Race and Ethnicity with Author Malik Green

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to discuss the significance of race and ethnicity with concerns to African-Americans with Malik Green the author of The Black-Print:  Black America's Blueprint for Achieving Wealth, Prosperity, and Respect.  We discussed potential origins for unity among the African-American community, the Harry Reid controversy from the beginning of the week, and many more. 

Below is the podcast of our interview.  Enjoy.

 You can download the interview HERE.

For more information about Malik Green I recommend purchasing The Black Print which is available at Amazon or visit his blog Insightful Opinion

Forging A Discussion: An Interview with Gil Robertson

 Gil Robertson

“We need to get past our issues and the way to do that is by discussing them”

            Gil Robertson

A little while ago I had the pleasure of interviewing author Gil Robertson.  His latest book Family Affair:  What It Means to Be African American Today was released earlier this year and it is a compilation of first-person narratives that provides a more in depth perspective of the lives of African-Americans.  In Family Affair he has enlisted the wisdom of many notable African-Americans such as Beverly Johnson, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick, Isaac Hayes, Ruby Dee, and many more, to weave a more descriptive tapestry of what it means to be an African American today.  It proves to be a pleasant, informative, and enlightening read.  Family Affair follows the success of his previous book Not in My Family:  AIDS in the African American Community where Gil Robertson describes the struggles his family faced while coping with his older brother’s HIV positive diagnosis.  In Not in My Family Gil Robertson not only provides first person experience with the daily struggle of having to address AIDS face on, but he also enlists the help of many other African Americas to share their stories.  In these two books, Gil Robertson has expertly been able to enhance the discourse of the African American community and America as a whole.  Therefore it should have come as no surprise to me that our interview quickly shifted from a mere question and answer session to more of a discussion that left us both feeling like we learned something.  His books stir needed discussions, and our interview followed the same path.

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An Interview with Congressional Candidate Neal Collins

Neal Collins for Congress

            I’ve known Neal Collins for quite a while.  We went to college together and we both had the same concentration, a major in Political Science with a minor in French.  We had many classes together and became friends, yet we were far from similar.  I am a liberal who interned for Bernie Sanders back when he was still in the House of Representatives and Neal was the President of the Furman University College Republicans.  Our senior year he even got Ken Starr to come to our school for a lecture.  He was excited and pleased with his accomplishment, and I was repulsed yet attended out of curiosity and respect for my friend and current roommate.  Our senior years we were randomly selected to be roommates, and that fit perfectly.  For three years, we had known each other, cracked jokes in class and not agreed on a single issue concerning politics, so why not finish off our undergraduate educations by getting to know each other better, cracking more jokes, and continuing to disagree on everything.  That is exactly what happened.  We would stay up late into the night nearly every night debating some issue, we would hardly if ever agree on anything, and when we could debate no longer we would go to bed with the knowledge that the same scene would most likely replay itself the following night.  This may not be anything extraordinary, but I must say that I am amazed how we never made it personal to the point where we could no longer remain friends.  Therefore when I heard he was running for the vacant Congressional Seat for South Carolina’s 3^rd District, I knew I had to see it and be a little part of it, if not for the chance to have one more cordial debate.

            My First foray with the Collins for Congress campaign occurred on September 5^th, and I drove up to Easley, SC from Atlanta to find out what a day in the life of a Congressional candidate consisted of, and I was pleasantly surprised.  Throughout school you hear much about the complications of running for public office.  You hear about the struggles to receive donations.  You hear about the negative influence of lobbyists.  You learn about balancing your obligations to your community and your party.  Yet in school the focus of a political science concentration is not about the campaign, but instead about the governing.  What I saw with Neal on that day was campaigning at its idealistic essence.

            The schedule for the day was simple.  We were to meet up with a couple of his campaign staffers in Easley before heading to the Clemson football game against Middle Tennessee before heading up to Furman University in Greenville for the Paladins’ game against Presbyterian College.  All the while, the goal was to hand out as many Neal Collins for Congress flyers as possible, shake every hand, and to spread his campaign slogan of “Responsibility, Recovery, Reform”.  This was not rocket science, and that was great.  Neal truly wanted to put in the legwork, hit the pavement, and literally meet as many of his constituents as possible.  On this day I got to meet them too.

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