Erin Aubry Kaplan
Erin Aubry Kaplan is an author, journalist and essayist who has been writing about black Los Angeles and wider issues since 1992. She teaches creative nonfiction at Antioch University Los Angeles and current events at the OASIS center in the Crenshaw district.
Had he lived, Malcolm X would have found much to dislike about the atomized state of black affairs. But a new coalition that hopes to institutionalize success for African American students in L.A. would have met with his approval.
For black folks who find themselves permanently in image rehab, everything is political--even gardening.
The fight to put a train stop in Leimert Park is just the latest example of the neighborhood's struggle to establish itself once and for all.
Obama has finally stood up for himself, but not quite in the way I had in mind. What does the underground birther movement that's gone mainstream and won't go away say about the country he's struggling to govern?
Visiting relatives this past week in Vegas--that great exurb of Los Angeles--has been wonderful. But it also reminds me of how they got there.
What would Larry Strauss rather be doing full-time instead of teaching at a small, innovative but racially challenging LAUSD campus on the fringe of South Central? Well, nothing.
When you're trying to make sense of black urban life in the so-called enlightened post-race era, a classic piece of theater can be stranger--and more truthful--than life.
Teaching at a public urban high school that's mostly black and brown but that isn't big and unwieldy definitely has its rewards. Just ask Larry Strauss.
Times are hard, and nothing makes that clearer than doing taxes and summing up what you make, and don't make. But that paltry sum doesn't reflect what you're made of.
Draconian budget cuts at well-reputed Hamilton High School are nothing new under the sun. That's a problem, but so is cutting school resources period--it's like burning the all the villages to save the city.
Searching for a good time on Election Night was tough, even though Tuesday was the day of one of the biggest parties in the western hemisphere
Harold Legeaux, the locally legendary restaurateur and Louisiana Creole mainstay, has died. But his legacy of good food and bon temps lives on.