A Little Less Than “Magic”

The Washington Post editorializes on Republican National Committee Chair candidate Chip Saltsman’s distribution of a parody musical CD with a song entitled “Barack, The Magic Negro.” — Our initial reaction to the “Barack the Magic Negro” controversy was to ignore it.

Black Auto Workers Hit Particularly Hard By Recession

DETROIT — Since millions of African-Americans began leaving Southern farms for Northern factories nearly a century ago in what is still known as the Great Migration, the destinies of many of them have been entwined with the auto industry’s. The car companies were hardly multiracial utopias, but they, especially Ford, employed blacks when many industries [...]

Donna Brazile: Patience Required

Donna Brazile writes in The Washington Times: I was at the post office the other day, rushing to get my last-minute gifts and packages off to family and relatives before I left town. As I waited in a long line, a woman approached me from behind to ask my opinion on the president-elect. “Did you [...]

Study: Murders among black youths on the rise

WASHINGTON — The number of young black men and teenagers who either killed or were killed in shootings has risen at an alarming rate since 2000, a new study shows.  The study, to be released Monday by criminologists at Northeastern University in Boston, comes as FBI data is showing that murders have leveled off nationwide.  [...]

Eugene Robinson: The Year of Madoff

Eugene Robinson writes in The Washington Post: For anyone taking stock of 2008, Barack Obama is the inevitable choice as Person of the Year. But he’s not the only American whose story suggests that this thrilling, dramatic, unforgettable year will be seen as a demarcation of grand historical eras, a bright line between yesterday and [...]

Zimbabwe Needs a Port in Its Storm of Afflictions

David Coltart, a senator and member of Zimbabwe’s Movement for Democratic Change, writes in The Washington Post: There is a perfect humanitarian storm in my country. The threats of AIDS, poverty, hyperinflation and malnutrition, and now cholera, combined with a regime that has given up on its people, add up to an all-but-untenable state of [...]

A Way to Help the World’s Women

Marianne Mollmann, director of women’s rights for Human Rights Watch, writes in The Washington Post on the need to end impunity for rape: I have a project for Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton to work on together: ending impunity for rape. Rape-conviction rates are appallingly low across the globe. I don’t mean only in countries [...]

Joint Center: Preliminary Analysis of Blacks and Election 2008

The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies provides its initial analysis of Blacks and Election 2008.  “This analysis is a brief review of some available evidence regarding the November 4, 2008 election. In particular, this review focuses on the election of President-elect Barack Obama, the behavior and significance of African American voters in the [...]

NYT Columnist Bob Herbert: Stop Being Stupid

Bob Herbert urgently writes, I’ve got a new year’s resolution and a new slogan for the country.  The resolution may be difficult, but it’s essential. Americans must resolve to be smarter going forward than we have been for the past several years.  Look around you. We have behaved in ways that were incredibly, astonishingly and [...]

From Goddess to Gangstress: The Devaluation of the Diva

Paul Scott writes from his No Warning Shots Fired blog about the devaluation of women in music and in life: My friend, Jae told me about an incident that she recently had on her way home from work. These two teenagers were having a loud public/ private discussion in the back of the bus, tellin’ the [...]

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