A Few Words For New Leaders

Be interesting.
The leaders of today have become . . . boring. Reagan was pretty darn interesting. Bush I, not so much. Clinton, interesting. Bush II, not so much. Kerry, zzzzzz. Frist, a doctor who will put you to sleep. And who is the top Democratic congressional leader again? When Bush II was running [...]

Damon Wayans Tries to Copyright the N-Word

By Stanley Crouch“One of the most repulsively fascinating facts about contemporary black popular culture is how it continues to reach fresh lows. It finds new ways of leaping all fences that would bar it from falling into a bottomless pit of tastelessness. All of the insults and burdens of minstrelsy have been bested by black [...]

Birmingham Paper Discovers Its History in Closet

A photo intern with the Birmingham News stumbled on a box of old negatives in an equipment closet in November 2004. The negatives were marked “Keep. Do not sell.” The negatives were an unpublished photographic journey of the paper’s coverage of the civil rights era in Birmingham. They were featured in a special section of [...]

"It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp" (N-ggas and Flies, Part II)

“If not I’ll wait, because the future of the world depends onTherefore, if not the child we raise gon’ have that n-gga syndromeOr will it know to be the hard regardless of the skintoneI really feel that if we tune it, it just might get picked onOr will it give a f-ck [...]

Rise In Home Foreclosures

Despite the rise in African-American home ownership in the last decade, now there is a rise in home foreclosures for this same group. Many neighborhoods in Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta have experienced this sharp rise in foreclosures. There are a few likely causes for this rise. African-Americans are more [...]

Big Bank Take Little Bank

Negotiation is only authentic when both sides are near equals. When I was a kid, my friends around the neighborhood used to play this game called “Big Bank Take Little Bank.” This silly ghetto game went like this: two people would empty their pockets; whoever had the most money got to take the other’s money. [...]

Yale Professor: We Need More Sex in the Workplace

“The Sanitized Workplace”“Contrary to the prevailing orthodoxy, this Article argues, workplace sexuality is not always discriminatory or disruptive: Sexual conduct takes its shape and meaning from the larger organizational context. Sociological research shows that women who work in well-integrated, egalitarian settings often participate and take pleasure in sexual interactions—probably because their numerical strength gives [...]

Spike presents "The Confederate States of America"

Spike Lee presents “The Confederate States of America.” The faux documentary is directed by Kevin Willmott and takes a look at what America would look like if the South had won the war. According to the movie’s website, the film begins with “the British and French forces joining the battle with the Confederacy, [...]

China Sees Growing Influence in Africa

The calls are being answered, in part because African governments view China as a more cooperative partner than the West. China has refused to back regular Western rebukes of African corruption and human-rights abuses and last year used its permanent seat on the UN Security Council to block genocide charges against Sudan–source of about 7% [...]

Ursula Rucker - Ma’at Mama

Ursula Rucker has released her third album, “Ma’at Mama.” I post this because I am a fan of hers and she is performing this Sunday at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia. She is well known amongst hip hop heads for her work on many of The Roots’ albums. You can listen [...]