Home Blog Page 7

Hip-Hop Documentary Headlines Second Annual LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival

AJ Woodson
-
0
Hip-Hop Documentary Headlines Second Annual LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival

Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall Of Fame (LIMEHOF) Music Documentary Film Festival Returns September 26 With Hip-Hop Film and Star-Studded Performance

Hip Hop musicians including DJ Belal Miller, JVC Force (B-Luv and AJ Rok), Diamond The Artist (A.K.A. DTA Experience), DJ Kaos, MC Glamorous, Son of Bazerk, Sport G, Mastermind, and DJ J-1 are expected to turn out for “The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop’ screening.

STONY BROOK, NY — Hip-Hop history will take center stage on Long Island when the second annual LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival returns September 25–27 to the Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame in Stony Brook Village.

One of the festival’s marquee events will take place Saturday night, September 26, with a screening of The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop, directed by award-winning journalist Archie H. Snowden, followed by a Q&A and a star-studded live performance featuring several of the pioneering artists whose stories are told in the film.

“The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop is an important piece of Long Island music history that finally gives many of the artists who helped build the region’s hip-hop culture the recognition they deserve,” said Tom Needham, Executive Director of the LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival.

“Having these legendary artists with us for a Q&A and rare live performances from JVC Force, Son of Bazerk and others makes this a truly special LIMEHOF experience that audiences won’t want to miss.”

The documentary shines a spotlight on the pioneering, grassroots and underground artists who helped establish Long Island’s suburban Hip-Hop scene before many of the region’s biggest names became known around the world.

Among those featured are JVC FORCE, best known for the Long Island anthem “Strong Island”; MC Glamorous, recognized in the film as one of Long Island’s earliest prominent Hip-Hop artists; and Snowden himself, known on the mic as MC Amazin’ A, among several other artists and figures who helped shape the culture locally. But the film tells a story much larger than individual artists.

The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip-Hop explores the network of predominantly Black suburban communities where emcees, DJs, crews, and promoters were creating a distinct Hip-Hop movement outside New York City’s five boroughs.

Long Island would eventually produce some of Hip-Hop’s most influential artists, including Rakim, Public Enemy, Biz Markie, EPMD, De La Soul, Eric B. and Rakim, and many others. The documentary turns attention toward the artists, neighborhoods and local circuits that helped create the environment from which that extraordinary generation emerged.

For Snowden, having the documentary screened at a major music institution on Long Island carries special significance.

“After all of those nights of hard work, sitting in the editing bay until 3 a.m., it’s the greatest honor to have my film selected to the prestigious LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival,” Snowden said. “A film presentation in my hometown of Long Island, organized by true music and film lovers.”

The September 26 presentation promises to bring that history off the screen and onto the stage, with JVC FORCE, Son of Bazerk and other special guests scheduled to perform following the screening and discussion.

For longtime Long Island Hip-Hop fans, it will be more than a documentary screening. It will be an opportunity to see some of the artists who helped create the scene come together to celebrate a chapter of Hip-Hop history that has too often remained underground.

The Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame is located at 97 Main Street in Stony Brook Village. The second annual LIMEHOF Music Documentary Film Festival runs September 25–27.

Following the screening will be a Q&A conversation with Snowden and many of the artists featured in the film, including DJ Kaos (Fred Cox), DJ Spider (Mike Watts), Will Castro, DJ Rah G Raj (Roggie Pettaway), and DTA Diamond the Artist. The panel will be moderated by Amelia Moore.

There will also be a LIVE Music performance featuring DJ J-1 (James Miller), DJ RNB (Robert Barnes), DJ Belal Miller, DJ DTA Diamond the Artist, DJ Kaos (Fred Cox), JVC Force – B-Luv and AJ Rok, MC Glamorous, Son of Bazerk featuring Half Pint, Sport G and Mastermind, and Divine Sounds (Disco Richie and Brian Ace Soundz).

Several people who appeared in the film will also be in attendance, including Greg Ramos, Charles Davis, Robert Davis, Brent Quarles, Tony McClurkin, Eric Riddick, Verona Ford and Antar LaGrande.

The three-day festival features 43 music documentaries from 11 different countries. Tickets and passes are available now. The full lineup has been announced, and full details are available on LIMEHOF’s website.

About Director Archie Snowden – Archie Snowden is an award-winning multimedia journalist who currently serves that role for WHNT News 19 in Huntsville, Alabama. Born in Amityville, Long Island and graduated from Central Islip High School. His media career spans more than two decades while operating as a sports producer and reporter.  He worked as a reporter for Verizon FiOS 1 News Long Island and RNN-TV from 2010 to 2019.

For nearly two decades, he worked as a video and news production instructor at the CSB Media Arts Center in Westbury, mentoring thousands of aspiring journalists and video professionals. 

In his film directorial debut, he created the documentary, The Long Island Underground Legends of Hip Hop, a film that challenges traditional hip-hop narratives which usually focus strictly on the concrete landscape of New York City’s five boroughs. It shines a light on the teenagers, DJs, MCs, rappers and grassroots crews who built a thriving movement among the grass and suburban streets of Long Island. It digs deep into the 1970s and 1980s scene, tracing underground talent from Hempstead to Riverhead, and out to the Hamptons.

Snowden, aka MC Amazin’ A, says, “The film addresses who gets remembered when hip-hop history is told and who gets omitted by mainstream gatekeepers.”

About the Featured Artists

DJ Belal Miller – prominent hip-hop and R&B radio personality, travel DJ, and member of the early Uptown Records hip-hop group Groove B Chil

DJ J-1 – rap music pioneer and one of the first successful Hip-Hop DJs in Suffolk County. 

JVC Force – B-Luv and AJ Rok – Influential Golden Era American hip hop group from Central Islip, Long Island, New York. Best known for their seminal 1987 underground anthem “Strong Island”. Active primarily between 1987 and 1993, the trio played a pivotal role in establishing Long Island’s footprint in the East Coast hip hop scene alongside contemporaries like Public Enemy and EPMD. 

Diamond The Artist (A.K.A. DTA Experience)  – Featuring cut master DJ Kaos (formerly DJ Diamond J), is a Brooklyn-born, Long Island-based multi-talented music veteran, DJ, rapper, producer, actor, and radio personality. He serves as an on-air talent for SiriusXM and hosts shows across multiple stations, including OG 98.9 FM and The Shore 93.5 FM.  He has worked on projects, tours, or events alongside massive industry staples including Beyoncé, Diddy, and Kevin Hart.  

MC Glamorous (Born Jo Ann Berry, later Jamillah Abdul-Kareem) is a pioneering American hip-hop artist. She is best recognized as Long Island’s first female rap artist and an original member of Marley Marl’s legendary Juice Crew Allstars. Native of Roosevelt, Long Island. Released her highly sought-after solo single “Good To Go” in 1988 under Prism Records.

Son of Bazerk –  Freeport-based hip-hop group assembled by Hank Shocklee of the legendary production team The Bomb Squad (famous for producing Public Enemy), the group is recognized for its highly energetic, chaotic, and soul-infused musical style. They released their critically acclaimed but commercially overlooked debut album, Bazerk, Bazerk, Bazerk (credited to Son of Bazerk featuring No Self Control and the Band), in 1991.

Sport G and Mastermind – Sport “G” and Mastermind is known for rare 12″ vinyl releases in the late 1980s – an underground Hip Hop duo from Gordon Heights/Coram, Long Island. Known for underground singles like “Louder” and “Live” released via labels such as Street Walker Records.

About LIMEHOF – Founded in 2004, the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame is a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to the idea that Long Island’s musical and entertainment heritage is an important resource to be celebrated and preserved for future generations. The organization, which encompasses New York State’s Nassau, Suffolk, Queens and Kings (Brooklyn) Counties, was created as a place of community that inspires and explores Long Island music and entertainment in all its forms. In 2022, LIMEHOF opened its first Hall of Fame building location in Stony Brook, New York. To date, the organization has inducted more than 130 musicians and music industry executives and offers education programs, scholarships, and awards to Long Island students and educators.

While Black students already face difficulties, New York is changing the Regents requirement — where are the checks and balances?

DAMON K JONES
-
0
While Black students already face difficulties, New York is changing the Regents requirement — where are the checks and balances?

For many generations, New York has used the Regents examination system as a standalone way to measure what students know. The system goes back to the 1800s and originally involved a fairly simple arrangement: the local school districts are responsible for educating the students. At the same time, the state sets standards and uses common exams to provide an external assessment of whether students have mastered the subject matter.

The system has never been perfect; standardized testing has legitimate limitations, and no one exam can measure all the knowledge a student acquires or predict everything that student might achieve in life. Yet before New York removes the link between passing the Regents examinations and receiving a high school diploma, we should ask a simple question—what independent check will take its place, especially in schools already producing poor academic results?

That question matters even more for Black students.

New York Is Making A Major Change

On September 14, 2026, the New York State Education Department announced that the Board of Regents had given the state the go-ahead to proceed with the next stage of NY Inspires. Starting with students who graduate in 2028, New York will move toward a single state high school diploma, and students will no longer be required to pass a prescribed number of Regents exams to graduate.

The Regents exams themselves will not disappear; according to New York, they will continue as statewide measures of student achievement, while districts create their own assessment strategies using classroom assessments, student work, performance-based learning, teacher observations, and the state assessments.

The distinction matters, but another is too: taking an assessment is not the same as showing a particular level of proficiency on that assessment to receive a diploma.

