Why Being an Uppity Negro is Still Relevant

In 2007, I started blogging like any good millennial. Blogging has had its highs and lows. My writing got better. My thoughts matured. This blog is a place where I’ve flexed my opinions—good ones and bad ones—and worked out ideas in real time. No edits. I’d hit the “publish” button and walk away. I’ve called […]

New Notes of a Native Son

I feel it’s worth noting before I begin the review of HBO’s “Native Son” that I’ve never read the epic novel by Richard Wright. For some that might exclude me from offering critique at all. But if that’s the case, fault my high school English track. I was in a section that required us to […]

Nipsey Hussle and the Power of Conspiracy

Nipsey Hussle, sometimes stylized as Hu$$le, and born Ermias Asghedom in Los Angeles was gunned down and murdered outside of his South Central store on Sunday, March 31st. He died at the age of 33. Not even 24 hours after his time of death, rather than sending condolences to his longtime girlfriend Lauren London, or […]

The All-American Crappy Meal™

Standing underneath a portrait of whom most consider the greatest president whoever took the oath of office, Abraham Lincoln, Trump presides over a pornography of fast food abominations worthy only of broke college students after 10pm on a school night. Not national college football championship winners who are taking their, probably, first trip to the […]

Aretha Franklin, the Hammond B3 and Me

This past week, like most people in this country, I found myself revisiting the works of Aretha Franklin. The undisputed Queen of Soul passed after a lengthy illness of pancreatic cancer just this Thursday before last. I was at work when the news alert came across my phone. When I left my office, I got […]

The Miseducation of Willie Moore, Jr.

I don’t know Willie Moore, Jr. I’ve never met him. I have tangentially followed him over the years. I’ve seen his growth in the black popular Christian world mastering the tools of social media to provide a platform to spread his thoughts and views by embracing a millennial perspective. I’ll be honest, I haven’t always agreed […]

Don’t Sit, Stand

President Donald Trump, right, bows his head as Relentless Church Pastor John Gray, left, says a prayer during a meeting with inner city pastors in the Cabinet Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2018. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) On Wednesday, August 1, President Donald Trump met with prominent black clergy at the […]

Under a Dark Canopy: Dealing With #ChurchHurt

In a moment of unscripted ecstasy, during a recording for jazz and gospel artist Damien Sneed, Bishop Iona Locke illuminated that “under a dark canopy” many self-identifying Christians show up to places hiding what she calls the “introspect.” The introspect for Locke could easily be interpreted as what’s quintessentially known as church hurt. For the […]

For Black Millennials Who Considered Leaving When the Church Was Too Much

Thoughts from Hampton University Minister’s Conference 2018 This was my third year attending the famed Hampton University Minister’s Conference. My thoughts and reflections are still somewhat of a jumbled mass in my mind. What follows is my attempt to make sense of disorderedness in my brain in a coherent way that gives clarity to the […]

Bishop Michael Curry, an Explainer Essay

First things first. Bishop Michael Curry is the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of the Episcopal Church. That means he’s the top Episcopal bishop in all of the United States, along with other countries and territories in the Western Hemisphere. His only direct report is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the seat of the Anglican Church. […]

Joshua Lawrence Lazard

The blog of the one formerly known as The Uppity Negro