Politics

There’s no shortage of calls for racial healing or proposals for community initiatives in slowly back-to-normal Ferguson, Mo. But as the dust settles and the tear gas cannisters pile up in recycle bins, a malignant return to that special brand of Ferguson status quo may be what’s really happening. After everything that’s happened over the…

In an effort to avoid a repeat of last year’s partial government shutdown, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are promising action as they return to Capitol Hill after summer break, the Associated Press reports. At the same time, they hope to define their parties for the fall campaign. Last fall, Republican House leaders…

Going into the final stretch of President Barack Obama’s presidency, as Americans—and particularly African Americans—begin to form opinions about his legacy on issues of race (that is, what he’s done for black people), they’ll look back to a couple of great rhetorical moments and key policy successes, but they’ll also remember that he was perhaps…

In politics, getting even 60 percent of the vote is considered a landslide. But in the 2012 presidential election, 93 percent of black voters cast their ballots for President Barack Obama—politics doesn’t even have a word for that kind of margin. So it probably doesn’t come as a surprise that a young, African-American woman like…

President Barack Obama doubled down on his vow to eliminate the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria—the terrorist group responsible for the recent beheadings of two American journalists—Wednesday during a press conference in Estonia. According to an Al-Jazeera report, Obama, using an alternative acronym for the group, issued this declaration: “Our objective is clear, and…

Every so often, an incident symptomatic of deeper issues triggers a release valve for collective despair. The killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., sparked a movement much larger than concerns about the aggressive policing of black men. The marches and protests are a larger commentary about the economic and societal disenfranchisement of black people…

It was only a matter of time. A violent convergence of domestic and international events has us all feeling as if the world is falling off its axis. Headlines telling of rioters rocking Ferguson, Mo., are intersected with constant flashes of black-masked Islamic State marauders leaving bloody trails of decapitated heads as they pillage the…

After saying, two Fridays ago, that “President [Barack] Obama failed in his leadership to say what he really knows and has lived as a black man in America”; then saying, a week ago on Face the Nation, that the president “needs to step up to the plate and be responsible”; and writing, Friday, in the…