James Baldwin

President Obama and the 2012 Presidential Election Provide a Unique 'Teachable Moment'

Clarence B. Jones | Posted 05.16.2012

Read More: Race America, WEB Dubois, Obama Civil Rights, Race Obama, Same Sex Marriage Obama, Souls of Black Folk, Gay Marriage Obama, The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin, Politics News
Clarence B. Jones

Whether prompted by moral conviction or political expediency, the president's support of same sex marriage is still causing reflection among several diverse communities throughout the U.S. and it has impacted a college course I am teaching later this year, "From Slavery to Obama."

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Gay Marriage and a New American Majority

Jose Antonio Vargas | Posted 05.12.2012

Read More: LGBT Rights, Lgbt, Civil Rights Movement, Undocumented Immigrants, James Baldwin, Obama Gay Marriage, Civil Rights, Gay Marriage, Gay Voices News
Jose Antonio Vargas

A different American majority is emerging, and what it means to be a minority in a country that will soon be minority-majority is being redefined.

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Barney Rosset, Richard Seaver, and William Burroughs in Midcentury Paris

Regina Weinreich | Posted 05.02.2012

Read More: Henry Miller, Peter Orlovsky, James Baldwin, Harold Norse, Woody Allen, William Burroughs, Irwin Shaw, Jean Genet, Bill Morgan. Brion Gysin, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Jeannette Seaver, Peter Stone, Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, Gertrude Stein, Richard Seaver, George Plimpton, D.H. Lawrence, Barney Rosset, Books News
Regina Weinreich

Barney Rosset died last week at age 89, and for those who valued his contribution to upholding First Amendment rights in this country, his championing the works of artists, the event truly marks the end of an era.

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Minding Your Own Life

Aaron Anson | Posted 03.31.2012

Read More: Religion and Politics, Healthy Living Mind, James Baldwin, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Mind and Life, Mind Your Life, Open Your Mind, Change Your Mind, In Your Mind, Change Your Life, Healthy Living News
Aaron Anson

The bottom line is that no matter what our beliefs are, they are often based largely on interpretations handed to us by others. Sometimes those beliefs resonate with our own internal truth, and sometimes they don't. Regrettably, we often hold beliefs that we ourselves don't believe at our core.

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Anger at My Nation

Mychal Denzel Smith | Posted 11.23.2011

Read More: Troy Davis, Supreme Court, Troy Davis Execution, Troy Davis Supreme Court, US Supreme Court, Death Penalty, Troy Davis Death Penalty, James Baldwin, Black Voices News
Mychal Denzel Smith

In the wake of the death of Troy Davis, I find myself remembering and struggling with one of his more famous quotes: "I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually."

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On Dialect, Dialogue and Good Books

Angela Flournoy | Posted 11.06.2011

Read More: Literature, Regional-Dialects, Dialect, Ebonics, Flannery O'Connor, James Baldwin, Dialect in Literature, Postbourgie, Ebonics Literature, Literature Dialect, Writing Dialects, Writing Dialogue, Ebonics in Literature, African American Literature, Black Voices News
Angela Flournoy

A recent conversation about Ebonics got me to thinking about Faulkner and James Baldwin, and the way certain dialects in this country get no respect.

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Top 10 Tales Of Americans In Europe

guardian.co.uk | Esi Edugyan | Posted 09.12.2011

Read More: A Portrait of a Lady, Saul Bellow, Ernest Hemingway, Americans, James Baldwin, Esi Edugyan, Half Blood Blues, Mark Twain, Europe, Henry James, A Moveable Feast, Americans in Europe, Books News

From Henry James to James Baldwin, the novelist chooses the best books exploring the New World's romance with 'that dazzling, elusive, imaginary place...

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Gay Couples Have Equal Worth

Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski | Posted 09.06.2011

Read More: Andrew Cuomo, Marriage Equality Act, James Baldwin, Gay Marriage, Lgbt, Same Sex Marriage, New York Gay Marriage, Iowa Gay Marriage, Marriage Equality, Religion and Sexuality, Religion News
Rev. Dr. James A. Kowalski

"Here's to including, not excluding, kindhearted people ... who want nothing more than to find the right person, settle down, and one day perhaps get married."

