1048 Search results for "society"

By Justin Hill In 2008, when I first read “Gay is the New Black” on the cover of the Advocate, I CRINGED at its implications.  Even as I write, “Gay is the New Black,” it is unsettling because it elides, obfuscates and erases many tensions and concerns. You may be asking, “Why speak about it […]

There are some relationships that are just doomed from the start: Bobby and Whitney, Amy Winehouse and drugs, Lindsey Lohan and alcohol, etc. It seems as if every time Ms. Winehouse says “no, no, no, no” to rehab she says, “yes, yes, yes” to climbing psychedelic trees. Although she claims that her penchant for indulging […]

Not since Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan has a junkie been so popular.  Months ago when I wrote a blog about stupid white folks and how it was popular (and profitable) to be a stupid white person, I forgot to mention that it was also good to be a crazy, drug-addled white person.  If you […]

Premieres February 25, 2011 | Purchase tickets here “Woke Up Black”, focuses on five black youth, along with their struggles and triumphs as they start their journey into adulthood. The documentary will premier on February 25, 2011 at the Gene Siskel Film Center and will be broadcast on WTTW, Chicago’s public television station, in late Spring. The film […]

Happy Thanksgiving, Black Folks. This past weekend was the NBA’s 60th annual All-Star weekend. In a CNN article, NBA reporter David Aldridge referred to the weekend as Black Thanksgiving. Forget all the profound reasons to dispute the claim and be honest. For the basketball crazed among us, NBA All-Star weekend is something like a holiday.

Abahlali baseMjondolo or the Shack Dwellers movement began almost six years ago in Durban, South Africa. Abahlali has become (according to their website) the “largest organization of the poor” in post-apartheid South Africa. The organization was solidified through their first protest. This protest was a “road blockade organized from the Kennedy Road settlement” to speak […]

This past week the world saw that in the battle of the people vs. the machine, the people prevailed.  Acclaimed poet, Gil Scot Heron said the “Revolution Will Not Be Televised”;  to a certain extent he was right. The revolution was digitized. Even though the seemingly insurmountable Mubarak machine was armed with a  war chest […]

 “The faintest ink is better than the best memory” was said to me by a friend’s uncle at Christmas lunch in Barbados. If ink beats memory, then pictures beat the self-induce fantasy of a nation, right?  For this black history month, I question the existence of a post-racial America. Yesterday, I began to stare at the photos […]

Hip-hop Responds To Obama’s State Of The Union by Paradise Gray Dee -1 & Jasiri X Speak at the State of the Union: Roadmap to Progress On January 25th, President Obama gave a stirring State of the Union Address. The Hip-hop Generation responded by organizing “Roadmap to Progress“ AKA #BarackTalk, sponsored and presented by The […]

What’s scarier than a racist that calls out “nigger” or “coon” viciously? The racist who’s night you save by being the “token blacky”. I pose two disappointments for the eager audience at a non-black party: no weed and no freestyle. Still I manage to be the life of the party, dougieing on every song, judging […]

BBC recently started a survey to answer the question: Does class still matter? Of course, the answer should be a resounding hell yes. But the question runs deeper than that. How does class affect us? What does it mean to be upwardly mobile? Is upward mobility good? Is a meritocracy ideal? We are inclined to […]

I walked up to a 40-foot high fence, while noticing a small yellow sign in the peripheral. The sign said “Caution: High Voltage Fence.” It was made apparent that I was entering into what I could only understand as one of the many manifestations of an incarceration system. When I entered through the front door […]