The “evangelists of social media,” according to Malcolm Gladwell, want us to believe that the revolution we all want has simply been awaiting Twitter or Facebook accounts. And having now achieved them by the hundreds of thousands these evangelists would have us believe that success – political, economic or social – is inevitable. But all this…
Read more“The Most Visible Mulattoes”: Drake and Obama Match Hip-Hop and Politics
Lorraine Hansberry once cautioned against an artist seeking to ignore the specific nature of their racial categorization, history and experience. Her point was that to dismiss that particularity with the narrow, anecdotal tale of one’s own success was to damage the potential to interpret the reality of a broader community. To separate the conditions of Black people broadly…
Read moreDiversity Schmifersity: When It Comes to Black Even the Left Ain’t Right
The legendary counselor to power Walter Lippman once explained the role of the popular press in what he considered to be their essential function, the manufacturing of consent. He said that public opinions, “must be organized for the press… not by the press…” The mainstream press is not here to assist in the expansion of…
Read more