Political Media Review

Angela Davis is an icon of the highest sense, an icon critical of their own iconic status. From her rise as a critical socio-political force in the late 1960’s to her still defiant role as an activist-academic, Davis is a great example of protracted struggle met with theory and praxis.

Jalil Muntaqim (a.k.a. Anthony Bottom) was nineteen when he was sent to prison. He’ll turn 60 this year. He’s serving two concurrent sentences of 25 years to life.

Enduring racial disparities in hiring and employment have become a subject of debate amid the economic downturn. The problem with so many of these debates is that the dialogue more often than not tends toward an outcome focused on supporting the economic framework.

Big Noise Films continues its tradition of blistering journalism in volume six of its Dispatches series, the latest of which features some of the best reporting of the DVD releases.

I have occasional conversations with associates about the unusual political and cultural space occupied by Latinos, and the challenges young Latinas in particular face. Often sexualized and objectified by mainstream white culture as exotic succubi, Latinas further occupy a racialized place of privilege that Black women are not permitted.

An old friend and comrade, Hitaji Aziz, once told me men of color have some of the biggest struggles to confront. Stereotyped and feared, men of color at once must wrestle with their own insecurities, self-perceptions and the necessity to feel human in a world that often denies men of color the right to feel much of anything beyond objectification and playing that part.

The plot of Disgrace is driven by the personal metamorphosis of David Lurie, an arrogant, libidinous professor, brilliantly played by John Malkovich. A poetry lecturer at Cape Town University, David’s descent into disgrace is provoked by an affair he is having with a mixed-race student thirty years his junior.