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Sounds of Blackness
Barack Obama may defy many conventional notions of blackness, but his rhetoric is firmly rooted in black soil. While some listen for echoes of Lincoln in Obama’s inaugural speech, others will hear Malcolm and Martin. Read Michael Eric Dyson’s full article on washingtonpost.com.
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Bound for Glory
At 11:38 a.m. Saturday, a 10-car train carrying Barack Obama pulled out of 30th Street Station Philadelphia, taking the next American president on the symbolic final leg of his historic journey to the White House. The trip, meant to echo one that Abraham Lincoln took to Washington after his election 148 years ago, was yet…
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Final Score—Barack Obama, 44 George Bush, 43
We’ve all seen it—close rivals like Dean Smith and Mike Krzyzewski giving each other a half shake/quarter back-slap as the winner of a hard fought game leans in and says something to the loser without breaking stride as fans rush the floor. They want you to think it’s something magnanimous like, “Good game, you’ll get…
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SBF Seeking Her Own Barack
When searching for those adjectives that best capture the inauguration of the nation’s first black president, old standards come to mind—“historic!” “momentous!” “unprecedented!” Add to that venerable list “intellectual Freaknik” and “meet market for buppies,” because among the millions attending this weekend’s revelry are plenty of single, young black men and women looking to hook…
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Hollywood’s Leading Man
“Am I gonna be a great man, Mammy?” “You sho’ is, youse gwine be president. The book says anybody here can be president.” “Ain’t that somethin’!” —Sammy Davis Jr. and Ethel Waters in Rufus Jones for President Before anybody had even heard of Barack Obama, before anyone had even considered his presidency a possibility, it…
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Flight 1549 — Alive and Safe
The internet became abuzz when a US Airways jetliner began its descent into the water. But people’s fears were quickly put to rest. From The New York Times reporting, it seems as if a miracle occured on the Hudson River. But, according to Newsweek, the National Transportation Safety Board refuses to speculate about what happened.…
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Beg Your Pardon?
Here’s how bad things got in George W. Bush’s Justice Department. In August 2004, Voting Section Chief John Tanner sent an e-mail to Bradley Schlozman—more on him later—in which he asked for a cup of coffee. Schlozman asked Tanner how he takes his java and Tanner replied, “Mary Frances Berry style—black and bitter.” Yes, he…
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American History: What do we throw away, What do we keep?
Last night I attended an interesting multi-media piece on “redevelopment and securing history” at the Public Theater in NYC. It was called Architecting. Stay with me. The play centers around a young white architect who’s been hired to redevelop a neighborhood in post-Katrina New Orleans. Still with me? The architect is kidnapped by a group…
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The First Mother-In-Law, take two
I wrote a joint some time ago about what a distraction having a live-in mother-in-law in the White House would be to Barack Obama. To say I was crucified for it would be to understate the reaction: this, as if any of us would appreaciate any in-law, absent an emergency, posting up in the marital…
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Run DMC get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame… really?
Run DMC has made it into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I don’t know how to feel about it. Long days ago, I wrote a joint about the way the Rock Hall, based right here in my hometown, handles black music in general, and hip-hop in particular. The premise behind the Rock…