Anthony Samad: Anybody ever stopped to think why Negroes stopped calling themselves Negroes? Because, it was a term of subjugation that turned into a racial designation, to mark black people for discrimination.
The N-Word Debate Resurrected
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Sheria Reid: I do take issue with the prevalent mythology that black people use the word nigger all the time. I’m black and 57 years old. I don’t know all black people but I know a lot of black people. NONE of the black people that I know typically use nigger as a greeting or in general conversation.
When Work Disappears: The Silent Reality of Chronic Black Unemployment
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Anthony Samad: Damn near every street in the southland is torn up from construction, as is damn near every freeway. I purposely look for BMWs (Black Men Working). I rarely see any and I’m not the only one who notices this. It’s often a point of conversation in the circles I run in.
Mass Incarceration: Points of Agreement on the Right and the Left
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Diane Lefer: When a community sees daily injustice and doesn’t see the rule of law equally applied, it becomes morally and ethically easier to choose to live in a lawless way.
The Movie, “The Help”
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Sharon Kyle: As demonstrated in 1973, the Academy Awards can be used as a megaphone to reach those who are oblivious to the continued state of segregation and, as a result, racial inequality that persists in the United States.
Cynthia McKinney Tells It Like It Is: A Conversation with Gary S. Corseri
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Gary Corseri: When I was running for Congress back in 1992–for the first time—I was running to represent the second poorest district in Georgia… and, what I learned was that the poor people gave the most! — Cynthia McKinney
A Mother and Son Talk About Race in America
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Mom: Why do you think Martin Luther King made all those speeches? He would have accomplished nothing by not talking about race and the situation they were in. Son: Because 50 some-odd years ago the issue was awareness. Mom: The issue is still awareness, trust me.
Newt Gingrich and What Black People Need: Intellectualizing Racism
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Anthony Samad: By intellectualizing racism, Gingrich is leaving his signature card with Americans that still have a race problem with Obama. We can’t let it work.
Friday Feedback: Do Newt, Mitt and the Boys Even Like Most People?
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Friday Feedback: This week, an article by Steve Hochstadt, Do Republican Candidates Like Most Americans?, drew a series of comments, supportive and not. We’ll lead with Steve’s aggregate response, then include the observations by others he comments on.
Newt’s Family Values
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Tom Degan: Newt had spent the entire primary subtly pressing all of the right racial buttons and it worked out for him better than even he anticipated.
Medical Self Defense and the Black Panther Party
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In her new book, Columbia professor Alondra Nelson documents the multifaceted (and under-reported) health activism of the Panthers.
The New Culture of Making Nothing Out of Something
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Anthony Samad: The Los Angeles taxpayer would be astonished with the number of unexcused absences council members have, but these two small-minded council persons — Parks and Perry — wanted to send a message and get some press out of it—and they did.
Blacks and Occupy: Dividing the Occupy Movement
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Carl Bloice: Occupy activists are thinking deeply about how we might incorporate opposition to racism, class exploitation, homophobia, xenophobia, ableism, violence done to the environment and transphobia into the resistance of the 99%.
Will Obama’s Job Speech End Political Gamesmanship?
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Anthony Samad: I’ll be curious to find out how many people were hired from the CBC job fairs around the country. Or was it another “smoke and mirrors” engagement to make politicians look good?
Philly’s Mayor’s Message to the Youth? Yeah, Right.
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Jasmyne A. Cannick: It was another case of yet another Black leader passionately voicing the frustration of his generation with younger generations of Blacks by preaching to the choir.
Not All Black Democrats Subscribe to ‘But He’s the First Black President’
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Jasmyne A. Cannick: Me — I long fell out of love with the President. I don’t talk about it much because doing so can be a detriment to your well-being in certain company.
Redistricting and California’s African Americans
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Jasmyne Cannick: The bottom line is that they can draw all the Black voter-friendly districts they want but if Blacks continue on this mass exodus to the South, there won’t be enough Blacks left to vote anyone into office and the ones that are left won’t have the same adoration for the political process as their ancestors.
Black Women: Lighter Skin, Lighter Prison Sentence
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Jessie Daniels: Women deemed to have light skin are sentenced to approximately 12% less time behind bars than their darker skinned counterparts. Having light skin also reduces the actual time served by approximately 11%.
Our Fellow Felons
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Hannah Petrie: Even though the rates of drug-dealing and drug-using occurs equally among different races – (think weed here) whites deal to whites, blacks deal to blacks, Hispanics to Hispanics – it’s the people of color who get busted. And once you’re labeled a felon – and denied access to employment, housing, and other rights — your chances of returning to a straight and normal life are extremely low. It is a system designed to keep felons felons.
The New Geography: Today The Middle East, Tomorrow Zamunda
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Jasmyne Cannick: It’s no secret that news out of Africa and about Africans is no daily consequence in most national newscasts and that when we do make the news, depending on the region — countries in Africa end up in this fictional continent known as The Middle East.
Cops Are Missing the Bad Guys While Profiling the Black Guys
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David Love: Reading 12 Angry Men: True Stories of Being a Black Man in America Today made me angry, not because the subject matter was brand new to me, but because it was far too familiar – not only as a black man, but also as a human rights advocate who worked with police brutality victims and their families back in the 1990s, and decided to go to law school as a result.
To Be Atheist, Feminist, and Black
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Sikivu Hutchinson: Sadly, there is still a fair amount of ignorance and bigotry toward black non-believers in African American communities due to the stereotype that atheists are immoral, rudderless, and not authentically black.
The Other Down Low: Sagging
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Jasmyne Cannick: Don’t expect an end to sagging by Black men in or out of prison coming anytime soon. Heavily influenced by mass media, what started off as a signal for other prisoners that one was gay, is now a part of pop culture.
Can’t Wait to Hear What He Had in His Hand This Time
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Anthony Samad: The LAPD shot and killed another Black man. Why weren’t two trained law enforcement officers able to subdue an unarmed, naked man? I’d like to know how this happened. I just wanna know what he had in his hand that would justify the use of lethal force.
Trust Black Women: Remove the Billboards
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Jan Robinson Flint: It is reprehensible that someone would use Black children as a tool to attack Black women for political purposes.
“My Daddy Is a Presbyterian Preacher”
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Berry Craig: My town — and many more like it across the South and in border states like Kentucky — was deeply divided by the color bar. I didn’t see it because it didn’t affect me. Before meeting Cecil Horton, black people were invisible to me, as in the title of Ralph Ellison’s famous novel.
Color Blindness
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Steve Hochstadt: Our nation also has far to go. Claiming that we are color blind, that whites no longer have privileges in America, that we need no longer worry about preventing discrimination is nonsense. One need only have observed the reception of our first black President to know how important skin color still is in America.
“Voices” — What a Sizzling Saga
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Ed Rampell: Voices: A Legacy to Remember does have a memorable story combined with snazzy costumes, great foot stomping choreography and finger snapping music, from traditional Negro Spirituals to Gospel to Jazz,
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