Category: The African World

One of the most striking features of the Trayvon Martin case has been the revelation of similar such lynchings taking place, whether carried out (or allegedly carried out) by law enforcement authorities or individual, non-state perpetrators of violence in the recent past. We have to, therefore, ask ourselves why are these cases emerging and what…

Is it possible that it has been ten years? Apparently so. And in this day when it seems like organizations and institutions come and go at the snap of two fingers, there is something to be said about BC not only being alive and kicking but growing. As someone who has been associated with BC…

Good afternoon.� My thanks to Herb Boyd for inviting me to participate on this panel and my thanks to Herb and Haki Madhubuti for inviting me to contribute to the book of essays in response to the publication of Manning Marable�s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. Once we have established that Malcolm X was…

Look, I have no idea who will win in November but I have to say that what I am seeing among the Republicans is more bizarre than anything I have ever witnessed. The �circle of clowns� of Republican candidates seems increasingly intent on proving that they are the voices of ignorance, fear and irrationalism.� I…

As a political activist, February 21st always brought to mind the assassination of Malcolm X and his historical legacy.� On February 21, 1989 all that changed for me when that date assumed a double meaning with the birth of my second child. My wife was told that she would need to have a caesarian delivery…

On February 26th, a ceremony is to take place in California apologizing to the approximately 400,000 people of Mexican ancestry who were deported from the USA in a spate of ethnic cleansing that gripped the USA during the Depression. What is at stake in this ceremony is not only the apology but what it says…

In 2002, seemingly out of nowhere, then US Secretary of State Colin Powell announced that the USA henceforth considered the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and their armed wing, the New People�s Army (NPA), to be terrorist organizations. Additionally, they labeled a long-time Philippine revolutionary leader and theorist – Jose Maria Sison – to…

Each year, at the time of the celebration of the life of Dr. King, little attention is focused on King�s April 1967 speech against US aggression in Vietnam.� We are exposed to remembrances concerning the 1963 March on Washington, and sometimes the events surrounding his murder in 1968, but little about his strong stand against…

In watching the USA/Israeli vs. Iranian tensions play out, I found myself thinking about the similarities with the British/Argentine war in the early 1980s over the Falkland/Malvinas Islands. Talk about a useless, purposeless war�except for one thing. The ruling elites of both countries needed it. In the early 1980s the Argentine military government was in…

Just when you thought that you had heard enough ignorance, Rick Santorum opens his mouth. In a speech this past week he announced that given the obesity problem in the USA there was no longer a great need for food stamps. When i first read the posting regarding Santorum’s statement I assumed that this was…