This year’s group of talented men are literally beating the odds everyday. They are beating the odds that say they should be dead or back behind bars. They are not only surviving, but thriving.

When I think of bitterness I think of roots. Roots are not fruit, sweet and attractive, but they are just as essential to plant health. They are patient but always moving forward, growing unapologetically. Some roots are impossible or even deadly to ingest if pulled straight out of the ground, but if you know your roots, you might find that you can turn them into medicine, and although you can almost bet that it will be bitter to the taste, they are healing.

We live in a diverse country, and understanding cultural and creative expression lends itself to a benevolent understanding that expels hate and promotes equality.

“The process of transforming our industry into something more sustainable and more sensitive to our needs…takes time. It is a long term commitment to a new way of producing and consuming that requires widespread personal and institutional change” –Kate Fletcher

People are much deeper than stereotypes. That’s the first place our minds go. Then you get to know them and you hear their stories, and you say, ‘I’d have never guessed.’ ~ Carson Kressley

The Style Rant is a regular column that addresses some topic related to personal style. Sometimes it is literally about fashion and sartorial style; other times about social interaction, entertainment, or some other topic that has caught my attention.

Inspired by James Baldwin’s “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to my Nephew on the one hundredth anniversary of the emancipation” originally published in The Progressive magazine, from December 1962. A piece written in a time when seemingly everyone was celebrating freedom, Baldwin takes it upon himself to iterate to his fifteen-year-old nephew who he was born to be, what shackles society would try to put on him, and his obligation to his community.

Unveil portraits of courageous black men reshaping mind-sets and opposing negative stigmas.

While many are taken aback by these senseless acts of violence, I believe that these killings are part of a larger war on the black body, started not by the pulling of a trigger, but by the images that are placed in the media for our consumption.

“Pick your brain, blowout your conscious”.
-Franco