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Here’s Why More Attention Needs to Focus on Black Men
In our pressing public discussion about what troubles the souls of black folk, there are times when the conversation can seem phlegmatically black-man-centric. Instead of saying “unarmed black people shot by police,” we accept “unarmed black men” as the default. Yet we know that black women are being gunned down or brutalized at alarming rates,…
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Liberal Friends, if You’re Worried That Blacks Are Getting Shut Out of Politics, Show Us the Money
In a recent series of rants against the evil of money in politics, prominent progressive public intellectuals have been experimenting with the new narrative that unregulated high-rolling balls of dark campaign cash are fundamentally racist. That’s obviously a racially charged notion. And given the all-powerful “cash rules everything around me” ethos that’s rapidly transforming American…
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It’s Time to Stop Blaming Black-on-Black Crime
For every unarmed black man, woman or child killed by unrestrained police officers, there’s an intellectually impoverished response when black people get visibly upset about it: What about black-on-black crime? There was a time, in another surreal reality not so long ago, when conservative pundits reflexively grimaced at even the mention of it—and, oh, that…
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Why Is Israel Kicking Out the Africans?
A few days into an educational trip to Israel in 1991 shortly after the mass airlift of Ethiopian Jews into the country, my jaw dropped when a Jewish official casually described the arrival of the Ethiopians as an opportunity to beef up Israel’s Olympic running team. More than two decades later, and it appears that…
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In the Rush to Aid Baltimore’s ‘Minority-Owned Businesses,’ Will Black Businesses Be Left Out?
Prominent black conservative political activist Ali Akbar couldn’t contain his right-side-of-things glee. Just moments after a random reporter’s tweet described Republican Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan’s dismay at the loss of more than 200 “minority-owned” local businesses in the Baltimore unrest, Akbar grabbed the Twitter mic in a May 3 burst of awkward black outreach. “So…
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Post-Baltimore, Most Americans Believe Unrest Was Just One Big Criminal Act
The results are in: A majority of Americans think the Baltimore unrest was just another mad, black riot. The Pew Research Center surveyed the top five reasons an anxious public considered for the unrest, including anger over Freddie Gray’s death, frustration with police-community relations and the socioeconomic challenges. The poverty narrative didn’t stick, with 61…
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Baltimore Just Became a Political Epicenter for 2016
Baltimore may be a much calmer city this week than last, but don’t let the placid fog of cleanup and obligatory Loretta Lynch visit fool you. Long stretches of ghetto still remain. The lack of jobs is something Charm City’s leadership has yet to aggressively address (Where’s the campaign on that?). And Maryland’s shattered urban…
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Why Should Ben Carson Care About Black Voters? They Don’t Vote Republican
Black people have an awful lot to say about Ben Carson, even if President Ben Carson is pure fantasy. No reason to think otherwise: The legendary neurosurgeon’s bizarre quest for No. 1 gives us little confidence he’s pulling this one off. His Monday announcement in Detroit (you have got to watch it), including an offbeat circus…
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Baltimore’s Slow Burn of Poverty and Hopelessness
Among the more annoying habits of a society appalled by social unrest is its casual dis of the poverty that causes it. Discussing, dissecting and debating police violence and the angry reaction to it (now a weekly exercise) is the easy part. But the harder conversation means grappling with the devil in the socioeconomic details.…
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Police Actually Do Show Restraint—When They’re Facing Armed White Guys
As a ceaseless flat line of tragedies snuffs out the lives of young brothers, one peculiar parallel trend emerges: For every unarmed black man who dies at the hands of white police officers, it seems as if there’s one armed white man who survives such an encounter. In a way, that flies in the face…
