Uptown Notes

Detroit is a microcosm of Black America. I believe if you cannot love Detroit, you cannot fully love Black people. The Detroit Metropolitan area represents the best and the worst that Black folks in this country have to offer. Detroit is under intense scrutiny as of late and the flashing lights of attention may have served to take the life of seven year old Aiyana Jones as a TV crew filmed a home-raid by the Detroit SWAT. With all the fascination with Detroit around the nation we get the problems of the city beamed into our homes via satellite, but it makes me wonder, is there more there than what we normally see?

Unless you have been in hiding, you have noticed the Census 2010 is in full swing now. From rapping commercials [...]

On Monday night, Tavis Smiley’s convening “We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda” aired on CSpan. What? You [...]

I recently penned a piece for the new website The Atlanta Post about the passing of Malcolm X and the [...]

“History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is [...]

And one of them is not the use of the word Negro which has BEEN appearing, including on the 2000 [...]

An video excerpt of a speech from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr which deals with Black self-determination and Black Self-Love, likely from a 1967 or 1968 speech.

Hip-Hop has been political, you just haven’t been paying it attention. My reflection on the Black August Hip-Hop Project.

Cornel West and Carl Dix tangle at CCNY on Tuesday night.

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.