Under the current system, students usually must meet both credit and assessment requirements. The district is responsible for teaching the child, grading their work, and awarding credits, while the Regents sets an extra benchmark that applies across the state and is linked to graduation. For students who graduate in 2028, the relationship will change.

The issue isn’t whether we should worship standardized testing, since we shouldn’t. The real issue is whether we can create an accountability gap by removing the independent statewide passing requirement before a fully implemented replacement accountability system is in place.

What occurs when the school is already failing?

Black parents should pay special attention to this.

When a school district achieves strong academic results, several local measures can offer useful extra information about student achievement. But what occurs when the school is itself in difficulty? And what happens when a large number of students are already below proficiency?

Think about the logic.

The child is taught at school, given assignments by the school, has their assignments marked by the school, receives credits from the school, the district develops much of the local assessment strategy, and finally the school issues the diploma.

Since this system is already leading to unsatisfactory academic results, where is the independent assessment that tells parents whether their child is truly academically prepared? That isn’t an accusation leveled at teachers; it’s a question relating to institutional accountability.

There is also a big difference between graduating and being proficient. A school district can raise its graduation rate without increasing its students’ proficiency in reading or mathematics. If we are not careful, we may celebrate more students walking across the graduation stage while failing to account for whether those young adults are actually ready for what happens the morning after graduation.

Black Children Cannot Afford Statistical Success

For Black communities, this discussion can’t be limited to whether graduation rates go up; we need to consider what the diploma really stands for.

Since Black students are disproportionately having difficulties with their academics, the appropriate course of action should be to find out why and then correct the situation. We should call for improved literacy instruction, mathematical intervention, vocational and technical education, apprenticeships, safer learning environments, better attendance, and greater parental involvement and accountability from the districts that keep failing children. Removing the graduation testing requirement doesn’t achieve any of those things on its own.

Here is the contradiction New York must explain. The state can identify a school as failing badly enough to require intervention, improvement plans, and even Receivership, yet beginning in 2028 students in that same school will no longer have to pass the state’s Regents examinations to receive a diploma. If New York believes the school needs outside oversight because its academic outcomes are unacceptable, why should parents automatically trust that same system’s local assessments as sufficient evidence that a child is academically prepared?

A child having difficulty with reading does not become a better reader just because the graduation requirement changes, and a child struggling with algebra doesn’t suddenly understand mathematics simply because the state alters how diplomas are awarded. The educational problem remains. The risk is that the statistics may get better even though the actual condition does not.

Will New York Standards Remain?

Betty Rosa, New York State Education Commissioner, and the Board of Regents say the reforms aim to keep academic standards rigorous while letting students show what they know in more meaningful ways.

That argument has a logical basis. Some students can show what they know more effectively through projects, practical applications, career-related learning, or ongoing classroom work than by relying on a single high-stakes exam. Employers also require graduates who can communicate, solve problems, and apply their knowledge rather than memorize information for a test. That does not solve the accountability problem, even if the weaknesses of standardized testing are admitted.

As stated in NYSED’s implementation schedule, students who graduate from January 2028 onwards will no longer be required to pass the Regents examinations to graduate; the complete introduction of New York’s new competency-based graduation system, however, will take place with those students entering ninth grade in the fall of 2029, and who will typically graduate around 2033.

That change merits thorough examination. Parents have a right to know precisely what will replace that statewide graduation safeguard if we remove it before the new system is fully in effect.

The Teacher’s Union Do not Get a Pass

The State Education Department is not the only one in favor of this approach since New York State United Teachers has publicly supported the change. Melinda Person, president of NYSUT, said the state should reconsider a system that places excessive emphasis on a single high-stakes exam. However, she stressed that academic standards should stay high and that students should have meaningful ways to show what they know. The position should be heard, but the union should also be held responsible for the results of the policies it publicly supports.

Good intentions do not teach children. Results do.

What guarantee is there that a Black student who is falling behind academically, attending an underperforming school, and able to graduate without meeting the state’s Regents requirements will leave school academically prepared? If the new system allows students to obtain diplomas without showing equivalent proficiency, then we have not addressed educational inequality; we have merely concealed it through more favorable graduation figures.

We do not intend to blame individual classroom teachers for all the problems in public education. Still, if organizations that represent teachers want to advocate for significant changes in graduation policy, they should not be excluded from the accountability discussion when we evaluate the results.

Demonstrate your figures on Black reading proficiency, on mathematics proficiency, and on college and career readiness. Then place those figures alongside the graduation rate, since having more diplomas doesn’t mean that you have more educated children.

A Diploma Has to Mean Somthing

A New York State high school diploma should convey some significant meaning to a college, to an employer, to a trade school, to a military recruiter and, most important of all, to the student who obtains it.

If a student is unable, at the end of high school, to understand complex reading material, communicate effectively, or carry out the required mathematics, then changing how graduation is determined has not overcome the educational failure; it has only changed the documentation the student gets at the end of school.

There’s another matter which we hardly ever talk about. Families with greater financial means can often make up for public schools’ shortcomings by buying tutoring, offering test preparation, enrolling their children in enrichment programs, hiring private teachers,, and accessing other educational opportunities.

A large number of Black families from the working class and those who are poor place considerable reliance on the public-school system to provide their children with the education they need. In these cases, the children require greater accountability, not less.

New York School Systems Must Show Outcomes

Education leaders in New York state say say the new system will keep standards high while giving students more ways to show what they have learned; the promise should be judged by actual outcomes.

Is Black students’ reading level higher? Is proficiency in mathematics increasing? Are the achievement gaps being narrowed? Are graduates ready for college without having to take remedial courses? Is a greater number of students now entering skilled trades, apprenticeships, and careers that require marketable skills?

These figures must be used to judge whether this reform is a success.

New York ought not to use higher graduation rates as proof that its education system has improved if academic proficiency remains unchanged. Graduating without achieving proficiency does not mean that educational equity has been attained; it only yields a more favorable statistic.

The Regents system has been around for over 160 years, and its age does not mean it should never be altered, any more than standardized testing should be preserved merely because it has always been followed.

Reform should replace accountability with better accountability rather than merely removing a consequence tied to an unpleasant measurement.

Before we celebrate the number of Black children who have crossed the graduation stage, demonstrate what they have learned. Before we celebrate the higher graduation rates, show us their reading proficiency, their mathematics proficiency, their career readiness, and their college readiness.

And if the school system itself is failing our children, somebody outside that system must still be able to tell parents the truth.

That is the check. That is the balance. And that is the conversation Black parents need to be having right now.

Y’ALL STREET VS. WALL STREET

DAMON K JONES
-
0
Y’ALL STREET VS. WALL STREET

Is New York’s Political Direction Helping Dallas Become America’s New Financial Powerhouse?

For many generations the city that was regarded as the centre of financial power in America was New York; Wall Street became something more than just a street in Lower Manhattan and turned into a worldwide symbol of American banking, investment, capitalism and the creation of wealth.

Yet more than 1,500 miles to the southwest of Manhattan, a significant development is taking place. Dallas is creating a financial ecosystem that is strong enough to deserve its own nickname: “Y’all Street”. Although Wall Street is still America’s leading financial centre, New Yorkers would be making a serious error if they ignored what Texas is developing.

Texas Is Building Its Own Wall Street

The most striking example of this change is the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE), which began trading in July 2026 having received support from major financial firms such as BlackRock, Citadel Securities and Charles Schwab. Texas is not any longer just aiming to draw in companies; it is now developing financial market infrastructure with the aim of competing for business that has traditionally been based in New York.

In September the companies—Energy Transfer, USA Compression Partners, Sunoco LP and SunocoCorp—announced their intention to transfer their main listings from the New York Stock Exchange to the TXSE in October; together they have a market capitalisation of nearly $100 billion.

It doesn’t follow that TXSE is now going to take the place of the NYSE or Nasdaq. The existing institutions have huge advantages which have been built up over many generations, but Texas needn’t replace Wall Street if this development is to be significant. Should Dallas secure even a larger share of future listings, investment and financial employment, the balance of financial power in America starts to become less concentrated in New York.

Texas’s increasing importance is acknowledged by the traditional stock exchanges. The NYSE set up its permanent headquarters in Dallas in August and Nasdaq has likewise expanded its operations in the state. Therefore, New York should take note when America’s major financial institutions decide that they need a greater presence in Texas.

Follow the Jobs and the Money

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas reported that financial-activities employment in Dallas had risen by about 23.2 per cent by June 2026 compared with February 2020, while New York City saw its financial-activities employment increase by around 6 per cent over that period.

Currently, Dallas has about 317,000 people employed in financial activities and at the same time major companies are still making large investments in the area. Goldman Sachs is building a Dallas campus with a projected cost of approximately $709 million and intended to house about 5,000 employees, and Charles Schwab, Fidelity and Wells Fargo have also set up considerable workforces in North Texas.

They are not merely symbolic positions involving a small number of executives; rather, they stand for thousands of jobs, billions of dollars worth of investment, and an increasing concentration of financial expertise outside of New York.

This Didn’t Start With the DSA

Before turning to the subject of New York politics, we must be intellectually honest on one point: the shift of businesses, residents and financial jobs to Texas did not start because of the Democratic Socialists of America, Mayor Zohran Mamdani or the present political discussion in New York City.

Texas has attracted companies over the years as a result of its population growth, low taxes, inexpensive housing, the availability of land, corporate incentives and an aggressive strategy for recruiting businesses. It therefore cannot properly be claimed that Dallas’s financial growth was due to one politician, political party or ideology.

Yet the fact that history is known does not mean that New York’s present political course should be left unexamined. The more pertinent question is if the policies currently under discussion could speed up an economic movement which was already in progress.

