My people will never let me forget this, but I was um, a little less friendly and approachable when I arrived in Lawrence. Fists balled up. Chest poked out. Hardcore scowl. Every shirt I owned was black, one even had ‘Danger – Educated Black Man’ printed across the front. One kid I met that week […]
If my father was my benefactor, my biggest fan in the family was his brother’s wife, my godmother. My father is very laid-back, which is where I get it from. My aunt was the one who would stick up for me (all of us really) if someone was bullying us. I chuckle at how many […]
This one’s from Markee Magazine Online. Thanks to Chris and my friends at Through A Glass for the heads up! http://www.markeemag.com/article/detail.php?RecordID=88#Through
I first read The Autobiography of Malcolm X when I was 16 years old. The pages are turning yellow, but I still have the paperback version I bought half a lifetime ago now. In nearly every chapter, there was something in it that struck me like lightning. I flip through these pages now and see […]
I can remember with clarity the effect Roots had on me the first time I watched it. Awe, shock, pride, anger. I cried pretty good the first time I saw the scene where they whipped Kunta Kinte until he said his name was Toby. I was one of the first in my family to be […]
I subscribe to the theory that relationships are like investments: the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. I’m not going to reveal all the various forms of physical and sexual Kryptonite I have a weakness for, but I will say this: I’m a man. I’m reminded of an old […]
The Wire aired for five seasons on HBO. The main character of the show was the city of Baltimore, with each season looking at the city through a different infrastructure (the streets, the docks, politics, the school system and the media). I’ve done nothing to disguise the large amount of admiration for the show […]
Openly taking its cues from Scarface, New Jack City was an ‘anti-drug’ movie about a group of young brothers in New York rising to the type of the drug game in the early years of hip hop. I openly admit this was a personal favorite of mine growing up as a teenager in the early […]
My earliest memories of the movies were from the summers in Salina. The local theatre would play these Sinbad serials as matinees, and we’d all ride our bikes home afterward and play out in the street. Pirates, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, what have you. E.T. was the first ‘Hollywood’ movie I remember seeing at the […]
I spent half a year living with my mother and roughly a year living with my father, first in Salina, followed by a move back to Kansas City. My mother and sister came to stay with us after that, and the family was reunited. This was around 1985-1986 I believe: the Royals had just won […]
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