the browntable

President Barack Obama spoke at the 164th commencement at Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana this weekend. The speech was freighted with political controversy, primarily because Notre Dame is affiliated with the Catholic Church, which uniformly opposes the abortion rights and protections that the president supports. These weeks of tension leading up to the…

This is my 16th day of fasting for Darfur, Haiti (where I visit once a month now) and my hometown, Chicago. I waited until the hoopla of Mia Farrow’s hunger strike was over to announce my decision to do this. I began my fast on May 1st. Only Diaspora people are allowing this pain flow…

The White House announced this morning that it has tapped NYC Health Commissioner Tom Frieden to run the overworked, underfunded U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s a bolder, potentially more consequential choice than it appears to those not familiar with Dr. Frieden. In his seven years as our city’s top doc, the man…

In his first interview as the director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy—otherwise known as the drug czar—Gil Kerlikowske told the WALL STREET JOURNAL that the Obama administration will put an end to the long, failed “war on drugs.” He said: “Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s…

Henry Louis Gates, Jr,. editor of THE ROOT, has been awarded the 2009 Ralph Lowell Award, public television’s most prestigious honor. Announced today by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Lowell Award is intended to celebrate an individual’s outstanding accomplishments and lifelong contributions to the development of public broadcasting. Neal Shapiro, President and CEO of…

The White House is today touting progress on its foreclosure prevention plan. The administration says mortgage servicing firms—the largest of which are owned by the big banks—have offered approximately 55,000 “trial modifications” to struggling borrowers since early March, and have sent letters urging another 300,000 borrowers to apply. These are good numbers, relative to the…

Surprisingly, last night’s American Idol episode consisted of more than just Simon Cowell quips and cheesy segues from Ryan Seacrest. Adam Lambert, Danny Gokey and Kris Allen, the three remaining contestants vying for the top spot, stood on-deck as 15-year-old guest performer, Noah Mushimiyimana from Rwanda blew them out of the water.  His appearance was a…

It was a night that probably made Mos Def jealous, and one that most Americans didn’t see coming. On Tuesday, Barack and Michelle Obama hosted an evening of entertainment that featured poetry, music, and—you guessed it—spoken word. The event, held in the East Room of the White House, featured performances by James Earl Jones, Lin-Manuel…

We’ve known the foreclosure crisis is hitting blacks and Latinos hardest for a while, but the Pew Hispanic Center further substantiates the point in a report released this week. The report summarizes a bunch of new housing data, but here’s the most important stat: Blacks lost more homes between 2004 and 2007 than any other…

Don’t worry—not at Desiree Rogers’ spoken word jam last night. If we thought black comics would forget how to be funny now that we have a black president, boy were we wrong. (See Sykes, Wanda and Foxx, Jamie.) And now, enter Alphacat, one of YouTube’s most viewed black comedians, whom The Root featured last week…