Zora Neale Hurston’s “Barracoon: The Story of the Last Black Cargo” provides eye opening detail about the last years of Africans captured into slavery. Many books have been written about slave ships, plantations, and sale of human lives in exchange for money and goods, but Hurston manages to give more description to an already disturbing story of the dehumanization of African people.
Read MoreAn anxiety has steadily grown alongside the maturing of visual culture in late-capitalist societies over how an image can not only stand out from the countless others competing for attention across advertising, entertainment, and art but how it can also break loose of the cultural baggage that comes with its content. This second concern centers around what the French call signifiance, which describes the extratextual meaning that can attach itself to language that allows a repurposing to take place. What was once an early sign of winter (“snowflake”) can become a descriptor for an entire generation and these linguistic mutations can now take root faster than ever thanks to the multimedia onslaught provided by social media and smartphones.
Read MoreIn 1974, President Nixon performed at the Grand Ole Opry. First, he praised the audience’s values which, he boasted, were America’s values. According to the much-investigated Richard M., country was a musical representation of America’s soul. Next, he banged-out a clumsy piano rendition of “God Bless America.” Immediately following Nixon’s performative version of the United States, the Grand Ole stage came to life with act after act, a long line of country and redneck musicians, one after another singing of revenge, drugs, affairs, divorce, booze, despair, poverty, rootlessness, ruthless bosses, and prison.
Read MoreMaya Angelou, Josephine Baker and Lorraine Hansberry are just a few of the women of color featured in Firelei Baez’s “Joy Out of Fire” exhibit saluting Afro-Caribbean / Afro-Latina women at the Schomburg Center in Harlem. The exhibit was created by Baez and a partnership with the Studio Museum Harlem organized by Hallie Ringle, Assistant Curator.
Read MoreChildish Gambino’s (Donald Glover’s) music video for “This is America,” a brilliant and provocative take on gun violence, minstrelsy, and Black life, has sent shockwaves through the nation.
Read MoreThrowing weapons and breaking glass are just a few of the things Shaun Russell does to rescue her children in the action thriller Breaking In. Gabrielle Union who plays Shaun takes on money seeking intruders using her wit and household weapons. Union, known for romantic comedy movies and the hit BET show, Being Mary Jane, takes on a new role requiring her to transition her drama techniques into physical warfare to defeat the burglars taking over her house.
Read MoreResponsibility: The quality, state, or fact of being responsible. One that a person
is responsible for.
Responsibility in the context of which my role was defined as a sister and a friend
while my brother neared the end of his life was profoundly meaningful to me.
Although the challenge of this role was incredibly daunting as well as critical at
times, I was honored to share in the responsibility that ultimately led him toward
eternal peace.
Comic book and Sci-Fi lovers get to see Marvel Comics characters unite to save the universe in the epic action movie, Avengers: Infinity War. The nail biting thriller will keep movie goers on the edge of their seats while watching amazing fight scenes and battleground action on the big screen.
Read MoreI’m sitting at the nurse’s station cleaning my glasses with an alcohol prep pad. Looking though the newly cleaned lenses, I’m dismayed to find that not only are my scrubs wrinkled but there’s a brown smudge on my pant leg. What is that—betadine? Peanut butter from when my kids hugged me goodbye this morning?
Read MoreIs it possible for the U.S. to transcend its racist history? The title of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ most recent book – We Were Eight Years in Power – suggests a lost moment, a fumbled opportunity encapsulated in Obama’s presidency. The book itself is more complex (and its criticism of the first black President more stringent) than some of its critics would suggest, but the unspoken message is that racism is an indelible stain, and that whatever dreams of racial harmony Obama might have engendered have been inevitably crushed under the mighty hammer of white supremacy.
Read MorePatrick E. Horrigan, in his new book Pennsylvania Station, weaves together two, carefully articulated, grand themes, one of which would have been enough to tackle, more than enough, for your average novelist.
Patrick E. Horrigan, in his new book Pennsylvania Station, weaves together two, carefully articulated, grand themes, one of which would have been enough to tackle, more than enough, for your average novelist.
Read MoreKendrick Lamar’s recent award of the Pulitzer Prize for his 2017 album Damn. is as much of a cultural watershed moment as Duke Ellington’s infamous Carnegie Hall debut in 1943. At this pivotal point in Ellington’s career, he had already cemented his status as one of the most accomplished and prolific musicians of his generation. With hits such as “Black and Tan Fantasy,” “Mood Indigo,” “It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing),” “Take the A Train,” and many others, Ellington was sonically redefining black music while serving as one of the central sirens of a burgeoning, modern black subjectivity.
Read MoreThere are scenes that speak to Sen. Kennedy’s inadequacies from being the brother of a former President and a popular politician. Sen. Kennedy also had a strained relationship with his father.
The reenactment of the car being pulled the car out of the river and the reaction of the diver and the town sheriff show the shock of the town and how political power and selfishness can collide with society.
Read MoreHe retired, didn't quit his day job, one of the first second third generation immigrant youth pining for space, for more road, aspirations for a better life, "making it in America." The promised land, New Jersey, Springsteen, Patti Smith, WC Williams, Ginsberg, Eliot Katz & Jack Wiler, myriads more, all legends, where the ordinary is extra and the Average is Whitman's Divine Average.
Read MoreIt was 4:15 – fifteen minutes after I said I’d be there to pick her up, and I wasn’t even in my car yet. Geez! The phone rang. It was my sister. “Can’t talk now, I’ll need to call you back. Mom’s waiting and…”
“Uh, yeah! She’s called me three times wondering if you’d forgotten her at the church,” she said tersely.
“Gotta go.” The only reason I was stuck with this job was because my sister, Laura, was at home taking care of two sick kids. As I approached the intersection, a block from the church, I noticed an elderly woman in front of me. She was perfectly still.
Read MoreOne of the most compelling sequences in the Oscar-winning Inside Job, Charles Ferguson’s indictment of Wall Street’s role in the 2008 global financial meltdown, involved not the banker culprits but their supporting cast. These were the Ivy League accomplices. Ferguson mightily skewered these economists for the cover they gave the sub-prime Hamptons dwelling wise guys whose rescue turned out to be a pretext for one of the largest reverse-Robin Hood wealth transfers in history.
Read MoreIn the spirit of Marvin Gaye, one of several artists honored in No One Can Be at Peace Unless They Have Freedom, this volume is Michael Simanga’s What’s Going On book. It is an urgent and majestic mix of inner-city-blues-what’s-going-on-save-the-children--mercy-mercy-me-right-on-wholy-holy sensibilities remastered for our times.
Read MoreThe “David Bowie is” exhibit transforms the life of a music legend into a display of colorful
artistry set to the backdrop of the singers greatest hit music at the Brooklyn Museum. The Bowie
exhibit is unique in its style serving as a tribute to David Bowie and his diverse music.
As science continues to move humanity forward at a break-neck pace, a question from philosophers remains – just because we can, does it mean we should? What implications does man face as we continue to adopt new, and often questionable, technologies?
Debut author K.K. Edin seeks to address these questions, and many more, in his debut
science fiction epic, The Measurements of Decay, a riveting and profound tale that upends how we think about time, space, and humanity’s place in the universe.
For many theatergoers this season’s revival of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Pareoistrika, now playing in repertory in a limited engagement at the Neil Simon Theatre, can seem like a veritable theatrical marathon. The two shows, which run for a total of 7.5 hours and can be seen in either one full day or split between two, takes about as much time as it does to fly to Europe or binge-watch an entire mini-series.
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