Politics

Join the washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion on THE REAL DEAL ON THE NEW DEAL with The Root’s Michael Dawson. ***** It is often forgotten that, for all of its benefits, the New Deal reinforced structural black economic disadvantage in many ways. It is certainly true that the Work Projects Administration (WPA) put many blacks to work,…

The word “Arab” is used way too liberally in the American vernacular. Since 9/11 and the advent of our six-year war, the term has become a mutilated mainstay in public debate—a common appropriation, the de facto cultural label for all things Islamic, terrorist-related or alien. During the last presidential election John McCain supporters used the…

SELMA—Forty four years later, the 44th president of the United States is black. Things do change. From behind the gates of the Alabama governor’s mansion in 1965, Peggy Wallace watched as marchers made their way to the state capitol in a stand for voting rights. Her father, then Gov. George C. Wallace, led his state…

Sure, Ken Starr’s a creep who’s made a career as the right wing’s legal hatchet man. But when he told the California Supreme Court yesterday that it couldn’t throw out Proposition 8, he was probably right. Don’t get me wrong: I think Prop 8, which repeals previously granted same-sex marriage rights, is a shameful blemish…

The Rev. Al Sharpton doesn’t accept the New York Post’s apology, but this isn’t new—in fact, for a man of God, Sharpton is quick to take offense and slow to forgive for a state of affairs he might describe as “troubling, at best.” You don’t ask for an apology that you expect to really come…

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

In a few words, Rush Limbaugh has lost it. Not only did he show up at CPAC last weekend to rile up the conservative GOP base, but he challenged the president of the United States to a debate on his show. Is this guy for real? As for my friend and fellow Republican Michael Steele, who…

It’s impossible to have a conversation about fashion in Africa—traditional or contemporary—without talking about the used-clothing industry and how damaging some people say it’s been.   A whole industry has cropped up around apparel that’s been donated to charities located oceans away, imported throughout the African continent and then sold cheaply in African marketplaces. These low…

Tavis Smiley’s genius doesn’t come from his radio and television talk shows, nor does it come from his appearances as a guest social commentator on multiple international outlets. It comes from his formation and continuation of the “State of the Black Union” annual symposium. The genius of the panels during C-SPAN’s most-watched event doesn’t come…

Every day, it seems, financial markets whiplash themselves over nationalization. Obviously, the jury is still out on whether nationalization is the inevitable fate of too-big-to-fail institutions such as Citigroup and Bank of America, already underway via the vast ongoing federal prop-up of AIG, or such a horrific notion that even the French wouldn’t try it…