Dr. Anthony Asadullah Samad, PhD

The death of Dr. Donda West, the mother of rap phenom, Kanye West, should cause us all to stop and examine this nation’s fixation with being forever young, and the singular definitions of Eurocentric beauty that causes women (and men) to put their lives at risk. Dr. West’s autopsy confirmed that she died from complications…

Irreverence (n): 1. lack of reverence, 2. an irreverent act or utterance; Irreverent (adj): 1. lacking proper respect or seriousness, 2. Satiric; Despair (vb): to lose all hope or confidence Lately, there’s been a lot of talk of people being irreverent (disrespectful) to the politics and processes of change (or a lack of such) in…

The title of Hastie’s commentary was, “DuBois: Ex-Leader of Negroes.” When black leaders confronted Hastie on how he could be so uncivil to such a legendary figure as DuBois, he stated, “No Negro can ever afford any act contrary to good conscience — not for a single moment.” Segregation would be outlawed 20 years later,…

The state of the African American community, in the national collective and in every locale in the country, is facing near crisis situations on every front; education, employment, business, health, public safety and I could go on and on. But the greatest crisis facing African Americans is in the area of leadership. The black leadership…

The current issue is always free to everyone The conflicts that Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa are having with the African American community have taken an increased (and regressive) posture, as the downtown government gossip tabloid, Los Angeles City Beat, has weighed in on the matter – if you want to call it that. In its “Frontlines”…

The current issue is always free to everyone The founder of the most credible black economic empowerment movement in Los Angeles, and maybe the country, died last week. Muhammad Nasserdeen, President and Founder of Recycling Black Dollars (RBD), started a movement based on a very simple premise — putting the black dollar in another black…

The current issue is always free to everyone It’s time for us to find out what’s going on with the black community’s relationship with “Mayor V.” As a supporter (in 2001 and 2005), I don’t like the things I’m hearing. And it’s not from dissenters, either. It’s from other supporters who are now concerned that…

The current issue is always free to everyone The decision of the leading Republican Presidential contenders to skip Tavis Smiley’s “Covenant with Black America” debate at Morgan State last week offers up more than we could ever hope to know about how the Republicans feel their chances are in courting Black America to the GOP…

The current issue is always free to everyone The very week a 21st Century social justice movement was seeking to galvanize a new generation of activists (and revitalize an old generation of activists), the purest racial equality interests of Black America had to compete with the purest racial foolishness for the national media. Given a…