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Nov 2, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware
I spent my teenage years in the projects. Although they were rife with drugs and violence as people competed for available resources, I grew comfortable navigating the neighborhood. As long as I didn't mess with anyone or get involved in illegal activities, they didn't mess with me. Once I moved to a primarily white neighborhood, a new feeling crept onto the back of my neck when I went for a walk. Unlike the projects, it was a feeling I couldn't shake no matter how long I lived there.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware
When I was a child, I consumed countless stories about good prevailing. I had stacks of comics about heroes pushing through impossible odds. Despite the history of America's racism, I knew the country would progressively get better. Racism was on its way out. It had been pushed to the edges of society. Sure, people still whispered racist remarks.
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Oct 15, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware
Why Nightcrawler being the son of a Satanic father is preferred over him having two mothers The X-Men are probably the most famous superhero team to work as an allegory for minority groups. Although the originalintentions are sometimes embellished, it is easy to see by the 80s Chris Claremont had turned the X-Men into a diverse and relatable team. Honestly, most groups could find something to love about the X-Men. They were outcasts trying to navigate a world that hated and feared them.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware
So, I've discussed these hateful laws before here, but in short, teachers are now supposed to report students who identify as trans. Even if a child asks to go by a different name, we are expected to report them. It is honestly some of the most embarrassing malarkey I've seen in the American education system. We have so many reasons to be embarrassed. I've had students kicked out and shipped off because they came out to their parents. I'm in the business of protecting kids.
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Oct 12, 2024 | 
shorturl.at | LG Ware
So, I’ve discussed these hateful laws before here, but in short, teachers are now supposed to report students who identify as trans. Even if a child asks to go by a different name, we are expected to report them. It is honestly some of the most embarrassing malarkey I’ve seen in the American education system. We have so many reasons to be embarrassed. I’ve had students kicked out and shipped off because they came out to their parents. I’m in the business of protecting kids.
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Oct 8, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware
Every Autumn for the last decade or so, my area received hurricane warnings. In most cases, the major threat resolved before reaching us. I don't want to minimize the property damage and lives lost in previous storms, but in my area, it usually made for some windy mornings and a bit of rain. Knowing this, and with similar news reports, most people didn't give Helene a second thought. School was canceled because it is always canceled when these storms come through.
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Sep 15, 2024 | 
levelman.com | Joshua Adams |John DeVore |Garrick McFadden |LG Ware
If the patriarchy ever invited the fellas over for a movie night, I’d recommend director Michael Bay’s 1998 disaster epic Armageddon. It’s a classic of macho mythology and one of the last movies to unironically celebrate old-fashioned manly virtues like “horny” and “mad.”Armageddon is about a ragtag group of filthy American oil riggers who ride a space shuttle to the surface of a giant killer asteroid and then proceed to blow it the fuck up, saving the world from total obliteration.
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Sep 15, 2024 | 
levelman.com | John DeVore |Garrick McFadden |LG Ware |Allison Gaines
Recalling and recording the internal machinations you had when you were younger can make for beautiful essays. But other than a few key details, I don’t remember much about the first time I witnessed a drive-by. I couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. My father walked my older brother and I from his car to my Grandma Idelle’s house, just a couple of homes away from the corner. She lived in the Ashburn-Gresham neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago.
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Sep 14, 2024 | 
levelman.com | Garrick McFadden |LG Ware |Allison Gaines |John DeVore
He asked me if I wanted to see something cool. I said “yes” because I did. What had started as Friday night happy hour drinks turned into poorly rolled joints in his small studio apartment on the Lower East Side, New York City’s turn-of-the-century party district. We worked together at a magazine. A ‘men’s general interest’ magazine, ninety or so pages a month of soft-boiled service journalism, and PG-13 cheesecake designed to appeal to boys and balding, pot-bellied men.
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Sep 13, 2024 | 
levelman.com | LG Ware |Allison Gaines |John DeVore |Jeremy Helligar
In 1977 my parents left their beloved Compton, California, with tears in their eyes. They sobbed goodbyes to each of the gargantuan palm trees that had provided shade to them and their children. These palm trees lined the street and made them feel like they were living a California Dream. They had moved from Great Falls, Montana, to South Central Los Angeles after my father had been honorably discharged from the Air Force.
