216 Search results for "generations"

You ever get on a plane and as you head to your economy seat slow down to look at the people in first class? I mean, we are all heading to the same place and at least for the course of the flight, we all live in the same neighborhood. But up front, they got […]

No matter how much sex there can be or how generous your pay checks come, you still have not experienced real amazement until you’ve been to a Chicago-style poetry slam. For four years, the end of February and beginning of March has marked the season in which I unleashed my craft. As a freshman in […]

Black leaders discuss lack of minority teachers Tiffany Lankes, The Democrat and Chronicle, February 19, 2011 African American Museum of the East End Emphasizes Overlooked History Bonnie Cannon, East Hampton Patch, February 19, 2011 Education summit pushes African American pursuit of college degrees Dan Klepal, Courier- Journal, February 19, 2011 Youth organizers launch IL trans-friendly bathrooms initiative Staff […]

We are living in that twenty-first century… Suicidal bombings, Dark Knight’s Joker, Kid Cudi and Kanye West black rose pop music display the new relationships to death. It was death that kept the powerless from doing whatever they pleased; think about “crime,” we approached it slowly, in fear of either real death—execution—or social death, getting […]

Watch video all the way through. httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGv8PQr8Uo4 I don’t know what’s scarier: the black extremist advocating for genocide or the black reverend who makes white people out to be victims of unequal media coverage. No doubt, neither of them should represent black folks but the reverend is what most of our successes will grow to […]

In life everything comes to an end. (Well most things, poverty is staying pretty consistent on us). But for the most part, things come to an end, eventually. I for one never thought my senior year of high school would end, as the sickness of senioritis went into full fruition at the end of my […]

People love using band-aids. As a little kid I can remember the security I felt after scraping my knee on the asphalt and receiving the ritual of having my grandmother comfort me through my childhood tears by offering a dab of Neosporin and a fresh band-aid. The band-aid made everything feel better. It covered up […]

On Tuesday night, friend of mine posted the following question to her twitter: “What’s the difference between African-American, Black or Negro?” I jokingly replied: “About 60 years”. She, of course, was speaking about Negro being included as one of the racial options on the 2010 Census. When the story first broke, there was quite a […]

At the tender age of 23, and just one album into her solo career, Lauryn Hill was catapulted unexpectedly into mega-stardom, and looked upon with an almost divine level of adoration and respect. Clearly, Hill was not ready for it….

And all of this makes Scott-Heron’s new album, I’m New Here, all the more stunning; not since the Rick Rubin-assisted resurrection of Johnny Cash’s legendary (and, by the earlier 90’s, similarly derailed) career has an older, seemingly past-their-prime artist returned with something so haunting, so vital, and so unequivocably brilliant.

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 […]

A few years ago, when I was still taking graduate school course work, I got into a “disagreement” with a colleague about race and class. We had just left our course on mid-20th century black literature, and were hanging out in the department lounge for some strange reason–something I’d never do now. I think we […]