By Stacey Patton
First, I’d like to thank members of the Academy for not awarding a slew of Oscars to what New York Press film critic Armond White called “the biggest con job of the year” –Precious: Based on the novel Push by Sapphire

By Eisa Nefertari Ulen
It is entirely fitting that the character that must risk the most in this film, and change completely, is a white dude. Cameron has explored geo-political realities facing our world that make the politics of color in this film work.

By Ralph Richardson
Spike Lee and John Singleton are great—and significant—but neither blazed the trail or overcame the odds that the Father of African-American Cinema did. Indeed, they owe their careers to him, though few of the folk who go to see movies today even know who he is, or that he, a black man born less than 20 years after the Civil War, was an innovator and major influence in American cinema.

By Grace Aneiza Ali
“The last time we all got together like this was in 1975,” says Taiwo Duvall as he stands in one of the gallery spaces at the Dwyer Cultural Center. It’s a frigid Tuesday evening in Harlem. It’s been snowing and sleeting for most of the day. Despite the precarious weather, over 200 people have packed the Dwyer, in what looks and feels more like a family reunion than the Center’s opening for the exhibition, Weusi Revisited: 2010.

By Carleen Brice
It is 2002, 2003, 2004 or 2005 and I am listening to Jill Scott’s song, Try, a lot. I’m writing my first novel while holding down a job, and editing an anthology about black women and midlife.

By Ralph Richardson
Hey ya’ll, I’m back, this time with the Top Ten African-American TV Shows of All Time.

By Paula L. Woods
While the collaboration of Academy award winner Denzel Washington with Allen and Albert Hughes may seem like a case of strange bedfellows, it’s not as unusual as one might think.

By Jill Nelson
“No Longer Majority Black, Harlem Is in Transition,” the January 5, 2010 headline in the New York Times screamed, but not as loudly as I did at the sight of yet another article seeming to celebrate the demise of the Harlem community I know, love, and live in.

By Grace Aneiza Ali
On Saturday, January 23, an amazingly talented line-up of Muslim artists performed for a sold-out crowd at the historic Apollo Theater in Harlem. Hosted by the Inner-city Muslim Action Network (IMAN), the event, one of the first of its kind, showcased the rich cultural legacy and growing artistic renaissance among Muslims in the United States and around the world.

By Clifton R. Wharton, Jr.
The unprecedented election of President Barack Obama has provided a dramatic spotlight on the issues of race in America. One aspect of significance is that it represents an important step in the process of racial integration in our nation. His election was the result of the collective decisions by a multi racial and multi ethnic electorate. Both as a U.S. Senator from Illinois and as President, Obama has been what might be called an “Integrative Black Pioneer.”