Community Checkup

My article in The Philadelphia Inquirer…
Debate through a hip-hop lens
The Philadelphia Inquirer
Movie trailers are great for sparking the imagination. Believe it or not, as I watched the trailer to The Great Debaters, a movie based on a true story of how a debate team from a small black college defeated a top-ranked white debate team, [...]

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Although I disagree with Shelby Steele’s thesis on Obama, he was right about one thing: so-called black authenticity in politics is largely intertwined with being angry and confrontational.
Al Sharpton made this point plain as day in the recent New York Magazine piece.In his book, Steele argued that black leaders either conform to bargainer or challenger [...]

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Wishing everyone the best for the holiday season–whatever you celebrate; whatever you believe. It’s a time for reflection, introspection, and connection.
I felt like Jesse writing that…
Don’t forget that The Great Debaters comes tomorrow–Christmas day. Could make for a nice Christmas evening outing. I’ll be checking it out then along with about half of the  black [...]

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Last week in Iowa, John Edwards fielded a question from the audience regarding what he would do about the possibility of “payback” from the black community towards whites if Obama were elected. Referencing the O.J. case as an example, he said:
“How are you going to get that brought out in your campaign? Will the same [...]

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I was made aware of this video a couple of months ago but resisted writing on it since I did not want to give it any more air play than it was receiving at the time. But now that the film is out and is all over the blogosphere and newspapers, I don’t think [...]

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This one’s strictly for the nerds [my hand raised].
I promise to only hit you with these more technical “checkups” (what I’ll be labeling as tech checks from here on) every couple of months or so. Sometimes, I just can’t help myself. Plus, just maybe, some of you (okay, maybe one or two) [...]

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Civil rights activist. Former congressman and mayor of Atlanta. First African American UN Ambassador.
Yep, all titles held by Andrew Young; the same man who made the off-the-wall remarks during this interview. I know he was “just clowning,” during part of the interview–but in a public forum? You have to wonder what he was thinking. [...]

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In my undergrad days in Atlanta, I remember many folks referring to two of the black megachurch preachers, Creflo Dollar (yeah, that’s his real name) and Eddie Long, as “Theft Yo’ Dollar” and “Eddie Wrong.” I always thought there was a lot of truth in those nicknames–still do. This new news gives me no [...]

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Shelby Steele wrote a piece in Time last Friday on his new book, A Bound Man and was on NPR yesterday discussing it. Given that I have yet not read his book, I was interested to read and hear a first-hand account of his thesis on Obama and why he can’t win rather [...]

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There has been a lot of hoopla about Latino immigrants and whether they make real efforts to participate in and assimilate to so-called American culture. Some say they do while others say they choose to self-segregate and make little effort to learn the English language. The recent Pew Research Center Report got [...]

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