Politics

Nov. 17, 2008—People think of George Bush as being the first evangelical president. But Barack Obama may bring his own evangelical flair to Washington. For all the significant changes Obama is expected to usher in, religion may be one that some people didn’t see coming. If the past eight years have been dominated by prominent…

For a split second, a recent essay on The Root called “Sudan on the Rebound?” allowed me to feel a bit hopeful. The images of commerce, opportunity and multiculturalism in a bustling East African town—in Sudan, no less—conjured fond memories of my own travels. Those memories abruptly faded with Zachariah Mampilly’s suggestion that seeking justice…

For months before my family left upstate New York for Houston, I lay awake at night worrying about where our oldest child would attend school. Then I’d wake up from my scanty slumber to begin the daily Internet quest for the “perfect” school: one we could afford (tuition-free) that scored well on statewide tests, had…

By now we’ve become familiar with the Negro Spirit Guide in pop culture. Think Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost, Sister Act and The Long Walk Home. Laurence Fishburne in Searching for Bobby Fischer and The Matrix. The Matrix was a twofer: Fishburne leads Keanu Reeves’ character to another black guide, Gloria Foster. Sidney Poitier made a…

Somebody forgot to tell gay people that race wars are no longer in vogue. While the rest of the country has spent the last week reveling in the afterglow of Grant Park, gay America has devolved into a Sarah Palin rally. The issue is a particularly nasty California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, which passed last…

Barack Obama went to the White House Monday to begin the transition to his presidency. He arrived, protected by the Secret Service, in a chauffeured limousine, to enter the front gate as the president-elect of the United States of America. Yes, this does confirm that Nov. 4, 2008 really did happen. A black man did…

The news that Barack Obama’s confidant and transition team co-chair, Valerie Jarrett, may be the president-elect’s choice to replace him in the Senate tells you two things for certain: 1) How attractive a seat in the U. S. Senate is for anyone interested in political office. 2) How indebted Obama is to Jarrett for his…

I thought a lot on Election Day about limitations, how we as Americans agreed both explicitly and implicitly, from the nation’s founding, that a black man would never become president. Masters certainly knew it. And from the wretched status to which they were consigned, the slaves no doubt could scarcely imagine it. Yet, in a…

Now that Barack Obama has claimed the presidency, it’s natural to wonder how and with whom he will govern. To pull America out of the multiple and mounting crises that it now confronts, he needs the House and Senate to be a well-oiled legislative machine. The fresh wave of Democratic candidates that surged into Congress…

The landslide election of Barack Obama represents something extraordinary—but not just because our president-elect has brown skin. What is equally extraordinary is the rainbow-colored, mass movement that consolidated itself to catapult him into the White House. Even as we celebrate the phenomenon that is Obama, let us not lose sight of an even bigger phenomenon—that…