Politics

Jesse Jackson’s 1984 presidential campaign boosted—no, it actually created—the careers of a whole cadre of black political reporters. Barack Obama’s historic capture of Oval Office? Well, not so much. The reasons behind the white-out of the Obama campaign are varied and complex, ranging from the reduction of general political coverage by mainstream media to fewer…

Nov. 27, 2008—In this season of thanksgiving, I’m grateful for women. Not just my female friends, relatives and colleagues but women whose oft-uncelebrated sacrifices keep the world running. Women like the ones President-elect Barack Obama has lost, and the one with whom he remains. They all remind me of a beautiful, little-known song: “Roots and…

Last year on the 2008 campaign trail, them-President-elect Barack Obama proclaimed his culinary love for sweet potato pie. The Root visited Henry’s Soul Cafe in Washington, D.C., which claims it has the “Best Pie on the Planet.” The original article is reprinted below. Watch the video here. By his own admission, he is a man…

Among the many plot twists in the 2008 campaign has been the return of Franklin Roosevelt as a political icon. After suffering years of disparagement as the architect of big government, the deepening economic crisis has given many Americans a new appreciation for the 32nd president. Advisers to President-elect Barack Obama are reportedly reading up…

Being elected leader of the Free World—now there’s something to give thanks for! Intense national interest in your feelings about cranberry sauce, not so much. You win some, you lose some. As the Obamas enter the holiday season as first family-in-waiting, Americans are eager for insight into their celebrations. After all, how they spend Turkey…

It’s been amusing but not necessarily edifying, to watch Barack Obama’s foes and friends attempt to define his presidency before he has even been sworn in. Right-wing commentators reassure themselves that his victory somehow confirms that the U.S. remains a “center-right nation.” Their counterparts on the left debate whether he should model himself more on Franklin…

Nov. 24, 2008—The image of the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. standing on the lawn at Grant Park in Chicago, tears streaming down   his face as he listened to America’s first black president address thousands of adoring supporters, is sure to be one of the iconic images of the historic election It was a poignant…

Nov. 21, 2008—Race in America was the unavoidable topic at the center of the historic presidential election that ended with Barack Obama being chosen as the 44th president of the United States and the first black person to hold the job. It was a wide-ranging discussion that demonstrated just how much the country had changed…

Nov. 21, 2008—Being black in South Carolina is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done. Until recently, my sister and I had two white cleaning ladies. And it seems so humorously ironic. My grandmother, the first in our family to move from the South to the North, made a living cleaning the homes of white…

Nov. 20, 2008—My erstwhile African-American-studies-minored self would love nothing more than to publish a dissertation on why this piece in Salon, written by Erin Aubry Kaplan of the Los Angeles Times, is destructive, superficial and historically unsound. But what would be the point? I would say how dare you continue the objectification of a black woman,…