According to a recent survey conducted by YourBlackWorld.com, 27.3% of African American respondents claim that President Obama’s most recent actions in Libya have reduced their faith in his leadership ability. Roughly 20.8% of respondents claim that the Libyan intervention has increased their faith in Obama’s leadership. Equally interesting is that over half (51.8%) of all black [...]
Continue reading …Japan’s “civilized” response to the earthquake and tsunami has inspired all the wrong questions
March 17, 2011 Comments OffFriday’s devastating earthquake and tsunami have evoked an outpouring of support for Japan. Oh sure, facebook has seen a handful of clever updates like “Japan had it coming…” and “The earthquake is just God’s way of getting you back for Pearl Harbor,” but overall the response has been overwhelmingly supportive, sometimes to a (pardon the [...]
Continue reading …1. Let’s start with the obvious: The author is a white male, part of a group whose voice is vastly overrepresented in the media. Instead of reading yet another piece from a white male perspective, why not read something written by those whose voices are either not heard or marginalized. 2. Chances are, if you’re [...]
Continue reading …An esssay on the life of a remarkable leader. Phoenix, Arizona. January 16, 2011 – The creation of a national holiday to honor the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., gives us an idea of the proportion of the historical importance and the achievements of this man, who has come to be a transcendent symbol [...]
Continue reading …by Dr. Boyce Watkins, Syracuse University – Scholarship in Action One of the proudest moments in my life as a political observer was when Kanye West did something that almost no other artist or entertainer would be astute or courageous enough to do. In 2005, as people were dying in the streets of New Orleans, West used the [...]
Continue reading …Race-talk is American’s national hiccup. This is nothing new. Many perspectives have been bandied back and forth about NPR’s recent and unceremonious firing of conservative commentator Juan Williams. I am personally not a fan of Williams. Even so, his termination was an opportunistic move by an organization looking for an excuse to let him go. [...]
Continue reading …When are degrees from Harvard, Yale and Oxford not enough to prove that you like books? When you are also black, like me. That was the first lesson I learned a few days ago when I was the victim of racial profiling at the law school where I teach. My faculty photo identification was not [...]
Continue reading …Does focusing on individual change distract from fighting structural racism?
October 27, 2010 Comments Off
I’m horribly late to the whole “No Wedding No Womb” thing, but I figured it’s about time to give it a few words. If you’ve missed it, “No Wedding No Womb” (#NWNW on Twitter) is essentially a “don’t have kids out of wedlock” movement started September 22 by Christelyn Karazin (picture below) and targeted [...]
Continue reading …By Meridith E. Rode, Ph.D., University of District of Columbia, When I hear the cries for “going back to the real America” or “taking the country back” I wonder where back is and how far away it is from now. I fear “back” is white reveries of a mythical past which was in reality racist [...]
Continue reading …I think many of us were relieved to see Rick Sanchez fired so quickly after his blatantly anti-Semitic remarks. Frankly, he couldn’t have been let go any faster save his showing up on air with a Hitler mustache which, though inappropriate, would have been quite memorable. But where was the outrage when he called Barack [...]
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