Politics

I know how the “tea party” people feel, the anger, venom and bile that many of them showed during the recent House vote on health-care reform. I know because I want to spit on them, take one of their “Obama Plan White Slavery” signs and knock every racist and homophobic tooth out of their Cro-Magnon…

You probably heard that a little differently when you were younger—that it’s not always what you say, it’s how you say it. And that’s often true—depending on the tone, a phrase like “you knucklehead” can sound like a scold, a frustrated endearment or a dismissal. So yes, your mother was right—how you say what you…

In the end, some African-American pro-life and pro-choice advocates see President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care reform measure as a major defeat. Now, both sides have pledged ardent campaigns against elected officials who voted for the landmark health care reform legislation that passed late Sunday and was signed into law on Tuesday by the president.…

As the Great Recession’s scythe slices through industries, states, cities and neighborhoods, African Americans have received the most devastating wound. Blacks, and particularly African-American males, have suffered disproportionate rates of unemployment and underemployment historically, for reasons that include weaker educational attainment, lack of connections, less mobility, a high percentage of workers in blue-collar jobs and…

“This is what change looks like,” President Obama said after succeeding where Bill Clinton, Lyndon Johnson and Harry Truman failed. On Sunday, as comprehensive health-care reform was becoming a reality, some people couldn’t bear what they saw. By early afternoon, Tea Party demonstrators had assembled on the grounds outside the Capitol and begun their familiar…

With his signature piece of legislation, President Obama pulled off what many thought was impossible. Health care reform, which he called “the right thing to do,” has been at the core of his presidency, and today he made the bill official.  Looking on as history was made was 11-year-old Marcelas Owens, the Seattle fifth-grader whose mother died for lack of health insurance. According…

Who knew Twitter was a haven for would-be assassins? Apparently, 140 characters is all you need to hatch a plan that involves murdering the president. What happens now to the two men who took to the social networking site to post their disturbing messages remains to be seen, but the Secret Service is now launching an…

Yesterday, the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, passed an enormous, politically daring overhaul of the American health insurance and health care delivery system by a margin of 219-212. President Barack Obama, expected to sign the bill into law later this week, rejoiced with a high-five. And yet in…

Tracey Bruno was fired up and looking for some answers on Saturday when she entered the cavernous convocation center of Chicago State University to hear Tavis Smiley’s much-publicized panel about the black agenda. But all she got was talk, she said. “When you have these panel discussions, there is nothing concrete, like you can do…

The popular trend these days has been to state that black America does not need a specific agenda to cure its ills; that, in essence, black America’s agenda is America’s agenda. Tavis Smiley’s counterargument does ring true in many regards: Without the strength, talents and support of black America, all of America suffers. There is…