The Hip Hop Anthropologist

Unc is sitting here. That’s the thought that settles in as the blue light from the laptop cuts through the dark like a quiet lighthouse. I’m surfing the web, as I often do, sipping cheap brandy and chasing it with a Miller High Life. The High Life isn’t mine, not really—it’s a ritual, a nod to Percy Jarvis, Sr., my father. His drink was Cutty Sark, but this bottle, this pop of the cap, feels like communion. If I had my way, it’d be a Ballantine Ale and a blunt. But tonight, this is the sacrament. There’s a myth—persistent and shallow—that solitude equals loneliness. That a man alone in a room lit only by a screen is somehow incomplete. But this room isn’t empty. It’s dense. It’s thick with memory, with choices, with the kind of peace that only comes when you’ve made your peace with yourself. I could date. I could dance that dance again. But my interest lies elsewhere—in reflection, in legacy, in the quiet clarity that comes when the noise fades. My son is my anchor. My l...

The debate swirling about income inequality reflects a tension drawn on simplistic conclusions from discredited conservative talking points, which upon deeper reflection are little more than cheap potshots against the “welfare state.” This flock of canards detracts us away from obvious truths. The Republicans and Democrats are flip sides of the same coin. And the body politic is rife with unbridled corruption by both. A more important issue that is sadly missed in flawed analyses by both liberals and conservatives is a race and class divide that pits poor and working class Whites against working and middle class Blacks, who should be natural allies. They have more in common than not. Case in point, Scott Walker in Wisconsin was allowed free reign to engage in union busting activities by unilaterally eliminating collective bargaining for public sector workers. Instead of working class Whites joining in the campaign to oust Scott, they cynically voted against their own be...