-
Obama's Day, Jan. 23: Presidential Daily Briefing
THE WHITE HOUSEOffice of the Press SecretaryFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FORWEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 2013 In the morning, the President and the Vice President will receive the Presidential Daily Briefing in the Oval Office. This meeting is closed press. In the afternoon, the President and the Vice President will meet for lunch…
-
Who Pays for the Student-Loan Crisis?
(Special to The Root) — The start of the 2012-2013 academic year brought a nasty surprise for thousands of parents of low-income college students. They had kept their sons and daughters in school thanks to a popular federal loan program called “Parent PLUS.” But when they applied for the loans, normally a routine transaction, they…
-
Talking About Race With a Biracial 5-Year-Old
“I never want him to feel ‘less than,’ but I also want him to know of his rich history, ” Melanie Coffee writes at the Huffington Post. … “Mommy, am I one of the brown people who can’t do anything or the white people who get to do everything?” My heart sank a little. All…
-
MLK, Obama and Our Kids' Education
Writing at Beccastone, Charlayne Hunter-Gault says black children must understand that, like Martin Luther King Jr., the legions of young people who walked with him, and Barack Obama, they have no choice but to get an education. As I was preparing to attend the second inauguration of Barack Obama, I kept thinking how appropriate that…
-
Fear of a Black Gun Owner
(The Root) — It may seem hard to believe, but the modern-day gun-rights debate was born from the civil rights era and inspired by the Black Panthers. Equally surprising is that the National Rifle Association — now an aggressive lobbying arm for gun manufacturers — actually once supported, and helped write, federal gun-control laws. In…
-
2013 Inauguration Highs and Lows
(The Root) — With the final inaugural ball finally wrapped up and all of the out-of-town attendees headed back home today, The Root decided to take a look back at the highs and lows of President Obama’s second inauguration. High: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday Hollywood could not have scripted it better. On the day the…
-
Aesop: Black, as Fabled?
(The Root) — This image is part of a weekly series that The Root is presenting in conjunction with the Image of the Black in Western Art Archive at Harvard University’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research. Aesop, the ancient Greek fabulist, is seen here in an animated pose, apparently in the act of telling one…
-
Why I Won't Listen to Beyoncé
Maya Rockeymoore argues in a piece for the Huffington Post that it’s in our collective best interest to tune out the singer’s Pepsi endorsement, for the sake of health and that of our children. You would have to be living in a bubble to have missed the news that Beyonce cut a reported $50 million,…
-
Why Obama's 2013 Crowds Were Better
Monday’s inauguration crowds were smaller than they were in 2009, but was that really a bad thing? Slate‘s David Weigel unpacks how, four years later, supporters in Washington, D.C. — many of whom were African American — were different in their outlook as well as numbers: This was a smaller group than 2009, but it…
-
40 Years Later: Abortion Rights Still Matter
(The Root) — After many Americans finish celebrating the second inauguration of the first black president, many others, including feminists and progressives, will recognize another milestone: the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a landmark Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion. The occasion has also sparked a great deal of reflection on the role of…
Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude
