3226 Search results for "black america"

Any of you following the NFL might have been slightly shocked when the details of Plaxico Burress’ sentence became public.  Even I was surprised by the severity of his sentence, and I’ve been watching NFL players tango with the (in)justice system since well before, um, Ray Lewis?  For those of you who have not diligently […]

When I was in the six grade there was a kid in my class (we’ll call him Rudy) that was what I like to call “The Kyle Washington type”(for all of those who have seen college hill south beach you know exactly what that means). If you have not seen College Hill, allow me to […]

I like Mad Men. It’s a good show, well-written and -acted. All of that. I’m not turning myself into a Mad Men avatar like other fans, but I get the allure. (Besides, there’s no maid’s uniform.) The world of Mad Men is sleek, shiny, colorful; it totally messes up my “the only colors available in […]

  Lately I’ve been completely repulsed by the state of hip-hop. When hip hop was first recognized as a mainstream genre, rappers served as journalists by writing and broadcasting candid exposés on their plights and struggles.  Even the profanity-laden rap group, NWA, expressed the anger that young black men from the inner city had with […]

After having a long conversation with a friend about the love-hate relationship between police and members of the Black community, i revisited one of my favorite legends, the Ring of Gyges, in an attempt to understand the pervasiveness of police brutality in our society.

      President Barack Obama has a knack for quelling folk’s fears through rhetoric. When his opponents said he was inexperienced, he countered them by characterizing himself as the “fresh air” Washington needed after being pillaged by Beltway insiders. When Black folks questioned his Blackness, he adopted a more homiletic tone in some of his […]

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 […]

One of my friends came to me this week and told me one of those stories that make you shake you head in disappointment. My eighteen-year-old male friend (For Blog purposes we will call him Timothy) was approached and asked out on a date by an older man (We will call him Bernis). Bernis was […]

         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 [...]

On the day the Senate Judiciary Committee considers her nomination: I didn’t watch much of the Sotomayor hearings. I found them boring, and frankly, in some weird way they reminded me of my oral exams. And who wants recall that trauma on a weekday afternoon–especially when one is supposed to be writing a dissertation and […]

Beginning today and every third Friday to follow, I will blog vignettes of weekly news stories. This type of vignette blogging will allow people to comment on the story or stories that most affect them. So, for a blogger who delights in blogging about current events, race, and gender this has been as the cliché […]