Michelle Alexander: The uncomfortable truth, however, is that crime rates do not explain the sudden and dramatic mass incarceration of African Americans during the past 30 years. Crime rates have fluctuated over the last few decades — they are currently are at historical lows — but imprisonment rates have consistently soared. Quintupled, in fact. And the vast majority of that increase is due to the War on Drugs.

Michelle Alexander: They’re missing in churches, missing from their families, missing from college campuses, and absent from work. Black women can’t find a man to marry. Black children don’t know where to find their fathers. Where are those guys?

Michelle Alexander: The clock has been turned back on racial progress in America, though scarcely anyone seems to notice. All eyes are fixed on people like Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey who have defied the odds and achieved great power, wealth and fame.

Carl Matthes: Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town and a Nobel Peace Price winner, has lent his name to the fight against homophobia saying, “Homophobia is a ‘crime against humanity’ and ‘every bit unjust’ as apartheid.” Brad Pitt, in a 2007 Vanity Fair interview of Tutu, remarked, “So certainly discrimination has no place in Christianity. There’s a big argument going on in America right now, on gay rights and equality.”

Steve Ybarra: But now to the question of the day: Why is it that the Gay and Lesbian movement leaders have never taken their rainbow progressive flags and marched in large numbers with those who seek immigration reform or in today’s MLK marches all over the US? Why did they abandon us?

There seem to be some indications, however, that the sparse political will in Congress that has historically placed reparations on the legislative agenda may be waning. Michigan House member John Conyers may be giving up on his 20-year fight to legislate the case for slave reparations in America.

I have to admit that I am sad to see L.A.’s top cop leave. While my opinion may not be in the majority as it relates to Blacks here in Los Angeles, Police Chief William Bratton has definitely been my favorite police chief.

I have faith – and I have faith in America. That is why I am marching to support President Obama in his goals of creating a more perfect union for all of America – and to support our legislators in passing legislation that will save all of our children from religion-based bigotry.

Pentagon Taking Over U.S. Foreign Policy. Some idea of Pentagon dominance over diplomatic approaches may be gleaned from the Pentagon’s $664 billion annual budget compared with State’s $52 billion. “Washington employs more military band members …

But there are thousands, no, millions, of everyday people who have served their time and paid their debt to society, yet they can’t get a minimum wage job flipping burgers. They need a second chance just to survive.

Until this past November 4, I didn’t believe this country would ever elect an African American to the presidency. I still don’t believe I’ll live long enough to see us white people get over our racism problem.

Yet, the long view shows that since this racial system had a beginning, and important changes have taken place, one can venture that it will also have an end. The election of Barack Obama is an encouraging sign.

None of us African-American residents of Cambridge are surprised or shocked by the humiliation and harassment Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., 58, of Harvard University encountered at the hands of Cambridge police.

President Obama knows that solutions won’t arise out of politics as usual. His personification of dignitarian politics resonates not only with Americans but around the world.

I was hoping they would cancel Father’s Day this year, mostly because my son Ezra Malik died.
He was my baby boy, and he died the day before he was born, in a hospital in August …

“Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.” So wrote current U.S. president Barack Obama about his youth.
In May 2009, Jabrai Jordan Copney, a black …

Good Hair
Like most blacks in America, I was raised in an environment where hair like mine, kinky hair, was called “bad hair.”  Straight hair or kink-less hair was “good hair.” I grew up receiving messages …

Per capita, the United States incarcerates more of its citizens than any industrialized nation in the world. Over 2.3 million Americans are living behind bars or under conditions where the state oversees their conduct.
Crime …

In Philadelphia, it is time for a new district attorney. The current D.A. Lynne Abraham is retiring, and none too soon – after 18 years in the position, she has been called “America’s deadliest D.A.” …

In recent times, a trend seems to have emerged. I call it the second wave of the not-always-so-Talented Tenth. This is constituted by an increasingly visible and vocal contingent; they are the crop of African-Americans, …

Before you open that bottle of champagne, can of beer, or bottle of Hennessy in celebration of last week’s decision by the California Supreme Court upholding Proposition 8 and the ban on gay marriage, did …

More than 100 people of all races and all ages traveled to Watts from several California counties on Saturday May 30, sharing a single desire: Bring our loved ones homes. They weren’t talking about family …

Meet one of the “winners” from the Association for Alternative Newsweeklies 2009 awards. The above inflammatory PW cover art is for the AAN award-winning article Hater Nation, an article on an anonymous letter received by …

Sometimes it takes an event (or two) to make plain a reality that nobody wants to talk about. Pervasive police abuse and police misconduct are usually activities nobody wants to acknowledge and nobody wants to …

Klansman and Nazi David Duke was arrested in Prague, Czech Republic, the last week of April 2009: it is a crime to deny the Holocaust. In Germany and Austria, it is a crime to …

Okay so we’re always talking about the number of liquor stores, check cashing businesses, motels, pawn shops, and fast food restaurants in our neighborhoods, but has anyone ever bothered to question the oh-so-stealty move-in of …

ACLU Pasadena Public Forum
“Will we face the torture chambers in our cities as well as on Guantanamo?”
Tuesday, May 12, 7 p.m.
Neigbhorhood Church
301 North Orange Grove Boulevard
Pasadena, California
Hear two of the SF8 tell their story of …

