Politics

Congratulations, Andrew Breitbart. You might have just cost the Tea Party my vote. Last week when I wrote ”How the Tea Party Could Get My Vote” for The Root, I said what should already be pretty obvious: There are plenty of African Americans who enjoy conservative talk radio, who bristle when paying their income taxes and…

During a news conference, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack expressed regret and publicly apologized to Shirley Sherrod for firing her. Vilsack admitted that he did not think before acting, so “this poor woman has gone through a very difficult time.” Vilsack said he made the hasty decision on his own and was not advised to do…

Let me say—putting all my cards on the table so to speak—that the Sherrods are my friends. Charles Sherrod, the husband of the now controversial, fired USDA official Shirley Sherrod, was one of the founders and leaders of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). We worked together. So what are we looking at? Well, the…

With the Obama administration’s hard-fought passage of financial reform, Americans are waiting with bated breath and open wallets to see if their windfall is on the horizon. While people of all races have struggled in the past few years, black Americans have been disproportionately affected by the recent economic collapse, and many are eager to…

Now that the Senate Judiciary Committee has voted along party lines to confirm Solicitor General Elena Kagan for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court (and full approval by the Democratic-controlled Senate seems like a shoo-in), a new chapter in the court’s history will begin. Kagan will join a court whose conservative majority has aggressively…

This firing of USDA official Shirley Sherrod has more drama than an episode of As the World Turns. Sherrod resigned after a tape surfaced that seemed to show her for making racist remarks about withholding help from a white farmer. Conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart posted the clip and Fox News ran it. Sherrod insisted that…

I feel bad for Shirley Sherrod. Not just because she lost her job. Not just because it may be that she did not do what she is accused of doing. Not because her only crime may be the very postmodern transgression of being on video and out of context. (Hear her remarks in context here.)…

President Barack Obama called out Republicans today for blocking much-needed unemployment benefits for the millions of Americans out of work. The emergency relief extension has been blocked three times by Senate Republicans, who insist that extending the benefits will keep unemployed Americans from looking for jobs. Come again? The president and other Democrats also pointed…

On ABC’s This Week, Vice President Joe Biden stated that he does not think the ultra-conservative Tea Party is racist. Taking a page from the Whoopi Goldberg-Mel Gibson debacle, he stated, “I wouldn’t characterize the Tea Party as racist,” but “there are individuals who are either members of or on the periphery of some of…

In his first campaign appearance, South Carolina’s surprising U.S. Senate candidate Alvin Greene made his first public speech, in which he tackled education, jobs and justice. He started off with a joke and moved into those issues quite quickly, rattling off statistics. In the 6 1/2-minute speech given at the local NAACP’s monthly meeting, Greene…