Politics

Dear Wyclef,It pains me to have to tell you this — especially in public. Particularly because it goes to the heart of someplace and something we both care deeply about. But I have to, because as much as I love you, I love Haiti more — so much so that I’m unwilling to put her…

“A few years ago, people could not vote simply because of the color of their skin,” recalls Georgia Congressman John Lewis, former chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). “You had to count the number of jelly beans in a jar or the number of bubbles in a bar of soap. Black teachers and…

Naomi Campbell’s testimony at the Special Court for Sierra Leone was the culmination of a decade-long exercise in vulgarity. How the British supermodel ended up in the trial of Charles Taylor, a warlord accused of 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, troubles me for a plethora of reasons. This is not about…

A couple of years back on Real Time With Bill Maher, the ubiquitous Cornel West was asked if black folks were decidedly more homophobic than other groups. Parsing his words carefully, the ordained Baptist minister said, “I don’t think we are any more homophobic than anyone else.” Maybe not, but certainly not any less. The…

President Barack Obama made a campaign promise that he would not leave New Orleans and the Gulf Coast hanging in their post-Katrina recovery. As the fifth anniversary of that tragic storm approaches, it’s time to take inventory of how much Obama has lived up to that promise. Since Hurricane Katrina and the levee-breaching floods that…

There are many legitimate reasons to critique the recently enacted Dodd-Frank financial-services reform bill. Most of its shortcomings fall into the “it doesn’t go far enough” category. And in one instance — the unfortunate decision by Congress to exempt automobile dealers from the bill’s new oversight requirements — it doesn’t go at all. The enactment…

Apparently President Obama didn’t get the memo that birthdays are the equivalent of holidays for black people. We can’t count the number of times we’ve heard, “I’m taking tomorrow off because it’s my birthday.” Well, like many of us who think that’s ridiculous, President Obama is doing what he normally does on his 49th birthday:…

President Obama has offended Dr. Cornel West. West details the incident in an NPR interview. It seems that during their last meeting, the president made a “beeline” for Dr. West, and then “demeaned” and “humiliated” him over West’s criticism of Obama and the White House. West says the president talked to him as if he…

Beginning last week, President Obama’s approval rating is now the lowest it’s ever been, with just 45 percent of Americans saying they’re satisfied with the job he’s doing, according to Gallup. With the economy still flagging, the WikiLeaks fiasco looming over Afghanistan and an embarrassing run-in with new populist hero Shirley Sherrod, the president, who…