Uptown Notes

Today marks the birthday of the one of the greatest African leaders of all time, the Honorable Marcus Garvey! While [...]

One of my favorite portions of Assata are the verses interspersed. In honor of our great freedom fighter Assata Shakur [...]

We remain in a moment where people are beginning to realize that the election of Barack Obama does not mean a Black political agenda, one in which race is central, will continue to be pushed into the public sphere. So the question becomes, who advances the concerns of the faces at the bottom of the well?

This Sunday, in Harlem, find out and discuss the direction for the new Black Left.

This post will not be a lofty tribute to Brother Malcolm, if you would like to see one like that, check it out here. This will be a call to action, because that is one of the things El Hajj Malik El Shabazz was about. Today is a National Day of Action to Stop the Execution of Troy Davis and today I saw a heinous video of a young teenager brutalized by the Police of Toledo. I do not doubt that Malcolm would have been disturbed to action by both. Let’s honor him by doing the work!

This Sunday’s Unity Brunch of the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and The Women of Color Caucus will present a Film Screening and Panel discussion of the film No! The Rape Documentary. Guaranteed to be a powerful, insightful and uplifting. Come on out!

Today CCNY will feature a lecture by Kwame Appiah on “Race and Genomics” as well as host a stop on the “Live from Death Row” tour. Great chance to think about race theoretically and practically.

This week, my dear friend Yusef Ramelize, took on the issue of homelessness. No, he didn’t decide to volunteer at a soup kitchen. No he didn’t decide to give out change to someone he saw as he was exiting the platform. No he didn’t email his friends and tell them they should join a “homelessness sucks” cause on facebook. He decided to raise awareness about the issue of homelessness by getting a first person experience. Yusef is going homeless for one week.

The term revolutionary is often batted about and is bestowed upon most anyone who finds their ideas falling to the left of the political mainstream. For that reason we have more coffee shop revolutionaries than I can shake a vegan biscotti at! Now I don’t mean that as pot-shot against coffee shop poets (okay, well maybe I did a mean it a little) but really its about the question, “What does it take to be revolutionary?” I was left deeply reflecting on that after watching Che.

Over a year ago, controversy over the Kahlil Gibran International Academy unfolded, if you don’t know who Kahlil Gibran was stop reading and click here – yeah, he’s that important, in Brooklyn. The visible battle over the mission of the school, its practices, and its leadership put the academy in the national spotlight for discussions of ethnicity, language, religion and identity. But soon, this spotlight faded and many have forgotten that the school still is in operation. Colorlines runs a great web article by Seth Wessler entitled, “Silenced in the classroom” on what is happening with the school now.