As Kwanzaa draws to an end and the old year meets and merges with the new, we are, as always, obligated and urged by ancient custom and ongoing current concerns to sit down and seriously engage in righteous reflection on being African in the world. To speak of righteous reflection is, in an Ebonics sense of the word righteous, to talk of thought that is real, ethical and excellent. That is to say, thought that is free from the artificial, false and formulaic and comes from the heart as well as from the head. What is aimed at here is thought which is informed by an ethical sensitivity to the subject under consideration. And this holds true whether in our concern for each other or for the health and wholeness of the world; for the loss of human life or the mutilation of historical memory; and for the deprivation of material needs or the denial of dignity and rights due everyone. ... read more »

To imagine a whole new future and to forge it in the most ethical, effective and expansive ways speaks to our need to constantly be concerned about those who come after us, about the world itself after we, as our honored ancestors say, have risen in radiance in the heavens and sit in the sacred circle of the ancestors. It’s about wanting, working and struggling for the constant advancement of good in the world and imagining and forging a future worthy of the name and history, African. ... read more »