You know, when I see what I saw happening in Philadelphia (again), I ask myself how far have we came, and are we sometimes deceiving ourselves about how progressive and so-called “conscious” we are in this country. Are we using these terms too superficially in describing our African-centered and political-cultural movement here in America? For how conscious and progressive are we, as the would Last Poets say, as “related to what?”

To keep this in perspective, we need to understand that these unprecedented police beatings and killings are not happening in some small backwater redneck town, in some rural all-white area full of redneck sheriffs, or in one of the historically well-documented areas of the deep south where this...

The more I think about this subject the more I feel I’m having a epiphany, for over the years I have studied this subject and debated it from a problem/solution perspective, but I have to admit, if something is not part of the developing modern American paradigm, than it may not be relevant regardless if it might be part of a “perceived” solution.

There are two parts to the marital cultural paradigm that has to be considered when one looks back to prehistory and female-based matristic societies; one is the communal nature of women that I feel was responsible for eventually developing an unadulterated non-patriarchal form of polygyny, and secondly along side that the possible absolute sexual expression of women on every level...

The hand of a Haitian woman is covered in mud as she makes
mud cookies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening.
Mud cookies are one of very few options the poorest Haitians
have to stave off hunger.

As we know, most of the suffering in Haiti comes from America’s treatment of Haiti as far as its policies towards this nation for decades. Like one writer said years ago, that every since the Haitian revolution led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, America along with Europe made it an important objective to not have an all-Black nation of self-emancipated Africans prove that Africans...

After posting a few responses within a recent thread in the forum, in which a very important and insightful question was presented initiating that thread I thought I would further expound on my opinion here in my blog. The question was, “Should you force your child to apologize?”

We speak a lot about traditions as progressive Black people, and many times we point towards Africa more so than our immediate diasporan African ancestral heritage. In both cases, we have a lot to ponder when it comes to the tradition of raising children for even in the continent the traditions varied. But let’s focus a little on our recent cultural development here in the Diaspora as it applies to child rearing, and ask ourselves "what generation...