59 Search results for "fellowship"

The act of preferential treatment historically ends up bad for marginalized communities. We are the ones with little social capital, not a lot of presubscribed privilege, and even less access to upward mobility.  Yet, this doesn’t mean preferential treatment will ever go away, thus, it seems to me that it is pertinent for black youth […]

Paradise “The Arkitech” Gray and Jasiri X  I had the honor of interviewing Paradise Gray for the Game Changers Project at Elite Studios in Pittsburgh, PA. Paradise has a long history of activism and has been an instrumental part of building unity in our community since moving to Pittsburgh. Paradise talks about his history in […]

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 […]

The most sobering moment in Paul Beatty’s satirical novel, The White Boy Shuffle (1996) occurs just before the L.A. Riots are about to begin. The book’s protagonist, Gunnar Kaufman and his best friend Nicholas Scoby are on their way home from a strangely long basketball practice. During their walk, Gunnar immediately senses something different happening in his […]

Recently I sat down with the ACLU Pennsylvania Legal Director, Vic Walczak, who has a long history  litigating cases involving police misconduct with racial overtones. From the death of Johnny Gammage, to the recent beating of honor student Jordan Miles, Walczak has been at the forefront of fighting for justice in the court system. I […]

Up and coming rapper Cory Gunz was arrested in New York yesterday with a loaded gun in his backpack (a crime with carries a mandatory sentence of three and a half years). This is the same law that lead to the arrest and incarceration of Lil Wayne, Ja Rule, and Prodigy of Mobb Deep. Interestingly […]

Last night I had the honor of watching President Obama’s State of the Union Address at a barbershop. No, I wasn’t get my haircut or my beard trimmed; I was gathering with local community members to fellowship, laugh, and converse as we watched the President lay out his vision for the country. As the organizer […]

In the wake of the tragic killing of 5 year old Gabriel Martinez Jr. in Oakland California, the third child killed in Oakland in 2011, legendary Hip-Hop Journalist Davey D, on his show “Hard Knock Radio“, interviews Minister/Activist/Author Reverend Harry Williams and Hip-Hop Artist and Activist Jasiri X about how we can stop the senseless […]

“I left him dead in the living room/ get it, dead in the living room” -Lil Wayne from the song “9 Piece” Recently on a trip to New York I had the radio tuned in to Hot 97, one of the most popular and well known urban radio stations in the country. I wasn’t surprised […]

Remember when last month NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre talked about the,”massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment in our country”? Yeah, I’m thinking he was a little off. Sadly, paranoid gun talk and fear is how the NRA recruits new members, but his whole […]

Last week, Atlanta-based fast food chain, Chick-fil-A opened its very first Chicago restaurant.  Although it does not counteract the negative effect of parking meters and winter, this culinary addition only helps the argument that Chicago is the greatest (American) city ever.  (New York, NOLA, I love you, but the City of Wind tops my list.)  I’ve not […]