Posted on

Journal Square, Where the Library Only Takes Returns

On August 17, 2026, the Jersey City Free Public Library installed a book drop outside its Five Corners Branch at 678 Newark Avenue. The building behind it, sixty-nine years old and dark since early July, will accept what you give back. It will lend you nothing. A parking lot where a Bookmobile idles four days a week is now the whole of the public library in Journal Square, the neighborhood at the center of the loudest building boom in New Jersey’s second-largest city. I live in this city. I have spent my working life writing, editing, and publishing books, and I can tell you what that steel drop says to a child walking past it on the way to school: the city will take from you, and the city has stopped giving.


Continue reading → Journal Square, Where the Library Only Takes Returns

Posted on

LinkedIn and the Promise of Minority Equality in the Age of Internet Access

Yesterday, I posted an image Janna took over the weekend to my social media circles, and I was surprised to read this morning how concerned some were over what I thought was a joyous image of young Black females in the urban core being involved in a connected electronic Age.  The action was happening on LinkedIn, and here is that discussion — I don’t know if you can read it by default, or if you have to be linked to me first or not — and here is the image that started it all:

Continue reading → LinkedIn and the Promise of Minority Equality in the Age of Internet Access

Posted on

Memeing What You Say: My People, My Home

There’s an Old Black Guy who stands outside the Journal Square Bus station in Jersey City station selling newspapers on the sidewalk every morning.  He greets everyone who walks past him with a hearty, “Good morning, and how are you doin’ this fine day?”  His voice is syrupy and friendly, but since he repeats that phrase to single person who passes by, the genuineness of the greeting quickly becomes lost in the rote citation.

One morning, an Old White Guy came up to the Old Black Guy and I overheard their conversation that I will share with you now.

Continue reading → Memeing What You Say: My People, My Home