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Literary Divas You Can’t Help But Love

flavorwire.com | Posted 08.22.2011

Read More: Literature, Joyce Carol Oates, Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Jamaica Kincaid, Terry McMillan, Literary Divas, Amy Chua, Margaret Atwood, Bernard Henri Levy, Salman Rushdie, Joan Acocella, Books News

There are divas and there are their lesser-known male counterparts, divos; the thing that unites them is their willingness to make demands and to do w...

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Our Burning House: A Eulogy for Biggie Smalls

Smokey Fontaine | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Notorious B.I.G., Hip Hop, James Baldwin, Chris Wallace, Biggie Smalls, Entertainment News
Smokey Fontaine

On the anniversary of Biggie Smalls' death, I find myself thinking about the rapper as a cultural hero. Hip-hop, after all, is our dominant culture -- it socializes us, and teaches us about life.

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Larry Rivers After Crossing His Delaware

Barbara Probst Solomon | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Lionel Trilling Lecture, Paco Benet, Martha Foley, James Baldwin, Woody Allen, Alfred-Leslie, Rudy Burkhardt, Carson McCullers, The Reading Room, Chekhov, Jean-Luc Godard, J.D. Salinger, Louise Lasser, Claude-Lanzmann, Hans Hoffmann, Beat Generation, Primo Levi, Velazquez, Apropos De Nice, Barbara Probst Solomon, Kenneth Koch, Cervantes, Frank O'Hara, Ernest Hemingway, Saul Bellow, Moma, Peter Schjeldahl, The Anatomy of Cindy Fink, Dissent, Washington Crossing the Delaware, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Vigo, Abstract Expressionism, Tibor-De-Nagy, Jane-Freilicher, Larry Rivers, John Updike, Norman Mailer, El Pais, Robert Lowell, Marcel Proust, Prado, Felix-Nussbaum, Lionel Abel, Breathless, Columbia University, Grace Hartigan, Helen-Frankenthaler, Peninsula, Professor Yerushalami, Joseph Roth, Arts News
Barbara Probst Solomon

Larry was intellectual, literary, and one of the most brainy artists of his generation, but there was always the feeling in the art world that the more intellectual the artist, the less talented the painter.

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Tom McCarthy, James Baldwin

Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Stehen Breyer, Tom Mccarthy, LA Times, Book Reviews, Supreme Court, New York Times, C, James Baldwin, Book Review, Books News

Book reviews around the country: 'C' By Tom McCarthy From the Los Angeles Times: With "C," Tom McCarthy has written an avant-garde masterpiece -- ...

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Too Ignorant To Articulate Their Own Ideas

David A. Love | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Civil Liberties, Ronald Reagan, James Baldwin, Arizona, Barack Obama, Civil Rights, Tea Party Movement, Jan Brewer, Rand Paul, Sarah Palin, Jesus, William F. Buckley, Sharron Angle, Arizona Immigration Law, Tea Party, Cambridge University, Politics News
David A. Love

Although one is not supposed to enjoy watching a train wreck in progress, I must say that the Arizona gubernatorial debate between Gov. Jan Brewer a...

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Phenomenally Yours: A Sit-Down With Dr. Maya Angelou

Cheryl Wills | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Harlem, Literature, New-York-1, James Baldwin, Common, Maya Angelou, Dave Chappelle, Ny1, African-Americans, New York City, Poetry, New York News
Cheryl Wills

When I walked into her plush, brightly decorated Harlem brownstone on a hot day last month, Dr. Maya Angelou was seated on a fire-engine-red chair and was the picture of health.

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Truthfulness Is the Last Taboo

Sebastian Siegel | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Osho, Zen, Paradox, Grass-Fed, Mulholland Drive, A Clockwork Orange, Iphone, Ken Wilber, Ecstasy, Ecology, Kahlil Gibran, Love, Stuart Davis, Braveheart, Gulf Oil Spill, Poetry, Religion, Taboo, Consciousness, Grace, The Cove, Truthfulness, Shakespeare, James Baldwin, Paradigm, Dolphins, James Whitmore, Arts News
Sebastian Siegel

Truthfulness Is The Last Taboo: A short poem I texted to myself in the checkout line at Whole Foods, for another me in some other way -- here, now, or before and beyond time.

