Category: America
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The Time to Shine is Always Now
The time to shine is always now. If people are surprised to see me rapping now, there’s more to the backstory you don’t know. A lot of people don’t know this. But my mom was basically a part of early hip hop. She used to be called JoSi, The Queen of Rhymes and she had…
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Fear of an Equitable Workplace (FEW) and the Quiet Quitting Deception
By now, you’ve probably come across a plethora of articles aiming to explain this seeming phenomena being touted as “quiet quitting” or “quitting in place”. As I see it, this label attributed to folks who–for the most part–have failed at QUIT QUITTING, is a way of adding fuel to the fire known as THE GREAT…
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Responsible Free Speech: Context, Content, and Why They Matter
Many Americans want to express their right to free speech. But, it seems that very few people want to be responsible for their right to free speech. There is a bit of wisdom that has been attributed to Abraham Lincoln that goes something like this, “Better to remain silent and thought a fool than to…
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Fool Me Twice: Why We Believe the Liars That We Know Are Lying
In my experience, it is the one who most vehemently accuses someone of something that’s actually the one doing it—like cheating in a relationship or voter fraud. And also in my experience, the person being lied to is usually the least willing to accept the weight of the revelation. They say that it is because…
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The Burden
Almost every Black person I know who has grown up in America knows what it’s like to feel the existential burden placed upon us that says, “You represent your entire race.”
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Conversation Catalyst or Conversation Coward?
Usually I write poems or long blogs to express my thoughts. This time I drew a picture. The point of the picture—if it’s not obvious—is that I think we are at a critical moment in the world when we can choose to be #ConversationCatalysts and foster a #CollaborativeCulture or we can be #ConversationCowards and devolve…
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Juneteenth – Liberation Takes a Holiday
“What do you mean there’s no Juneteenth Festival here?” Like ignoring Daylight Savings Time and Martin Luther King Jr. Day, it seemed like Arizona was on its own page once again. Growing up with festivals that celebrated African African Heritage such as Juneteenth and Umoja Festivals in the Hampton Roads area of VA, I was…
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Teaching What We Do Not Know: Awakening Abolitionists
“You know who you’re fighting. But do you really know what you’re fighting for? I mean really. Because when you do, there’s nothing anyone can take from you. When you know what you’re fighting for, it means you know who you really are and that you’re of infinite worth. With that knowledge, you live everyday…
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The Art of Wasting Potential
One of the most wicked destructive forces, psychologically speaking, is unused creative power … If someone has a creative gift and out of laziness, or for some other reason, doesn’t use it, the psychic energy turns to sheer poison. That’s why we often diagnose neuroses and psychotic diseases as not-lived higher possibilities. Marie-Louise von Franz…
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A Conversation Among Equals: The Importance of De-ranking Conversations
The fact is that, whether we intend them to or not, most of our conversations happen in frameworks that are upheld by socially accepted ranking systems. And, when conversations happen in a context where someone holds a perceived “higher ranking”, it is virtually impossible to have the conversations we need to move our society forward…
The Roofless Church 