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 The Continent Brooklyn Serves Chic Vibes and Bold Caribbean Twists

Simone Valentine
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 The Continent Brooklyn Serves Chic Vibes and Bold Caribbean Twists

In New York, especially Brooklyn, you can throw a rock and hit ten different options for Caribbean food. But tucked away in the lobby of the Hotel Indigo lies a special dining experience that marries a sexy, sophisticated aesthetic with unique twists on traditional Caribbean dishes. The Continent Brooklyn, located at 500 Metropolitan Ave, serves a curated menu of specialty cocktails and delectable plates for dinner service. The beautiful restaurant was founded by famed Chef and restaurateur Scotley Innis with a vision to “elevate Caribbean dining”. I visited with a friend for that elevated experience and was not disappointed.

From the first step inside, the tone is unmistakably chic. Plush seats and booths wrap around candlelit dark-wood tables, with striking gold fixtures along the walls that add just the right touch of flair. The Continent is a modern space that feels effortlessly upscale.

The cocktails set the mood. Whether you like something sweet, like the “Lychee Love”, or something stronger like the “Just Passion”, there was enough on the cocktail menu to satisfy your taste. The Lychee Love, made with gin, lychee liqueur, and lime, was just my speed as I was able to end each spicy bite of my meal on a sweet note as I sipped. The Just Passion is a fun blend of D’Usse’, passionfruit and vanilla liqueurs, lime, and prosecco. While it is best sipped slowly, it is hard to resist ordering more than one.

There was an impressive offering of appetizers, including Yard Man Oysters, Shrimp Mandu, and Pepper Prawns. My table chose the Tamarind Wings and Oxtail Bao Buns, two dishes that put a delicious twist on familiar flavors. The wings, tender and juicy, were coated in the rich, sweet yet savory sauce that any wing lover will enjoy. The oxtail in the bao buns had just the right amount of spice and was an interesting pairing with the soft, fluffy bun. They were small bites but big on flavor, and left me intrigued and eager to try the main courses. 

The Oxtail Lo Mein was stellar. While the serving size of the appetizer bao bun left me wanting more, the main dish gave me more than enough delicious, savory pulled oxtail. The tender, flavorful meat lay on a bed of lo mein and vegetables that was not greasy and perfectly soft. The Pan-seared salmon was served with callaloo gnocchi, sitting in a heavenly beurre blanc (a white wine butter sauce), carrots, and corn.  The table split a side of mac and cheese, made with three cheeses, of course, that I am still dreaming about. These signature plates, and the menu as a whole, are a quiet flex of Executive Chef Innis’ Caribbean upbringing and Le Cordon Bleu pedigree. 

Where the experience fell a bit short was in the dessert. The coconut lemon cake was the only dessert available at the time I went, and while the presentation was lovely, the taste fell flat. The coconut flakes that topped the dessert tasted a bit old, and the dish was served with a chocolate sauce that didn’t pair well with the lemon flavor of the cake. For a $280 night out, the dessert missed the mark but was a small miss in an otherwise polished experience. The Continent gets the mood, space, and dining experience right and offers excellent service from the wait staff. I would return, in hopes that the dessert selection can expand to match the rest of the menu.

Trade deadline 2026: New York Hoops on Fire — Stars on the Move, Giannis in Play

Eddie Castro
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Trade deadline 2026: New York Hoops on Fire — Stars on the Move, Giannis in Play

By Eddie Castro
As we go to press, the NBA trade deadline is this Thursday at 3 p.m. EST and this could be the most active mid-season trade moves we’ve seen in some time. Teams that are considered postseason-bound will look to add a piece or two in hopes of an additional boost to a long playoff run.

For the Brooklyn Nets this year, the playoffs are unlikely, however, they still have a few decisions to make when it comes to arguably their three best overall players in Michael Porter Jr., Cam Thomas and Nic Claxton. Reports are that Brooklyn is seeking at least two first-round picks in exchange for Porter Jr. Who is having a breakout year in his first season with Brooklyn averaging 25.6 points per game to go along with 7 rebounds and shooting a career-best 40% from the three-point line.