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Homo-Harlem: Learning How to be Gay from Movies

Michael Henry Adams | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Harlem, James Baldwin, Alain-Leroy-Locke, Carol Brice, Kenneth Mcpherson, Homo Harlem Film Series, The Motion of Light in Water, State Senator Bill Perkins, Henry Van Dyke, Wesley Tann, Nora Holt, Earle Hyman, Jimmy Daniels, Museum of the City of New York, Richard Bruce Nugent, Bricktop, Willard Winter, Gerrie Major, George Platt Lynes, Cecil Beaton, Walter Nicks, Langston Hughes, Marvin and Morgan Smith, Samuel R. Delany, Oaks Bluff, Paul Meers, David Willson, Althea Gibson, Edward Perry, Adelaide Hall, Countee Cullen, Inter State Tattler, Philip Johnson, Dr. Godfrey Nurse, Duncan Grant, Billy Dee Williams, Nella Larsen, Times Square, Tallulah Bankhead, Sex in the City, Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation, Dorothy West, Johnathan Brice, J. Fredrick Lohman, Elsa Maxwell, Billy Strayhorn, Wallace Thurman, Charles Leslie, Truman Capote, Tom of Findland, Archie Savage, Marlon Brando, New York Amsterdam News, Carl Van Vechten, Maysles Cinema, Arthur Mitchell, Alvin Ailey, Martha's Vineyard, Jimmy Donahue, Clifton-Webb, Agustus Granville Dill, Monty Wooley, Cole Porter, Cary Grant, Joey Coleman, William Waefieldgeorge Platt Lynes, John Leapheart, Christopher Isherwood, Impact News
Michael Henry Adams

Yesterday, I saw the season's gay hit move of the summer, Sex in the City II, which has received such bad reviews, but my friends and I quite enjoyed ...

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Through the Looking Glass: The Myth of Israeli Exceptionalism

Michael Gould-Wartofsky | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Jews, Human Rights, Free Gaza, Flotilla, American Exceptionalism, West Bank, James Baldwin, President Barack Obama, Freedom Flotilla, Gaza Blockade, Palestine, Joe Biden, Looking Glass, Sarah Palin, Palestinians, World News, Zionism, Peter Beinart, J Street, Israeli Exceptionalism, Mavi Marmara, Peace, Middle East, State of Israel, Israel, Emily Henochowicz, Anti-Semitism, Anti-Zionism, Judaism, Gaza, World News
Michael Gould-Wartofsky

2010-06-04-dove.jpg Exceptionalism is an ideology propagated by the power elites of two nations of vastly different proportions and histories -- Israel and the U.S. -- but each declares a divinely manifest destiny.

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Raoul Abdul, Rodney Leonard and a Great House of New York, in Harlem!

Michael Henry Adams | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Harlem, Langston Hughes, Entertrtain, Ken Robertson, The Mannes College of Mus, The Cleveland Institute of Music, James Baldwin, Avenue Q, Homosexual, The New School for Social Research, The Vienna Academy of Music, Gay, New York, Harvard, Leonard-Hanna, Raoul Abdul, Style, Astor, Cleveland, Party, Duplex, Vanderbilt, Nina Simone, Larry Bentley, New York College of Music, Rodney-Leonard, NY Times, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, Ny Amsterdam News, Muse, New York News
Michael Henry Adams

Just who is Rodney Leonard, and how has he come to occupy one of handsomest and most comfortable duplex apartments in the city, decorated with a king's ransom worth of African art?

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Obama Is Gays' Best Friend -- To Say Otherwise is Shortsighted, Insulting and Just Plain Dumb

Earl Ofari Hutchinson | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Civil Rights Movement, Gay Rights, Dinner Speech, President Obama, Frederick Douglass, Gay Opposition to Obama, Doma, James Baldwin, Human Rights Campaign, Gay Marriage, Politics News
Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Nothing short of a full-throated endorsement of gay marriage will cease the carping of the hard core gay rights advocates against Obama.

