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So You Love that Racist Movie?

Scene I Y’all, Gone with the Wind was my first grown-up movie (that means my first movie that wasn’t a Saturday morning matinee where my friends and I ran up and own the aisles acting like fools). We went at night, my mother and two sisters and I. Watching this movie I learned a very important plot point. During the burning of Atlanta,...

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Do You Know Your Patterns of Racism?

All the news about attacks on Asian Americans, I wanted to speak out. So I began writing a blog post, and soon enough, I took a hard turn and found myself re-hashing our national history of white racism toward Black folks, with some scant references to indentured Chinese. I wrote, and I revised, and somehow I couldn’t get it right. Then I realized,...

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Beignets, Names, and Future Wins

Today, we took our grandsons to the cafe au lait and beignets place. Inside the place, I mean. Except for one, two times, I haven’t been inside a restaurant for 12 months. We ordered three plates of beignets and one croissant because it was an after-school snack, and the beignets might not have been sufficient, thus the croissant....

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The Gifted Young Professional

In the summer of 1981, when I was clerking at the Wise Carter law firm in Jackson, Mississippi, and living at my grandmother’s house, I walked the five blocks to my job in downtown Jackson. Pedestrian commuting was not the rule in Jackson, but my other option was to drive Bigmama’s 1965 land shark Cadillac, fondly known as “Big Blue.“ At that time,...

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Ha, ha! My Own Purple Martin House!

Generations ago, the Morris family became hosts for Purple Martins. When the ladies and gents of the Purple Martin family would travel through Jackson, Mississippi, on their way from South America to the eastern United States, they always stopped over at the Morris Ice Company. Grandaddy Morris made sure of that. He put up houses for the travelers....

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No More Giving Up

This is the way it goes: Christmas, Epiphany, Mardi Gras, Mardi Gras Day, Ash Wednesday, Lent. We are now in the 40 days of Lent. (This is a religious calendar, but life in New Orleans revolves around it; there’s a season of Mardi Gras for a reason). This year, I’ve made a hard shift on Lent, one many of you might disagree with. Traditionally,...

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Yay!!!

The temperature dropped to 26 degrees. In New Orleans. But our pipes didn’t burst. The sun came out. Yes, it took its own sweet time, but by 2:00, the sky was blue. The kids came over. They, as a group, were dangerous insects. (Think thorn bug and dung beetle plus two more). I, as David Bowie’s Major Tom, handed out Space...

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Mardi Gras Waiting

We sit in the dark the night before Mardi Gras Day. If you’re not from New Orleans, it’s hard to understand what the season means to the city. This 2021 pandemic Mardi Gras has been both muted and astounding. House floats have taken the place of crowd-packed parades and rolling monsters of creativity. The houses are magical. “Yardi...

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