Race

Keith Boykin wasn’t planning on writing a book in 2022 when the idea for “Why Does Everything Have to Be about Race?” took hold.

On Feb. 17, Speakeasy Stage opens the Boston premiere of “Fairview,” a probing comedy by playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury. Running through March 11, the show uses unexpected twists to investigate both the theater experience and its larger societal reflection.

Cartoonist and Malden native Keith Knight, whose semi-autobiographical series, “Woke,” is airing its second season on Hulu, has been tapped to deliver the graduation address at his alma mater, Salem State University.

“I am a Black man in Hollywood — in order to sustain my position, I can’t get caught slipping, not even once.” Will Smith wrote this in his candid memoir. They were perceptive, spot-on words.

Author Claudia Rankine recently took part in a virtual conversation hosted by Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge. Joining her in the online event was Kierstan Carter, a doctoral student in African and African American Studies at Harvard.

Dr. Ibram X. Kendi, eminent scholar and youthful intellectual, brimming with ideas and a willingness to apply academic rigor to urgent matters of community, has arrived in Boston to become the founding director of the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. The Banner spoke with Dr. Kendi in early July about racism and the arts.

At the Feb. 26 City Council meeting, Councilor Julia Mejia proposed a hearing order regarding cutting parking ticket costs for low-income families. She issued a hearing order to discuss possibilities for the tickets to be income-adjusted.

New restrictions on voting such as the closing down of polling places, purges of voter data rolls, restrictions on voting days and language access all amount to a valid attempt to take away the right to vote for minorities and people of color.

Afrocentric hairstyles such as natural crowns, elaborate braids, twists and locs are beautiful, but natural hair wearers are often met with discrimination in the workplace and at school.

Black History Month began as a “Negro History Week” in 1926. Scholar and historian Carter G. Woodson chose the second week in February, as it contained the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, to bring awareness to African Americans’ role in shaping U.S. history. President Gerald Ford decreed Black History Month a national observance in 1976.

The boundaries of Boston’s neighborhoods have long shifted in response to changes in the racial, ethnic and religious makeup of the city’s residents.

New research analyzes the strong connection between disproportionate wealth and financial services and products that are either shared with or denied to consumers of color.