Giza was incredible. Our driver Mustafa handed us off to some bedouins, who took us out to the pyramids on camels. Watching a camel run is one of the most awkward things I have ever seen an animal do, and riding one while it’s happening is expectedly unpleasant, but man was it worth it.
Growing up when a Tizita song played, I would watch as the chattering adults slowly quieted down and enter a sort of trance.
From where I sit, I can see cacti from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. There are succulents from all over the world. I think to myself, these plants didn’t come here of their own free will. And I wonder how many did not survive this transplantation? I’m looking at the living, not the dead.
The mathematically precise splendor of Monasterio Real de San Lorenzo de El Escorial pulls me through the last stretch of our uphill walk from the Phillip IItrain station. It’s exquisite.
Had Khaldoun lived in our verity-challenged times, he would surely have taken today’s media to task for embracing “alternative facts” and spreading disinformation and fake news. Sensationalism, chaos and fear-arousing disinformation always sells and is good for ratings, which in turn drive advertising dollars, and the media figured that out a long time ago.
I think the human story of science, evolution and scholarship becomes more enriching if it seen as a collective human endeavor, and not necessarily as petty triumphs of one over the other – the West, the East, Christianity, Islam, Judaism.
Africa beckons from Spanish shores. It’s the summer of 2014, and we’re waiting for the 3:30 pm Ferry to Tangier, Morocco.
A raised fist made of rusty-red laterite clay, “Speak Out” is Djakou Kassi’s latest artwork currently on display in Los Angeles, in Signature African Art gallery. It is a symbol of power and support for marginalized communities. African masks cover the larger-than-life clenched fist and the messages carved into the clay cry out against racism and discrimination. “Love”, “No to Hate”, “We are all Human”, and “I can’t Breath” reference the struggle faced by people of color everywhere, especially African Americans in the United States and the Black Lives Matter movement.