New York’s Political Direction Matters

Because of the increasing influence of the DSA, there are now more proposals in New York’s political discussion calling for higher taxes on wealthy individuals and companies, for an expansion of public programs, for stronger worker protections, and for a greater governmental role in the economy.

People say that rich residents and businesses are able to pay more for housing, transportation, childcare and public services. They also say that New York’s problem with affordability poses a threat to business since companies are unable to hire and keep workers who cannot afford to live in the city.

Business groups and those who oppose higher taxes give out another kind of warning. They say that capital, corporations, and high-income workers are becoming more mobile, which means that New York cannot be certain they will stay forever if states such as Texas, Florida, or others provide lower costs or policies that they find more appealing.

It shouldn’t be settled on the basis of political slogans put forward by either side, but rather it should be judged by the number of jobs created, the level of investment, the amount of new businesses established, the movement of taxpayers, and the degree ofeconomic growth.

New York Is Already Losing Taxpayers

The office of New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli has stated that New York has seen a net out-migration of its resident tax filers each year since 2015; in 2024 around 121,251 taxpayers moved into the state while 134,913 moved out, resulting in a net decrease of about 13,662 filers.

Important background information is available. New York’s losses have improved considerably since the pandemic years, and the figures do not back up the simple claim that everyone is moving away from New York. Yet New York cannot just ignore the taxpayers who are leaving, especially since personal income taxes account for more than half of the state’s tax revenue.

The economic risk doesn’t necessarily lie in a large bank announcing tomorrow that it is giving up Manhattan; a more subtle change could be just as significant in that a company retains its headquarters in New York but decides to create its next 3,000 or 5,000 jobs in Dallas rather than in New York.

As time goes on, those decisions accumulate.

Capital Doesn’t Have Political Loyalty

When deciding where to invest, companies look at tax rates, regulations, labour costs, housing, transportation and the availability of talent. It is possible for executives to relocate, for employees to move, and for companies to set up large campuses hundreds or thousands of miles from their usual headquarters.

Texas recognises the nature of this competition and has actively promoted itself as a destination for businesses, investors and financial professionals. The fact that Dallas saw 125 corporate headquarters move there between 2015 and 2024 shows that the region’s growth is part of a wider economic strategy.

New York cannot therefore conclude that its historical position ensures it will continue to be dominant, since economic geography is subject to change whenever competing areas offer companies and workers sufficient reasons to move to another place.

New York Doesn’t Have to Lose for Dallas to Win

This is probably the most important section of the conversation, since Dallas needn’t take over from New York if Texas is to secure a huge economic win.

New York could continue to rank number one for many decades even if it received a smaller share of America’s new financial jobs, corporate expansions, investments, and wealthy residents. Although Wall Street could stay extremely powerful, cities such as Dallas, Miami, Charlotte and others could take advantage of opportunities that used to go almost automatically to New York.

It’s not just a matter of who has the most at the present time that determines economic power; it also has to do with where future growth is going to take place.

Why Westchester Should Pay Attention

The significance extends beyond the five boroughs since Westchester has in the past enjoyed the advantages resulting from its position near New York City’s financial economy; individuals such as executives, financial professionals, entrepreneurs and other high-income workers who are employed in Manhattan have bought houses, spent money and paid taxes in Westchester County.

If a greater proportion of future financial employment and investment shifts to the southern regions, the consequences could one day go beyond Manhattan; a reduction in high-income jobs located in New York might affect housing demand, local spending and the regional tax base.

The fact that Dallas is growing doesn’t indicate that Westchester is about to experience an economic crisis; rather, it shows that Westchester has a valid stake in whether New York stays competitive in attracting the jobs, businesses, and investment which help support the whole metropolitan economy.

Wall Street Still Has the Crown

Let us make it clear that Wall Street is not dead and that Dallas has not taken New York’s place. New York has an exceptional concentration of capital, financial talent, legal expertise, universities, global businesses and institutional knowledge that would be very hard to reproduce.

Yet New York ought not to regard its position as number one today as equivalent to possessing a permanent right to stay number one tomorrow. Texas is gathering financial workers, drawing in corporate investment and establishing institutions aimed at securing a larger share of America’s financial future.

It is not being asked whether Wall Street will vanish tomorrow. Rather, the issue is whether New York will wake up ten or twenty years from now and realize that, while it had been discussing ideology, taxes and economic policy, an increasing portion of America’s financial future had been developed elsewhere.

Wall Street still wears the crown, but down in Dallas, Y’all Street is building its own kingdom.

Mount Vernon’s Intellectus Prep Creates Early College Pathway Through Westchester Community College Partnership

Black Westchester
-
0
Mount Vernon’s Intellectus Prep Creates Early College Pathway Through Westchester Community College Partnership

MOUNT VERNON, NY — Intellectus Preparatory Charter School, a tuition-free public charter school located at 175-177 Gramatan Avenue in Mount Vernon, New York, has announced a new partnership with Westchester Community College that will give eligible scholars the opportunity to begin earning college credits while completing high school — and potentially work toward an associate degree before graduation.

Under the partnership, participating Intellectus Prep scholars who meet applicable academic, enrollment, and eligibility requirements will be able to take college-level coursework through Westchester Community College while still enrolled in high school.

School officials say the pathway is part of a larger academic strategy that begins well before students reach high school.

Intellectus Prep encourages families to enroll students in grades 6 and 7, allowing educators additional time to identify and address academic gaps and prepare scholars for more advanced coursework. By eighth grade, every Intellectus Prep scholar takes three high school-level courses, giving students the opportunity to begin earning high school credits early and accelerate their progress toward college-level study.

“This partnership represents the vision we have held for our scholars from the beginning: that their education at Intellectus Prep should prepare them to enter adulthood with meaningful choices and a strong academic foundation,” said Kenyah Miller, Founder and Executive Director of Intellectus Preparatory Charter School, who attended an early college high school herself.

“Our scholars will have the opportunity to begin college coursework, earn transferable credits, and work toward completing an associate degree while receiving the academic and personal support necessary to pursue that goal.”

The partnership could also provide participating families with a financial benefit by reducing the amount of time — and potentially the cost — required for students to complete a college degree after high school.

“As a parent, it is powerful to know that our children will have access to college-level opportunities while they are still surrounded by the teachers, counselors, and families who know them,” said Colby Jenkins, an Intellectus Prep parent and community member.

“This pathway gives scholars an opportunity to build confidence, earn college credits, and begin preparing for their futures before they graduate from high school.”

Westchester Community College officials said the partnership is designed to expand access to higher education while providing students with a structured transition from high school to college.

“Westchester Community College is pleased to partner with Intellectus Preparatory Charter School to provide scholars with access to college-level coursework and a structured pathway toward an associate degree,” said Lisa Santalis, Assistant Dean of High School Partnerships at Westchester Community College.

“Participating scholars who meet the program’s eligibility and academic requirements will have the opportunity to earn college credits while completing high school. We look forward to supporting these scholars as they progress through the program.”

Intellectus Prep’s inaugural high school graduating class is currently in the 11th grade and is scheduled to graduate during the 2027–28 school year. Those students will become the school’s first alumni when they graduate in June 2028.

The Mount Vernon charter school is currently accepting applications for students entering grades 6 through 11, with families particularly encouraged to enroll students in grades 6 and 7 so they can take full advantage of the school’s academic support, high school acceleration, and college-pathway programs.

Intellectus Preparatory Charter School is a tuition-free public charter school growing to serve students in grades 6 through 12 in Mount Vernon. The school says its mission centers on academic achievement, personal development, leadership, college and career readiness, and lifelong learning.

Enrollment is open to students residing anywhere in New York State, including English Language Learners and students with Individualized Education Programs.

For more information, visit IntellectusPrep.org.

RUN HIDE FIGHT: INFIDELS — IS JONATHAN MAJORS’ NEW MOVIE ISLAMOPHOBIC, OR IS HOLLYWOOD AFRAID OF THE CONVERSATION?

DAMON K JONES
-
0
RUN HIDE FIGHT: INFIDELS — IS JONATHAN MAJORS’ NEW MOVIE ISLAMOPHOBIC, OR IS HOLLYWOOD AFRAID OF THE CONVERSATION?

Jonathan Majors is returning, but the fact that he’s coming back to the films might cause almost as much controversy as the circumstances which brought his Hollywood career to a halt. He is starring in Run Hide Fight: Infidels, an action thriller linked to The Daily Wire that combines radical Islamic terrorism, pro-Palestinian campus activism, race, patriotism and America’s culture war into one intense storyline.

Before most Americans have had the chance to see the whole film, the political controversy about it has already started. The critics have charged the film with promoting Islamophobia and taking advantage of people’s fears regarding Muslims, while its supporters claim that Hollywood has become frightened of showing radical Islamic terrorism because of political correctness.

This brings us to a question that deserves more than yet another shouting match on social media—whether Run Hide Fight: Infidels is promoting anti-Muslim stereotypes or whether we have now reached the point where portraying radical Islamic terrorism is seen as unacceptable? There is another question worth looking at, especially from the perspective of Black audiences: why did Jonathan Majors, a Black actor who is rebuilding his career outside of Hollywood’s traditional power structure, pick this politically explosive film as part of his comeback?

What does Run Hide Fight: Infidels Entail?

The film is based on Run Hide Fight, the 2020 action thriller concerning students who are trying to survive a school shooting. This time the filmmakers have taken up one of the most controversial political and religious issues in America.

