Politics

It is very dangerous for an administration to follow too closely to the advice, or marching orders, of ideologues on the right or the left. There is also great danger in responding too quickly to what might be no more than willful lying passed off as fact on a network like Fox News, which takes…

A disturbing magazine cover recently crossed my desk, announcing in big, bold print that Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin and the NRA will be hosting a “Restoring Honor” rally in August. It’s being held at the Lincoln Memorial, a place that honors America’s most revered president — the one who saved our union, freed African slaves…

Once upon a time, the ultimate concentration of black political power in Brooklyn lay in Weeksville, a strategically planned village of free black property holders that began in 1838 in what is now Bedford-Stuyvesant. “Weeksville was created to be a political base,” says Jennifer Scott, director of research at the Weeksville Heritage Center. The settlement…

President Obama’s strong support in the Hispanic community may be waning. The Nielsen Company and Stanford University sponsored a survey that shows that President Obama gets “lukewarm ratings” on issues important to Hispanics, which could have a negative impact on his party and him. For a group that supported Obama so heavily in 2008 and…

Here is what I anticipate: Jim Webb, the senior senator from Virginia, will soon be both vilified and lionized in the ”media” for attacking affirmative action as wrong-headed and divisive. And one result is that the intense conversation we’ve endured in recent days about race in the wake of the sacking of Agriculture Department employee…

The NAACP and the National Urban League are among those blasting President Barack Obama’s education-reform plan. Seven education and civil rights groups released a six-point plan for equitable and sustainable national education reform in this country in response to the plan proposed by Education Secretary Arne Duncan. They are calling for an end to Duncan’s…

First lady Michelle Obama will travel to Spain next week for a “private mother-daughter vacation.” While there, she will meet with King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia. The White House did not disclose whether she would be taking both of her daughters on the trip or where in Spain she would vacation. Contrary to published…

David Swerdlick is an associate editor at The Root. Follow him on Twitter. 

Feel that black folk have been whited out by the media? Here are the numbers to prove it. The latest study of news coverage by the Pew Research Center shows that just 2 percent of the stories were about African Americans. The single biggest story was on the arrest of The Root’s editor-in-chief, Dr. Henry Louis…

President Obama — through White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs — suggested that the past week of conversation about race, notably the case of Shirley Sherrod, was a “teachable moment.” Granted, there is a lot for many folks to learn through that fiasco. However, those who could most gain from these lessons are the Tea…