U.S. president Abraham Lincoln once said that, ‘a house divided against itself cannot stand’. His remarks were in reference to the growing tensions surfacing across the U.S. about the issue of slavery. On the other side of the pond and some 160 years later, we are witnessing a division that has been years in the making and for which no apparent resolution can be agreed on. As Britain heads to the polls in less than 24 hours, Brexit, the thorn in our political side, will once more be the issue taking front and centre stage […]
Category Archive: Society & Culture
If there’s one thing about me that I’m only too happy to let people know, it’s that I am a huuuuuge Disney fan and Disney music in particular. My early childhood in the 90s just so happened to coincide with the golden age of Disney’s animated movies and I grew up listening to the sounds of Aladdin, The Lion King, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast, Hercules and so many more. At 21, I took my first trip to Disneyworld and, as I near 30, I keenly await the arrival of the Disney + streaming service to satisfy my insatiable desire to consume more of what Disney has to offer. So as a lifelong Disney fan, I felt it necessary to go and watch the newly released and highly-anticipated Frozen 2 over the weekend.
Intimacy isn’t a word that is often associated with platonic interactions between men. Add to that the various stereotypes of hardened masculinity assigned to black men and the concept of intimacy and its possible manifestation within that group is rendered further alien. That is why when mainstream depictions of black men rest so heavily on negative stereotypes, it is heartwarming to see displays of black male bonding on a level that most people outside of this group do not get to experience in most of the media we consume. Such was the case when I recently saw Innua Ellams’ Barber Shop Chronicles at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm Road […]
We have just reached the halfway point of 2019 and it is undeniably shaping up to be an interesting (or exasperating!) year in terms of political developments in Britain. With all this uncertainty bubbling under the surface, I could not have picked a better time to read Kamila Shamsie’s Home Fire. Even though the book was published in 2017, it holds many parallels to the current socio-political climate in Britain […]
If ever you find yourself spending a few days in Washington DC I would highly recommend you take a day out (and I do mean the whole day!) to visit the wonder that is the National Museum of African American History and Culture (aka the Black Smithsonian). I recently did just that and and came away from the experience feeling moved beyond anything I could have prepared myself for […]
Daylight Snobbery 