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The Gates Affair: Why We Care

Daniel Bruno Sanz | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Troy Davis, Ruben Blades, Al Sharpton, Capital Punishment, Iowa Primaries, James Baldwin, D.C. Statehood, Gitmo, Pablo Escobar, Police Brutality, Liberation Theology, James Crowley, L.A. Riots, Botero, Mount Pleasant STreet Riot, Elijah Mohammed, Civil Rights, Rodney King, Sharon Pratt Dixon, Criminal Just US System, War on Crime, Vietnam War, Illegal Immigrants, 4th Amendment, Malcolm X, Abu-Ghraib, Pennymac, Louis Farrakhan, The Greaseman, Gentrification, Langston Hughes, Blogosphere, Pedro Navaja, Bill Clinton, Einstein, Colin Powell, Inverse Surveillance, Colombia Road, Adams Morgan, Condoleeza Rice, Jesse Jackson, Driving While Black, Racial Profiling, Barack Obama, Mayor Bradley, Jim Crow, Marion Barry, 2nd Amendment, Martin Luther King, Park Road, Vicente Fernandez, Cambridge Police Department, Skip Gates, Lapd, War on Drugs, Pancho Villa, LosTigres Del Norte, Wpfw, Mariachis, Politics News
Daniel Bruno Sanz

Inheritance is White, poor credit scores, Black. A missing woman is White and a fugitive on the loose is Black.

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If He Hollers: Remembering Chester Himes

John Ridley | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Himes, James Baldwin, Harlem Cycle, Black Literature, Run Man Run, The Harlem Cycle, Chester Himes, Entertainment News
John Ridley

The jacket copy for Chester Himes' Run Man Run reads: "Lush sex and stark violence colored black and served up raw by a great Negro writer." This is pretty much a micro-summary of Himes's work.

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Harold Norse, R.I.P.

Jan Herman | Posted 11.17.2011

Read More: William Carlos Williams, Gregory Corso, Anais Nin, Beat Generation, W.H. Auden, James Baldwin, Harold Norse, Brion Gysin, William S. Burroughs, Tennessee Williams, Allen Ginsberg, Poetry, Memoirs of a Bastard Angel, Hotel Nirvana, City Lights, Healthy Living News
Jan Herman

He said he was a poet, too. I no longer recall what we talked about, but it didn't take long for him to invite me back to his room at 9 rue Git-le-Coeur, the so-called Beat Hotel.

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Reading Amanda: One Black Man's Burden

Michael Henry Adams | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Harlem, John F. Kennedy, Langston Hughes, Charlie Rose, Jesus, Architectural Digest, James Baldwin, Carter Burden, Mr. And Mrs. Hamilton McKown Twombly, Eartha Kitt, Jane Jacobs, Amanda Burden, Charlie Rangel, The Dakota, Parties, Vanderbilt, New York City, Barack Obama, River House, Robert F. Kennedy, Rezoning, Newport, Lewis H. Michaux, In the Hamptons, Henry Roth, New York Times, Malcolm X, Philip Johnsons, Society, Maya Angelou, Tuxedo Park, New-York-Socialites, Style News
Michael Henry Adams

Reputedly she is known by friends and family as "Ba"; habitually, as a uniform, she sports sober Calvin Klein suits and subsists on tuna or grilled...

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Amazon Censors Gay Books

Emma Ruby-Sachs | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Literature, Amazon.com, Equality, Gay Rights, Brokeback Mountain, James Baldwin, Books, Amazon Sales Rankings, Gay, Jeanette Winterson, Censorship, Media News
Emma Ruby-Sachs

What progress we have made that a few stories on the internet can make a giant like Amazon apologize and change because their actions offend notions of equality and decency that include LGBT Americans.

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Tavis Smiley's Big Day

Karen Ocamb | Posted 05.25.2011

Read More: Black Gays, LGBT Politics, HIV/AIDS, State of the Black Union, Tavis Smiley, Sojourner Truth, Dr. Kevin Fenton, James Baldwin, Michael Eric Dyson, Barack Obama, The Williams Institute, Phill Wilson, Media News
Karen Ocamb

Gay and bisexual black men in California have household incomes that are 44 percent lower than their heterosexual counterparts.

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