The situation centres on radical Islamist terrorists taking over a pro-Palestinian encampment at a liberal college with the aim of setting up a temporary caliphate, and the students and other people who find themselves in the crisis eventually manage to put up a resistance, during which Major Clay Saunders — a former Delta Force soldier — becomes a key figure in the effort to combat the terrorists.

It is by no means aiming at subtlety in its filmmaking; rather, it is an unapologetic action film which features heroes, villains, and a clear enemy. Just as clearly, the political message of the film is that its makers think mainstream Hollywood has become unwilling to deal with radical Islam.

The argument merits examination just as much as the manner in which the filmmakers choose to present it.

I Do Not Believe All Muslims Are Terrosits?

Acknowledging the difference between peaceful Muslims and extremists does not mean pretending radical Islamist terrorism does not exist. Americans witnessed the September 11 attacks, ISIS seized territory in Iraq and Syria, and Al-Qaeda carried out terrorist attacks around the world. Muslims themselves have also been among the victims of these extremist movements, so pretending this history does not exist simply to avoid offending someone would be intellectually dishonest.

But honesty must work both ways. Radicalized Christianity exists too. American history includes extremists who used Christian language and symbols to justify white supremacy, racial violence and other forms of hatred. That does not mean Christianity teaches those things, just as radical Islamist terrorism does not mean every Muslim supports terrorism.

This is where The Daily Wire should be consistent. If it wants America to confront radical Islam, it should also acknowledge people who have weaponized Christianity. We cannot demand that people separate Christianity from Christian extremists while refusing to separate ordinary Muslims from Islamic extremists.

The real question surrounding Run Hide Fight: Infidels, therefore, isn’t whether radical Islamist terrorists can be portrayed as villains. Of course they can. The question is whether the movie distinguishes those extremists from Muslims generally.

That becomes especially important because the terrorists are connected to a pro-Palestinian college encampment. Supporting Palestinian civilians or criticizing the Israeli government does not automatically make someone a supporter of Hamas, ISIS, terrorism or radical Islam. Christians, Jews, Muslims and others can have complicated views about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

If Infidels erases those distinctions, criticism is justified. But if we’re going to confront religious extremism honestly, the same standard must apply whether the extremist is carrying a Quran or claiming to carry a Bible

Has ‘islamophobia’ now become a way of ending the conversation?

There is also another aspect of this discussion which merits consideration.

It is possible for America to protect Muslims from discrimination as it deals with violent religious extremism. These two positions are not contradictory.

To call every form of criticism directed at radical Islam “Islamophobia” can amount to a method of preventing legitimate debate from taking place. In a free society, religious beliefs and political ideologies should stay open to scrutiny. Christianity is frequently criticised. Black churches are criticised. Conservative Christians are criticised. White evangelicals are criticised. Judaism and its political organisations are the subject of discussion. Political movements associated with religion are regularly looked at by journalists, filmmakers and academics.

Islam cannot be the only belief system that is free from criticism.

Yet Christians should not ask for the right to examine radicalism within Islam while at the same time becoming defensive when extremism linked with Christianity is being looked at. If we are to talk about religious extremism, we should look at all forms of it and the principle in question must not vary according to the religion that is being examined.

It is in this area that certain sections of the conservative media tend to lose credibility; although they are right to object when people on the left use the actions of extremists to stereotype Christians, some conservative commentators seem to be much more at ease in employing generalised language when talking about Muslims.

It is not possible to ask for religious nuance when dealing with Christians on Monday and at the same time fail to ask for it when dealing with Muslims on Tuesday.

The Jonathan Major question

The most interesting aspect of this controversy is Jonathan Majors himself.

Major’s career in Hollywood took a dramatic turn after he was convicted in 2023 of a misdemeanor involving assault and harassment. As a result, Marvel broke association with him, which greatly changed what had seemed certain to become one of the most prominent careers in Hollywood. At present, he is working with filmmakers who operate outside much of the traditional Hollywood establishment.

It makes Infidels more than just another acting role.

Majors isn’t shown as a side character; instead, the promotional material positions him at the heart of the story as an American military veteran fighting back against extremists. For a Black actor who is trying to reestablish his career, selecting a politically conservative production, one that is sure to offend some sections of Hollywood, is an unusual decision.

There is also a wider Black political debate lying beneath the film, since Black Americans are increasingly under pressure to accept fixed stances on issues such as politics, race, immigration, religion, policing, Israel, Palestine and even as to which media organisations they are supposed to watch.

People of colour should be able to watch a Daily Wire film without ending up as conservatives. Just as we should be able to watch a progressive documentary without becoming progressives, we should be able to hear arguments put forward by both the political left and the political right without losing our capacity for independent thought.

We Must The Movie Before Passing Judgment

This leads me to my current view of Run Hide Fight: Infidels.

I will watch it.

The trailer is intended to be provocative. The producers obviously hold a political viewpoint, and the critics do too. Neither side has the right to decide what I am allowed to watch or what conclusion I have to draw afterward.

It is possible that the film will end up being precisely what its critics are afraid of; it might irresponsibly blur the line between Muslims, Palestinians, protesters, and terrorists, and in that case we ought to say so.

It could, on the other hand, turn out to be a politically incorrect action film for which the controversy ends up exceeding that of the movie itself. It might well provoke valid questions regarding radicalism which mainstream entertainment has become unwilling to address. In that case, we ought to be ready to acknowledge that as well.

Yet I shall assess it according to one fixed criterion, namely that I will not pass judgment on Christianity based on its most extreme followers, and I will not pass judgment on Islam on the basis of its most extreme followers.

Even as a Christian, I can disagree with Islamic theology and at the same time acknowledge the humanity, faith and good character of Muslim men and women who have never carried out any act of terrorism. Yet to respect Muslims does not mean pretending that radical Islamist terrorism does not exist.

The Daily Wire is entirely within its rights to challenge the way Hollywood handles radical Islam. Critics are equally within their rights to challenge the way The Daily Wire presents Muslims, and the rest of us have every right to hear both sides and draw our own conclusions.

The true test is not whether America is able to produce a film about radical Muslims. The real test is whether America is intellectually mature enough to confront extremism wherever it appears without condemning millions of peaceful people simply because they share a religious label with the extremists.

THE LINDSAY CLANCY CASE: WHAT DID THE ONLY BLACK JUROR SEE?

DAMON K JONES
-
0
THE LINDSAY CLANCY CASE: WHAT DID THE ONLY BLACK JUROR SEE?

What happens when twelve Americans enter a jury room, eleven reach the same conclusion, and one refuses to go along? Legally, when unanimity is required and cannot be reached, the result can be a hung jury and a mistrial. But the Lindsay Clancy case has raised a much larger conversation because the lone holdout was reportedly the only Black juror on the panel.

Clancy was accused of killing her three young children in Massachusetts in a case involving devastating questions about mental illness, postpartum psychosis and criminal responsibility. Her defense argued that her mental condition was so severe that she should not be held criminally responsible for the deaths. After hearing the evidence and deliberating, eleven jurors reportedly became prepared to find her not criminally responsible. One juror remained unconvinced.

That juror was reportedly a Black man in his 30s and the only Black person on the jury. Suddenly, he was no longer simply Juror Number Twelve. His race became part of the national conversation, his personal history became news, and people began asking why one man would stand against eleven other people who had heard the same evidence.

I want to make something clear from the beginning. I am not saying this juror was right because he was Black, and I am certainly not saying the other eleven jurors were wrong because they were white. Black people do not possess one collective mind, and skin color does not automatically make someone’s interpretation of evidence correct. What concerns me is what happened after this man exercised one of the fundamental responsibilities we ask of every American juror: he reached his own conclusion.

WHAT DID HE SEE THAT THE OTHER ELEVEN DIDN’T?

That should be the question driving this conversation. Instead, much of the discussion quickly shifted from Clancy, postpartum psychosis, mental illness, and criminal responsibility to the man who refused to agree with the majority. Reports examined allegations from his personal history, including domestic violence allegations and a restraining order, while questions were raised about what he disclosed during jury selection.

If a juror intentionally failed to answer a legally required question during jury selection truthfully, that is a legitimate matter for the court to examine. The integrity of jury selection matters, and nobody should receive a special exemption because of race. But there is a difference between investigating whether the jury-selection process was compromised and putting a juror’s entire life under a microscope because the public does not like the conclusion he reached.

Jurors are not elected officials. They are not supposed to conduct public-opinion polls, monitor social media, or determine which verdict will receive the most favorable television coverage. Their responsibility is to listen to testimony, evaluate witnesses, consider evidence, follow the judge’s instructions, deliberate with fellow jurors, and ultimately exercise their individual judgment.

Eleven people can be correct while one person is wrong. But our jury system does not instruct the twelfth juror to surrender his judgment simply because eleven people disagree with him. If that were the standard, we would not need twelve independent jurors. We would count the majority and send everyone home.

According to accounts from jurors who spoke publicly, the holdout apparently struggled to reconcile evidence suggesting planning and deliberate action with the argument that Clancy lacked criminal responsibility. Whether his interpretation was ultimately correct is a legitimate question, but what he was wrestling with was not irrational. A person can believe someone had severe mental illness while still asking whether that illness satisfied the specific legal standard necessary to remove criminal responsibility.

Eleven jurors apparently believed they had met that legal standard. One juror did not, and because unanimity was required, the disagreement resulted in a mistrial.

WE HAVE HEARD FROM THE ELEVEN. WHAT ABOUT THE ONE?

Much of what the public knows about what happened inside that jury room comes from people who disagreed with the holdout. Other jurors have explained what they believed he was thinking, why they believed he refused to change his position, and what they thought motivated his decision. That does not mean those jurors are lying, but it does mean America is hearing one side of an argument that occurred behind closed doors.

