• What they were doing. What it meant.

    BARBARA BUSH: Leading ‘awful garbage strikes.’ This was a very interesting time to be living in Washington. The Vietnam War was debated at all the dinner parties, and the whole country worried about racial and student unrest. Here is part of my diary entry from April 5, 1968, to show a little of what it…

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  • Clash of The Waves: Feminism in Crisis

    This exchange followed a blog post by Rebecca Walker on The Huffington Post. Anonymous: I disagree with your assessment of this election. I think you are really diminishing how much of a threat Hillary is to the male power structure in America. I have never seen the media make the kind of brazen, non-stop sexist…

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  • The Perilous Politics of Hair

    A strange and sad thing happened to me on my job search this year. I missed out on an opportunity not because of my skills, but because of my hair. I was looking for a little extra money for college this past February, so I applied for a job at my old place of employment,…

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  • Is Nas Hip-Hop's Randall Kennedy?

    Browsing books at a Barnes & Noble in south San Francisco before dinner the other night, I saw a book called Sellout between the aisles, obviously positioned to be noticed. I saw the title of the hardcover, but it was the author’s name that drew my attention: Randall Kennedy, a Harvard Law professor who also…

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  • I'm Black and for Hillary.Get Over it.

    I am a Hillary Clinton supporter. There, I said it. And I’m tired of the dirty looks I get when I out myself. Why is it so surprising that someone like me – a black, educated, progressive chick – would put my support behind Hillary Clinton? Oh, I know. I’m black, so, of course, I…

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  • Who Cares About Black People?

    It’s been two and a half years since Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans. And now, walking through the French Quarter or downtown, one sees absolutely no physical sign that the catastrophe ever happened. Walk through a neighborhood in the Lower Ninth Ward and the same is definitely not true. Acknowledging the contrast, my mind…

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  • Out of Spitzer's Ashes, a New Day

    Like all New Yorkers, I am deeply saddened by this week’s events. But out of the ashes of this firestorm comes renewed hope. When David Paterson is sworn in next Monday, he will become the first African-American governor in New York State’s history. His ascension to the office marks the latest in a growing and…

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  • The Pride of Harlem

    America is being introduced to David Paterson, who will be sworn in as governor of New York on Monday in the wake of Eliot Spitzer’s resignation, as the first African American to hold that office in New York and the first blind governor in the nation’s history. I know him as my childhood friend from…

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  • Where's the Title IX for Black Men?

    Nationwide we are seeing a growing disparity between male and female students enrolling in college. This gender disparity is most severe in the African American community. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have enrollment ratios approaching 65 percent female to 35 percent male. One would think that these schools would want to find creative ways…

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  • O-Dog Speaks. And So Nicely

    Every so often, we all have an experience that completely changes our life. The Wire was mine. I still have trouble believing that I was blessed for two seasons to appear in one of TV’s most admired programs, a show that many college students like myself—and even Sen. Barack Obama—feel is the coolest on TV.…

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