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Does Race Trump Gender?
Oprah Winfrey has been widely criticized by white feminists who saw her decision to support Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton as a betrayal that put race before gender. Oprah’s pointed response spoke for many black women whose loyalty to gender and race is also being questioned — and tested. “You know, after Iowa, there were…
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Don't Sleep on the Black Immigrant Vote
Watching Sen. Barack Obama trounce Sen. Hillary Clinton week after week in primary sweeps this month has made it easy for his supporters to imagine him cakewalking his way to the White House. After all, the man has been leaving fans breathless as he rides a wave of momentum from one state to another. Maybe…
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To Denounce and Reject
It was the fall of 1985 when Min. Louis Farrakhan burst onto the New York City political scene. I was a journalism student at Columbia University at the time and, truth be told, I was woefully naive and politically uninformed. I had only a vague idea of who Farrakhan was until he gave a controversial…
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Black Women Are Not Feeling the Feminists' Pain
Note to Geraldine Ferraro, Gloria Steinem, and complainer in chief, Hillary Clinton: Get over yourselves. Your cries of reverse racism, your complaints about overt sexism in the campaign, your vocal protests about media favoritism being shown BarackObama, ring hollow. We are not feeling your pain. None of you are symbolic of female oppression. You are…
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Color, Character, Content: At play in the new “post-racial” politics
It seems like a lifetime ago when some black people were asking if Barack Obama was “black enough” and some white people were insisting that he was “not really black.” Those silly debates seem quaint in retrospect. Back then, people were merely having trouble wrapping their minds around Sen. Obama’s biracial heritage and itinerant upbringing,…
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The Dream Heard ‘Round the World
“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places shall be made plain, and the crooked places shall be made straight and the glory of the Lord will be revealed and all flesh shall see it together. This is our hope.…
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When Jesse Had Game
As news programs around the country marked the 40th anniversary of the death of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. recently, I watched the special reports and documentaries with a mixture of shame and pride, joy and sadness, inspiration and discouragement. I listened to the interviews of civil rights leaders who knew King and the…
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The Trouble With Transcending Race
They both have unique names and amazing life stories. They have legions of adoring fans who find them inspiring. They have sold millions of books and can fill stadiums like rock stars. Few black Americans have occupied the rarified status of Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, two “racially transcendent” blacks whom white admirers find appealing…
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Pangs of Hunger, Pangs of Guilt
Most Americans, even those who have occasionally faced what the U.S. Department of Agriculture calls “food insecurity,” will never experience the depth of hunger gripping poor countries around the globe and triggering a rash of food riots. It is the sort of hunger that causes families to forage garbage dumps to look for discarded food,…
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A Flag Pin? Come on!
B, you’re kidding me, right? The flag pin? Come on. I’ve noticed you’re wearing it again—a lot. I also noticed you’ve been talking about patriotism—a lot. Too much, in fact Now, I have no beef with the flag or with patriotism, but I do when they are used as political weapons by people who think…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
