the browntable
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"The Wire"'s Omar Little Lives in New Jersey, Believes in Obama
Actor Michael Kenneth Williams, best known for playing Omar Little, Barack Obama’s favorite character on HBO’s “The Wire,” is jumping into the political fray with an endorsement of sitting New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine: Williams’ Obama-centric pitch mixed a few metaphors, but made a point: This is real life, this is not TV…it’s not a…
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Obama Says: Puff, Puff, Give a Pass
If you chief for medical purposes and live in Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, the great state of Rhode Island, Vermont or Washington—states where such a thing is allowed for medical purposes—rest assured that President Obama won’t have the feds kicking your door down anytime soon. According to…
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Is Michelle Rhee Wrong?
Washington DC public school chancellor Michelle Rhee is none-too-popular among members of the District’s teachers union. As noted today on ‘Morning Edition’ by NPR’s Claudio Sanchez, Rhee is attempting to take the school system in a boldly different direction, one which may be infringing upon the union’s collective bargaining rights. Pay-for-performance and an elimination of…
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Michelle Obama Knows Healthy Eating Isn't Just About Healthy Eating
There’s a smart debate going around the internet on food policy, the pleasure principle, and the role that first lady Michelle Obama can play in curbing the obesity epidemic that has swept the United States in recent decades. Obama made a big speech addressing the matter at the Department of Health and Human Services this…
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In American Schools, Racial Learning Gap Persists
This story on education in Wednesday’s New York Times ought to scare the pants off all the nincompoops who believe we’ve arrived in post-racial America: The latest scores were especially disappointing because score gaps between white and minority students did not diminish at all since the last time the math test was administered, in 2007.…
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Beat The (Black) Press: White House Launches E-Magazine
The Obama administration today released the first edition of White House Wire, a special newsletter aimed at the black community. Aggregating recent news such as UN Ambassador Susan Rice’s speech at Howard University Law School, Attorney General Eric Holder and Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s trip to Chicago to address youth violence, the naming of a…
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Mad Men's "I Have A Dream" Sequence
Last night, Mad Men might have taken its most eyebrow-raising cut so far on race relations. (spoiler alert) Even though Carla (Deborah Lacey), Don and Betty’s African American housekeeper, had minimal dialogue, and even though references to MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the murder of four black girls in Birmingham were deliberately oblique,…
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This Week in Blackness: Barack Obama is the Worst. President. Ever.
After watching a LOT (read: 20 minutes) of CNN in conjunction with “Meet the Press” last Sunday, I finally came to the conclusion everyone really wanted me to. Barack Obama is, in fact, the WORST. President. Ever. Want proof? Check out Episode 5 of Season 2 of “This Week in Blackness,” presented by the Brooklyn…
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Barack Obama Wins 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
President Barack Obama today won the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the first sitting American president to win the award since Woodrow Wilson. As day broke across the United States, the International Nobel Committee announced the decision in Oslo, Norway—taking both foreign policy watchers and ordinary citizens by surprise. The Nobel citation emphasized Obama’s efforts to…
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Michelle Obama's Kinda, Sorta, A Little Bit White. And?
Far be it from me to not enjoy healthy cultural and racial discourse, but today’s New York Times piece by Rachel Swarns and Jodi Kantor’s detailing first lady Michelle Obama’s genealogy, which includes an unknown white great-great-great-grandfather, has a troubling puffiness to it. They write In the annals of American slavery, this painful story would…