As of this point, unless General Manager Sean Marks receives an offer he feels the team can’t refuse, Porter Jr. is expected to remain with Brooklyn for at least the remainder of the year.


Thomas is the most likely blue-chip player to be moved at the deadline. The team offered Thomas a 2-year/$30 million deal in the off-season, which he turned down as it is reported Thomas is seeking a long-term deal in the range of $30-40 million annually.

He decided to sign the $6 million qualifying offer for this year and will be an unrestricted free agent this summer with all signs pointing to a divorce between Thomas and the Nets. The Nets are hoping to receive more youth players or picks in any possible trade involving Thomas.

Claxton will most likely be on move out of the three with contending teams seeking a player with size and a defensive presence, both of which Claxton excels at a high level. Claxton was drafted by Brooklyn in the 2019 NBA Draft. Along with Porter Jr., Claxton’s trade value should be high as he is currently having his best season with the Nets thus far. Marks has gone on record in saying Claxton is a core part of the team’s future.


As for the New York Knicks, the team is currently on a six-game winning streak recovering from a tough part of January which saw them go 2-8 in a 10-game stretch. Now that things seem to be firing on all cylinders once again, New York is reportedly amongst a handful of teams that are interested in trading for Milwaukee Bucks Superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.

The Miami Heat, Los Angeles (Lakers), Golden State Warriors, and Minnesota Timberwolves are also believed to be in the mix for a trade. On the New York side of things, a third team would most likely be a part of completing any trade scenario.

Milwaukee is seeking draft compensation which the Knicks are low on if we’re talking first-round picks, and a couple blue chip players to build around. Names like Karl-Anthony Towns, Mikal Bridges, Jordan Clarkson, Tyler Kolek, and Pacome Dadiet are the most likely names to watch for in any trade package involving Giannis.

Aside from Giannis, players like Pelicans point guard and Williamsburg Brooklyn’s own Jose Alvardo as well as teammate Yves Missi, Mavericks forward Naji Marshall, and Spurs forward Jeremy Schoen are a few players to watch for as the Knicks seek another wing defender and possibly an energizing consistent backup point guard for Jalen Brunson.


Although it appears both teams are aiming to make moves for different purposes, it is expected that both New York teams will be active come the week of the February 5th deadline. Brooklyn will look to perhaps stockpile on a few more first or second-round picks as they continue to build for the future while their neighbors across the bridge are looking to add potentially a few more pieces in hopes of finally making their first NBA Finals appearance in 26 years. If any Breaking News occurs, please be sure to tune in to Sports Talk with Eddie podcast tonight to catch the latest moves around the NBA.

Pan Africanism Prospects in 2026:Happenings in South Africa, Hispaniola, Ethiopia, USA

Kazembe Batts
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Pan Africanism Prospects in 2026:Happenings in South Africa, Hispaniola, Ethiopia, USA

By Jeffery Kazembe Batts
IG: @kazbatts
African people around the world are suffering. Pan-African unity has been suggested as a possible solution to the problems affecting the people. There is a lack of consensus on this philosophy and tactic. Can we people of African ancestry, build together? In the mix are historical and cultural perspectives and new ideas from emerging organizations that downplay prioritizing Africa.


In June 2021, Nhlanhla “Lux” Dlamini, also Nhlanhla Mohlauli, founded Operation Dudula in Soweto. It is a South African nationalist movement and political party that advocates for the removal of undocumented and documented foreign nationals, often linking migration to local social issues. “Dudula” means “force out” or “knock down” in Zulu, reflecting its goal to expel immigrants. has been linked with violently threatening and targeting both documented and undocumented foreigners.

The South African High Court ruled that Operation Dudula’s actions are unlawful and unconstitutional, affirming that only police and immigration officers may request identity documents. The organization has since registered as a political party.


