Politics
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Our Next President Is a Thin-Skinned Twitter Troll, so What Does This Mean for Artists Who Criticize Him?
It’s often difficult to resist the urge to let my eyes roll to the back of my head at peak Janet Jackson speed upon hearing the declaration that X issue is a distraction from Y, the bigger, more important matter at hand. Yes, in media, superficial stories can often be assigned more attention than their…
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Jill Stein Calls for Recounts in Mich., Wis. and Pa.—But Why Is She Leading the Charge and Not Hillary Clinton?
Throughout election night, the Clinton campaign comforted themselves with the belief that her “blue wall” would ultimately secure her presidential victory. Then, one by one, to the surprise of just about everyone in America, including the Trump campaign, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin all went red. These are states that not only were polling in Clinton’s…
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Black Radicals Owe a Great Deal to Fidel Castro
The Harlem audience was determined to cheer everything Nelson Mandela said, which meant that ABC Nightline anchor Ted Koppel had to accept that he was at a disadvantage—what he called “a hometown crowd.” It was 1990, and black America had been in the throes of Republican leadership for a decade. The Cold War had not begun…
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Tips From White People on Hating the President
As we prepare to enter the Trumpian era and return to the days when white supremacists openly rejoiced in victory and the White House kitchen had no seasoned salt, the question remains: What is the etiquette for living under a president whose mere presence makes your skin crawl? If President Barack Obama’s legacy leaves America…
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If Trump Succeeds in Defunding Planned Parenthood, Black Women Could Be Affected the Most
President-elect Donald Trump has galvanized conservatives with his promise to defund Planned Parenthood Federation of America, one of the nation’s largest health care providers and advocates. He has written (pdf) that he is “committed” to defunding the organization “as long as they continue to perform abortions,” and to reallocate its funding to community health centers…
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Trump’s Federal-Workforce Plans Will Blow Up the Black Middle Class … and a Lot More
If you’re black and work for the federal government, you were among a small, but very anxious, crowd of election night viewers who watched the results stream in with all the intensity of a football fan who had just bet his house on a bad playoff game. As any chance at an Electoral College victory…
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The Voters Who Never Got to Cast Their Ballots
A 2013 Supreme Court decision hung ominously over the 2016 presidential election as Congress left for the campaign trail in October. While voters were being inundated with campaign ads and constant coverage of the 2016 election cycle, there was little media coverage regarding a sizable segment of the U.S. population that would be excluded from…
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Under Trump, Roe v. Wade May Face Its Greatest Threat Yet
If you click on the websites of pro-choice advocacy groups such as the Center for Reproductive Rights and NARAL Pro-Choice America, you find a clear call to action for those who support a woman’s right to an abortion, codified in the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. In the wake of the election…
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The Black Middle Class Is About to Get Trumped
When Donald Trump launched his presidential campaign with a racist tirade against Mexicans, he began the short process of renormalizing the racist sentiments that white people had been taught to hide since integration started 60 years ago. He literally made it cool for white America to be openly racist again: In just over a year,…