Before we turn this man into either a hero or a villain, I want to hear from him. What evidence mattered most to him? Which testimony did he believe? Which testimony created doubt? How did he interpret the judge’s instructions, and what prevented him from reaching the conclusion embraced by the other eleven jurors?

His explanation may make perfect sense. Maybe after hearing it, people will believe he completely misunderstood the evidence or the law. Either way, we should hear his reasoning before deciding that we already know what happened inside his mind.

That is especially important because there is a much larger lesson here for Black America, one that has almost nothing to do with whether Lindsay Clancy is ultimately convicted or acquitted.

JURY DUTY IS POWER

Black Americans spend considerable time discussing inequality within the criminal justice system. We talk about police misconduct, wrongful convictions, prosecutorial misconduct, sentencing disparities, mass incarceration, and racial bias. Those conversations are necessary, but we should be asking another question with equal seriousness: Who is sitting in the jury box?

For generations, Black Americans were systematically excluded from meaningful participation in jury service. Black defendants could be arrested by the government, prosecuted by the government, and placed before a court while looking into a supposed jury of their peers and seeing few, if any, Black faces. Our ancestors fought against that exclusion because they understood something we sometimes forget today: participation in the justice system is power.

That history should shape how we view a jury summons. Many people receive that envelope and immediately begin thinking about how to get out of serving. Jury service can create legitimate hardship, particularly for working people who cannot afford to lose wages. Those economic realities should be addressed because civic participation should not require someone to choose between serving on a jury and paying the rent.

But we should never forget what that summons represents. Somebody fought so that Black Americans could receive it, and somebody understood that having a seat inside that jury room could literally determine whether another human being went home or went to prison.

The Clancy case demonstrates how much power can rest in one chair. Eleven jurors could disagree with the twelfth. They could challenge his reasoning, debate him, and attempt to persuade him, but they could not simply erase his vote. If he remained genuinely unconvinced after considering the evidence and the law, his vote still mattered.

That is real civic power. It is not hashtag power, social-media power, or the temporary influence of winning an argument in a comment section. Jury service gives an ordinary citizen direct participation in one of the most consequential powers government possesses: deciding whether another human being should lose his or her freedom.

REPRESENTATION MEANS BEING IN THE ROOM

This does not mean Black jurors should automatically side with Black defendants. In fact, Lindsay Clancy is not Black, which makes the larger point even clearer. A juror’s loyalty must ultimately be to the evidence, the law, and justice rather than racial allegiance.

Representation still matters because Americans do not enter jury rooms as blank slates. People bring different life experiences, perspectives, and ways of evaluating testimony. Diversity does not guarantee a particular verdict, nor should it. Diversity can provide a broader range of perspectives when twelve citizens make decisions that can change someone’s life forever.

Imagine the circumstances were reversed. Imagine a Black defendant facing decades in prison while eleven jurors wanted to convict, but the only Black juror said, “I still have reasonable doubt.” Would we condemn that juror for refusing to conform, or would we celebrate his willingness to uphold the principle that government must prove its case before taking away someone’s freedom?

We cannot believe in independent juries only when independent jurors reach conclusions we like. Either jurors possess the right and responsibility to evaluate evidence independently, or they do not.

BLACK AMERICA, DON’T GIVE AWAY YOUR SEAT

One day the person sitting at the defense table could be your son, daughter, brother, sister, husband, wife, grandchild, or even you. Imagine standing inside that courtroom looking at twelve strangers who possess the power to determine whether you return home to your family or potentially lose years of your life. Suddenly, who answered their jury summons becomes much more important.

Voting is power. Running for office is power. Holding government accountable is power. Building businesses, owning property, and controlling media platforms are forms of power. But jury service belongs on that list because the jury box is one of the few places where an ordinary citizen can directly stand between the government and another citizen.

The Lindsay Clancy case remains, first and foremost, an unspeakable human tragedy. Three children are dead, a father lost his children, and a mother stands accused of killing them. At the same time, extraordinarily difficult questions surrounding her mental health remain at the center of the legal case. Nothing about the racial conversation surrounding the jury should cause us to forget those children or the enormous human suffering involved.

But once the identity of the lone holdout became part of the national conversation, another question became unavoidable. Why did the fact that he was Black suddenly become so significant? Why did his personal background become part of the story, and why are we hearing explanations of what happened inside the jury room primarily from the people who disagreed with him?

I do not need this man to be right because he is Black. I need him to have the same right as every other American juror to examine the evidence, apply the law, and reach his own conclusion without being required to surrender his judgment simply because eleven other people disagree.

Eleven people believed one thing while the only Black juror believed something different. That alone does not make him a civil-rights hero, and it does not make him a villain. It makes him a juror exercising the very independence our jury system is supposed to protect.

For Black America, however, the lesson is much larger than this single case. When that jury summons arrives and you are reasonably able to serve, think carefully before throwing away the opportunity. An empty chair cannot question evidence, challenge assumptions, examine testimony, or say, “I am not convinced.”

Our ancestors fought to get us into rooms where decisions about American life were being made. The jury box is one of those rooms.

They fought for that seat. Don’t give it away.

AI Is Learning The World; Black People Better Be In The Lesson Plan

AJ Woodson
-
0
AI Is Learning The World; Black People Better Be In The Lesson Plan

America Is Building an AI Economy and National-Security System. Where Is Black Westchester?

34.7 percent. That was the error rate for darker-skinned women in one landmark study of commercial gender-classification technology. For lighter-skinned men, the maximum error rate was 0.8 percent. Another study examining pedestrian-detection technology found systems were about five percentage points less accurate at detecting darker-skinned pedestrians than lighter-skinned pedestrians. Then the National Institute of Standards and Technology evaluated facial-recognition algorithms using more than 18 million images of more than 8 million people and found demographic differences across the majority of algorithms studied. In some one-to-one systems, false-positive rates for African American and Asian faces were 10 to 100 times higher than for Caucasian faces.

Before somebody turns that into “Tesla couldn’t see Black people,” let me clean that up. The pedestrian research wasn’t specifically a Tesla study. The bigger issue is more important anyway: What happens when technology being taught to recognize the world doesn’t recognize everybody in that world equally? A computer doesn’t wake up racist, but an algorithm learns from data selected, labeled, tested and interpreted by human beings. When certain people are missing or underrepresented in that process, those gaps can show up in the technology.

That is why Black people need to pay attention to artificial intelligence. Not because AI is coming. It is already here. It is in our phones, schools, workplaces and businesses, and it is increasingly becoming part of the systems that make consequential decisions. Now the federal government is moving advanced AI deeper into America’s national-security apparatus, which means this conversation has officially moved way past ChatGPT.

On June 5, 2026, President Donald Trump signed National Security Presidential Memorandum 11, directing the federal government to accelerate AI adoption throughout the national-security enterprise. The directive addresses advanced commercial and open-source AI models, classified environments, high-security computing infrastructure, cybersecurity, military applications and the recruitment and training of an AI workforce. It also directs the Secretary of War to update federal policy governing autonomy in weapon systems as AI capabilities evolve, while maintaining human accountability through the constitutional chain of command. White House AI National Security Fact Sheet⁠

Let that sink in for a minute. While some of us are still debating whether our children should use AI for homework, the United States government is discussing advanced AI on classified networks, high-security computing facilities, intelligence operations, cybersecurity, and policies governing autonomous weapons. That doesn’t mean AI has suddenly been permitted to independently decide whom to kill; the directive specifically emphasizes accountability and controllability. But it does tell us how far this technology has moved and how seriously the federal government is taking it.

This didn’t begin in June. The White House’s July 2025 America’s AI Action Plan established three major priorities: accelerating AI innovation, building American AI infrastructure, and leading internationally in AI diplomacy and security. The document talks about economic competitiveness, infrastructure, energy, manufacturing, workforce development, and America’s position in the global AI race. Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf. America isn’t sitting around trying to decide whether AI matters. America has a plan. My question is: What is ours?

For Black Westchester, this conversation needs to be bigger than whether you personally use ChatGPT. I want to know who is being trained, who is being hired, who is building companies, who is receiving contracts, and who owns pieces of the infrastructure supporting this new economy. I want to know what this means for Mount Vernon, Yonkers, New Rochelle, Peekskill, and White Plains while the opportunities are still developing, not after everybody else has positioned themselves and somebody suddenly discovers we weren’t in the room.

And please stop saying, “AI isn’t for me.” You don’t have to trust everything it tells you, and you absolutely should not. There are legitimate questions about privacy, misinformation, intellectual property, employment, and bias. But refusing to learn AI doesn’t prevent AI from affecting you. Your employer can adopt it. Your bank can use algorithms. Your child’s school will have to deal with it. Businesses can automate parts of their operations. Government can purchase AI systems. You don’t actually escape a technological transformation by refusing to open the app.

The federal government’s own Action Plan acknowledges that AI will transform work. It calls for expanding AI literacy and workforce skills, studying job creation, displacement, and wages, and developing rapid retraining and proactive upskilling for workers whose occupations may be affected. Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf. If Washington is preparing for jobs to change, our communities should not wait until that change reaches somebody’s paycheck before we start preparing.

Black people should be using AI, but use it with your brain turned on. If you own a beauty salon in Mount Vernon, explore how AI could help with marketing, customer retention, or understanding your business. If you’re a contractor in Yonkers, learn how it can help research opportunities and organize administrative work. If you run a nonprofit in New Rochelle, see how it can help organize program information and research funding. If somebody hands you a 90-page government document written like regular human beings were never supposed to understand it, let AI help break it down, then go back to the original document and verify what matters.

