We've got issues.
In 1974, two years before the Eugene Springfield NAACP branch was founded, I worked in a Los Angeles Black Community Mental Health Day Treatment center … Continue reading
“Safe” at home, I’ve been watching a pandemic, wrapped in a depression, with tales told by an idiot genius, hoping things will return to a … Continue reading
We attended, my wife Cheri and I, the opening of the University of Oregon’s Lyllye Reynolds-Parker Black Cultural Center, a place first demanded 50 years … Continue reading
I was looking at my high school yearbook, where I appeared as student body president, in my natural blackface — an actual eight-inch Afro, denim … Continue reading
When a trope or metaphor gets popularly misappropriated due to cultural transference, problems ensue. Two examples often used in mainstream Western culture are “low man … Continue reading
What if you were born to live in this time, in these times? Choosing to incarnate, burdened by terrible conditions, strengthened by an indigenous strength, … Continue reading
I want my country back. I want the country where “All My Relations” meant an expanded humanity that lives in kinship with other life forms as relatives, not resources. That recognizes that humans in particular are relatives to be nurtured and cared for, not resources to be enslaved or exploited. When enslavement, exploitation or terror happens, that the solution to oppression is to become more humane than your oppressors. Continue reading
Notes From The Riverside Continue reading
Part of my Eugene Experience is mentioning observances of famous birthdays, like Martin and Malcolm, and getting the response: “Martin who?” or “Malcolm who?” Even mentioning Angela’s work on the prison-industrial complex, and the school-to-prison pipeline, and people saying “Angela who?” Black History Month grew from Carter Woodson’s Negro History Week, which was situated to encompass two birthdays, Lincoln and Douglass, so we would always remember the contradictions of America, who actually freed us and wanted us free, and who took the credi Continue reading
This year marks my 30th year in Oregon. To celebrate, I took in a double feature which exemplifies the two poles of my Oregonian experience. 12 Years a Slave and Gravity, both films helmed by directors of color. 12 Years served to ground me in reality, while Gravity took me to my favorite fantasy: a world without borders, floating free among the stars. The reality of space, though, is that it has no breathable atmosphere, extremes of hot and cold and is always trying to kill you, nothing personal. Same with Oregon; sometimes we don’t like your kind. Continue reading