Lack of Pan-African unity prevails in the Caribbean. Targeting Haitian immigrants became widespread during the second term of the Dominican president, Luis Abinader, whose government imposed the new quota in October 2024, when 15 measures to “combat illegal immigration and guarantee national sovereignty” were announced.

Under pressure to meet a weekly deportation quota of 10,000, the Dominican Republic’s general directorate of migration (DGM) is now pushing into bateyes, where impoverished Haitian sugarcane workers live. Raids are increasing, and even people born in the Dominican Republic – with documents or not – are being rounded up and deported, flagrantly disregarding laws, according to human rights organizations. This intensified enforcement comes during a rise in nationalist sentiment.

Most Dominicans – 59% – believe that immigration harms the country, well above the regional average for negative views towards migrants.


Although the African Union is headquartered in Addis Ababa, many Ethiopians do not identify as African. Patriotism is common among Ethiopians. Many feel their country has great cultural depth and wealth in comparison to other African nations. Somewhat problematically, Ethiopia has been organized as an ‘ethnic federation’ since 1995.

This means that the country’s states are divided on an ethnic basis, with most people living in the region or zone where their ethnicity is the majority. For example, most Oromos live in the Oromia region, Amharas live in the Amhara region, and so forth.

The idea behind this state system was to allow ethnic groups more political autonomy. However, after thirty years, this ethnic identity has created more sectarian conflict on the ground. Nonetheless, most people living in central Ethiopia prefer to identify as simply “Ethiopian” but are still required to associate with an ethnic identity.

Habesha is commonly used as a unifying word to describe the unique cultural identity of the region, regardless of ethnicity or tribe. The Habesha identity is often considered emblematic of Ethiopia’s distinctiveness within Africa. Having never been fully colonized, Ethiopia is somewhat of a cultural anomaly on the continent. The term African is rarely their first identity.


All is not lost, as a Pan-African reality is being built in West Africa. On January 28, 2024, the three nations composing the Alliance of Sahel States announced their withdrawal from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Then, on February 15, a meeting of the Alliance member countries was held in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), which laid the foundations for the creation of a confederation of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.

On March 6, the Alliance also announced the formation of a joint anti-terrorist force and in May it finalized the draft treaty creating the Confederation of the Alliance, with the aim of completing the draft text relating to the institutionalization and operationalization of the Alliance of Sahel States. Recently, on July 6, 2024, the first summit of the Alliance of Sahel States was held in Niamey, Niger, which saw the adoption of the Treaty establishing the Confederation of Sahel States and which also addressed issues and challenges common to the three countries, including security and defense, terrorism, and economic issues.

To start this new year of 2026 in a display of cultural solidarity, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have joined forces to produce a musical comedy titled A Sahel Vigil, using art as a space for dialogue, memory, and reflection on the region’s pressing security challenges. On stage in Ouagadougou, actors from the three nations—each severely tested by violence—merged theater, dance, and music into a performance intended to foster hope, love, tolerance, peace, and social cohesion.


Here in NYC and across the United States, Black Solidarity Coalitions believing in Pan-Africanism are active. Simultaneously, organized groups are challenging the fundamental principles of Black / African unity exposed by leaders like Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey. Foundational Black American (FBA) and American Descendants of Slavery (ADOS) (FBA) refer to a lineage of Black people in the U.S. whose ancestry traces back to the enslaved people brought to America, distinct from recent African immigrants.

To the members of these two growing organizations, the issue is lineage and specific ancestral history within the U.S., not just being Black in America. They distinguish themselves from African immigrants. arguing the term “African American” blurs their unique experience, though the concept is debated and seen as divisive by many.


Solidarity and shared purpose by nation-states are growing in West Africa while also being culturally challenged in Ethiopia and on the island of Hispaniola (Haiti & Dominican Republic). New organizations that are against migration and not prioritizing African / Black unity are growing in prominence in South Africa and the United States. The concept of Pan-Africanism is alive in some areas and challenged in other places. In 2026 more strategizing and bold actions are needed so that Pan-Africanism can grow and positively impact the world.

