BOOK: Revealing 'Black Business Secrets'
2010-12-14
Kam Williams, Special to The Skanner News
During these dire economic times when the overall unemployment rate in the U.S. is at 9.8 percent, you can be sure that that figure is at least double in the African-American community. And after the Democrats took what President Obama referred to as a “shellacking” on Election Day, they appear prepared to capitulate to the Republican demand that the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy be extended. Read the complete article
DJ O.G. One Holds Book Release, 7 p.m. Nov. 5
2010-11-05
DJ OG One held a book release on Friday, Nov. 5 at Champions Barbershop, 3827 NE MLK Jr. Blvd. The book, “The Man Behind the Music: Life and Times of David William (O.G. One) Jackson Jr.” by Rochell D.“Ro Deezy” Hart chronicles the Portland-based DJ who has rubbed shoulders with some of the music industry’s greats. Read the complete article
Book Review: Whoopi Goldberg Goes Nuts
2010-11-05
By Kam Williams, Special To The Skanner News
All over the country nowadays, we’re witnessing a frightening decline in civility ... Weighing-in on this disturbing trend is comedienne Whoopi Goldberg, herself no stranger to such controversy. Read the complete article
Book Review: Create Dangerously
2010-10-29
In 1818, Victor Cousin, as a visiting lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris, coined the phrase “Art for art’s sake,” thus introducing the then novel notion that art ought to be appreciated on its own merits, meaning simply for its intrinsic beauty independent of serving any didactic function. Read the complete article
Children's Book Illustrates Jimi Hendrix's Formative Years
2010-10-26
Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970) was a flamboyant rock icon who flamed out instead of fading away due to his also being a substance abuser who dabbled in everything from alcohol to marijuana to amphetamines to hashish to heroin to LSD before succumbing at the tender age of 27 to a combination of red wine and sleeping pills.
Ostensibly enough time has elapsed since his passing that Hendrix can now serve as a role model to children Read the complete article
Kam Williams Reviews Condoleeza Rice Memoir: Extraordinary, Ordinary People
2010-10-08
Kam Williams
Given all that Condoleezza Rice went on to accomplish in life, it’s hard to believe that she was born in Birmingham, Alabama in the Fifties during the repressive reign of Jim Crow segregation. But somehow, despite spending her formative years in a city where state-sanctioned discrimination served to frustrate the aspirations of most other African-Americans, she miraculously managed to overachieve with the help of doting parents blessed with the sense to recognize their gifted daughter’s great potential and to nourish her dreams the best they could. Read the complete article
‘Killing Willis’: Diff’rent Strokes Actor Tells of Life Turnaround
Todd Bridges opens up about his turbulent life
2010-09-30
Bridges was a child star and loved being on a hit show, but his success was marred by the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father and by a trusted agent’s exploitation of youthful innocence. After eight years, the show ended and Bridges turned to drugs to ease his pain. Bridges quickly turned from being a teen idol to a favorite hit for tabloid writers. Now, for the first time, Todd Bridges opens up about his turbulent life Read the complete article
Hendrix: A Look at the Man We Never Knew
A new book about the artist’s early life, "Becoming Jimi Hendrix."
2010-09-23
Lisa Loving of The Skanner News
The book compiles facts and interviews covering Hendrix’ childhood and the years before his breakthrough as a rock superstar, plus 25 rare photos of the music great’s career .... As a father, a military veteran and a lunch-counter protester in the South, so much of Jimi Hendrix’s short life has been largely overlooked until now ... The Hendrixes were extremely poor ... a teacher told Jimi's dad this child needs desperately to have an instrument, he is going through a psychological trauma, and finally Al did buy him his first guitar for $5 .
Read the complete article
The History of White People by Nell Irvin Painter
2010-09-09
Kam Williams Special to The Skanner News
Painter tackles this subject in the serious, methodical and academic fashion expected of a Princeton University professor who also happens to be African-American. Weighing-in at 500+ pages, her informative, encyclopedic opus ponders whether White people even belong to a separate race: the author’s examination of the history of Western Civilization from ancient Greece and Rome to the present reveals the emergence of “Whiteness” to be a relatively-recent phenomenon, having caught hold in the 1700s in Germanic propaganda
Read the complete article
American Frankenstein: The Making of the Black American Male
2010-08-20
Kam Williams Special To The Skanner
“American Frankenstein is written as a timely response to the need to revisit the history and realities of the Black existence in America… As with Dr. Frankenstein’s creature, African-Americans have been aimlessly trying t find their way in society, trying to fit in Read the complete article
