156 Search results for "oppressed"

In an elementary school on the south side of Chicago children participate in recess as a new phrase surfaces. Anytime a student does anything disruptive on the playground, a teacher will shout out to them and say “would Barack do that”? Anytime a male student disrespects a female student, another teacher will yell out, “would […]

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter caused a stir when she asserted that civil rights are a Black thing. No exaggeration. She apparently believes that gays, women, immigrants and any other oppressed group doesn’t deserve America’s most gracious gift of civil rights because they weren’t victims of slavery. I was discussing her comments with a friend who […]

E.E. Likhaya Lam means equal education is our home in Xhosa. This is now the title of a the CD I was able to record with 15 high school youth about how they came to join a movement, and sing to tell about it. Every time I hear the voices of these 15 young people […]

Four years ago I got a phone call from the Obama Campaign in Cleveland, Ohio that requested me to “join the campaign.” I was more than happy to oblige, as the 2008 race for president seemed as if it would revolutionize our world. The pure hope felt in my 18-year-old mind at the inception of […]

Music is an instrument for movements. It is an apparatus strategically utilized by those who fight in the name of the struggle. It is a means to an end that places final solutions in the context of what is only a hope of achieving genuine equality. Music is voice, and voices, and collectives who speak […]

There is no sound more ironic than the opening a coke can moments before entering into a slum. A conglomerate of carbonation crushing towards the corners of cups that flow-eth over with milk, honey, and the justified envious tensions between those who have and those who have not. I picked up my privilege, and let […]

They build in the name of development. An inanimate concept that creates debts between those living in the first world countries and those dying in third and developing constructs, even when privilege stares into the eyes of poverty, the rich would still displace millions just to construct. The Irony is that in the name of […]

What is it about mankind that loves to make difference the most important aspect in social interactions? Why, even when our humanity tells us that we are the same, do we insist on proving the existence of inferiority? It makes me angry. This anger was sparked due to a new endeavor I am about to […]

Off the West Coast a new movement assembles an army of sick-and-tired oppressed peoples. This group of artists, called Black Hippy, tours all over the world cultivating a militant program of HiiiPower. The philosophy of HiiiPower seems tailor-made for a generation of activists that are uniquely artistic and have easy access to brain drugs. Our only question […]

(I Learned By Watching You) I. Last week, I submitted a news story to the BYP concerning yet another case of bullying. Joel Morales, a 12-year-old from East Harlem, hanged himself because he had grown tired of relentless harassment from other students. I forwarded the story just a few weeks after having sent an update regarding the FAMU […]

The sentiment that Blacks “should know better” when it comes to prejudice against other groups is a product of white supremacist thinking. Being Black doesn’t imbue us with special powers to automatically understand someone else’s plight…

Growing up we always knew that Capitalism, or “the system”, was responsible for the hardships of our parents. These days the youth of the present generation don’t seem to think that Capitalism just in its essence produces struggle. What if we have been surprised by the good experiences the labor force has lent us? Graduate […]