We should also be testing these systems on us. Ask about Black history, Puerto Rican history, Africa, the Caribbean, Mount Vernon and Yonkers. Ask about redlining, Black businesses, and the history of our communities. Ask questions about subjects you know well enough to recognize when something is missing or wrong. Our representation has to extend far beyond using a chatbot. We need Black people among the engineers, researchers, entrepreneurs, educators, evaluators, policymakers, investors, and owners determining what these technologies become. We don’t just need AI to recognize us. We need to be among the people deciding what AI recognizes.

Then follow the money, because artificial intelligence may feel like something floating around in “the cloud,” but that cloud needs a whole lot of stuff on the ground. AI requires data centers, electricity, cooling systems, semiconductors, telecommunications, cybersecurity, construction, and maintenance. The federal Action Plan specifically identifies electricians and advanced HVAC technicians among the occupations necessary to build and maintain AI infrastructure and calls for partnerships among government, employers, and workforce organizations to build training pipelines connected to employment. 

Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf

Now we are having a different conversation. AI isn’t only an opportunity for the child who loves coding. It’s an opportunity connected to electrical work, cybersecurity, engineering, advanced manufacturing, construction, and infrastructure. Somebody is going to build these facilities. Somebody is going to cool them, wire them, secure them, and maintain them. Somebody’s company is going to receive those contracts. The question for Black Westchester is whether any of those somebodies are going to look like us.

The federal plan even calls for exposing middle- and high-school students to careers connected to AI infrastructure, expanding pre-apprenticeships, updating career and technical education, strengthening dual enrollment and expanding Registered Apprenticeships. Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf. So don’t just show our children how to prompt AI. Show them the server room. Show them cybersecurity, robotics, electrical infrastructure, intellectual property, and government procurement. And please show them what the invoice looks like. I don’t just want Black children impressed by technology. I want them paid by it, building it and owning pieces of it.

Westchester isn’t starting from zero, which makes the next question even more important. Businesses, colleges, schools, and community organizations are already beginning to engage with artificial intelligence. What I want to know now is who is getting through the door and what happens afterward. How many Black and Latino-owned businesses are accessing AI training? How many turn that knowledge into additional revenue? How many young people move from introductory programs into internships, apprenticeships, college programs, and employment? How many minority-owned companies eventually become vendors and contractors? Access isn’t a flyer, a panel, or putting “AI” in an event title. Access is what happens after somebody walks through the door.

We also need to talk about accountability. The June national-security directive says constitutional protections remain applicable and says AI must not be used for unauthorized or unlawful surveillance of Americans. Read the full National Security Presidential Memorandum.⁠ Those protections matter, and Black Americans don’t need conspiracy theories to understand why surveillance and accountability deserve scrutiny. Our documented history gives us enough reason to ask who authorizes these systems, what information they can analyze, how mistakes are corrected and who audits their outcomes.

Remember where this article started. Technology has already demonstrated demographic performance disparities. That doesn’t mean every AI system is racist or every algorithm is biased. It means testing matters, representation matters, and measurement matters. When technology begins influencing consequential decisions about human beings, you cannot correct what nobody is willing to measure.

This is the moment for Black Westchester to recognize what is happening while the architecture is still being built. America’s AI infrastructure is expanding. Workers are being trained. Businesses are developing products and services. Colleges are creating programs. Government policies are evolving, and advanced AI is now being integrated into the national-security enterprise. That means we still have time to position ourselves before this becomes another mature industry where we arrive asking why ownership doesn’t look like us.

I want the entrepreneur in Mount Vernon thinking about AI and revenue. I want the teenager in Yonkers understanding that an electrical apprenticeship could put them inside the infrastructure powering this technological transformation. I want the student in New Rochelle considering cybersecurity, engineering, or data science. I want the Black-owned company in White Plains watching procurement opportunities, and I want our schools, chambers, and workforce organizations making sure Peekskill, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, and the rest of our communities aren’t discovering these pathways after the best opportunities have already been claimed.

America has an AI Action Plan. The federal government is accelerating AI throughout national security. The infrastructure is being built, the workforce is being developed, and the money is beginning to move. Black Westchester cannot afford to arrive after the contracts have been awarded and ask why nobody called us.

AI is learning the world, and this time we need to recognize the moment. We need the technology to recognize us, the workforce to include us, the contracts to reach us, and when somebody pulls up the ownership records, some of those names better look like ours.

DON’T TAKE MY WORD FOR IT. RESEARCH IT. I want readers to read the documents, check the statistics, and come to their own conclusions. AI literacy also means source literacy. Open the reports. Read the federal policy. Question what I wrote. Question what the government wrote. Question what AI tells you. Then follow the information for yourself.

America’s AI Action Plan — The White House⁠

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Americas-AI-Action-Plan.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

White House Fact Sheet — AI in the National Security Enterprise⁠

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-historic-directive-on-ai-in-the-national-security-enterprise

National Security Presidential Memorandum 11 — Full Directive⁠

https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/06/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-signs-historic-directive-on-ai-in-the-national-security-enterprise

NIST — Study on Race, Age and Sex in Face Recognition Software⁠

https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2019/12/nist-study-evaluates-effects-race-age-sex-face-recognition-software

MIT Media Lab — Gender Shades: AI Accuracy and Skin-Tone Disparities⁠

https://www.media.mit.edu/publications/gender-shades-intersectional-accuracy-disparities-in-commercial-gender-classification/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

The MIT research is the source for the striking 34.7% error rate for darker-skinned women versus a maximum 0.8% for lighter-skinned men in the commercial gender-classification systems tested.  NIST is the source for the much larger facial-recognition evaluation involving 18.27 million images of 8.49 million people and the finding that, in one-to-one matching, some algorithms had false-positive differentials of 10 to 100 times for Asian and African American faces compared with Caucasian faces. 

Screenshot

AACCHV’s First CRA Comment Lab Turned Banking Policy Into a Conversation About Access, Accountability, and Community Power

Larnez Kinsey
-
0
AACCHV’s First CRA Comment Lab Turned Banking Policy Into a Conversation About Access, Accountability, and Community Power

Thirty-two people logged onto Zoom Thursday night for the first African American Chamber of Commerce of the Hudson Valley CRA Comment Lab, presented in partnership with BlackGate Consulting Group LLC. People had worked all day. Some were running businesses. Some were leading nonprofits. Some were balancing families, community responsibilities, and everything else life asks of us.

Still, at 6:30 at night, they made time to learn about something most people aren’t discussing at the cookout, beauty salon, barbershop, church, networking breakfast or kitchen table: The Community Reinvestment Act. But once we stripped away the government language, CRA started sounding a whole lot like Westchester. It sounded like the entrepreneur in Mount Vernon who has been in business for years but still doesn’t understand what makes them “bankable.”

The Yonkers business owner hearing about millions being committed to small businesses but wondering where the application is. The nonprofit leader doing real work in the community but trying to figure out how organizations actually get connected to community-development dollars. And the first-time homebuyer watching the cost of living climb while wondering what resources exist for them. Suddenly, CRA wasn’t just banking policy.

It became a familiar question: Where is the money? And then the better questions followed: Where did it go? Who qualified? Who benefited? How do I access it? And where can I see the information for myself?

THE NUMBERS EXPLAIN WHY THIS LAB WAS NEEDED

Before the Lab, 18 registrants completed our initial data collection. 83.3% had never submitted a federal public comment. At the same time, 88.9% rated improving banking access and financial resources in their communities as highly important. That gap caught my attention. People care deeply about what happens economically in their communities, yet many have never been shown how to participate when policies affecting those systems are actually being considered. Sometimes what gets labeled as disengagement isn’t disengagement. Sometimes nobody showed you the door. That’s what this Lab was designed to change.

WE DIDN’T NEED ANOTHER PANEL

Westchester knows how to do panels. We know how to put people behind tables, pass microphones, take pictures in front of step-and-repeats, and announce millions of dollars in economic development. I’m interested in what happens after the announcement. If a bank says it supports small businesses, what does “support” mean?

If community-development dollars are available, where does someone find them? What qualifies? Who received the investment? And could a new business owner or nonprofit without an insider relationship find the same opportunity? Access isn’t truly access if you need somebody’s private cell number to find the front door. That’s why this was a Lab.

Participants weren’t there simply to listen. We broke CRA down into plain language, connected it to real experiences, and gave people a framework for developing their own public comments. We weren’t telling anyone what to think. We were helping people understand enough to decide what they think and articulate why.

“I GOT DENIED.” BUT DO YOU KNOW WHY?

That question became one of the most tangible parts of the conversation. A business owner can submit an application, provide documents, wait, and eventually receive a denial. But what happens next? Do you understand what part of your financial profile didn’t meet the lender’s requirements? Was it credit? Cash flow? Debt? Time in business? Documentation? What would need to change before you applied again?

A denial can close a door. Information can tell you which door to try next. CRA doesn’t guarantee anyone a loan, and we were careful not to suggest that it does. What it gives us is another framework for examining how financial institutions are helping meet community credit needs. And once people understand the framework, the conversation changes. Instead of only saying, “Nobody is helping us,” we can begin asking specific, informed questions about lending, investment, access, and outcomes. That is where economic literacy starts becoming economic agency.

THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER NUMBER: ZERO

A number of elected officials were invited to join us. None attended. I don’t know why each person couldn’t attend, and I’m not going to manufacture motives. Elected officials have schedules, constituent responsibilities, and competing commitments. But I won’t pretend I didn’t notice the contrast either. Thirty-two people found the time.

