9 Things to Help You Understand Jesse Williams, Cultural Appropriation and General Blackness

Black pop-culture this week has been dominated by the firestorm of commentaries and stories emanating from the firebrand acceptance speech that Jesse Williams, the actor of “Grey’s Anatomy” delivered upon receiving Black Entertainment Television’s (BET) humanitarian award at their annual awards show. The entire transcript is here, and it’s worth watching or reading. My mind […]

Dear Black People…

Dear White People Concept Trailer from Justin Simien on Vimeo. In the vein of “Higher Learning” and “School Daze” there is a spoof video that is premiering at 2014 Sundance called “Dear White People” highlighting the interactions of black faces in the white space of ivy league-esque collegiate education. I watched the trailer, and of […]

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 […]

My Challenge to Black Parents and the Continued Pornography of Violence

Over the past two days, two videos featuring black parents videotaping their forms of discipline have made their way onto my Facebook timeline. Please watch both of them in their entirety, I have some challenges with what’s being displayed. First, I’d like to discuss the young ladies and their father beating them. Yes, beating them. […]

A Character Case Study on “Django Unchained”: Django Freeman

Editor’s note: This is the first of six installments of the characters of the Quentin Tarantino movie “Django Unchained. Hopefully the subsequent five will arrive more quickly than the first one. JLL The titular character’s name was initially just “Django.” One word. As the movie progressed and Django was considered a freeman and introduced to […]

Uppity Updates: Week of February 5, 2012

Every once in a while, the news cycle of the life and times of the goings-on of America produces a completely blog worthy week–and usually that’s the week or so I didn’t blog. For long, long time readers, you all know that last week was a wonderful week to be a blogger. From Roland Martin getting […]

How The West Was Won: Violence in the American Wild, Wild West

A little known factoid about me is that I like modern Westerns. I don’t know what it is about them, but I do. Personally I blame the “Back to the Future” trilogy. That was a movie my parents had taped for me, only had part two and part three, but I watched them on […]

The Uppity Negro