Jay Smooth
Splinter
New York, NY, United States
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Jay Smooth
Jay Smooth is the host and founder of New York’s longest running hip-hop radio show, WBAI's Underground Railroad, airing since 1991 and recently cited by Chuck D as home to "the best hip-hop conversations." In 2007 Jay began his award-winning video commentary series at Illdoctrine.com, which has been highlighted on NPR, CNN and MSNBC, where Rachel Maddow hailed Jay as a “genius.” → Read More
Our New Video Series '#RaceAnd' Captures the Essence of Intersectionality
"#RaceAnd," an eight-part series from Colorlines’ publisher, Race Forward, breaks down how race mixes with, well, everything. → Read More
Jay Smooth: Sandra Bland, Sam DuBose and the names we'll never know
In this installment of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth looks for lessons — and signs of hope — in these grim few weeks of news dominated by the tragic deaths of Sandra Bland and Sam DuBose. → Read More
Jay Smooth: 12 symbols of Southern pride actually worth celebrating
In this installment of the Illipsis, Jay takes on the Confederate flag and considers the ways in which Southerners can take pride in their culture without celebrating symbols of white supremacy. → Read More
Jay Smooth: On Amy Schumer, comedy & dealing with criticism
In this installment of the Illipsis, Jay Smooth looks at the very human tendency, especially among comedians, to respond to criticism defensively. → Read More
"Empathy does not preclude accountability:" Jay Smooth on Rachel Dolezal
Last night, while I was in the midst of making a video on the Rachel Dolezal situation, the news broke of this horrific racist killing in Charleston South Carolina. → Read More
What not to do when covering a woman running for President
Another election season is getting underway, which means another season of superficial, trivialitizing and downright insulting coverage of the women who run for office. → Read More
The problem with political horse race journalism
In this installment of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth welcomes the presidential campaign season by railing against the ubiquity of "horse race" journalism. → Read More
"Why do they never try to save them?": On Walter Scott
In this edition of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth's thoughts on Jay-Z's streaming music service Tidal are interrupted by the latest national tragedy: 50 year old African American father Walter L. Scott was shot in the back eight times while fleeing a police officer after a traffic stop went horribly wrong. → Read More
Racial Me Time, or, how to recover from awkward racial conversations
In this installment of the Illipsis, Jay Smooth speaks out publicly about his much-publicized appearance last week on MSNBC's "All in with Chris Hayes." "Apparently it turns out that when a visually ambiguous black person feels compelled to explain their blackness, that is America's favorite thing to watch in the world," Smooth says. → Read More
"If my defense of racism was a Robin Thicke song, would I get sued for it?"
In this installment of the Illipsis, Jay Smooth laments the endless cycle of gaffe, backlash and defensiveness that dominates media coverage of racism, and wonders how the "purists and connoisseurs" of racial justice can dig deeper for the vital conversations that don't get as much airplay. → Read More
Struggle, success and celebrating Selma
Jay Smooth honors the 50th anniversary of the marches in Selma and looks at how the struggles of leaders like MLK can inform how we make progress today. → Read More
The Oscars and learning the craft of being good
In this installment of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth turns a critical (side) eye to the Academy Awards. → Read More
Rudy Giuliani: Same old dog, same old dog whistle
Advertisement Dear America, I see Rudy Giuliani is drunk-texting you about “love” again. → Read More
Marshawn Lynch and the Theater of Disobedience
In this installment of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth caps off the most recent NFL season by celebrating "this season's real MVP," Seattle Seahawks running back the Marshawn Lynch, whose ornery standoffishness should be considered a kind of guerrilla theater. → Read More
Why Kendrick Lamar is right. Even though he's kind of wrong
The latest installment of The Illipsis tackles rapper Kendrick Lamar’s recent comments on youth activism, and what our expectations should be for both artists and activists. → Read More
The Illipsis: 3 lessons from hip-hop history every activist should know
We’re just one day away from the launch of RiseUp!, Fusion’s ambitious new summit celebrating youth activism around the world, so it seems as good a time as any to announce our new bimonthly video series, The Illipsis, written, starring and produced by DJ, video essayist and cultural critic Jay Smooth. In this first episode, […] → Read More
The Illipsis: On Ferguson, riots and human limits
In this second installment of The Illipsis, Jay Smooth looks back at the week’s events in Ferguson and asks how we can truly apply Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s advice that “riots are the language of the unheard.” update 12/1: Thanks Andy Baio for transcribing this video → Read More