Editor’s Soapbox, Entertainment

Hip-hop has been part of my life for over 35 years. I have witnessed the rise of the most powerful youth movement this world has ever seen from an incredibly unique vantage point. In the early days, not many people or the press cared about the personal life of a rapper, now rappers are the […]

“F*ck the police coming straight from the underground/A young nigga got it bad cause I’m brown/And not the other color so police think/They have the authority to kill a minority” – Ice Cube 1988 If the unwarranted death or torture of many brown men and the musical narratives delivered by black artists is any indication, […]

Life isn’t black or white. People typically aren’t all good or all bad. Many humans walk the line and crisscross back and forth, doing better when they know better. We are all a work in progress. When it comes to animals, maybe you believe you are on the side of right. You say you love […]

Today’s teen violence is a problem that transcends race, gender, and socioeconomic level – and it’s likely a symptom of an adult problem I’m not an expert on teen violence, urban violence, or violence in general. However, as a survivor of violent crime myself and a family member of several survivors of violent crimes, I […]

Lately I’ve been out promoting my new book Success Through Stillness: Meditation Made Simple. Everyone from Dr. Oz to Arsenio Hall to Steve Harvey to Dr. Sanjay Gupta to Queen Latifah and tons of other wonderful people have let me sit down with them and talk about the benefits of meditation. And people seem to be […]

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Cesar Chavez premiered this past weekend in theaters across the country. Hollywood films premiere all the time, but this one is different. Most Americans know about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela — some of the great civil rights leaders of our time. But sadly, very few know the story […]

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I’ve always believed that the collective prayer of young people can change the world. From the early days of hip-hop to the emergence of the millenial’s to the power of the Obama presidency, young people have pushed forward a much more progressive agenda than any generation prior. When young people want something, they go get […]

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Why is it so hard for Americans to talk about race? It has been the proverbial elephant in the room since before any of us were alive, but nobody wants to really address that it’s stinking up the place. Perhaps it’s the fact that we will have to discuss our country’s confusing and often painful […]

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Article originally published in Solomonjones.com Dear Black Boys: I pray that one day we can say with a conscious mind, “It’s okay. You’re safe.” What does the bullet say to the living when it penetrates the skin? How does the spiral move through the flesh as it digs deeper into breath? What’s worse—dying because you were […]

African-Americans, conservatives, and Black Republicans alike must understand and apply Reagan’s three-legged model to achieve racial equality today Recently, I got into a brief but important discussion with two former colleagues of mine concerning the role and influence of social protest in the process of addressing and correcting injustices throughout America, most notably in America’s […]

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The documentary “Richard Pryor: Omit the Logic” provided a deductive reason for why he lit himself on fire. Throughout this past Black History Month I had a tendency to add gasoline to my shampoo. While in college I took a course in Logic. A philosopher at heart, I was eager to study a system of […]

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It should come as no surprise that the Reverend Al Sharpton was featured as a prominent voice in the four-part series that aired this week on VH1 called “The Tanning of America: One Nation Under Hip Hop.” Based on the best-selling book written by record executive Steve Stoute, the documentary brilliantly interrogates the many ways […]