Tagged with African American …

Where Can I Buy a “Race Card?”

I love a good card game! My dad taught me to play Solitaire (with real cards, not on the computer, because…well…I’m on the elderly side of Generation X) when I was about 7 years old. In high school, we’d play Hearts and Uno in the school cafeteria at lunch time. When I got to college, … Continue reading →

Who’s at the Bottom?

Between 1910 and 1970, it is estimated that more than five million African Americans migrated from the rural American South to northern cities. Perhaps, not so surprisingly, I didn’t learn about The Great Migration, until I took Black American History 200 during my sophomore year in college in 1982. Ironically, it was this same year … Continue reading →

Will I Ever Use This in Real Life?

Although many things in society have changed between the time when I was a middle school and high school student from 1975 to 1981 and today, I suspect there is one area in which older Gen Xers like me and today’s Gen Zs. For generations, students in required history courses have often questioned the need … Continue reading →

Things That Make You Go “Hmmm”

As I write this essay in February 2025, I am shocked to discover that the year 1991 is now thirty-four years in the past! How is that even possible? Now, you might be wondering why it is that I’m thinking specifically about the year 1991. As a Gen-Xer, I was a young working mother in … Continue reading →

“Stop Eyeballing Me, Boy!”

The Quora Chronicles – Part 6 Actor Louis Gossett, Jr. made history as the first Black American to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role as Marine Corp Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in the 1982 film, “An Officer and a Gentleman.” One of Foley’s most memorable lines comes when Richard Gere’s character first … Continue reading →

A Different Kind of “Christmas Cheer

I love my job!  Since 2011, when I left the corporate world to become a teacher of English as a Second Language, I have probably learned as much or perhaps more from my students as they have learned from me.  In addition to learning the language, many immigrants to the United States are also anxious … Continue reading →

Who Am I?

I had always hated group sharing in school – always.  The other students were too dull, too immature, and just too slow, both literally and figuratively.  Being perceived as “really smart”, especially as a little black girl, from a working-class family, in a working-class city was both a blessing and a curse.  The was a … Continue reading →

Why We Need Political Correctness Reminder #1

This is me.  Robin Nathania Mathes Peacher Landry.  However, at the time that this picture was taken, my name was simply, Robin Nathania (pronounced by my family as “nuh-than-ee-yuh”,  which I hated and decided to change to “na-tahn-ya” when I realized that it was my name, and I could say it any way that made … Continue reading →

Black Church – White Church

Red states and blue states, right wing and left, liberals, conservatives, Republicans, Democrats, Progressives, Independents, Libertarians, Green Party, Trumpers, Never Trumpers, anti-vaxxers, Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter, Q-Anon, the list goes on and on.  Even though we are supposed to be “one nation under God”, it seems that we, as modern … Continue reading →