Black waiter has poor customer service, some might see that as proof that the restaurant shouldn't be hiring Black waiters. No one would ever say that about the white guy, mostly because you can't just stop hiring white people; there's too many of them. Being Black (or being a member of any other minority group) means constantly being self-conscious, not only about how the rest of the world sees you, but also how they see people who look like you. Black people know that we're not only judged by our actions, but also by the actions of other Black people.

About That Video...

by J. Brown

Without rehashing what's already been discussed, debated and pontificated upon ad nauseum, here are a few other things I've been thinking about regarding the OU Sigma Alpha Epsilon video:

• The fact that the chant was to the tune of "If You're Happy And You Know It" forces me to believe that this isn't something that they just made up last week. This chant has probably been around for years, and has probably been repeated within the frat at multiple campuses for decades. OU's chapter just so happened to be the ones that got caught. Tough luck.

• What makes SAE - or any other white fraternity - believe that we would want to be in their frat, anyway? We already knew that you'd rather hang us from trees; that's a large part of the reason we started our own organizations. Not to mention, SAE is the only national frat that was founded in the antebellum South, and they had members that fought for the Confederate Army. No thanks.

• With that said, should we really be surprised?

• The expulsion of the two guys in the video seems drastic, especially considering that the video was posted TWO DAYS AGO. There was clearly no investigation (although, if there's video evidence, I guess you don't really need one). The chant was messed up, but to me, this feels very reactionary. There's a bus full of guys chanting, but the school president decided to kick two of them out of school. They're like the definition of the word "scapegoat" at this point. The chant is offensive, but getting kicked out of school for a racial slur seems unfair. I know as a Black person I'm not supposed to say that, but I'm fairly certain that all this accomplishes is that it provides racists with the cognizance to ask everyone to put their phones away next time.

Top 10 "Black Film" Stars

by J. Brown

In honor of Black History Month, I spent this past Sunday doing exactly what would have made Martin and Malcolm proud: I watched a bunch of Spike Lee movies. If you watch enough Spike Lee movies, you'll start to notice that he uses a lot of the same actors throughout his filmography. Some of them went on to become pretty big stars in their own right (Denzel Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, Giancarlo Esposito). Others, not so much (Bill Nunn, Joie Lee, Roger Guenveur Smith). It got me to start thinking about who the biggest stars have been in Black cinema. Now, take note that I did NOT say "biggest Black stars." I'm talking about the actors who have specifically played a large role in Black films. (If you're unsure what a "Black film" is, just ask yourself if it's a movie that most Black people have seen and most white people would never have in their Blu-Ray collection. "Barbershop", for instance, is a Black film.) Based on this criterion, people like Will Smith and Halle Berry obviously won't be on this list. The hardest part about compiling this list wasn't necessarily coming up with the names, but figuring out where to rank them. To shave it down to 10, I tried to factor in how many Black films they were in, how influential those films were, and how big their roles were in said films.  Anyway, without further ado...

Why Black People Love "Empire"

by J. Brown

A month and a half after its premiere episode, Empire has skyrocketed into the biggest new drama on TV that isn’t produced by Shonda Rhimes. According to this report by Entertainment Weekly, Empire’s ratings have increased every week and are reaching Walking Dead numbers.  I don’t know how TV ratings are calculated, but I always measure ratings based on how annoying people on Twitter and Facebook become when the show is airing. Based on these systems, the numbers seem to match. This is all pretty unprecedented, and every report that I’ve read suggests that there weren’t any lofty expectations for the program. To me, it seemed very much like a cheap attempt to attract Black viewers. “Let’s give them hacky hip-hop music and put Terrence Howard in it. He’s in all the Negro films, they must love that guy.” Surprisingly (or maybe not), this has worked out probably better than even FOX had imagined. How did they pull this off?