Nov. 27, 2008—In this season of thanksgiving, I’m grateful for women. Not just my female friends, relatives and colleagues but women whose oft-uncelebrated sacrifices keep the world running. Women like the ones President-elect Barack Obama has lost, and the one with whom he remains. They all remind me of a beautiful, little-known song: “Roots and…

Black people aren’t the only ones worried about embarrassing themselves now that Obama is president-elect. Here are a few pointers for white people. 1. Don’t personally congratulate all your black friends. Black people are not a sports team, and Obama did not win the Super Bowl. 2. Don’t declare that you “never thought you’d see…

In the two years since Sen. Barack Obama announced his bid for the presidency, black Americans have been on an emotional roller coaster. Only recently have many of us allowed ourselves to envision what once seemed impossible: A U.S. president who is a person of color. With Obama leading in national pre-election polls, the suspense…

My mom has never had a black person as a peer. What I mean is, she’s been around black people all of her life, but—besides a brief period in grad school—her social surroundings have made it so that she’s never really had black friends, colleagues, bosses or boyfriends. And I’m beginning to suspect that it’s…

As our country prepares to make history next week, I have been thinking a lot about race. My father came to America from Bangladesh to pursue his education and a better life, just like Obama’s father. He expected that hard work would be rewarded. Like other immigrant families we rarely discussed race; it was assumed…

Mix’ology: noun. The art and science of mixings In these final days of this presidential campaign, John McCain and his supporters have been trying desperately to raise doubts about Barack Obama’s identity. They have called him a terrorist sympathizer, a socialist, an unrepentant liberal. For weeks, their tagline has been “Who is Barack Obama?” The…

On a recent morning, a normally hidden employee of the “Steve Harvey Morning Show” stepped into the spotlight and made a bold confession. The security guard, whose nickname is Big Boom, had not voted in all of his 53 years. He explained that he had never registered or voted because he could not read. He…