The National Action Network held its 12th annual convention last week in New York City. I attended the first day, but missed the black leadership forum, “Measuring the Movement.” Broadcast live on TV One, the forum was “designed to determine and commit to significant and measurable goals that will advance the standing of African Americans [...]
Continue reading …A few weeks ago I read an article in the Sunday (NY) Times about the new scope and focus of right-to-life organizations around the country. The benefactors of these good works and services are a group both familiar and dear to me~young African-American women. Imagine this… A local college or university campus center is screening [...]
Continue reading …Did a White Sheriff and district attorney orchestrate a race-based coup in a Northern Louisiana town?
March 29, 2010 Comments OffOriginally published on the Huffington Post. In the small northeast Louisiana town of Waterproof, the African-American mayor and police chief assert that they have been forced from office and arrested as part of an illegal coup carried out by the region’s white political power structure. In a lawsuit filed last week, Police Chief Miles Jenkins [...]
Continue reading …It all started with The Root. The staff constructed a somewhat comical list of black folks they’d like to erase from black history. (Think Flavor Flav, Marion Barry, and The Apprentice’s Omarosa Manigault-Stallworth.) Okay, I thought, we can toast to that. Then came John McWhorter, the conservative scholar and author, who created his own, more [...]
Continue reading …John Mayer's longing for blackness is a"Very" wide-open window into U.S. race relations
February 12, 2010 Comments OffIf you aren’t up on U.S. slang, a “hood pass” (more often called a “ghetto pass”) is usually a verbal expression of approval by a person of color toward a white person. It is intended to convey that the white person has enough positive rep or credibility to come to “my” neighborhood and hang out with “my” people. It’s a nice compliment because it signifies acceptance and trust, but, of course, it has absolutely no meaning to anyone other than the person giving out the “pass” and the one receiving it, at least not for those of us without Mayer’s fame.
Continue reading …The pink elephant in the room: domestic violence in the Black community
February 11, 2010 Comments OffGrowing up in a home where tempers and rage often led to domestic disputes, I feel personally connected to the anxiety a woman feels when she is maliciously attacked and trapped in a deadly situation. Unfortunately, I have witnessed a hand full of women repeatedly fall prey to their violent and manipulative partner. I often [...]
Continue reading …By John Telford In 2003, nearly half a century after the 1954 Supreme Court decision in Brown vs. Board of Education had decreed that “separate but equal” schools are inherently unequal, I was the only retired school superintendent in America who has ever dared to return to teach in an inner-city high school. The school [...]
Continue reading …It’s apparently more cost efficient to be married than it is to be single. Well, perhaps not in all cases, but there does seem to be benefits that are pretty good and, so far, largely unattainable for single people. Though many have delved into the financial pros and cons of being married versus single, [...]
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