Congress Set to Put the Heat on ICE

Mary Alice Miller
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Congress Set to Put the Heat on ICE

By Mary Alice Miller
It was almost like deja vu all over again. The threat of yet another government shutdown loomed over the country, stopped by last minute negotiations. Last time, it was over ObamaCare subsidies. This time, it was the extrajudicial murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minnesota by ICE personnel.
Those murders sparked widespread protests that were heard in Congress.


While most agencies were funded for a full year at the end of the government shutdown in November, legislators had until January 30 to fund the remaining agencies via six appropriations bills to avert a partial government shutdown.
The DHS bill included an additional $10 billion to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), on top of the already $76 billion over the next four years under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.


But Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said he and other Democrats would not support the funding package unless a bill that funded the Department of Homeland Security was removed.
“I will vote no on any legislation that funds ICE until it is reined in and overhauled, and Senate Democrats are overwhelmingly united on this issue,” said Schumer. “These are not radical demands. They’re basic standards the American people already expect from law enforcement.”


Senate Democrats refused to vote to fund DHS unless changes were considered, including unmasking ICE agents, judicial warrant requirements, and allowing local authorities to help investigate any incidents.
Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune tried to resist the changes, but Trump struck a deal with the Senate after seven Republicans joined all Democrats in the vote last Thursday, Thune agreed to split the DHS bill from the rest of the package.


In a deal reached last Thursday, the DHS bill was separately considered under a continuing resolution as a stopgap funding bill that would fund the agency at current levels for two weeks until February 13. The other five bills were considered together, passed, and sent back to the House.
“What’s clear to me is that there needs to be dramatic change at the Department of Homeland Security,” said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries in an interview on PBS NewsHour.


“Fundamentally, we believe that ICE should conduct itself like every other law enforcement agency in the country,” Jeffries said. “Police officers don’t wear masks. Sheriffs don’t wear masks. State troopers don’t wear masks. There’s no justification for the manner in which ICE is conducting itself in terms of masks. They should be required to have body cameras. They should be required to obtain judicial warrants before they can rip everyday Americans out of their homes or out of their cars.”
Schumer and Jeffries held a joint news conference on Wednesday.


“Democrats have common sense, tough objectives to reign in ICE. There are three broad categories we all agree on,” said Schumer.
“One, none of these roving patrols. You can’t just stop anybody on the street. You can’t just pick them up and not even tell them why they are picked up, put them in some dark place, no access to a lawyer or a phone. There are certain places they shouldn’t be able to go in: Churches, synagogues, schools, election places. There should be no racial profiling as these bands of goons roam the streets.


“Two, we need real accountability. There has got to be oversight, outside independent oversight by state and local governments by individuals. There has got to be a right to sue, a right to go to court, and stop this.
“And finally, no secret police. This group that needs to be identified more than any other group should have a standard much more lenient and hidden than other police forces? We need cameras and specific as to how they ought to be used. They need identification, and no masks except in extraordinary and unusual circumstances.”

“We Refuse to Be Silent”

Editor, Our Time Press
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“We Refuse to Be Silent”

Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men

We Refuse to Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men
Edited by Angela P. Dodson
Broadleaf Books, 33 pages. 2024

“When I think about my son sometimes, I can’t breathe. I can’t allow myself to even visualize him out of the world, moving, just being a young man in America. If I did, I would never let him out of my sight.”
Donna Hill, Author
“A Mother of Suns” in We Refuse to Be Silent

Donna Hill’s fear for her son speaks to the premise of Angela P. Dodson’s edited collection of compelling essays in the book, We Refuse to Be Silent: Women’s Voices on Justice for Black Men (Broadleaf Books, 2024). Dodson’s book contributes to the national conversation on the nature of injustice and the strategies needed to address police brutality, reforms in policy, prison reform, systemic racism, the rise of a police state, and the violent arrests and brutality levied towards Black men and, more recently, immigrants of color in this country. Drawing on essays by 35 women journalists, scholars, psychologists, and ministers, Dodson has compiled a powerful testament that documents Black women’s refusal to remain silent regarding injustice and their responses and analyses of this state of affairs in the United States of America.