A global conference devoted to addressing racism is having trouble attracting an audience. The event, slated to take place in South Africa next week, boasts Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as a plenary speaker — and …

So I went to the scene of the crime yesterday afternoon that left a teenage girl dead and a 30-year-old paraplegic arrested for murder.
If I’d driven by too fast, I’d have missed the small makeshift …

Troy Davis faces execution for the murder of Police Officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia, despite a strong claim of innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted or contradicted …

Long before I saw her walking her dog that morning or the guy who was jogging, or that couple move in down the street, I concluded that one way or another, my neighborhood was going …

Who stopped the presses? Obviously, it is a question that many are asking these days.
It is a bit sobering to witness the apparent demise of the newspaper industry. Not unlike dominoes, newspapers around …

Joe Biden was quite out front about it. On the same day the newspapers were trumpeting the news that President Obama had felt a “glimmer of hope” in the economic situation, the Vice-President was telling …

Is the military, with so many career paths open to graduating seniors, an option families really want their sons or daughters to grab on to?
Families need to know the real story and not just what …

I don’t remember exactly when I began to think this way, but looking back, it must have been at some point during my early elementary school years that I began to believe the “American History” …

For many years, African Americans were perceived as being ignorant creatures incapable of thinking and successfully holding leadership positions and roles. However, African Americans are constantly defying this perception and reaching heights beyond any individual’s …

Young men who are re-entering society from prison can’t find work. Recent studies on prisoner re-entry suggest that, in California, nearly 400 prisoners, A DAY, are being released into the community, with 70% to 90% of them being unemployed because only 20% of the state’s employers are willing to hire persons with convictions (no matter how long ago).

Recently, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) was accused of playing the race card when …

For years, doctors and researchers have found that African-Americans with heart disease tend to receive lower-quality care, part of a larger problem of health disparities in America.
Racial segregation may account for some of those differences, …

Famed legal scholar, civil rights attorney and author, Lani Guinier, spoke at Tavis Smiley’s State of the Black Union 2009. The first black woman tenured professor at Harvard Law School, Ms Guinier has authored …

Recently, Rupert Murdoch, chairman of the New York Post, personally apologized for a recent cartoon by Sean Delonas, nicknamed by some “the Picasso of Prejudice”. The cartoon, which depicted a chimpanzee being shot by the …

It was all too predictable that Attorney General Eric Holder would be attacked for his recent remarks about race in America. To suggest that the nation is still haunted by the specter of racism is …

Michael Steele has been selected to lead the Republican Party. He is the first African-American to chair the Republican National Committee (RNC) and the second African-American to chair either of the two major party’s National …

The nation’s most abusive, and aggrieved law enforcement agency, the Los Angeles Police Department, is still “doin’ what it do” as it presented its response this week to a racial profiling study released to its …

by H. Lewis Smith –
In a three-way conversation between Tavis Smiley, Dr. Michael Dyson, and Dr. Cornel West on the justification of blacks using the n-word, the following ideas were exchanged during the discourse:

Who says there are no slaves in America? The greatest domestic issue facing President-elect Obama is not the bailout of the bankers and insurers but the task of lifting tens of millions of hard-working American …

Every Friday the LA Progressive features a comment that was particularly noteworthy. This week we are featuring a comment submitted by TJ Dietderich commenting on the ongoing struggle for marriage equality:

I’ve been watching this same-sex marriage debate for some time and, like most of my community, I’m deeply conflicted about it. As sexual orientation is a deeply personal matter, I chose to remain silent in …

by Rev. Irene Monroe –
As I prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday, I am reminded of the autumnal harvest time’s spiritual significance. As a time of connectedness, I pause to acknowledge what I have to …

by Carl Bloice –
It is hemorrhaging fast and no end to the blood-letting seems to be in sight. No question, something has to be done about the auto industry. But what?

Brian E. Gray, writing for the Los Angeles Times, sees something cool: The long history of the battle for equality for all in this country includes many court fights — some that pro-justice forces have …

Rev. Irene Monroe –

Last week we saw democracy work with the election of Barack Obama as our country’s first African American president. My enslaved ancestors who built the White House could have never imagined that …

The day we all thought we’d never see became a reality this week as the nation took a major step toward racial reconciliation in entrusting the country’s national government to a black man.
President-elect Barack Obama, …

After Barack Obama won the Iowa caucuses by a surprisingly large margin, the punditocracy was troubled. Pundits had virtually conceded the nomination to Hillary Clinton, and now went into high gear explaining the Illinois Senator’s …

Not long ago, after I had written an article in which I discussed white denial–the tendency for most white folks to reject the notion that racism is still a significant obstacle for people of color …

As the presidential poll numbers tighten, I have recently heard the following: the American people are stupid, voters have again been manipulated by the media, working class voters will again vote on cultural, not economic, …

The Democratic National Convention was held this week, amid the hyperbole of the Joe Biden selection as a running mate and one in four Hillary supporters stating that they would not vote for Barack Obama …

by Dolores Nehemiah —
Every now and then we hear of the discovery of treasures of varied kinds. However, recently a group of Community Friends joined together to expose a well-kept secret right in …

I come from a family of four children. I’m the oldest; my sister a year younger; one of my brothers was born 10 years after I was born; and finally our youngest brother was …

The U.S. House of Representatives issued an apology for slavery last week. Something some people have waited for some 10 lifetimes, something others thought would never happen, what was once a significant event that would …