1863 Search results for "africa"

NERD ALERT! New obsession: Gender Tests. Yesterday, I read an article about South African runner Caster Semenya, who has been asked by the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) to take tests in order to confirm that she is, in fact, a woman. Apparently she got really good, really fast, and that raised some estrogen […]

Born of Jamaican roots on August 17, 1887, Marcus Garvey is the grandfather of pan-Africanist cultural movements throughout the diaspora. His Universal Negro Improvement Association went onto inspire generations of movements, scholars and black people across the world. Today, I encourage all of you to take a moment out to remember this powerful ancestor, and […]

      As a 19year old Black male, my life prospects don’t look to bright- statistically speaking. My life span is 7.1 years shorter than any other cohort-group and I’m 5 times more likely to die of HIV/AIDS. That’s just health related. When it comes to education there is a 40% chance that I will [...]

Let’s face it, no one wants to sit around with the President, Joe Biden, Skip Gates, and some random police officer–with “diversity” training–drinking beer and pretending to talk about race. Sure, it’s a (free?) trip to the White House and all, but I don’t want to explain to Joe Biden what I mean by calling […]

Like most black children growing up in Houston’s Fifth Ward, I spent most of my life medically uninsured. If you got sick, you stayed home and endured the experimental ministering of your grandmother whose medical knowledge consisted of a spoonful of Castor Oil, two drops of sweet oil in each ear, and effectual prayer to […]

  There is a problem with leadership in America, particularly black America. From every angle when we think of our leadership there are three main themes (i.e., the problematic, the self-aggrandizer, and the bad).  Leadership is a tricky thing when you think about it. No one is at birth (here in United States of America) […]

         Race is a social construct that has historically been used as a means to stratify cohort groups. But what happens when an individual who feels they transcend it shakes up the paradigm? Professor Henry Louis Gates, one of the foremost scholars on African-American studies has spent a lifetime researching and redefining [...]

Over the next couple weeks I will be exploring a gay man’s struggle. Organizing my own experiences and what I have observed in other close friends, I will try to give an inside look to what it is like to grow up as a gay man in the inner city. There are obviously many aspects […]

Surrounded by white men in suits. Cameras flickering then flashing. Hands laid flat upon table. Nodding pensively. Swinging pendulum of opinions “we are happy” to “we have many reservations.” Judge Sonia Sotomayor listens as senator after senator summarize their thoughts about her appointment to the highest court in the land . . . a court […]

  As a youngster my father always told me to never make excuses. He stressed that habitual “excuse making” leads to defeatism. He spoke of defeatism so pejoratively that I began to think it was some sort of plague. When he even uttered the word excuse his face would contort in an ugly cringe as […]

1. Is it bad that I want racial solidarity? I was surfing the Internet this weekend—because what else does a 19-year-old black kid in the hood have to do over 4th of July weekend, when he is surrounded by little kids with fire-cracker ammunition, those things can definitely be dangerous. While surfing the net, I […]

Like most little black girls growing up in abusive  homes, I dreamed and sometimes daydreamed of being rescued from my reality. I wished I had a fairy godmother who would flick her magical wand singing, “Salagadoola mechicka boola bibbidi-bobbidi-boo. Put ’em together and what have you got bibbidi-bobbidi-boo,” changing my alcoholic father into benevolent king, […]