Posts by Phillipe Copeland

Faith and Race: A Dialogue Worth Having

Article first published in the Newsletter of the  Parliament of the World’s Religions According to the Abrahamic traditions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam and the Baha’i Faith, the universe itself was spoken into being. This offers a fitting metaphor for the promise of interreligious dialogue, the promise of a new creation. Like the speaking into being [...]

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I Am George Zimmerman (Sometimes)

Article first published as “I Am George Zimmerman (Sometimes)” on Blogcritics.com Agony and outrage have swept the nation in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin. African-American mothers and fathers have been pondering the possibility that he could have been their son. The “hoodie” has emerged as a symbol of solidarity, a rebuke to [...]

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Love Cannot Be Legislated

Article first published as Love Cannot Be Legislated on Blogcritics. The Supreme Court will be taking up the controversial issue of affirmative action this year. Many are concerned that the court will ultimately strike down the use of race as a criterion for college admissions.Whatever the court decides, it is safe to say that the [...]

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The Soul of Black Consumerism

Article first published as The Soul of Black Consumerism on Blogcritics. Jayne Dirt over at the Clutch Mag Online has raised a question worth pondering during these waning days of Black History Month: “Is Hip-Hop to blame for the rampant consumerism among Black Folk?” Dirt contemplates the apparent disconnect between the glorification of consumption in [...]

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Whitney Houston and the Power of Music

Article first published as Whitney Houston and the Power of Music on Blogcritics. The news came out of nowhere. I was co-facilitating a weekend seminar for people of African descent at the historic Greenacre Baha’i School and Conference Center. A participant stated without looking away from his iPad, “Could we have a prayer for Whitney [...]

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American Dreamer

The essence of the American Dream can be captured in two words: upward mobility. On more than one occasion, I have written about how for those left behind by the Great Recession, the American Dream has become a dream deferred. Research recently reported on in the New York Times suggests that the problem is deeper [...]

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Meaning Making: The Ocean of My Words

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote:

“There is nothing in the world…that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is meaning in one’s life.”

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The Ocean of My Words

In Man’s Search for Meaning, Holocaust survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote: “There is nothing in the world…that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is meaning in one’s life.” In the Baha’i Faith, the primary source of meaning in life are the words of Baha’u'llah [...]

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Gene Marks is Right

Article first published as Gene Marks Is Right on Blogcritics. Once again, someone has picked up their keyboard and whacked the hornet’s nest of contemporary racial discourse in America. This time it was a self-described “short, balding and mediocre certified public accountant,” named Gene Marks, writing for Forbes magazine. Marks used the occasion of President [...]

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Money Cannot Be Eaten

Article first published as Money Cannot Be Eaten on Blogcritics. As the last of the Occupy encampments are swept away across the nation, few can fail to recognize that whatever the future of this movement, its activists have successfully “occupied” public discourse. Some see President Obama’s recent speech in Kansas as an indication of this [...]

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