Blink. That’s what I do sometimes, when I read the latest news about what “my” government is up to. It’s a subconscious, a mental double-take–my very own personal attempt to correct for incongruous sensory input. You know, that feeling of “I know I didn’t just read what I think I just read.” It’s happening more […]
hi-tylertraveling
Posted inNews
Beyond The Dream: King’s Anti-War Legacy
“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality we will find ourselves organizing clergy- and laymen-concerned committees for the next generation. They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru. They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia. They will […]
Posted inArt
El Diablo en el Barrio
The Devil In Silicon Valley: Northern California, Race, and Mexican Americans, published by Princeton University Press, looks beneath California’s gilded and gleaming facade, to expose its past and present from the vantage point of its indigenous inhabitants. What we find, instead of the typical cowboy and gold rush glorification, is an unflinching look at how […]
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The United States Goes It Alone, Once Again
It’s been a year since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The memories are permanent. Reflection and remembrance are both inevitable and inescapable. My six degrees of separation from the tragedy included a friend of my sister’s, who sang in the choir with her in their suburban Maryland church. This woman was a schoolteacher in D.C., […]
Posted inNews
Lookin’ Out
The Sankofa bird, an icon of the Akan people of West Africa, is depicted as flying while facing the opposite direction, symbolizing the importance of looking backward to move forward–or, more colloquially, the need for a people to understand where they’ve been in order to understand where they’re going. Black folk have got the “looking […]
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N**ga, Please!
Nigger. Without question, this is the most loaded word in the English language. Six letters. Say it three times and you’ve got the number of the beast. Forged white-hot in the fires of hell, that word has, for half a millennia, been seared into the collective psyche of black people in America. N-I-G-G-E-R. Though buried […]
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How Did We Get Here?
I’m well aware that the last thing a lot of Americans want to hear is a political analysis of last week’s tragic events. Amid the calamity, the cries for unity and uniformity are overwhelming, and understandable. We are all outraged, and should be. We are mournful, and should be. We are all anxious, and most […]
Posted inMusic
De-Cyphered
“What’s the meaning of a Cypher? Green lights, rhyme writers, the beats, the lighters/What’s the meaning of a Cypher? Many styles … Many styles …. “ So sayeth Mr. Rozzi, emcee and emissary of the Dominion crew, through call and response, call and response, in the middle of his open mic set last Friday night […]
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Black, Brown and Green
Black, Brown and GreenThe shifting landscape of race and economics in the Triangleby derek jennings I’ve lived in North Carolina for eight years now, and I’ve witnessed substantial changes during that time. I’ve seen the trees come down and the sub-developments go up. I’ve seen open space decrease and commute times increase. I’ve seen a […]
Posted inNews
Bridging the gap
Jim Hunt, on his way out of the governor’s mansion, has been almost universally lauded for the strides North Carolina’s schools have made during his tenure. A combination of early intervention and accountability measures (Smart Start and The ABCs) have spurred across-the-board improvement, garnering national recognition for the state, while teacher salaries have risen from […]
