Crimson opinion writer

Sterling M. Bland

Latest Content


How Christian Hip-Hop Saved My Life

When my Christianity — constantly threatened by cultural assimilation and the transgression of someone else’s social norms — is nearly lost, Christian hip-hop acts as a surgical knife, dividing between the beautiful and the ugly, putting me and my faith back together again.


Howard, Here We Come!

Almost 90 years after W.E.B. Du Bois published “The Negro College” was published, we wrestle with the temptation to retrogress to separate schooling: a dystopian America where droves of Black students stop applying to white schools and turn to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Where elite institutions are further deprived of the gift that is diversity.


Make Sleep A Gem Again

The faculty of the Sleep Gen Ed and members of the Committee on General Education have a choice: to join the revolution of rest or to succumb to the system. In a pile of cold, hard stones, Sleep can be a gem again.


Cornel West is Gone

The fact that Cornel West is gone is a tragedy for current and future Black Harvard students, but it is no surprise. He did not belong here. But in his leaving, Professor West left a flame just bright enough to kindle prophetic fire in those students ready to answer the call and hold Harvard to its better side, envisioning a brighter future.


Why Harvard’s Performative Culture is Good

When it comes to some campus issues, then, I might consider myself a campus-libertarian of sorts. And in this way I’m optimistic. It’s true: Harvard hasn’t listened to us well. But, if we want to transform our school’s culture, the power lies in the student body’s hands.


A Revolution of Rest

To begin eroding the spirit’s control, we students must begin by choosing not to work, at times. If you’ve made it here, you have the work ethic and study habits necessary to succeed and find some rest in-between, even if that means you don’t end up valedictorian. Just do you. And rest too.


HUDS Food Makes Harvard Home

HUDS food is the great equalizer for the majority of us on campus — it picks no favorites. Regardless of if your parents are in the top one percent of income earners globally or if you come from a home with food insecurity, you are blessed with vegan creamy pasta with Beyond sausage for dinner and a blondie brownie for dessert.