The 50th anniversary of the tragic assassination of Malcolm X didn’t grab much mainstream attention, or any at all. Malcolm X, a figure considered to be (as Manning Marable put it) “the most remarkable historical figure produced by black America in the 20th century,” was barely mentioned during the one month a year we commemorate black leaders: Black History Month. That’s sad, because Malcolm’s message of unity, justice, outrage, change, courage, and identity would awaken today’s dormant society. How unfortunate it is that fifty years later, while we seem to look back on with regret the immoralities of Jim Crow, Apartheid, and Vietnam, we put on our 21st century blinders when talking about mass incarceration, global warming, American intervention, etc. One thing is certain: if Malcolm X were 30 years old in 2015, he would be pointing his finger at these injustices, as he did so many times before. Malcolm’s vision, along with his constant tuning of strategy and belief, leader...
Last Thursday, The leaders of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, and France ended their peace talks in Minsk, Belarus with a ceasefire agreement that would pull back heavy weaponry and hold off fighting in the interim starting Sunday, February 15. Despite this hopeful outcome, both sides managed to announce threatening statements if the deal reached were to be broken. With eight Ukrainian soldiers dead, several more wounded, and new shelling in Donetsk and Luhansk during the interim, one can only assume that the Minsk deal will be used as a pretext to further escalate the current crisis. This troubling assumption makes sense since the previous Minsk ceasefire agreement in September 2014 that was supposed to lead to negotiations achieved none of its intended goals. Moreover, propaganda and misinformation from Kiev, Washington, and Moscow distorted any attempts at discovering who the agitators were, serving only to perpetuate more violence. Today, the United...