Hi, my name is Dwayne.

I am the son of immigrants from Trinidad & Tobago. I was born and raised in Brooklyn before you could find a latte there. Like everyone else from Brooklyn, I had to let you know.

I’m an educator by trade, and a philosopher and theologian by training. I’m drawn to the traditions in those disciplines that work to help us live more full, humane lives, and that contribute to struggles for justice.

I want my writing to be useful to the communities I care about.

Click here to sign up for my newsletter. Keep up with what I’m reading, writing, and my latest work elsewhere. I’ve written for and America Magazine, Sojourners, the Bias Magazine, the Hartford Courant, the Connecticut Mirror, and the National Catholic Reporter, where I’m a contributing writer.

why ‘left carnival’?

Personal websites annoy me. The self-promotion, however necessary to make a buck, feels craven. (Click here for my LinkedIn.) This feels more authentic to who I am than just a digital landing place for my resume.

Carnival is a celebration of, and insistence upon, Black life. It is an expression of Black people’s willful creativity. It creates community, celebrates art, makes room for pleasure and freedom, and takes up space otherwise constituted by Black exclusion.

The title is inspired by the work of Caribbean Marxist organizer and cultural worker, Claudia Jones. Jones and her comrades organized the London Carnival as a means of constituting the relatively new British Caribbean community on its own terms, and in resistance to the racist violence of native Londoners and the state.