Politics

So suppose we did it? Suppose we Talked About Race as so many say we do not? Desmond King and Rogers Smith have just said, to great acclaim, that neither major party has wanted to talk about race much since the 1970s. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley’s Poverty Tour is nominally about the poor, but…

The builders of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial at the National Mall had to pay $761,160 for the right to use King’s words and images, according to financial documents obtained by the Associated Press. The money went to Intellectual Properties Management Inc. — a foundation controlled by King’s youngest son, Dexter. Another…

The president chose Labor Day to promise to challenge Republicans on jobs. Addressing a large crowd of union members in Detroit, Obama promised to put a jobs program before Republicans this Thursday. “We’re going to give them a plan and say, ‘Do you want to create jobs? … Show us what you’ve got.” Last Friday’s…

Fifty-seven years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the standard of “separate but equal” in our education system was one that is fundamentally unequal — and, moreover, is un-American, unconstitutional and immoral. In the nearly 60 years since the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, we have seen incredible progress. But we…

The last month has been about the worst in Barack Obama’s presidency. For the third time in the last year he got left naked at the poker table by Republicans as Eric Cantor walked off with his Bears hat in the debt ceiling negotiations, his resident haters are running around the country telling his base…

The Associated Press is reporting that Democrats are tiring of President Obama’s concessions to the GOP on matters large (tax cut for the wealthy) and small (timing of jobs talk). President Obama has yielded to House Speaker John Boehner in a string of concessions that have unnerved Democrats and emboldened Republicans. A chorus of Democratic…

“How come I’ve never seen you people before?””Because we are the people you do not see.” This exchange, between a gangster who traffics in human organs and a Nigerian illegal immigrant cab driver in the British film Dirty, Pretty Things, drives home the central theme of Stephen Frears’ 2002 drama about the underground lives of…

A federal judge in Alabama has delayed for one month the enforcement of that state’s tough new immigration law, set to go into effect this Thursday, Sept. 1. Responding to challenges to the suit from the U.S. Department of Justice, social-justice groups and religious organizations around the country, Judge Sharon Lovelace Blackburn on Monday indicated…

Every family has one, but leave it to President Barack Obama’s uncle to show up at an inauspicious time. Sixty-seven-year-old Onyango Obama was arrested in Framingham, Mass., on suspicion of drunk driving, according to the Associated Press. The uncle, who was being held without bail on an immigration detainer, told police that he planned to…

In a cavernous ballroom at Washington, D.C.’s convention center last Friday, nearly 2,000 guests gathered for the “Women Who Dare to Dream” luncheon honoring women of the civil rights movement. Originally planned as a lead-up to the postponed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial dedication, the glittering affair featured remarks and performances from civil…