Leadership & Knowing What is Right
One of my favorite Presidents once said “A president’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right” Lyndon Baines Johnson. Born in Ghana in the 1970s one may wonder how I know Read More…
Category: race relations
Racism in America Today; Is It All About Race or Should We Follow The Money?
In 1619 a Dutch sheep landed in the Virginia colonies with 20 Africans captured from Angola. This was the first recorded shipment of slaves to any of the lands constituting present day USA. This howeRead More…
White Supremacy and Our Flat Earth!
Growing up on the coast meant that I always wondered about the sea. Driving by the beach and seeing the waves beating on the shores was always a joy to behold. Up to today watching and listening to tRead More…
Rest In Peace George Floyd! A Sermon from a Sh*tholer
“…….. He who is without sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” And again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. And when they heard it they began to go out one by oneRead More…
Of Lost Opportunities and Hypocrisy
In 1960 in response to police brutality, the Black Panther Party embarked on a program called “Copwatching” in which they patrolled the streets of Oakland lawfully carrying loaded firearms to patRead More…
Who is going to be the Rev. James Reeb of the 21st Century?
As I watched the biopic of one of the Greatest American Generals ever, U. S Grant and his role in winning The Civil War and keeping the Union together, I could not help but wonder at the number of NoRead More…
Mass Incarceration and Prison Gerrymandering, By Dr. Leonard Sowah
In the last 2 decades most new jail and prison developments in the US a country with one of the highest prison populations in the world are in rural and suburban districts. Data reported by the LondonRead More…
Healing from prejudice, discrimination and abuse of all kinds, By Dr. Leonard Sowah
In a previous post I wrote about my evolving experience with the LGBTQ community. Whilst being a black man from Africa did help me understand what it may feel like to be gay or queer, it was also a grRead More…
Racialized Policing and The Fear That Kills Blacks in America, By Dr. Leonard Sowah
In 2002 a University of Colorado Psychology Professor Joshua Correll undertook a study using a first person shooter video game to study police officer decision making with regards to the use of deadlRead More…
Alleged Fake Racist Attacks and Other Matters ? By Dr. Yaw Berko
Right after the elections of Barack Obama, the first Black president of the United States, I heard lots of people including some TV analysts declare that America has entered a “post-racial” era whRead More…
The 9/11 Terrorist made me American, What about you?
In today’s America where white nationalist match in the streets with tiki torches and scream “Jews will not replace us”, immigrant Americans like myself who happen to be non-white can sometimes wonderRead More…
Ancestry DNA and Racial Identity; Black or White?
Over the past decade the availability of commercial gene sequencing technics that provide information on the approximate geographic sources of our genes have increased significantly. These products arRead More…
Shithole Folklore: The Tortoise the rope plant and the beautiful bird, by Dr. Yaw Berko
In Election year 2016, forty-two percent of Americans did not vote, a significant proportion of them like myself were recent immigrants from “shithole” countries! I guess most of them believed their vRead More…
Thinking Outside The Box When There is No Box
I have been very lucky when it come to religious education. I grew up in the Anglican Church; actually my elementary education was in a school affiliated with the Church. In those days we would all maRead More…
Homo sapiens blackus a new human species. How must we handle this new species?
It has become abundantly clear to me that black people in America belong to a different subspecies of Homo sapiens! I have grouped them into a subspecies Homo sapiens blackus, and in my case Sub SubspRead More…
General Robert E Lee, did he shape American history or has this country shaped his legacy?
In the past few years there have been many protests and struggles across this country surrounding the fate of several monuments depicting confederate leaders. One such protest which occurred in the Read More…
Can a person be prejudiced against their own racial group?
Living in the great multi-cultural society, which is today’s America is an opportunity that I have grown to love and cherish. I love the fact that when I step out on the streets I could be interactiRead More…
Oh no!! another wet dream ?
I rarely have dreams! And on the rare occasions that I have dreamt, I barely remember the contents of my dream! I guess I am not prone to hypnopompic and hypnagogic hallucinations! If I were the MartiRead More…
Why I now use sign language in public !!
Before I came to America I was made to believe that America was this “melting pot” of people from all over the world. A huge successful experiment where people from all walks of life and continentRead More…
Why STARBUCKS does not need to apologize to African Americans
After more than 2 centuries of slavery progress towards equity and equality has always been challenging for African Americans, progress always seems to be followed by significant periods or retrogressRead More…
AN AFRICAN’S RESPONSE TO TRUMP ERA IMMIGRATION ISSUES
Growing up in Ghana towards the end of the 20th century, Africa to most Americans and “sh*thole” as Trump would say the environment under which we lived was one of that was very much carved by the iRead More…
MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr. after 50 years his Dream still lives on
Race has been a defining characteristic in America over the years due to historical elements of American society. In the 1600s European settlers in the New World transitioned a system of slavery and iRead More…
WORDS CAN KILL, AND DO KILL – THE TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF THE DREAM ACT (DEFERRED ACTION FOR CHILDHOOD ARRIVALS)
Illinois Senator Dick Durbin introduced the Dream Act in Congress in 2001 due to a story told him by a music teacher about the life of Tereza Lee a Korean girl whose parents had come to the US from KoRead More…
The Struggle for a New America II, By Dr. Leonard Sowah
For those who do not know my heritage I am Ghanaian by birth and moved to the United States about 16 yrs ago. In the US I have never been able to escape being mistaken for a Nigerian, Caribbean AmericRead More…
Driving While Black: Implicit Racial Bias & the Safety of Motorists, By Dr. Leonard Sowah
I had the opportunity to watch the released dash-cam video of the shooting of Philando Castile by police officer Geronimo Yanez. My reaction was mostly surprise at the composure and calmness of the laRead More…