Search results for: “node/olopade”
-
Black to the Future?
A 100th birthday is a terrible thing to waste. Mindful of that fact, the NAACP has embarked on an all out celebration at its centennial conference in New York. It has attracted almost 2,500 delegates, including Gen. Colin Powell and Attorney General Eric Holder. President Barack Obama will also address the gathering. In all likelihood,…
-
Swagga Goes International
Is Jay-Z George Bush? SLATE sister site FOREIGN POLICY recently compared hip hop to geostrategy. Mark Lynch takes on the recent back-and-forth between rapper Jay-Z and less successful (though still famous) MCs like The Game, Nas, and 50 Cent, using Jay-Z’s diss tracks, and his responses to those of others, to form a crudish theory…
-
Sonia Sotomayor's Confirmation Hearing: The Drinking Game
The first session of judge Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing was a meaningless display of platitudes. Some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee, like Lindsey Graham, saw the writing on the wall: “Unless you have a complete meltdown, you are going to be confirmed,” he told her. And with that said, just about everyone else in…
-
The New King of Pop is a Queen
The two weeks since Michael Jackson’s death have been awash in tributes and testimonies to the man and his music. Yet the tide of nostalgia and revisionism that has gripped the entire planet obscures a nagging truth: The very idea of superstardom may have died with Michael. After all, so many of the eulogies have…
-
Obama Taps Regina Benjamin as U.S. Surgeon General
President Obama today announced his intention to nominate Dr. Regina Benjamin to the position of United States Surgeon General. In doing so, Obama adds to his roster of daring and creative appointments: Benjamin is a Morehouse-trained physician and specialist in rural poverty and health outcomes who would be the second black woman to serve in…
-
VIDEO: Obama Speaks at Slave Fort in Ghana
Barack Obama rounded out his trip abroad with a stop in Accra, Ghana over the weekend. There, he spoke to the nation’s parliament and paid a visit to a maternal health clinic in Accra, before finishing up with a moving visit to Ghana’s Cape Coast Castle—the point of no return for thousands upon thousands of…
-
Dining Without the Dictator
Barack Obama and his family will touch down in Accra, Ghana this weekend, and while it’s significant that Obama comes to Africa as the first American president of African descent, the trip will have none of that Return-to-the-Motherland feel, in part because he’s already done that (see Dreams from My Father). Nor will it produce…
-
Before Obama, Google Gets to Africa
Hours before president Obama touches down in Ghana, good news for Africa and Web 2.0: (Via the Stimulist) Google’s mission is well-known by this point: to organize the world’s information. But now Google is focusing on making sure that the world includes Africa. Many of their search functions to this point have been available to…
-
Obama's Russian Drive-By on the Public Health Plan
As anyone following the health care debate knows, the next several decades of interaction between patients, doctors, insurers, and the government are being hashed out furiously behind the scenes in Washington. In this volatile environment, the slightest hint of a weakness or a concession among congresspeople, or a new study on savings, is treated as…
-
Mulatto Lit: Asking the Hard Questions on Race in America
Starting with “Dreams from my Father”, the president’s 1995 memoir, and perhaps before, bookstores have embraced a literature of interracial family mysteries that explore both America and identity—and frequently return to race. I recently sat down with Ralph Eubanks, a fantastic writer and a great wit, about this phenomenon, and his new book “The House…