The introduction to We Refuse to Be Silent opens with the words “Another Black man, some mother’s son, some woman’s husband, somebody’s brother, some child’s father will die.” “Emotion” and “Activism,” parts one and two of the volume, present essays from writers including Elizabeth Alexander, Donna Brazile, Tananarine Due, Audrey Edwards, Gloria Browne-Marshall, and Isabel Wilkerson, among others.


“The Trayvon Generation.” This is the name that Elizabeth Alexander gives to young people who have grown up in the past 25 years. These are the young people who have been witnesses to the killing of Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Tyre Nichols, Sean Bell, and others. The media has inundated them with images and stories of violence and tragic killings in a variety of public spaces.

Alexander advocates immersing our sons in experiences that give them joy and the power of communal self-expression. She provides examples of poets, filmmakers, playwrights, musicians, and artists who have given us ways to express our fears. “We are no longer enslaved. Langston Hughes wrote that we must stand atop the racial mountain ‘free within ourselves’” are the closing lines of her essay.


In “I’m Just Different;’ Disabled at High Risk of Harm by Police,” Dodson recounts the tragic story of Elijah McClain, a twenty-three year old massage therapist and violinist who, while walking home from a convenience store in Aurora, Colorado, is stopped by police officers because someone has called in about seeing a suspicious character. Elijah is wearing a ski mask because he is cold.

When the officers approach him, they put him in a carotid-control while he pleads to them: “ I was just going home. I’m an introvert. I’m just different. That’s all. I’m so sorry. . .” His words are a desperate call from a man who may have mental challenges. Elijah is eventually taken to the hospital and is announced dead as a result of cardiac arrest. An image of his words goes viral on social media, and cam video footage of the officer’s violent actions becomes available.


The response to Elijah highlights the fact that many Black men who are targeted by the police suffer from some form of disability or mental illness. Dodson cites research documenting the fact that up to half of all people killed by police in the United States are disabled and that almost all well-known cases of police brutality involve a person with a disability.


Jackie Jones’s story of her 20 year old son being arrested because of mistaken identity in the essay “Two Tonys: Black Man and Prison,” is a chilling account of what can happen to Black men who do not have the support and resources to turn to when they are subjected to intense interrogation by police officers because they may have the same name as another person. Her son, Anthony P. Jones, narrowly escapes being sent to the penitentiary. Jones’s opening statement, “Every parent of a teenager or young adult fears the phone call in the middle of the night,” will resonate with many mothers.


Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in the essay “The Emerging Movement for Police and Prison Abolition,” introduces readers to Mariame Kaba, an educator and organizer whose book We Do This Til We Free Us: Abolitionist Organizing and Transforming Justice provides an overview of the literature on abolitionist politics. Writers in the book advocate that increasing rates of incarceration have a minimal impact on crime rates.

In other words, if there is a mismatch between crime and harm, what is the intent of the criminal justice system? Kaba argues that the criminal justice system is really a “criminal punishment system.” This concept is at the core of abolitionist politics, a concept based on the belief that people can change in changed situations. It is antithetical to the current criminal justice system, which assumes that millions of people require policing, surveillance, containment, and prison.


Gloria Browne-Marshall, in her essay “Why They Kill Us,” issues a call to action: “We can heal generational trauma and push back against the murders with litigation, legislation, and protest.” Her statement affirms Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s warning that “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”
Angela P. Dodson is a journalist, author, a former senior editor for the New York Times, and a former executive editor of Black Issues Book Review.


Dr. Brenda M. Greene is Professor Emeritus and Founder and Executive Director Emeritus of the Center for Black Literature at Medgar Evers College, CUNY. For more information, visit https://www.drbrendamgreene.com

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