Vanishing Bookstores and Black Spaces in Los Angeles
I imagined myself buying several books at Eso Won bookstore in Leimert Park during their final sale. Rumor was the Black-owned bookstore would be closing after thirty-six years in business…
The Civil Rights Movement and the Haitian Revolution Never Ended
The Civil Rights Movement, like the Haitian Revolution, never ended. This idea crossed my mind as I read the essay, “On the Marvelous Real in America” by Cuban writer, Alejo Carpentier…
Our Sleepwalking Towards Death with Gabriel Garcia Marquez
At eighteen, with my first year of community college completed, I flew alone from Los Angeles to Mexico City. After several days of scouring bookstores, I brought back a suitcase full of novels, poetry, and history books…
Disparaging Black American Culture in a Vague Economy
In his recent article, “Black American Culture and the Racial Wealth Gap,” Columbia undergrad Coleman Hughes argues that activities which he regards as Black-American cultural traits such as conspicuous consumption and a lack of financial education result in Whites having economic wealth that is ten times that of Blacks.
Haiti and the US-Mexico Border
I wanted to leave Los Angeles and go to the US-Mexico border. Not 25 miles away, more like 120. I’d read about the Haitian migrants who’d made their way to the border after walking from Brazil.
Descarado Brazil
Entre maneras menos flagrantes para matar a Marielle Franco existía la posibilidad del suicidio de sus antepasados Africanos. Durante su esclavizada travesía marítima, ellos podrían lanzarse a las profundidades del Átlantico en forma de cadaveres de alga marina y la semilla de Marielle nunca se hubiera establecida en tierra brasileña.
Blatant Brazil
There were less blatant ways to kill Marielle Franco. Foremost being before her African ancestors made their captured voyage to shore, they could have simply jumped ship into the depths of the Atlantic as seaweed carcasses,and her seed would have never settled in your soil.
Black Women Won’t Save the World
Despite pronouncements to the contrary, Black Women won’t save the world. Notwithstanding the circumference of the Cradle of Civilization in South Africa nestled in a locale from which all human beings originate; regardless of the excavations in Ethiopia of both Lucy and Ardi marking the evolution of homo erectus and what that signifies to the world in the evolutionary flowering of life, the act of waiting 27 years in a Mandela-like manner is far beyond the dexterity of even the most steadfast amongst us.
Eric Garner, Alton Sterling, and Controlling Black Bodies in the Americas
In 1770 the Municipal government of the Louisiana Territory then under Spanish rule stated it was permissible in the Territory for the Europeans to trade tobacco for African slaves. On July 17, 2014, in the formerly-liberal now neoliberal bastion of New York City, money capital of the overdeveloped world, and once the prime destination for Blacks leaving the Reconstruction South, there was no law permitting a black man to sell individual tobacco cigarettes on the street.
Foreign Whips and Detroit’s Decline
Inherent in Detroit’s zenith were forewarnings of its decline. Positioned as one of several U.S. magnets, Detroit drew in hundreds of thousands of desperate workers from disparate regions of the country. It was a terminus for black migrants fleeing the Jim Crow South, as well as European immigrants new to America.
