“Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris and his wife, Dr. Rainbow Barris, donated $1 million to fund a new scholarship at their alma mater, Clark Atlanta University, last week.

According to a press release, the generous donation marks the largest single gift from an alum that the HBCU has ever received. The money will be used to fund the Kenya and Rainbow Barris Annual Scholarship Award, which will be split evenly to support mass media arts majors and students studying biology. CAU also awarded Kenya with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters during its commencement convocation on Monday.`

“Mr. Barris has lifted his powerful voice in the entertainment industry to explore issues of classism and racism in creative and humorous ways,” said CAU president Dr. Ronald A. Johnson in a statement. “In giving back to their alma mater, he has again used his powerful voice to articulate the importance of supporting this beloved institution that is giving our students the skills and confidence to find and lift their own voices in the field of their choice.”

Kenya graduated from CAU in 1996 with a degree in mass media arts and went on to pursue a career in entertainment as a television writer for “Sister/Sister,” “Listen Up,” and “Girlfriends.”  Along with Black-ish, he also created a number of hit shows, including the spinoff Grown-ish, America’s Next Top Model, and BET’s The Game.”

Rainbow graduated from CAU in 1996 with a degree in biology. Today, she is a certified anesthesiologist and the author of “Keeping Up With the Johnsons: Bow’s Guide to Black-ish Parenting.” She recently decided to “devote herself fulltime to raising the couple’s six children,” reads the statement.

Rainbow, who was the first in her family to go to college, said she never aspired to work in medicine. “I didn’t have a vision,” she told Black Enterprise. “I had a lot of nights of tears, and times when I wanted to give up. People think things happen overnight and you’re so driven. I just knew I had to keep going because there was nothing to fall back on.”

Read Dr. Rainbow Barris’ exclusive interview with Black Enterprise here.

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The problem with arguing over semantics is that by the end of what is usually overwrought dialogue, even the most sensible onlookers will walk away thinking, what a colossal waste of time this was for everyone involved. This was my immediate reaction to the overreaction to New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon’s position that legalization of cannabis could serve as a form of reparations for Black folks, a.k.a. those majorly impacted by the futile “War on Drugs.” Speaking at the NYC Cannabis Parade held earlier this month, the former Sex and the City star claimed, “Arresting people–particularly people of color–for cannabis is the crown jewel in the racist war on drugs and we must pluck it down. We must expunge people’s records; we must get people out of prison.” In a follow-up interview with Forbes, Nixon elaborated on this stance, and subsequently, stoked a needless controversy. “Arresting people—particularly people of color—for cannabis is the crown jewel in the racist war on drugs and we must pluck it down,” Nixon explained again. “We [must] prioritize them in terms of licenses. It's a form of reparations.” Soon after Nixon's remarks, the clapbacks rolled in. Enter: Reverend Al Sharpton, who noted that while he was for marijuana legalization, it was not “reparations.” Moreover, the Black Lives Matter chapter of Greater New York posted a statement on Facebook asserting that Nixon's comments "does a disservice to our community for her to play into harmful stereotypes of African-Americans as drug users and dealers." They went on to add, "It does an even greater disservice to the enduring consequences of both slavery and Jim Crow and the inequities these systems of oppression perpetuated to claim that legalizing marijuana would somehow erase that experience." More recently, a group of Black pastors released a statement to further admonish the actress and activist. Releasing the statement exclusively to the New York Daily News, the group of pastors said in a letter directed to Nixon that her “comments make clear that you have no idea of the history and meaning behind the reparations debate in this country.” Not to be outdone, the letter went on to say Nixon’s comments  “did a disservice to Black people who have fought for centuries for equal justice and basic human rights.” As the Daily noted, the men behind the letter were: Dr. Johnnie Green, pastor of Mount Neboh Baptist Church in Harlem and president of Mobilizing Preachers and Community, Dr. Carl Washington Jr., pastor of New Mount Zion Baptist Church in Harlem, and Rev. Troy DeCohen, pastor of Mt. Vernon Heights Congregational Church and head of Westchester's United Black Clergy. They also called for an apology. Respectfully, I hope she never gives them one. I personally don’t think she said anything wrong, though I appreciate her efforts to clarify any misgivings about her statement. In an op-ed posted for Cassius, Nixon reflected on her statement, writing, “Eighty percent of New Yorkers arrested for marijuana possession are Black or Latino, even as white people use the drug at the same rate. We simply have to stop putting people of color in prison for something that white people do with impunity.” She then cited former Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s announcement that he was “joining the board of a marijuana cultivation and distribution corporation and would lobby on behalf of an industry hitting $10 billion in sales” as a particular note of hypocrisy given Boehner has long been anti-drug and has long supported policies that “devastated communities of color during the war on drugs.” And as if further proving that she’s indeed with the shits, Nixon quoted The New Jim Crow author Michelle Alexander in a conversation at the Drug Policy Alliance, who also noted that white men are on the verge of making a fortune for something Black kids have been locked up for. “I think we have to be willing, as we’re talking about legalization, to also start talking about reparations for the war on drugs, how to repair the harm caused,” Alexander said. As others like City Lab’s Brentin Mock have noted, there are Black people who have echoed Cynthia Nixon’s sentiments. Like, for example, former NAACP executive director and current Maryland gubernatorial candidate Ben Jealous, who, while delivering the keynote speech at the National Cannabis Policy Summit in Washington, D.C. in April, expressed similar grievances about far too many Black people being imprisoned for using or selling marijuana. In theory, I suppose I could understand why some may have taken issue with Nixon’s use of the term “reparations” had it been used within the context of slavery. However, she didn’t. She specifically said a “form of reparations.” I interpreted that in the context of a kind of reparations for the “War on Drugs” because that’s what she was talking about. Had she mentioned slavery or the Jim Crow era, I would understand the calls for a history pop quiz, but again, she didn’t, so what is the point of any of this? It feels like many of her critics are guilty of not only misreading her remarks but clinging to an antiquated attitude about cannabis. Like this idea that we dare not allow marijuana dispensaries “in our communities.” Why not? Cannabis has numerous health benefits; it’s not merely just to get high. Grow up. Meanwhile, as Nixon and plenty of people have stated, whether you use cannabis or not, the reality is there is an obvious shift happening and marginalized people are being largely excluded from it. There are Black folks that have made strides in the cannabis industry, but not nearly enough. So is Nixon wrong to say that those have been penalized most for marijuana use ought to be given priority for licensing and the opportunities that come with it? Do we not want more Black women like Amber Senter, Hope Wiseman, Mary Pryor, Tonya Rapley, Charlese Antoinette, and others? I don’t know what will come of Cynthia Nixon’s bid for governor, but what I have seen thus far is someone who rightfully pays attention to the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party. I know some have questioned if it’s pandering, but all politicians pander; it’s just about time a Democrat panders to us. To me, her comments at the NYC Cannabis Parade made as much sense to me as her proposed housing plan does. She seems to get it in ways most pols do not. I’d rather focus on what she’s saying exactly and holding her to that if she becomes successful with her political ambitions as opposed to inserting my own imagined commentary to create a debacle that has been pointless or “dumb” as others have deemed it.

