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Talking Whose Talk?
Over at POLITICO, Nia-Malika Henderson writes a great bit on the different voices that belong to President Barack Obama: In January remarks about the economy, Obama made a reference to “American dreams that are being deferred,” a phrase black audiences understood without a citation as black poet Langston Hughes’. First lady Michelle Obama often cites…
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Michael Steele Gets Bum-Rushed
Michael Steele apologizes to Rush Limbaugh for calling him what he is—an “entertainer” and a hack. As an informed friend points out: “I haven’t seen this much deference since GONE WITH THE WIND.” Tsk. Covers the White House and Washington for The Root. Follow her on Twitter.
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A Faith-Based Fix
Read the washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion on A FAITH-BASED FIX with The Root’s Washington reporter Dayo Olopade. ***** The first month of Barack Obama’s presidency brought change to all parts to Washington—none more sweeping than the passage of his American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, designed to shock the U.S. economy out of its slump. A notable…
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All in Love is Fair
Yesterday, the East Room of the White House, the same chamber where Barack Obama held his first, sobering presidential press conference just a week prior, was transformed—hosting Stevie Wonder in concert, in advance of his receiving the 2nd annual Gershwin Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Library of Congress. Obama is known to be a…
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Duty Calls
It was a poor man’s State of the Union—but we are all poor now! And, like a responsible parent, President Barack Obama wouldn’t let us forget it last night. Despite the sobering tumbles of financial markets and the steady uptick in job-loss numbers, the president asked the American people and their elected leaders in Congress…
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The Media Blows it
Two distinct conversations on race have dominated this February, the first black history month with a black American president. One consisted of a steady stream of outrage over publication of a cartoon in the NEW YORK POST depicting a chimpanzee being shot to death. The other concerned a blunt and, some say, accusatory speech by…
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Visible Man
Eric Holder’s confrontational speech to members of the Justice Department on Wednesday spoke plainly and bluntly about the level of racial discourse in America. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot,” he said, “in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially…
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Crisis on the Color Line
Just before Christmas 1776, colonist Thomas Paine published the first of a series of essays on early American values that would come to be known as “The American Crisis.” In it, Paine, a strong voice for the American colonies’ independence from Britain, wrote of setbacks on the path to liberty as “the times that try…
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A Clean Jobs Corps
The hopeful conveners of the “Good Jobs, Green Jobs” conference held in Washington this week are convinced that they have a solution to the twin problems of a shrinking U.S. job market and the existential threat of climate change. Their answer? Green-collar employment for millions of Americans. We’ve heard of white- and blue-collar work—but green…
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First Kitchen Confidential
Samuel Kass, the 28-year-old cook who served as personal chef to the Obama family in Chicago, will be cooking nightly at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, White House Social secretary Desirée Rogers confirmed for The Root. Kass, who will hold the title of assistant White House chef, is also the son of Robert Kass, Malia Obama’s former…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
