Column: I spent $2,500 for my son to play ball; the cost may outweigh the benefit

I grew up in the 1980s in North Omaha. My family home was on 16th and Locust Streets, right down the street from a grocery store called Hinky Dinky. My neighborhood was predominately Black and poor, with one White family at the end of the block. This family was made up of an older man and his three grown sons. They owned two houses at the end of the block, separated by an alley where I would sit with his granddaughter and play.

They lived similar to everyone else in the neighborhood, minus the melanin.

Malcolm X, the Omaha-born civil rights activist whose fiery oratory helped deliver a message of self-sufficiency and independence for Black people, survived the first round of cuts to remain in the running for the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

On Aug. 12, the Nebraska Hall of Fame Commission reduced the latest list of nominees from eight to three. On Sept. 12, they do the final vote. Right now, Malcolm X is in second behind Louise Pound, an innovative scholar and athlete. The other candidate is Howard Hanson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and musician. Both are White.

In June, the Supreme Court stripped away the landmark ruling that made access to an abortion a federal right in the United States. With the overturning of Roe v. Wade — a right that has been in place for my entire life — the states get to decide their own abortion bans and restrictions to reproductive rights.

Here in Nebraska, the 49-member legislature will seek 33 votes when the session resumes to pass a ban or more restrictions. Notably, they are looking to put reproductive restrictions in place which will only affect the bodies of women and girls.

When I was a kid growing up in the 1980s, I loved riding the bus to school. The bus was where kids were king. My ride from North Omaha to “way out west,” as we inner-city kids called it, took nearly 45 minutes — even longer when old school Nebraska weather kicked in.

It was a daily escape from home and school. An in-between time to be your own person. The bus ride to school served so many purposes for its riders. Homework not done? Do it on the bus. Didn’t get enough sleep? Do it on the bus. No time to eat in the morning? Pack it up or stop at the corner store in the morning and eat it on the bus. This one was important because by the time we lower-income, primarily African American students rode the bus to these majority-white neighborhood schools, breakfast was over. So, if you were unable to eat at home or on the bus, you remained hungry until lunchtime.

The purpose of Black History Month is a celebration of African-Americans and their contributions to society. But in reality, African Americans have made far too many contributions to this country to squeeze into one month — let alone the shortest month of the year.

Black history is American history and should be part of what is taught in all K-12 classrooms year-round.

As LSU coasted to a win over Iowa in the women’s NCAA Tournament championship game earlier this month, the Tigers’ Angel Reese mocked Hawkeye sensation Caitlin Clark.

Reese hit Clark with the “you can’t see me” taunt — first displayed by rapper Tony Yayo, but later made famous by John Cena — and then pointed to her ring finger, to indicate a ring was in her future. Backlash soon followed.

It has historically been the case that a disproportionate number of women, particularly women of color, work in lower wage jobs.

My mother was one of those women.