Erin Aubry Kaplan
Erin Aubry Kaplan is an author, journalist and essayist who has been writing about black Los Angeles and wider issues since 1992. She teaches creative nonfiction at Antioch University Los Angeles and current events at the OASIS center in the Crenshaw district.
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Everybody's outraged about Donald Sterling's views of black people and happy that he's gone. But what he really represents is going nowhere.
Going back east to Rochester is both an escape from L.A. and an encounter with the brutally familiar.
In L.A., going to a part of town where you've never been -- including a totally different town -- isn't just a job for GPS, it's an adventure.
NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" made gangsta rap an enduring genre, but the social critiques it once featured didn't fare as well.
As a kid, I was a serial non-smiler. I sensed that for black women, smiling was never just about giving men something pretty to look at.
Michael Reed was a friend of mine. That was something I sometimes struggled to accept for reasons I'm not proud to admit.
The closing of a longstanding gathering place for the black community marks a bittersweet new beginning for Leimert Park.
For thirteen years my car and I have had a splendid relationship. But now it may be over, and I'm taking it hard.
As "12 Years A Slave" demonstrates, the stories we celebrate on screen are not necessarily the ones we celebrate in real life.
The recent attack of a civil rights memorial at Ole Miss is another teaching moment.
When you think you're bad off, affording what you really want makes you realize what fortunate means.Â
Black History should be one for the books, but as I learned a long time ago, it isn't.