Brave

The character "Annie" portrayed by white and  Black actresses credit The Daily Show  Rachel Dolezal is the end product of hundred of years of cultural appropriation that is commonplace in nearly every aspect of our lives. Not only is she being allowed to continue profiting from assuming an entire Black identity (now she's published a book), but she goes further by appropriating an African name and appropriating the term 'trans' and hyphenating our race to justify a lifetime of fetishizing and appropriating our entire culture. Not satisfied, she is now claiming to be an expert on racial fluidity, thus perverting that as well. When racial fluidity is Googled, articles about her are at the top of the search results. This is the absolute definition of white privilege in action. Dolezal is trying to revive her career by self-identifying as 'trans-black.' Some claim she is an indicator of the world moving to racial fluidity. Nope! My multiracial children ...

Add caption  "PHOTO ABOVE-LEFT: Olympic Project for Human Rights button, worn  by activist athletes in the 1968 Olympic games, originally called for a boycott of the 1968 Olympic Games. PHOTO ABOVE-RIGHT: This iconic photo  appears in many U.S. history textbooks, stripped of the story of the planned  boycott and demands, creating the appearance of a solitary act of defiance".- From  "If We Knew Our History" By the Zinn Education Project    " Özrü kabahatinden beter " is a Turkish proverb meaning  the apology is worse than the error. I couldn't get that proverb out of my head after reading an article in the magazine "Good" about a German sports team's photograph in digital Blackface. The op-ed was a whitewashing justification for the incident, based on team assurances that this was done "in support" of their two African teammates. Back in November of 2014, I wrote a blog post about the responsibilities of an ally ...

The Author, keeping it real. © Kerima Çevik  I speak about my stepfather and race a great deal. He was my mentor and guide into the world of being Black in America in the 1970s. My stepfather took some drastic steps to insure we assimilated American Black Culture, in all caps. He took us off military bases for 6 of the most vulnerable and traumatic years of my life, until I graduated from high school. He took me to housing projects and the slums of Chicago’s south side to visit war buddies, friends and family. He wanted me to understand both Delta blues and Chicago blues in the most organic fashion possible. Not for music history appreciation, or the witnessing of poverty, or any of the reasons those who are not raised in a blues culture can understand. He did it to share with me the way he retained his identity and sense of self when war, torture, racism, and injustice sought to tear it away from him. He passed it on to me in the way it was shared by his parents with him. This...