An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Hip Hop: Kendrick Lamar, Jay-Z and Harry Belafonte

On Tuesday, August 13th, 2013, Kendrick Lamar, up and coming West Coast rapper who burst onto the scene with mixtapes that got rave reviews and an album good kid m.A.A.d city that stays in heavy rotation when I hit the road, dropped a guest verse on Big Sean’s Control album that included the following lines: I heard […]

Steve Perry’s Bait and Switch on the Black Community

Steve Perry tricked us. We all thought he was “one of us” to put the phrase colloquially. But actually, after all is said and done, he’s not. He’s one of “them.” By one of “them” I’m referring to that “we are respectable Negroes” ilk that has been getting some traction lately in the press. Seeing […]

The New Jerusalem: A Chance of Redemption for Detroit

In short, the sh*t finally hit the fan in Detroit. It was just as bad as all of us had heard and feared. For the better part of the last ten years or so, Detroit made national news for all the wrong reasons and uncomfortably, the faces were always black. Who can forget the antics […]

Restoring Blackness: Obama’s Commentary on Trayvon Martin

I began to pen this less than one hour after the press conference occurred. Apparently the president of the United States, Barack Obama appeared at a regular press briefing held by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, and fielded one question surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin and the verdict in the George Zimmerman case […]

The White Female Privilege of Juror B37

Our racial prejudices, the ones that we heard the older people in our family say, the racial jokes about Mexicans without regard for Latino and Hispanic ancestry that isn’t just from one country, or about Chinese or the Koh-reeans to the Aa-rabs, they all inform our worldview. The offspring of these people are forced to […]

The Ethics and Aesthetics of Fear Mongering for Riots after the Zimmerman Verdict

“I’m absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt…. It is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in […]

The Tenth Justice Report: An Uppity Review of the Supreme Court’s Decision on the Voting Rights Act

THE UPPITY NEGRO, dissenting (and somewhat concurring with the opinion of the Court) SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES (of the Uppity Negro Court) No. 12–96 SHELBY COUNTY, ALABAMA, PETITIONER v. ERIC H. HOLDER, JR., ATTORNEY GENERAL, ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA […]

The Autopsy Report: Lebron James and the Reinvention of Hate

I really don’t write about sports, but here goes. Let me put a few things in full disclosure before I start: I got the idea of “reinvention” from the homie Kyle Brooks. I’m from Chicago, and will always rep the home teams. That is to say, I’m not some super fan of either the Spurs nor […]

Superman and the Need for an American Savior

Maybe I’m more churchy than I thought, but the christological references in the blockbuster “Man of Steel” was so overwhelming is pushed the movie from epic to cheesy. This was not “The Dark Knight” which in my opinion still outranks this latest genre of Hollywood revisiting the comic classics for the sake of getting me […]

The American Blackness of The Great Gatsby

I know it has been some time since “The Great Gatsby (2013)” has debuted and was panned by a few critics, but I certainly would like to offer some discourse to the movie from my perspective. I remember reading The Great Gatsby, the novel my sophomore year of high school, and I actually did pull the […]

Joshua Lawrence Lazard

The blog of the one formerly known as The Uppity Negro

Cultural Critique