Politics

NEW YORK—On the eve of the international political conference in Pittsburgh known as the Group of 20, President Barack Obama addressed a packed main hall of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Making his first appearance before the international diplomatic and peacekeeping body, Obama stressed that expectations of global cooperation now drive American…

Sometimes, friends, maintaining “the complexion” of your pool can cost ya. Just ask the Valley Swim Club, who got tuned up recently for its pigment-averse swimming policies. From CNN: The commission ordered monetary damages for humiliation and embarrassment and a civil penalty of not more than $50,000. The decision noted that none of the club’s…

Despite all increasingly alarmed concern over his approval numbers, President Barack Obama is still flying high with the American people—even as we watch to see if his presidency runs aground as a result of his efforts to reform the nation’s health care system. The doom and gloom story of August was that health care was…

Every time two different people from two different backgrounds get in a dispute, race may color the dynamic, but most often it is not the dominant instigator—never mind what Jimmy Carter has to say about race in America. This isn’t to say that we are post-racial or that racism is dead. We aren’t, and it…

Heavy rains caused flooding that took the lives of at least six people yesterday and the shutting down of parts of four major interstates. From CNN: Widely scattered showers were forecast for early Tuesday, with rain falling on saturated ground. Georgia’s governor declared a state of emergency Monday in the 17 counties hardest hit by…

Summer has ended. Congress has had its recess. And thousands of black politicians, policy leaders and business leaders are preparing to swarm the nation’s capital. Each September, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) hosts its Annual Legislative Conference (ALC). The ALC assembles African-American leaders from politics, business, unions and other industries to address pressing issues facing…

Authorities have found Mesac Damas, a 33-year old Florida man who is wanted in connection with the death of his wife and five children, who were found slain in their home Saturday evening. From CNN: The bodies of Guerline Damas, 32; Michzach, 9; Marven, 6; Maven, 5; Megan, 3; and Morgan, 11 months, were discovered…

In the first few minutes of Brick City, a five-episode miniseries airing this week on the Sundance Channel, it’s easy to see the parallels to HBO’s The Wire. Young and charismatic Newark Mayor Cory A. Booker, 40, is the black Tommy Carcetti. Newark’s gangbangers are Baltimore’s drug kingpins. Then there’s the police director and police…

Nostalgic recollections of The Cosby Show place Cliff Huxtable—Cosby’s duck-walking, sandwich-loving, mugging alter ego—as the smiling patriarch of a well-adjusted nuclear family with two professional incomes in a Brooklyn brownstone barricaded away from the first stirrings of the crack era. It was gently political: “There were no “whitey” call-outs à la George Jefferson, no power-to-the-people…

One of the prerogatives of advanced age is the right to say things that others can’t or won’t. For many people of advanced age, the decision to speak truth becomes non-negotiable, and elision is replaced by a determined and consistent effort to tell it like it is. This can explain the inappropriate uncle at Thanksgiving…