Search results for: “node/olopade”
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Getting in on the Green Ground Floor
The opportunity we’ve been waiting for is finally here. African Americans have the chance to get on the ground floor of an economic surge that could give our communities the foundation for long-term health, peace and prosperity. And it looks like something we’ve been doing for a very, very long time—it just hasn’t been recognized.…
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The Root's Green Guide
It’s Earth Day, and for a lot of black folks, sadly, that doesn’t mean much. But at The Root, we’re trying to do our best by the environment. Don’t worry. It’s easy being green. To get started, here are seven tips to help you put your best green foot forward. 1. Recycle 2. Become a Straphanger 3. Go From Four Wheels to…
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Every Shade of Green
For too long, most pundits have talked about the environment as, to borrow a phrase, a “white man’s burden.” Conventional wisdom has portrayed environmental justice as a pet project of beach cleaners, trail hikers, spotted-owl savers and—worst of all—elitists. But here’s the reality: In the fight to save the environment, city dwellers, especially African Americans,…
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Beyond Environmental Justice
The green movement has always had an Achilles’ heel. Environmental issues are typically not like, say, racial profiling or gender-based pay inequity, where the injustice is demonstrable and plain. You’ve got to walk a would-be environmentalist through a few, often complex steps to connect seemingly benign action A with huge catastrophe B. And it often…
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Black Folks, Green Thumbs
At first glance, recent scenes of Michelle Obama planting a White House garden were captivating because of the backdrop. The thought of berries, herbs, spinach, okra, cucumbers, radishes and sweet potatoes sprouting from the South Lawn of the “People’s House” is enough, on its own, to capture the public imagination. But there was something even…
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Greening the Ghetto
On Earth Day here in America, we can take notice that we are 5 percent of the world’s population but that we produce 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases, waste and consumption. We might also want to take notice of an uglier twin statistic from the London School of Economics: The United States produces…
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Forfeit on the Race Conference
The United Nations World Conference Against Racism begins today in Geneva, Switzerland—without the Obama administration in attendance. The United States decided on Saturday to boycott the conference, just as the Bush administration did in 2001, when it was held in Durban, South Africa, amid a firestorm of controversy surrounding elements of the conference charter viewed…
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Department of Nine Lives: Kerry Makes Moves for Peace in Sudan
2004 electoral flameout notwithstanding, Senator John Kerry deserves credit for picking himself up, dusting himself off, and throwing himself into international foreign political issues with the zeal of someone plotting a future run for president. Since losing to George W. Bush, the former soldier has tackled countless unglamorous but important issues that could otherwise be…
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Cuba: The Phantom Menace
When President Barack Obama hits Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago this weekend for the Fifth Summit of the Americas, all of the democratically elected governments of the Western Hemisphere will be there to talk trade, recession and security issues. Well, almost all. The single outcast: Cuba, the undemocratic island nation on which the U.S.…
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“My President is Rich”: Tax Day Remix
Well, it’s April 15, and the returns are in—the presidential ones, that is. Barack and Michelle Obama and Joe and Jill Biden have filed their taxes and released, for public speculation, their accounting. The skinny: The Obamas made an adjusted gross income of $2,656,902 and paid $855,323 in federal income tax and $77,883 in state…