MELISSA HARRIS-PERRY JUST WALKED AWAY FROM MSNBC’S CHICKEN PLATE

The punchline: “Ain’t nobody here but us chickens.” Do you remember when Byron Allen’s Entertainment Studios Networks, Inc. and the National Association of African-American Owned Media (NAAAOM) sued Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Comcast and Time Warner Cable, and accused the organizations of locking out African descendant production companies from cable show licensing deals? During […]

SUNDAY SMACK: PARTY CIVIL WAR?

This week’s Sunday Smack explores the prospects for internecine warfare this year between America’s two major political parties. As Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump — to the “supposed” chagrin of so-called establishment party leaders — wins the South Carolina Presidential primary, some party insders make mention of a brokered convention which could block Trump’s nomination. […]

AN ALBUM (OR TWO) IN MY HEAD 0063

MIROSLAV VITOUS INFINITE SEARCH 1970 If the reputation of bassist Miroslav Vitous is not a sufficiently strong selling point make his album Infinite Search a part of your Jazz music collection, then perhaps these four other band member names are: Jack DeJohnette, Herbie Hancock, Joe Henderson and John McLaughlin. Vitous, 21 years old at the […]

WHY RICK SNYDER’S FLINT BEHAVIOR DESERVES A NUREMBERG TRIAL

In one hundred and five seconds, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder disclosed his first steps to resolve the contaminated water crisis of his own creation within the City of Flint by unveiling a family of component studies including: Update of a water infrastructure reliability study from 2013 Priority analysis of service line replacement System map analysis […]

ETHNIC CLEANSING, TERRORISM AND GUN RUNNING — HOW HILLARY RUNS STATE DEPARTMENT

(Note: the story about how Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s emails pointed out ethnic cleansing in Libya has been circulating for over a month. I decided to repeat some of it here since the press, for the most part, has ignored it.) “Libyan people don’t like people with dark skins, though some of them may be […]

MY VALENTINE’S DAY WISH FOR YOU

Valentine’s Day reminds me of a Brooklyn guy who couldn’t stand the idea of being alone on this day a few years ago, so he spent most of the daylight hours searching for a dinner date until he found one in the most remote areas of his smartphone’s address book. He then spent much of […]

DESPERATE HILLARY

It’s obvious that presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s scrying about her impending New Hampshire primary doom had led to panic and desperation — she dispatched hubby Bill Clinton, the former President who killed a Black man to be elected, incarcerated many more Black men to get reelected, made the poverty situation of Black families even […]

ABOUT THIS OSCARS BOYCOTT

“A two hour Laura Ashley commercial.” That comment from Variety magazine explains why — in my world, at least — Jada Pinkett-Smith and or others who want to boycott the 2016 Oscars for its absence of color in the nominations are a bit late. But welcome anyway. I’ll get to Laura Ashley […]

REMEMBERING MAURICE WHITE

Many of us feel pain after hearing the news of Earth Wind and Fire co-founder Maurice White’s return to the Creator. The emotional outflow has been all over social media since last night, and for good reason. Through EW&F, Maurice help to build an African-inflected, multi-genre sound that extended across astral, diasporic, rhythmic and […]

SLAVE REPARATIONS WILL LIKELY TURN DEADLY

So, what’s my reaction to the UN Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent’s recent visit to the United States where they urged the federal government to consider slavery reparations for African Americans? My reaction remains similar to what I’ve told friends who asked me this question during the […]