845 Search results for "origin"

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.

Jimmy Santiago Baca, a leading contemporary Latino poet writing in the United States, reminds us that “Poetry’s mission is to subvert, to question, to challenge, provoke, to flail one’s vulnerability and voice into the marvelous whirlwind of poetry’s awe, flagging at the horns of the raging beast that is societies gluttonous comfort…affirm poetry at any […]

Associated Press | February 2, 2010 25 years after the original, charity anthem ‘We Are The World’ has been given a hip-hip, pop twist by top artists, including Celine Dion, Jonas Brothers and Wyclef Jean. The stars have re-recorded the 80s hit to raise money for Haiti.

Happy New Year! Wow, can you believe its 2010? Another decade ending which for me is a little exciting and a little worrisome because its means I am getting older and more cynical. I realize that I cannot go to a movie like Avatar and not see how the white’s imagination pictures itself as both […]

I want to find the truth. I want to discover a history that doesn’t lie to me. I want to explore the past in a light of pure actuality. I want to walk on the trail of tears with Native Americans. I yearn to be the child of a jobless single mother in the great […]

Today the Princess and the Frog opens across the nation. Of course, I’m going to go see the movie, however like most cynics I wrote a blog about the movie before it premiered approximately two months ago to  be exact. So, if my argument is proven wrong by actually seeing the film, I will write […]

Politicians say the “darndest” things. No, seriously they do.  Last week it was White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs patronizing American Urban Radio Network’s April Ryan by condescendingly comparing her tough interrogation to his son’s temper tantrums. Don’t believe me, ask Summer. Yesterday it was Harry Reid, tomorrow it will be someone else. Can I […]

I am starting a three-week series based on the lies that I was told in grade school. It recently occurred to me that a lot of the history that I was taught was not only wrong, but the truth was skewed for very specific purposes. I can remember learning about the Black Panthers in elementary […]

I have not known rivers. I have never experienced rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins. I am not as lucky as Langston, even in the context of metaphors and similes. But my soul has grown deep with sadness. I am the artistic director for a […]

I am my mother’s daughter and my mother is the daughter of my grandmother. And both their stories and silences speak through me. I begin with this mantra because spiritually and mentally I desperately need to understand why tears stained and wrinkled my cheeks as I watched the movie Precious. Yes, I am a Cancer […]

            After my original post, “You think I’m Black”, I received a lot of feedback from some of my friends and colleagues- from some adulation, and from others scorn. Due to their varying opinions I decided that I couldn’t end the discussion on the note that Blacks everywhere should recognize their African roots. Let’s delve […]

Growing up in a fairly religious household, I was never allowed to trick or treat. I never got to dress up as a ghost, goblin, or display any type of cute themed cartoon— the innocent ones like Winnie the Pooh or Mighty Morphing Power Rangers (The originals). Unlike my story, most little kids growing up […]