Uptown Notes

Tonight from 6 to 8pm at City College in the Morales/Shakur Student and Community Center (NAC 3/201) in Harlem I […]

Last week, I had the pleasure of being on NPR’s Tell Me More with host Michel Martin to discuss the […]

As you may know, I support gay marriage (yes, it is a civil rights issue.) As you may also know, […]

Recently, I had the pleasure of being on the Addicted to Race podcast. I was on with Tami from What […]

Dear Old Morehouse,

I’ve been trying to avoid writing this for some time now. As an alumnus of the institution, it’s hard for me to see you in such condition. Many of my fellow alumni complained of your disrepair and your besmirched image when they heard about students being beaten for their sexuality, shooters graduating, and cross-dressing, but I have got bigger concerns. While all these things mattered to me, they did not disturb me because of what was being done to the image of our institution, they disturbed me because they demonstrated that Dear Old Morehouse was terribly unequipped to deal with the realities and lives that Black men in America live now. In fact, it is the Old Morehouse that is more dangerous to me than any student with a gun, sagged pants, or high heels would ever be to me. Let me explain.

So for the past few years I’ve been jousting with my family and loved ones around the issue of same […]

On Sunday night, Kanye West once again burst into the limelight with his interruption of Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech at […]

Last weekend, at the Malcolm X Grassroots Unity Brunch one of the topics covered was violence against LGBTQ people of color. I think it was Kenyon Farrow who mentioned the suicides of Carl Joseph Walker-Hoover and Jaheem Herrera who are both Black boys who recently committed suicide because of peer bullying and hatred. Jewel Woods, of the Renaissance Male Project, writes a clear indictment of the ways that our schools allow torture and why boys of color are particularly at risk. What can we do to prevent torture in our schools and ensure a safe and whole development for all our children.

In the Welsh-Asante Aesthic model there is no form without function. In the production of SOARS, by A Long Walk Home you have a powerful art form that is not only stunning but begins the work of healing. Read more about it here.

People were shocked by the passage of Prop 8 and the votes of African-Americans… should we be? “In many ways, folks have been shocked that voting for Left or progressive politics doesn’t necessarily mean that you support social justice or equality for all. I can’t help but think that we have assumed for far too long that coming from a certain background, speaking a certain tongue, wearing certain buttons inherently connects our struggles for justice. In reality, a social justice orientation is taught one, a lived one, a challenging one. If we are not forever questioning our oppressions and our own privileges I’ve come to believe we are playing party or ideological politics, not engaging in politics of change and justice. Our inability to see our connectedness and divergences in our struggles have ended up making justice for “just us.”