on the dig

We’ve been down this racist stereotyping road a thousands times.  You know, blacks don’t swim, blacks like watermelons, blacks don’t tan, blacks blacks blacks.  The world prides itself on knowing the ins and outs of black life and consciousness.  Most of the time the world is wrong, but hey, the effort to pigeonhole black folks…

New York City shuts down on St. Patrick’s Day.  So does Boston, San Francisco, Milwaukee… the list of cities goes on and on.  When the Irish celebrate their heritage there’s no holding back.  And I mean the liquor, the beer, the puke and the piss.  Excuse the descriptions, but I’m just trying to be real. …

Cleopatra: A Portrait of a Killer airs Monday, March 23 on BBC One. And get this, archeologists are finally letting the tightly-curled hair and full lips out of the white-washed bag. That’s right, the documentary plans to set the record straight: Cleopatra looked nothing like velvet-eyed, porcelain white Elizabeth Taylor. In fact, Cleopatra’s mother was…

There’s a lot happening in the NYC theater scene right now.  For African-American women.  And that’s revolutionary, radical and right on time.  Last night I strolled over to the Joseph Papp Public Theater in NYC to see the play The Good Negro.   And when I say stroll I mean “stroll” because I had $20 staff…

Even after Columbine and Virginia Tech, the massacre of innocent people still overwhelms me.  You’d think I’d be desensitized to the news of rampage and murder, but, in fact, it unnerves me a little more each time.  Within three days a gunman opened fire on his family and town in Alabama and a German teen…

Obama plans to deliver his speech on education reform today.  And the halls of public education are on fire with excitement.  Besides the estimated $128 billion allotted for education this year, one of Obama’s strategies is to pay teachers based on performance.  This is a mixed-bag propostion.  Some believe teachers shouldn’t be thrown a bone…

Phylicia Rashad is returning to Broadway.   She will star as the matriarch in Tracy Lett’s award-winning August:  Osage County.   August took Broadway by storm last year with five Tony Awards and the Pulitzer Prize.  August is a three-hour drama about a hyper-dysfunctional white family living in the heart of Oklahoma.  From pill-popping, verbal abuse, and…

Dawn Turner Trice of the Los Angeles Times penned a timeley piece today about white scholars in Black Studies programs.  Trice highlights how more and more students are walking into their Black Militancy 101 courses and finding a white professor at the helm.   I don’t know about you, but while I was a graddie…

As the GOP crumbles here’s another kick in the conservative knee:  porn addiction.  That’s right, baby.  Republicans suffer from a psychosis of the libido.  In an interview with CNN Kiran Chetry pastor and author David Erik Jones confessed that conservatives struggle with their sexual nature due to social stigma and the lack of sexual outlet…

I only have a few words for the Seattle incident, you know, where the 15 year-old was viciously slammed in a jail cell:  Enough is fricking enough.  My grand-uncle was lynched for refusing to let a Sheriff-approved white man enter his home to search for an alleged thief.   Just last week a good friend was…