Good English, well spoken and well written will open more doors than a college degree... Bad English will slam doors you don't even know exist.
Your best shot at happiness, self-worth and personal satisfaction - the things that constitute real success - is not in earning as much as you can but in performing as well as you can something that you consider worthwhile.
And, yes, words matter. They may reflect reality, but they also have the power to change reality - the power to uplift and to abase.
If I could offer a single prescription for the survival of America, and particularly black America, it would be to restore the family. And if you asked me how to do it, my answer - doubtlessly oversimplified - would be; save the boys.
People who believe a problem can be solved tend to get busy solving it.
Scandal has a thousand stringers; good news doesn't know the editor's phone number.
Our growing ability to eliminate the slow-moving aspects of entertainment and go hopping from one peak to another is not without cost. Stand-up comics, movie-makers and others who earn their living entertaining no longer "waste" time with setups and plot development, lest we reach for the remote and click them off our screen. The result is a loss of subtlety, anticipation and nuance and, in the process, a coarsening of our discourse.
It's always illegitimate for white men to organize as white men.
It is a mistake to suppose that requiring the nonmathematical to take more advanced math courses will enhance their understanding and not merely exacerbate their sense of inadequacy.