I happened to catch the beginning of the Miss Universe pageant on television tonight.  My children glanced up at the screen when the contestants from Nigeria, Ghana, and Tanzania and some of the Caribbean islands were announced.  These were some lovely black girls who stood out amongst the 80 participants.    Then they introduced the judges […]

I ran into a Kenyan couple last weekend at a party in Chicago.  I thought I was being gracious when I mentioned to them how excited they must be to see Barak Obama do so well in the US presidential primaries.  To my utter amazement, they eyed me suspiciously.  So I persisted, “You know, he […]

A student of mine was wondering aloud one afternoon.  She wondered about the different rules and standards to which black and white folks had to live up to.  She says, for instance, that it is fine for black folks to say “I’m proud to be black” but when white folks say “I’m proud to be […]

I’m often asked what I miss most about living in West Africa. I certainly miss the obvious things like family, friends, colleagues, school mates, the food, the music. The list could go on and would probably be the same for any immigrant who has left home and started a new life in a […]

For centuries, African Americans have searched for their roots in Africa. They wonder where exactly on the great continent they come from. Few are as lucky as Alex Haley to trace their “roots” to the Mandinka tribe in Gambia. These days, there is exciting news of DNA testing which will lead […]

I find it extremely disturbing that Larry Elder has chosen to call his new book “Stupid Black Men”. I have not read the book. I skimmed through it while sipping a cup of tea in a bookstore. I suppose Elder is capitalizing on Michael Moore’s bestseller “Stupid White Men” (the same way Chris […]

The other day I stumbled upon the Tyra show on television. Her topic for the day was age and appearance. She paraded a number of women of varying ethnicities before the screen and asked her audience to guess how old they were from their appearance. To everyone’s delight and horror, the “specimens” […]