Business owners came. Nonprofit leaders came. Community members came. People who had never participated in a federal public-comment process came because they wanted to understand something that could affect their communities. I would like to see elected leadership in those rooms too. Not necessarily giving a speech. Listening. Because sometimes leadership is hearing a business owner say, “I’ve been trying to access capital, and I still don’t understand what I’m doing wrong.”

Sometimes it’s hearing a nonprofit leader ask, “Everybody says community-development resources exist. Where do we find them?” Economic development isn’t only standing beside a giant check once the money has been awarded. It’s also making sure the people you represent can find the opportunity before the money is gone. So to the elected officials who couldn’t make the first conversation, the invitation remains open. Come September 24. No podium necessary.

SEPTEMBER 24: NOBODY COMES ALONE

Our next CRA Comment Lab is Thursday, September 24 at 6:30 PM ET, ahead of the October 13 public-comment deadline. And this time, I have one request: Bring somebody. Bring the sister trying to expand her catering business. Bring the brother buying equipment for his company out of his own pocket. Bring the nonprofit founder doing community work while trying to figure out how to fund it.

Bring the young entrepreneur building something from their phone. Bring your neighbor. Bring your elected official. Bring the person who keeps hearing about millions of dollars being invested and quietly wondering: “Okay… but how do I get to it?” If 32 people came the first time, let’s put 64 in the next room. Not for optics. For information.

Because one person learns something and tells another business owner. A nonprofit leader takes it back to their board. Somebody shares it at church. Someone tells their neighbor. That’s how information starts moving through a community instead of remaining concentrated among the people who already know where to look.

IF THIS MATTERS TO YOU, BUILD WITH US

And if you believe these conversations need to continue, I encourage you to become a member of the African American Chamber of Commerce of the Hudson Valley, email Info@aacchudsonvalley.org or call 845-570-2367.

A Chamber should be more than business cards and networking events. It should help shorten the distance between people and opportunity. Between businesses and resources. Between community needs and institutions with capital. Between hearing that money exists and knowing where to start looking for it.

We cannot keep asking, “Who’s building something for us?” without eventually asking: “What are we willing to build together?” The stronger that network becomes, the more information we can circulate and the more people we can bring into these conversations. Access should create more access, not ownership of the doorway.

THE ZOOM WASN’T THE WIN

Thirty-two people attending matters. But attendance isn’t the outcome I’m most interested in. We are still collecting our post-Lab impact surveys and public-comment submission receipts. Remember: 83.3% of the people who completed our initial survey had never submitted a federal public comment before.

So now I want to know: How many did? How many people understood CRA better? How many now feel more confident asking financial institutions questions? How many put their experience and recommendations into the federal record for the first time?

Because success isn’t being able to say: “We had a great Zoom.” Success is somebody entering that room thinking: “I don’t understand any of this.” And leaving knowing: I know what to ask.
I know where to look.
And I know my voice belongs in this conversation. That’s the culture I want us building from Mount Vernon to Yonkers, New Rochelle, White Plains, and throughout Westchester and the Hudson Valley.

Not outrage without information. Economic literacy. Not waiting until every decision has already been made. Economic agency.

So September 24, don’t come alone. Come with the question that’s been sitting in your chest. Come with the denial you never fully understood. Come wondering where the money went. We’ll start there. Understand It. Question It. Write It. Submit It. Because the numbers are the beginning. The questions are the point.

This version is stronger because the 83.3%/88.9% statistics appear once, the 32-person attendance is established rather than repeatedly celebrated, the “access” argument gets one primary section, and the ending introduces the impact measurement rather than re-explaining the Lab. It keeps the cultural intimacy without circling the same point.

NEW YORK’S PRISON PROBLEM: STILL NO SOLUTION FOR STATE CORRECTION OFFICERS

DAMON K JONES
-
0
NEW YORK’S PRISON PROBLEM: STILL NO SOLUTION FOR STATE CORRECTION OFFICERS

Eighteen months on from the correction officer strike revealing a serious crisis within New York State’s prison system, Albany has ended up spending a large sum of money, altered the hiring requirements, increasing recruitment, provided financial incentives, and sent thousands of members of the National Guard into the state’s correctional facilities. Given all this, the people of New York should be asking themselves one basic question: What has actually changed for the correction officers who are in charge of keeping safety and order in our prisons?

Public policy ought not to be evaluated based on press conferences, announcements, or the amount of money the government spends; instead it should be assessed in terms of logic and results, and the results show that New York still has a serious problem with the staffing of its correction officers.

Spectrum News stated that in September 2024, New York had around 14,334 correction officers, sergeants, and lieutenants, prior to the strike in February 2025. The number had dropped to about 11,319 by September 2025 and was down to about 11,113 by September 2026. This amounts to approximately 3,221 fewer uniformed correctional security employees than two years earlier, a decrease of over 22 per cent.

The workforce still decreased by 206 employees between September 2025 and September 2026 as a result of the recruitment campaigns, the incentives offered, and the academy classes. This fact ought to alter the whole discussion since the issue is now not merely how many people New York can recruit but why the city is unable to keep enough correction officers to rebuild its workforce.

The actual situation inside prison walls is quite different from what the statewide staffing figures indicate. In certain housing units a single correction officer has to look after about 100 imprisoned people himself, having to keep order, deal with fights, medical emergencies and mental-health crises while waiting for assistance that might arrive from another similarly understaffed location. When New York discusses prison staffing, policymakers and taxpayers should understand this actual situation.

Why is the National Guard still there?

The most clear-cut proof that New York has not managed to resolve its correctional staffing issue is the fact that thousands of National Guard members are still based within state prisons. Although the Guard was sent in during the 2025 emergency to assist with running the prisons, New York continues to depend on that special measure eighteen months later.

The state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the deployment, the total cost is said to be reaching or surpassing $1 billion. Although National Guard members deserve respect for having responded to the call, they are not correction officers and must never permanently replace trained correctional officers.

That creates a logical question Albany must answer. If New York’s correctional staffing situation has truly stabilized, why does the state still need thousands of National Guard personnel helping operate its prisons? Their continued presence suggests that New York has found an expensive way to keep the system functioning without actually solving the workforce problem that created the emergency.

Taxpayers should also understand that the financial cost extends beyond the Guard. New Yorkers are paying for overtime, recruitment incentives, academies, training, advertising, and other measures designed to offset the staffing shortage, while also losing the institutional knowledge of experienced correctional officers who leave the profession.

HALT SHOULD BE JUDGED BY OUTCOMES

Any serious study of New York’s correctional policy must take the HALT Solitary Confinement Act into account. Those in support of the act claim that it was necessary to impose stricter limitations on prolonged segregated confinement in order to protect inmates. On the other hand, correction officers and their representatives have said that the HALT Act has made it more difficult to manage violent or continuously disruptive individuals.

Instead of allowing HALT to remain an ideological argument, New York should judge it the same way every major public policy should be judged: by measurable outcomes. The state should publicly examine whether assaults against correction officers increased or decreased, whether incarcerated-on-incarcerated assaults changed, whether serious disciplinary incidents increased, how use-of-force incidents changed, and whether HALT achieved its humanitarian objectives without creating unacceptable unintended consequences.

If the evidence demonstrates that HALT is achieving its objectives while maintaining institutional safety, the data should demonstrate that. If the evidence shows serious unintended consequences, Albany should have the courage to modify the law rather than allowing politics to override what is actually happening inside the prisons.

NEW YORK NEEDS TO RESPECT THE CORRECTION PROFESSION

New York cannot recruit its way out of this crisis without restoring respect for the correction profession. Correction officers are not simply bodies needed to fill posts, and they should not be treated as interchangeable employees who can be replaced whenever someone retires, resigns, or leaves for another agency. They are trained public-safety professionals responsible for maintaining order, protecting lives, and making critical decisions every day inside one of the most difficult environments in government.

Respect for the profession means listening to correction officers when they raise legitimate concerns about staffing, mandatory overtime, workplace violence, morale, training, management practices, and the operational consequences of laws and policies created in Albany. Listening does not mean officers should dictate every correctional policy. Still, the experience of the people working behind the walls should carry meaningful weight when lawmakers make decisions that affect institutional safety.

It also means recognizing the value of experience. A veteran correction officer with ten, fifteen, or twenty years behind the walls possesses institutional knowledge that cannot simply be replaced by putting a recruit through an academy. Experienced officers learn how to read a housing unit, recognize changes in behavior, communicate during tense situations, and identify trouble before an incident becomes an emergency. When those officers leave, New York loses knowledge and experience along with workforce.

Respect must also be reflected in working conditions. If officers are repeatedly mandated to work overtime, assigned to short-staffed posts, face increasing workplace dangers,, or believe policymakers who have never worked inside a correctional facility dismiss their concerns, Albany should not be surprised when experienced employees leave, and potential recruits look elsewhere for careers.

Although aggressive recruitment, competitive pay, good training, and specific staffing objectives are still needed in New York, these measures must form part of a broader dedication to reviving the correction profession. The state should also establish a realistic timetable for reducing and ultimately stopping its dependence on the National Guard, since an emergency military deployment should never gradually turn into a permanent replacement for trained correction officers.

With 33 years’ experience in the correctional service, I know that the uniform, the badge, and the title come with responsibilities which most people will never witness. If New York wants to revamp its correctional workforce, it should do more than just recruit individuals to fill the vacancies; it must establish a profession which people consider to be respected, supported, and worthwhile for those who stay in it.

