I had never taught Tatiana before. Yet, after a Latinx student meeting in Oakland, the 12th grader unexpectedly embraced me, crying: “You’re the first Mexican teacher I’ve seen at this school; I just wanted to say thank you.”

Translation: I’ve never seen someone like you in a position of academic importance.

I understood Tatiana. In my years as a student in Bay Area schools from kindergarten through high school, I only had one male teacher of color amid a stampede of mostly white women. This isn’t just a Bay Area problem, of course. My nine-year teaching career has allowed me…

I love basketball. But I also love working with young people. I mean that literally. For ten years, I was a public high school teacher serving schools in Louisiana, Massachusetts and my home-state, California, as an English Language Arts teacher.

I spent every waking minute for the entirety of my decade as a 20-year-old as a Teach For America graduate working with teens in need across the country. Thousands of them. Kids that were often brilliant and creative and inspiring; others who were loud and dismissive; and even more were simply quiet, uncertain, and still searching for themselves.

Every once…

On Friday night, J. Cole — the rapper and avid hoop fanatic — released his sixth studio album, The Off-Season, to a raucous internet audience. A highly anticipated drop, the project features an all-star roster of teammates — including Cam’ron, 21 Savage, Lil’ John, 6LACK, Lil’ Baby and Dreamville’s own, Bas — while still carving out plenty of iso space for Cole to go to work and flex his skills across a variety of 90s- and trap-inspired instrumentals.

I admit the album didn’t hook me on my first listen. I was expecting more from the rap veteran at this stage…

“When’s the last time you’ve been to ‘Sugar City?’”

This is a question you’ve probably never been asked before. (I know… because I grew up around here and I haven’t been asked that by anyone in my lifetime.) And to be honest: I don’t think anyone even knows where the hell Sugar City is.

I sure didn’t — until the day I accidentally discovered it with my wife, who was looking for a new place to hike near our house around San Pablo Bay.

It happened suddenly, as if we stepped through a rift in time and got lost in…

In a year as stressful as the pandemic has been, my wife and I have found refuge in each other — but also, in our community of lifelong friends, and in escaping to the outdoors.

It’s a privilege in many ways to be able to pack up, leave the hood, and spend a couple nights sleeping under the stars, but it’s something we’ve prioritized for ourselves and have made an effort to do during quarantine, since being trapped inside working from home all day isn’t exactly good for your melanin or mental health.

So we hit up Burney Falls (about…

If you haven’t seen Seis Manos yet, you need to get your shit together and support this 2019 original, which features the voices of Danny Trejo, Jonny Cruz, and Angelica Vale. Here’s a rundown of the dope, unorthodox plot: it takes place in the 1970s and follows a trio of kung fu fighting Mexicanos who — with the help of a Black DEA agent and Mexican policewoman— battle to defend San Simon, a fictional border town. They’re up against a hyper-savage cartel takeover, using only their six fists (“seis manos”) to combat the flying bullets. If it sounds wildly unbelievable…

I recently received an unexpected text from my older brother: “Thank you, LaMelo Ball!”

He’s a self-proclaimed casual NBA fan, and admittedly doesn’t know much about the current players or League, which was why I was surprised by his sudden interest in random players. But he has recently become highly engaged, just like so many others around the world who have helped to make the NBA the fastest growing sports league — which has grown at a rate three times greater than their biggest competitor, the NFL.

I immediately opened the screenshot he’d sent, curious to see what he was…

Posters adorn pockmarked walls.

Boy drinks them in like communion wine — holy water.

I.

Jordan hangs in the air
like a Christmas ornament he floats
over the court. The ball splashes
cleanly through the net: a smooth stone
into water.

II.

As Bird falls backward
into the other team’s bench,
time seems to slow.

The ball screams from his hands:
a thunderbolt loosed from a longbow. Time has expired,
but the arch of the projectile holds existence together.

Rushing earthward gathering phaeton-like speed. And then:
shot slices surgically through nylon.

Cheers like confetti, fall from the crowd.

III.

The ball appears where…