The Hip Hop Anthropologist

Bernie Sanders is a counter-culture, anti-hero, masked as a grumpy, elderly flavor of the week for privileged, young white romantics. He grudgingly suspended his campaign last week after his latest (and final) presidential aspirations were u nceremoniously thwarted by South Carolina Democrats; a critical core constituency in the Democratic establishment; one whose political ascendancy threatens to supplant Iowa and New Hampshire's traditional moorings as reliable prognosticators for the Democratic presidential nomination. The black voters in SC pragmatically rallied around  an old skool liberal named Joe Biden in an unusual act of defiance and self-preservation, whose benign racism and notorious sexism enables him to facilely navigate diverse constituencies with competing interests, who they know can get s... done.  Implicit in the endorsement is the promise to maintain the Democratic status quo. Bernie does not work well with others. Biden does, however. He was a pariah in the

Democrats are in a tough situation. Align themselves with a Socialist Democrat with the winds in his sail, or allow a mediocre politico, who purchased a third (unlawful) mayoralty after terming out as mayor of NYC, to now buy the democratic nomination for president ... 

Donald John Trump has brutally ripped the façade of democracy off the body politic for the entire world to see. America has become a failed state; a banana republic, that no longer enjoys a moral imperative; one we once took for granted. It abandons its allies while embracing its enemies; imprisons minorities it wishes to control while discriminating against those it cannot. Elected officials buy their way into office while well-heeled criminals buy their way out of prison. And corporations are “similarly situated…” The final nail in the remains of our representative democracy was banged into the coffin by the total capitulation of the Senate. It cynically voted in unqualified judges to lifetime appointments on Article III courts; and, refused to vote bipartisan legislation by the lower house into law; or, hold 45 accountable for his treachery. We no longer live in a free, open, and fair society -- if ever we did. And we can thank 45 and his henchmen for savagely disabusing us of th

                                                                            Us Black Folks                                                                         By Dennis Shipman    Unlike any other ethnic group or, more accurately, sub-group in the United States, upwardly mobile Black folks have been all too willing to sacrifice cultural affinity on the self-serving altar of rugged individualism than any other group on earth. Individualism is a concept that does not exist among any indigenous group found in Africa. Social scientists often argue, only to be cast as apologists for tribalism, that this phenomenon is a lasting vestige of slavery.    Communalism is a philosophy that binds Africans however tenuously to the whole but often gives rise to a dichotomy, which fuels frustration many conscious blacks in the progressive movement feel at an entrenched, intransigent segment of our community. A segment that openly fosters an unapologetic I-got-mine-you-get-yours ethos. It is a pecul