Transcending America: How Russell Westbrook, Odell Beckham and Cameron Newton Have Changed Black Masculinity

It’s time for a new black male aesthetic. Especially one that captures decolonized postmodern black masculinity as well as one that has ontologically transcendent capabilities. In simpler terms, an aesthetic that allows for black masculinity to not be defined by archaic norms in the realm of fashion, black male-to-male relationships and how one images themselves for the sake […]

Book Review of “Democracy in Black” by Eddie Glaude, Jr.

One of the better things that has happened to me in the last year or so is that I have been more intentional about carving out time to cultivate my independent reading habit. Sure, everyone says they read but we all know there’s only really two types of readers: those that buy the books and […]

The Miseducation of “Chi-Raq”

There had been buzz in the past year or so that there was a filming of a movie entitled “Chi-raq” with the gun violence at the center of the movie. My initial thought, given the title was that it was going to be a documentary. I made this assumption because at the time the portmanteau was […]

The Day the Black Church Circus Came to Town

Earlier this fall, there was an infamous photo of some well-known prominent (TV) pastors that were seen praying with (or for) GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump. It was one of those moments that made the rounds of a short-lived news cycle on September 29 of this year. Pastors Paula White, Kenneth Copeland, David Jeremiah […]

An Open Letter to Yusaf Mack

Dear Yusaf, I don’t know you. We’ve never met. I’m not sure just how much we have in common. The only thing I biographically know about you is that you’re from Philadelphia, you’re 35 with ten kids, and you did a porn movie with other men. And from one black man to another, I just […]

Conversating, When Conversation Goes Wrong: VH1, Hip Hop and Jamal Bryant

By all accounts, new ground was broken last night when it came to the public discourse of the intersection of the hip hop community and that of the LBGTQ community. More specifically, the black LGBTQ community. Following the season four premier of Love and Hip Hop on Viacom owned station VH1, an hour-long round-table discussion called […]

Kanye, The Entertainer-in-Chief

I’ve never watched MTV’s Video Music Awards from beginning to end. The only reason I did last night was because BET-owned Viacom made the decision to run the VMAs on BET right after the season finale of “Sunday Best,” the gospel music show based on the “American Idol” model. As far as the entertainment world is concerned, […]