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Elite Playlands, Obama Sightings and Serious Discussions
The first black president of the United States and his family hunkered down at one end of a small island, and some of the best and brightest African Americans gathered at the other end: so close, but yet so far away. Maybe it reflects the breadth and range — and the limitations — of what…
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Black Republicans Reject Palin's Support for Dr. Laura
A leading black Republican is upset about Sarah Palin’s tweet supporting Dr. Laura Schlessinger, the radio talk show host who couldn’t stop saying the n-word. Timothy Johnson, who as chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation works to get African-American Republican officials elected and increase the ranks of black members of the party, says that Sarah…
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Shun Charlie Rangel? Not in a New York Minute
If you wanted proof of Charlie Rangel’s extraordinary clout in his hometown, go no further than the Grand Ballroom of New York’s Plaza Hotel on Wednesday night. The congressman’s 80th-birthday party is his traditional campaign fundraiser, and there was speculation for weeks in the media that politicians would stay away in droves to avoid the…
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Sherrod Will Sue Andrew Breitbart
Shirley Sherrod says she will file a lawsuit against conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart for posting a video that wrongly portrayed her as racist. The former U.S. Agriculture employee told a packed session at the annual convention of the National Association of Black Journalists in San Diego that she would “definitely” take legal action against Breitbart.…
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Journal-isms: More Illegal Immigrants Die Crossing into the U.S. Than U.S. Troops in Afghanistan
“The article was largely buried in most newspapers, if run at all,” columnist Edward Schumacher-Matos wrote Thursday for the Washington Post Writers Group. “So many bodies of unauthorized migrants are being found in the Arizona desert this month, the Associated Press reported, that the Pima County Medical Examiner was stacking them like boxes of fish…
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Memories of Mad Men
When I watch Mad Men, I’m taken back to my summer job after high school in the mid-1960s. I worked at an insurance company in midtown Manhattan whose office looked a lot like the set of the popular television show. The men wore ties and white shirts. The women wore dresses and heels — and…
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Shirley Sherrod, the Media and Conservative Fantasies
The best thing that could come out of the injustice done to Shirley Sherrod is a warning to America of the explosive danger of allowing a volatile topic like race to be driven by proto-journalists with political agendas in a news ecosystem that has no quality filters or brakes. In this new age of unregulated news…
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Lost in Port-au-Prince
I am lost in Port-au-Prince. This is the city where I was born, where I lived as a child, where I came back to live in my 20s, and where I have returned to visit a couple of dozen times since I started living abroad. But I am bewildered, suddenly not knowing where I am…
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It's Time for African Americans to Lock and Load
I’m starting a new organization, and I’m inviting all African Americans to join. It will be called the American Rifle Association. Yes, it will be an organization for all blacks who love guns and all those opposed to gun control. (And of course, to avoid any accusations of discrimination, the organization will be open to…
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The Truth Behind the World Cup's Post-Racial Image
Over the past two weeks, the 2010 FIFA World Cup has been held up as an ideal of racial harmony. The soccer tournament is taking place in South Africa, a country that has undergone a largely peaceful transformation from racial apartheid to democracy. Teams from England and France are models of diversity, with the latter…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
