The question has often been posed: are leaders born or made?  Most theorists believe that leaders are made.  If this is true, all of us have the potential to be a leader. I believe that people become leaders based on exposure, experience and education. We are all made up of a combination of what we’ve been exposed to in life, what we’ve experienced, and what we make the effort to learn.  ... read more »

Some are touting ‘The Hate U Give,’ as “the first Black Lives Matter movie.” Red flags should have gone up the moment we learned that Fox, recently acquired by Disney, was behind the film with a massive public relations budget, footing the bill for hundreds of advance screenings with celebrity guests, marketing swag, and heavy media saturation – especially in Black markets.  We might also wonder about the choice to have Audrey Wells, a White screenwriter whose credits include "Under the Tuscan Sun"  and "The Truth About Cats and Dogs," adapt an urban Black novel for the screen. ... read more »

Demographic changes in California and throughout the nation are profoundly altering the political landscape. Not the least of such changes is the impact of the huge increase in the Latino population. Cleary, Latinos are already asserting their new found political strength. This threatens many African Americans, who rather than work to strengthen relations with Latinos, for mutual benefit, seem determined to cling to their own highly limited  past political and economic gains, real and imagined.  ... read more »

In these uncertain and unsettling times of the self-silencing of the lambs, the fearful and fatigued surrender of summer soldiers, and the out-of-control hate-filled howling of ice age winter wolves, lessons and models of struggle and resistance from the sacred narrative of our history are both appropriate and compelling. ... read more »

 Lady Justice is trying to figure out why her name has been raked through the coals; misunderstood abused, violated, ignored, denied her voice, falsely accused over uncountable years. “Yes, without her consent, amounting to “rape” figuratively. Lady Justice doesn’t even have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame acknowledging all she’s been through and how famous she is!? ... read more »

Today’s vote is a betrayal of the Senate’s constitutional duty to advise and consent. The Urban League Movement opposed this nomination because of his extremist positions on civil rights, workers rights, and social justice. A complete vetting of his background was impeded by the White House, which withheld the vast majority of pertinent records. ... read more »

Improving Black/Latino relations was never really a major political priority in Los Angeles but should have been. Why? Sustainable collaboration between the two groups, based on mutual respect and an explicit commitment to honor the terms of any agreement to work together, is really the only way to strengthen their relationship and respective goals. ... read more »

Jackson changed the way that African American people saw ourselves politically. Before him, we thought we could not make a difference. Because of him, we know that we can. Before him, we did not believe, in his words, that “the hands that picked peaches could pick Presidents.” ... read more »

America is a melting pot of people from all over the world.  Some groups came willingly to pursue new opportunities, such as the forefathers of the “new world;” whereas, some were brought against their will in the form of slaves, indentured servants or temporary workers.  ... read more »

The presumption of innocence: the principle that one is considered innocent unless proven guilty. “The burden of proof is on the one who declares, not on one who denies.” Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the lifetime position of Supreme Court Justice has piercing implications for the past, today and future; a pivotal, historical moment. ... read more »

Recent and stunning disclosures of racially-offensive writings by a high-ranking official at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has unleashed an escalating barrage of criticisms, including calls for the official to be fired and more probing questions regarding the agency’s commitment to fair lending. ... read more »

Prop 64 not only promised to reduce or expunge certain past convictions, it also presented employment opportunities in the newly legalized cannabis industry as a gateway to the middle class for many underserved communities. ... read more »

In recent weeks, multiple news sources have reported on the 10-year anniversary since the onset of the nation’s foreclosure crisis. Between 2007 and 2011, 10.9 million homes went into foreclosure, with 8 million completing that process. Additionally, $1.95 trillion in lost property value affected both families who lost their homes to foreclosure, as well as their nearby neighbors who remained in their homes. ... read more »

Praise the Lord, indeed. Since the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black voting rates – particularly in presidential years – rose steadily. In 2008, the Black voting rate matched the White rate for the first time and in 2012 exceeded it. Not coincidentally, in 2013 the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act and the Black voter turnout in 2016 dipped to a low not seen since 2004. ... read more »

And as part of this process, I want to share reflections of this revolutionary spirit and radical imagination found in The Quotable Karenga, which contains critical concepts that served as foundation and framework for our thought and practice of revolutionary cultural nationalism. ... read more »