hotep
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You Called Out The Root, Umar Johnson, and You Played Yourself; Here’s Why
Umar Johnson, aka the Prince of Pan-Africanism, has said our name. In his last posting from a hotel room somewhere in the continental United States, a much more subdued and skullcap-less Johnson has apologized for his behavior and profanity-laced tirade to everyone but black media and, more specifically, The Root. According to Johnson, black media…
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Dr. Umar Johnson And The Hotep Civil War, Explained
Ok, so I’ve seen you reference “Hoteps” before — with quizzes, video content, and even the way you conjugate certain verbs — but I don’t think I’ve ever quite seen a clear definition or explanation on what makes a hotep a hotep. Would you mind providing one? No problem! In this context, Hotep refers to…
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Stop Pitting Tyler Perry's Boo! A Madea Halloween Against The Birth of a Nation
If one ever wants to know what the slower side of intelligentsia is thinking or, in this case, not really thinking, in 2016, you can often find the answer in a meme. To wit, after Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween grossed more than $28 million opening weekend, I stumbled upon an unfortunate lil’ meme that compared…
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The Half-Woke CliffsNotes to Homophobia and Misogyny
I never used CliffsNotes. Not because I believed in some uncompromising code of ethics that made me reject shortcuts in favor of hard work and discipline. My mother just wouldn’t let me use them. When I was a rising 10th-grader, I tried to get her to purchase a copy of the CliffsNotes for Albert Camus’…
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Are We Misappropriating the Term ‘Hotep’?
“Hotep” has taken on new meaning as social media escalates the evolution of words. Language is fluid, and with cultural shifts, words can fall in and out of use or morph into new definitions. What was the term “social media” 20 years ago? “Hotep” is not as new a word, but it has come into…
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The Politics of Being Woke
“Who polices the woke?” The question caught me off guard. My line brother posed it to me as I was on my way to a meeting. We are members of the first historically black Greek collegiate fraternity and are called line brothers because we joined at the same time. He called with a question that,…
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No, Big Boi, Maple Syrup Cannot Cure Cancer—and Yes, You Sound Like a Sexist
Atlien rapper Big Boi, one-half of seminal rap duo Outkast, took a bit of dragging on Twitter this weekend after he posted a meme on “baby mamas” that smacked of sexist gibberish. And then he retweeted a post that said, “Maple syrup can kill cancer.” But let’s start with the real dumbness first. The first tweet,…
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There's A Video Called "Hoteps Hoteppin" And You Should Watch It Right Now
Why? Well because the first 90 seconds is a great (and hilarious) answer for anyone who asks “What exactly is a hotep? I don’t get it.” And because it was created by Radha Blank, who goes by RadhaMUSprime, writes for Empire, and actually has things like “she’s a GhostFace-meets-Moms-Mabley mash up” and “You can expect…
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How Hotep Thinking Like Erykah Badu's Robs Black Children Of Their Childhoods
My childhood before the age of 10 had some big milestones. I moved to the US and learned English. I adopted Harlem as my hometown. I got my first self-purchased cassette—Sisqo’s underrated but absolutely flames Unleash the Dragon. I had also seen and touched and touched an adult man’s penis, on multiple occasions, by the…