Raisin in the Pun

Cornel West and Tavis Smiley have three things in common. They are African American. They believe they have some relevancy in and influence on the Greater African American Community (they don't) and all of them are overt and consistent critics of President Barrack Obama.  Their main complaint is that President Obama didn't do anything and/or enough for African Americans. They and their apologists also believe that anyone supporting President Obama does so because he is black and his supporters are just Land-o-Goshen-tickled pink, black, brown, beige, red and tan to have had an African American in the White House and aren’t sophisticated enough to see and agree with the complaints West and company offers to the greater African American community with their diatribes against President Obama. The arrogance of their position would be laughable if the stakes weren’t so high and Obama's accomplishments hadn't been so great. President Obama ended the war in Iraq...

An Ode to My Father January 9 th , 2020 marks the forty-first anniversary of my Father’s death. That year, 1978, was the year my life changed. Looking back over my life, the path I’d chosen prior to 1978 made little sense to anyone but the 20 year old me. I’ve never been one to choose or capitulate to the status quo definition of how one should live life. I’ve always chosen to go up what the majority of society, and African-American society in general considered to be the steepest and roughest side of the mountain. I did so not because I had something to prove. I did it because I wanted to experience life unconditionally and do so without owing a debt to anyone or anything that would cause me to compromise my will and self-determination. To put it where the goats can get to it and in my Mother’s own words, “I was a hardheaded motherfucker.” The summer of 1978 is when everything changed for me. The Saturday before Father’s day that year, Dad came over to my apartment to visi...