It’s the day before Earth Day and former Apollo 17 astronaut Edgar Mitchell has caused a stir about extraterrestrial life.  Yes, folks, he’s convinced there’s life beyond our singular existence on Earth.  He also confesses our government is keeping the alien files on lock down.  Now before you lock me away as the crazy black…

Ruined, the Off-Broadway play that examines the lives of Congolese women, has won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.  I’m especially stoked:  I know Lynn as well as most of the cast of the current Off-Broadway production.  So I’m throwing up a toast for them and Ms. Nottage’s beautifully written and provocative play.  If you’re in…

So there’s this really interesting play happening in NYC right now.  Stay with me, folks.  I know most of you are not in NYC, but this is worth unearthing some lively discussion.  The play’s called Angela’s MixTape.  It’s produced by New Georges and the Hip Hop Theater Festival.  Angela’s MixTape is an autobiographical musical/poetic/comical/dramatic odyssey…

In 2004 Dr. Henry Louis Gates insisted that African and Caribbean immigrants as well as bi-racial students were trumping American Blacks in numbers at top-ranked universities.  In 2008 I blogged extensively about my experience within the Afropolitan culture, the social/intellectual circle where Africans [from abroad and second-generation] mingle and organic global consciousness is commonplace.  My…

A few days ago Forest Whitaker was in Nigeria for the African Movie Academy Awards and was honored with a chieftaincy title.  The people of Nkwere crowned Whitaker after a recent DNA test confirmed that Whitaker was not only linked to the Igbo, but that he’s specifically connected with the Nkwere people.  I’ll be the…

Let me know what you think about THIS:  In 2002 Ukraine-born John Demjanjuk was stripped of his U.S. citizenship and was awaiting deportation to Germany.  His crime?  Not revealing he was a Nazi guard at a concentration camp where over 30,000 Jews were murdered.  Demjanjuk denied the charge and said he was kidnapped by Germans…

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in a cafe in Bed-Stuy and a sister screamed and threw up her hands. I looked over at her and noticed her laptop screen read Obama Lifts Cuba Restrictions.  Not exactly the whole truth, but I expressed my own excitement, smiled, and sat back in celebration like I was Cuban.…

The U.S. Department of Justice is sponsoring a new community clean-up initiative called Weed and Seed. The structure of the initiative relies on two things:  local law enforcement weeds out violent criminals and drug dealers, and private community organizations seeds in prevention, treatment and neighborhood rehabilitation.  Now I’m no urban planner or licensed realtor, but…

I’ve been fighting with myself over addressing Jimi Izrael’s post about women choosing gay men.  First, I thought I’d leave a comment, but then I thought I should just leave it alone.  I have nothing against Jimi or his perspective.  In fact, I think he’s a breath of realistic air.  However, after reading several of…

Here we go again:  another European innocent poke at Obama’s African ancestry.  [Watch the video].  This time a Turkish news anchor wears black face [I guess he was paying homage to Mister Al Jolson] as he reported on President Obama’s recent trip to Turkey [you know, that country James Baldwin swooned over in the doc…