Damon Lindelof, best known for his work on TV shows like Lost and The Leftovers is producing yet another episodic series for HBO based on the wildly popular graphic novel by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons called Watchmen. The series will have a cast filled with top-notch talent starring Regina King, Don Johnson, Tim Blake Nelson, Louis Gossett Jr., Adelaide […]

The post Will You Be Watching HBO’s ‘Watchmen’? appeared first on Black Girl Nerds.

Warning: Spoilers follow for Solo: A Star Wars Story. Jump into hyperspace and away from this page if you haven’t seen the movie yet.

Solo: A Star Wars Story might have been about a young Han Solo, and Donald Glover’s Lando Calrissian claimed some of the spotlight, as did L3-37’s sass and spunk…but the appearance of a surprising villain made me momentarily forget about anything else in the film. When Qi’ra got in contact with the head of criminal organization Crimson Dawn, she called Darth Maul. Yes, he’s still alive. And yes, it makes total sense for him to be entangled with the Star Wars universe’s underworld at this point in the timeline.

How is Maul alive?

If you haven’t watched the Star Wars animated series, you last saw Darth Maul tumbling down a power generator shaft in The Phantom Menace after Obi-Wan Kenobi cut off his legs. But he didn’t die. Star Wars: The Clone Wars revealed he survived the fall and made his home in a landfill on Lotho Minor. He was found there by his brother Savage Opress and taken to his mother, the Nightsister witch, Mother Talzin, who used her dark magicks to create cyborg legs for Maul.

What’s he been doing since The Phantom Menace?

After Maul came back to the universe, he was primarily focused on exacting revenge upon Obi-Wan for almost killing him and for taking away his future as a Sith Lord. Maul blames Obi-Wan, and by extension any Jedi, for everything that went wrong in his life. He was also bitter towards Darth Sidious and Count Dooku because he felt abandoned and pushed aside.

To bring about the fall of Obi-Wan and the two Sith Lords, Maul built the Shadow Collective. He constructed the group, comprised of the worst of the worst criminal organizations (Death Watch, Pyke Syndicate, Black Sun, and the Hutt Clan), in order to have an army of sorts under his command. Maul intended the Shadow Collective to be a third party in the Clone Wars, fighting against the Separatists and the Republic. With this group at his back, he successfully led a short-lived takeover of Mandalore.

How is he connected to Crimson Dawn?

Crimson Dawn seems to be a relatively new crime syndicate. My guess is after Maul’s Shadow Collective failed and he fell out of favor with all those groups, he either plotted a takeover of an underworld group in its infancy or founded Crimson Dawn. He knows the world. He has the contacts. It’s a natural progression in his “career.”

Where is all of this on the timeline?

Maul returns (and gets legs!) about 12 years after The Phantom Menace and about 10 years before Solo.

Maul first builds the Shadow Collective about nine years before Solo. Darth Sidious destroys the Collective at about the same time. It was short-lived. Maul returned to Mandalore with the forces he had left, but he didn’t stay long because the Republic laid siege to the planet (the Siege of Mandalore). Maul escaped. His whereabouts and activities from this point to Solo (still about nine years) are unknown, but he eventually returned to Dathomir.

What’s the deal with Dathomir?

Maul was born on Dathomir and Darth Sidious saw potential in Maul when the Zabrak was a boy (Sidious was working with Mother Talzin at the time) and took him to train him as his apprentice. Maul has returned to Dathomir repeatedly. Besides being his homeworld, it’s a place of deep and mysterious magic.

What happens to Maul after Solo?

We don’t see Maul again until about eight years later when he appears in Star Wars Rebels. Then, he’s on Malachor. He was looking for an ancient weapon in the Sith Temple on Malachor, but his ship crashed onto the planet, leaving him alone for an unspecified amount of time.

If you want to go all in and read and watch every part of Darth Maul’s arc, check out this guide.

Images: Lucasfilm

Amy Ratcliffe is the Managing Editor for Nerdist. She likes Star Wars a little. Follow her on Twitter.

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