Uptown Notes

“To define ourselves, name ourselves, create for ourselves and speak for ourselves.” Naming: What’s in a name. If you’ve been [...]

Being Pan-African is a weird thing. To many folks it means wearing dashikis, avoiding swine, and shouting ase at every opportunity. I, however, realize that you aren’t going to do that. For most Black folks, the holiday of Kwanzaa is one tied to Pan-Africanism and thus gets mentioned more in their living rooms on TV commercials than at family gatherings. I’ve decided we’ve been frontin’ on Kwanzaa for no real good reason. I think now, more than ever, we run the risk of being allured by an Obama presidency into thinking we have arrived at the promised land. Look around your family, your neighborhood, your nation, and tell me if we can afford to continue to not be self-reflective and work towards a better community? If you cannot take seven days to redefine you relationship to the people who live with you, love you, and look like you, what kind of change are you really invested in?

In an age when grassroots Black leadership has become distilled, sanitized, and all too often co-opted, we are often left [...]

May 19th marks the birth of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz b.k.a. Malcolm X. Since I first read the Alex Haley autobiography [...]