Fat Joe, Hip-Hop Doesn’t Make You Black—and It Doesn’t Give You a Pass on the N-Word

DAMON K JONES
-
0
Fat Joe, Hip-Hop Doesn’t Make You Black—and It Doesn’t Give You a Pass on the N-Word

I would like to start off with a point that ought not to be contentious: Fat Joe is part of hip-hop. He actually comes from the Bronx, his career proves this for itself, and his contributions to the culture can no reasonable way be dismissed. The aim here is not to exclude Fat Joe from hip-hop history, nor is it to minimize the contributions of Puerto Ricans, Latinos, Jamaicans, or other Caribbean groups that helped to shape hip-hop in New York City.

My objection arises when getting involved in hip-hop is turned into a way of asserting Black identity and providing a reason for using the N-word. Recently, Fat Joe has defended his association with hip-hop by talking about his upbringing in the Bronx, his relationships with some of the early hip-hop personalities, and the fact that his late brother used to carry the record crates for Grandmaster Flash. He then stated, “I am Black,” and called himself the “blackest” person you’ve ever seen when it comes to the N-word. That is where I differ from Fat Joe.

Fat Joe has no need to become Black in order to show that he is hip-hop, since his career already proves his position within the culture. However, hip-hop credentials do not change one’s genealogy, and simply being accepted by Black people does not convey the Black American historical experience to someone else.

Cultural Acceptance Is Not Ancestral Inheritance

The distinction between taking part in a culture and inheriting a people’s history exists. Even if I spent the rest of my life being immersed in Italian culture—learning the language, living in an area that is Italian, studying Italian history and being accepted by Italian families—I should still have no Italian ancestors. The fact that this boundary is recognized does not mean that Italians are rejecting me; it only means that ancestry has a significance which goes beyond cultural closeness.

Black identity should not be handled any differently. One can love Black culture, support Black people, create music based on Black traditions and still become a significant figure in hip-hop without having to be a descendant of Black Americans whose historical experience has included American slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow and segregation. Black Americans are able to embrace someone culturally without giving up the difference between that person’s ancestry and our own.

If Rachel Dolezal wasn’t able to become Black, then why can Fat Joe?

That is when I consider Rachel Dolezal. In 2015 the United States held a national discussion regarding Dolezal, a white woman who had been born to white parents and who had become thoroughly involved in Black culture and in the struggle for civil rights. She attended Howard University, taught courses in Africana studies and later became president of the NAACP chapter in Spokane, Washington. When doubts about her ancestry were made public, Dolezal still maintained that she saw herself as Black.

America mostly rejected that argument, and many Black Americans were particularly offended by it. The main reason for the objection could be understood: simply loving Black people, studying Black history, working for a Black civil rights organisation and getting involved in Black culture does not alter one’s ancestry.

We ought to apply the principle consistently. Of course, I’m not claiming that the cases of Fat Joe and Rachel Dolezal are the same; they aren’t. Fat Joe genuinely has a long-standing association with the Bronx and hip-hop, and his Puerto Rican and Cuban background is part of a distinct racial and cultural history from that of Dolezal’s white European ancestors. Still, the comparison raises a significant question about self-identification: if cultural immersion alone is not sufficient to make Rachel Dolezal Black, why should cultural immersion in hip-hop automatically make Fat Joe Black?

Dolezal could support Black people without having to become Black; she could take part in the NAACP without having to become Black, since the NAACP itself pointed out at the time of the controversy that one did not need to be Black in order to hold a leadership position. The same ought to be true in this case. Fat Joe can be part of the family in hip-hop without having to rewrite his ancestry.

We Were Rhyming Before Hip-Hop Had a Name

We also have to address the way this history is at times presented. It is sometimes suggested that Black rhythmic verbal expression suddenly appeared when DJs began using two turntables in the Bronx. Although the Bronx merits its status as the birthplace of hip-hop as a distinct culture, many of the elements that later contributed to the development of rap had already been present in Black America for many generations.

By stating that Black Americans were “rapping” before the emergence of hip-hop, I am referring to lineage and not asserting that earlier Black performers were hip-hop artists. In the 1940s The Jubalaires employed rapid rhythmic rhyming and a certain vocal cadence in their recordings. During the 1960s Muhammad Ali was rhyming, making boastful statements, predicting the number of rounds, and engaging in verbal battles with his opponents. The song “Here Comes the Judge”, recorded in 1968 by Dewey “Pigmeat” Markham, included rhythmic spoken words and rhyme set against a funky musical background.

In the same year The Last Poets appeared in Harlem, they put together politically charged spoken word, percussion, Black consciousness and street language. By the early 1970s Gil Scott-Heron was combining spoken word, music and sharp commentary on Black America, while Clarence Reid, who was better known as Blowfly, was likewise developing his underground alter ego and trying out explicit parody and rhythmic verbal expression before rap became a major commercial industry.

The hip-hop tradition didn’t start with those performers. If you go back further into the Black church and listen to the way preachers speak—with their rhythm, repetition, improvisation, and use of call-and-response—then look at the practice of verbal competition among Black people through the use of insults, punchlines, and improvisation, and trace the line of influence through the blues, gospel, jazz, Black radio, spoken-word poetry, soul, and funk, the conclusion to draw is not that all of these things were hip-hop, but rather that the components needed for hip-hop were already present.

The Bronx Created Something New

The fact that those foundations existed does not lessen what took place in the Bronx. The DJs lengthened the breakbeats, the MCs became more skilled at rhyming, and turntablism, breaking, graffiti, and the culture of block parties all contributed to the creation of something truly new. Puerto Ricans and other Latinos took part in the early days of hip-hop, and Caribbean influences and the Jamaican sound-system traditions played important roles in the story.

Multicultural history ought to be celebrated not turned into a competition. The fact that Black American traditions form a foundation does not mean that the contributions of Puerto Ricans or people from the Caribbean have to be erased, any more than acknowledgement of the latter’s contributions implies that the Black American traditions which came before hip-hop should be downplayed. We should be able to present the full history.

Which leads me back to Fat Joe’s account of his late brother carrying record crates for Grandmaster Flash. Fat Joe has been telling that story publicly for many years, saying that his brother Angel was Grandmaster Flash’s “crate boy”. I respect that association, but the fact of carrying records for a pioneering DJ links one to hip-hop history; it does not mean one owns Black American history.

Even before Fat Joe’s brother picked up the crates, generations of Black Americans had already developed traditions centred on rhythm, rhyme, storytelling and verbal contests. Therefore, when I say that we were rhyming before your brother picked up the crate, I am not asserting that hip-hop existed before hip-hop. What I am saying is that the Black American cultural background which contributed to the development of rap existed before the turntables began to spin.

Hip-Hop Didn’t Create the N-Word

My disagreement with Fat Joe becomes a great deal more serious here. The N-word was not invented by hip-hop, rappers or the Bronx; it predated Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc or Fat Joe, and the historical connection between the word and Black Americans had already been settled long before hip-hop became a global phenomenon.

Since I am a Black man and a descendant of those who were enslaved in America, I don’t encounter the term just in the context of a rap song. Rather, I have come to understand it from a history in which it was employed to degrade and dehumanize people who looked like me; it survived slavery and emancipation and has since been part of the racial terror experienced by Black Americans, the Jim Crow era, segregation, and generations of discrimination.

Which is why I oppose the notion that taking part in hip-hop gives someone a lifetime licence to use the word. Hip-hop arose centuries after that historical relationship had already existed. Since hip-hop did not create that history, it has no authority to erase it or to grant permanent permission on behalf of generations of Black Americans.

Maybe Black America Should Stop Issuing Passes

It’s not fair to place all of this on Fat Joe; Black Americans should also be willing to look at themselves. I do appreciate the point about reclaiming the term, and I do see how the word is used in everyday conversation in certain sections of Black culture. However, since I am 58 years old, it is somewhere in our lives as mature adults that we ought to consider whether every word that we used when we were 18 still has a place in our vocabulary at 40, 50 or 60.

Our ancestors weren’t seeking the right to be called the N-word; rather they were opposing a society which used such words as part of a broader system intended to lower their humanity. Maybe the more important question isn’t whether Fat Joe’s N-word pass should be taken away; perhaps Black America should consider why we are still giving out passes at all.

Fat Joe has achieved a great deal and therefore has no need of the N-word to prove his position in hip-hop. Black America also has a rich enough language and history to believe that giving up the word would in any way diminish us.

You Don’t Have to Be Black to Be Hip-Hop

This has nothing to do with canceling Fat Joe; he should be proud of his Puerto Rican and Cuban background, the way he was raised in the Bronx, his association with the Terror Squad, his records, and all the other things he has added to hip-hop. Indeed, one of the reasons hip-hop is so great is that it transcends racial and national boundaries. People all over the world can take part in the culture authentically without changing their ancestry.

There is no need for anyone to erase Fat Joe’s heritage in order to acknowledge his contributions, any more than Black Americans should have to erase their own history in order to have it recognised. Rachel Dolezal never became Black just because she had immersed herself in Black culture and had been devoted to Black causes; in just the same way, one should not automatically acquire Black identity simply because one has become immersed in hip-hop. Although the situations are different, the fundamental question stays the same: does being close to a culture give a person the right to claim the ancestry and historical identity of the people who created it? My answer is no.

One doesn’t have to be Black in order to be hip-hop, though being hip-hop doesn’t make someone Black either, and it doesn’t grant him—or anyone else—a lifetime immunity to use the N-word. I respect the contribution that Fat Joe and his family have made to the culture, but acceptance within the culture is not the same as inheriting it from ancestors. We had already started rhyming long before his brother ever picked up the crate.

1...678...199Page 7 of 199