-
Say It Loud, I'm Coloured and I'm Proud
Editor’s note: The spelling of the ethnic term “Coloured,” used within the context of South African history and culture, reflects the writer’s preference. (The Root) — I know what you’re probably thinking, and to be honest, I don’t blame you. You probably took one look at the title of this piece and thought to yourself,…
-
Honoring the French Film 'Rue Cases-Negres'
(The Root) — Ye krik! Ye krak! Each time I hear those four words, I get goose bumps. To this day, that strikingly evocative French Creole refrain haunts me. Popularized by its use in a sadly much-neglected and long-forgotten foreign film with subtitles, the call-and-response exchange between a little black boy and an old black…
-
Caribbean Literary Giant Gets His Due
(The Root) — This year marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Martinican polymath Aimé Césaire. If anyone truly deserves the title of Caribbean Renaissance man, it’s Césaire. Poet, playwright, co-founder of the influential literary movement négritude, politician and mayor of Fort de France, Martinique, for nearly 56 years, Césaire was a prodigious talent…
-
A New Showcase for Art From the Diaspora
(The Root) — Cork Street in Mayfair, nestling just behind Savile Row and the sartorial panache of its world-famous bespoke tailors, is without a doubt one of London’s most salubrious streets, internationally renowned for its plethora of opulent, high-end art galleries. Thankfully it now has a most welcome recent addition — one that goes a…
-
On Racism and Jealousy
(The Root) — Few theatrical productions are the talk of the town as much as the National Theatre’s Othello currently is. Make no mistake: Shakespearean tragedy comes no better than this. Nicholas Hytner’s swan song production after a decade as artistic director at the National is nothing short of masterful. This is Hytner’s Sistine Chapel,…
-
Baldwin's Harlem Comes to London
(The Root) — Harlem has come to London, and what a marvelous spectacle it is to behold. To be precise, it is James Baldwin’s Harlem of 1953 — complete with haunting, sensual jazz music, uplifting Pentecostal songs and the majestic cadences of evangelical oratory — that has the South Bank completely enthralled. Baldwin’s The Amen…
-
British Get a Dose of Race in America
(The Root) — The other night I went to see Race, by Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright David Mamet at London’s Hampstead Theatre. The play is a profoundly intelligent, visceral and highly incendiary legal drama that deftly skewers, mercilessly punctures and audaciously lacerates its audience with a crushingly pessimistic assessment of the place of race in…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
