749 Search results for "the message"

This past Saturday I did what no child looks forward to. I attended my mother’s funeral. Upon returning home to Cleveland I wasn’t sure how I was going to react to the various situations: being in my mom’s old room, the one she died in, viewing her body for the first time at the funeral […]

Rappers have been making political messages ever since DJ Kool Herc had the “Boogie Down Bronx” going crazy in the late 70’s. As hip-hop scholar Bakari Kitwana notes in his book Hip Hop Generation “[people born in the hip-hop generation]worldview has been shaped by globalization, legalized de-segregation, public policy in the criminal justice system that […]

Dear Diddy, I suppose I am choosing death. In 2008, I voted for the last time.  I will not be voting tomorrow. Two years ago, while many were swept up in the whirlwind of hope and change, I cast what will probably be my last ballot.  I didn’t vote for Obama; I didn’t vote for McCain.  […]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7SKhZS6LsQ This was an artistic week for me. Last Friday I performed poetry, sang, and played guitar at our yearly coming out monologues event. On Thursday I performed a neo-futurist piece about HIV/Aids and the downfalls of the black community to accept the disease as being “associated” with black people. On Monday I performed a […]

I did not intend to write a political blog this week. After watching Kanye West’s Runaway short film I was fully intent on blogging about the creative genius of the Louie Vuitton Don. I watched the 34-minute film three times, and meticulously took notes on the subliminal messages evoked by the ballerinas in the all […]

October 22, 2010 (Colorlines)  President Barack Obama has a message for LGBT kids: He doesn’t know “what it’s like to be picked on for being gay,” but he does know “what it’s like to grow up feeling that sometimes you don’t belong.” Obama and Secretary of State HIllary Clinton are the latest politicians to join the […]

The black hipster: a sneaker pimp wearing nothing other than Levi skinnies below the waist and a vintage Public Enemy snap back above the forehead, selects weapons of change from an arsenal of flannels and graphic tees. In the local boutique shelves, such as Leaders 1354 in Chicago, lie images of Huey P. Newton, Rosa […]

As I wiped the residue from the corner of my eyes one morning I felt different. Somewhere in the depths of my soul I felt an inexplicable tingling sensation that was incessantly thumping. I drank a glass of water and peered out my window overlooking Lake Michigan. As I watched the unforgiving Chicago wind make […]

I am the proud auntie of a six year old skinny first grader. He’s a smart little kid, and funny, and wears glasses, and is still too young to know that flipping over a couch can cause serious injury. He’s having fun and is learning the boundaries of his body day by day, bruise by […]

Let me start by apologizing for my absence last week. I know people say this all the time but there is just so much going on in my head/heart that I almost can’t tell up from down. I could get personal and write about the emotional toll my ailing grandmother is having on me. I […]

It’s six in the morning and I am asking myself the question, “How do you have a more nuanced conversation about Eddie Long’s sexual indiscretions and misuse of power without demonizing the Black Church or silencing the three young men’s stories by wholeheartedly denying the acts ever happened?” Honestly, it appears as if the conversation […]

If one were to just read the preamble of the United States Constitution it would be reasonable for them to believe that this country is a system based on pluralistic values and populism: “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for […]