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Please Leave it Behind
Enough, I get it already! Hillary is different than Bush. Barack is different than Bush. At the risk of sounding outright crazy, I think they both need to be more like Bush — for the sake of our children. Let me explain. Less than 12 months into office, President George W. Bush pushed in the…
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The Clinton-Obama Mash-up
In music, they call laying the lyrics from one song over music from a different genre a “mash-up.” My favorite example is “Collision Course,” the effort from rock group Linkin Park and Jay-Z that resulted in the song “Numb/Encore,” used in the 2006 movie re-make of Miami Vice. Like these “mash-ups” that take two songs…
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Using Our Roots Against Us
Monday’s release of a photo showing Barack Obama dressed as a Somali elder during his 2006 visit to northeastern Kenya was not just cynical, cowardly and out-of-bounds, it was also deeply ironic. After all, it is Black History Month. During February, PBS featured the special African American Lives II. The show, hosted by The Root…
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Queer, Dead and Nobody Cares
Little Lawrence King was queer. Not just in some identity politics way, but literally. Despite the innocence of his round, brown cheeks and puppy dog eyes, the kid was a threatening oddity at his Ventura County junior high school. Either because he was brave or naïve, or because he just couldn’t help himself, Lawrence reveled…
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Kosovo — What's at Stake?
The early returns are discouraging for a harmonious transition to independence for Kosovo. The week following Kosovo’s dramatic declaration of independence saw sporadic violence in both Serbia and Kosovo, and the international community dividing itself into supporters and opponents of the declaration. While it’s unclear how the situation will unfold in the weeks and months…
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Stand Strong, Tavis
One of the really unfortunate aspects of the current battle for the Democratic presidential nomination is the apologetic position many blacks are taking regarding Barack Obama’s candidacy. It goes something like this: “We shouldn’t press him too much to talk about black issues because that might mess it up for the brother.” This color-before-accountability group-think…
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Blacks and Latinos Should Rally Around Obama
In the midst of Obama’s unimaginable ten-state sweep, with everyone talking about unity — black and white, blue and white collar, old and young — black-brown unity regrettably lags behind. Tensions between blacks and Latinos, painfully hyped by the media in the run-up to the California primary, could be fatal to the country’s best present…
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Invisible and Not Really Black?
How’s this for an example of erasure? I was chatting on the phone with an editor at a media outlet which regularly features my writings. Having worked together for years, he and I have managed to move past professional diplomacies and platitudes to fashion something of a friendship. Because of the nature of our relationship,…
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A Dried-up, Shriveled Little 'Raisin'
I still remember the sore elbows I got snuggled up to our fuzzy 19-inch to watch three nights of Alex Haley’s “Queen.” That was 15 years ago. On Monday, Feb. 25, a new generation of 12-year-olds will suffer their boney joints watching ABC’s “world premiere movie event” — Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun.”…
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New Balls: The NBA Ups Its Game
Well, no one can call the NBA the No Balls Association anymore. For years, NBA teams have been among the most risk averse in all of sports. Few players of any significance changed teams during the offseason, and the trade deadline usually meant a big swirl of rumors followed by a few peripheral players moving…